# 5150: Star Marine tags: #game/wargame/5150-star-marine ![[5150 - Star Marine (cover).jpg|600]] Not the fleet, not the planet — the airlock. **5150: Star Marine** is the **[[5150 - Wargames]]** line's individual-elite game, the one about the marine in the powered exoskeleton who signs up, ships out, and has to go through the other guy's hull anyway. It's a self-contained career-and-skirmish package by **John Cunningham & Ed Teixeira** (2017), and its own early players apparently had to convince the authors what it was actually about: the acknowledgements are dedicated in part to the people who kept insisting, in the book's words, "It's not just a gang warfare game." ## Setting The sharp end of the 5150 universe. You ship with the **Gaea Prime Star Marines** — humanity's elite, stood above the Star Army, the Planetary Defense Force, and the ISS — and go hunting the usual galaxy of trouble: **Free Companies**, the **Hishen Empire** and its **Grath**, **Rebels**, the **Bug** menace, and the **Zhuh-Zhuhs**, plus the corridor-crawling **xenos** that make boarding such a professional calling. The work is mission-shaped and mostly void-bound: **boardings** and anti-boarding actions, defends, escorts, raids, and rescues — and, because this is Two Hour Wargames, the between-ops grind of **carousing** and bar **confrontations** once you're back at base with pay in your pocket and nothing better to do. ## Mechanics The bones are the shared **THW Reaction System** — **Reputation**, the **taken-versus-Rep** 2d6 roll, and the reaction tests that fire the moment shooting starts — with **PEFs** running solo and co-op the same way they do across the line. What makes Star Marine its own entry is the career bolted on top. ### The space marine's tour The book frames its own pitch as *So You Want to Be a Space Marine?*: you sign up, make a **Star** or **Grunt**, pick a race (**Basic**, **Grath**, **Hishen**, **Razor**, **Xeog**, **Zhuh-Zhuh**), Attributes, and armor — soft body, hard body, **Exo-Armor**, or a spacesuit for the void — then it's terms of service, on or off campaign, **Fame Points and promotion**, rising in rank, and eventually mustering out or re-upping. It's quietly proud of the climb from raw recruit to a marine with a choice of posts, and just as pleased to hand you the "Busted" table if you squander it. ### The fight Squad-scale action on the reaction engine: squad organization and leaders who can assume command, the turn sequence, shooting with cover and **zero-gravity** rules, damage (including **vacuum and hostile atmosphere**, and what a punctured suit does to your priorities), melee, and structures and grenades for corridor work. Boarding actions get a register all their own — the **anti-boarding measures** you pull once the other side's aboard: hack the locks, lock down, power down, depressurize the deck, or in a pinch hit self-destruct. ## Editions - **5150: Star Marine** (2017) — the standalone space-marine career game, by **John Cunningham & Ed Teixeira**. *In the library.* - **Total War: Star Marine** — the Star Marine book in the **Total War** combined-arms re-issue and the current working edition of the line, revised beyond the standalone core. *In the library.* ## Supplements *All in the library.* - **Star Marines: Hard Drop** (2018, John Cunningham) — a scenario: planet jumping into hostile surface ops when a dropship ride isn't an option. *In the library.* - **Star Marines: Organization** — the force-structure sheet. *In the library.* ## References - [5150 – Two Hour Wargames](https://www.twohourwargames.com/) - [5150 – Sci-Fi Games — Rebel Minis Press](https://rebelminispress.com/collections/sci-fi-games)