I had begun work on building out a couple character templates, and some xeno stats, but decided it would make more sense to build out the make-up of the rifle team first. Building from two teams of five soldiers, gives us two PC-sized groups, along with the Squad Leader (our generic Sgt. Apone), and a Medic/Science Officer or Synthetic (artificial person, smirk). The two teams are built up as a strike or “Attack” team, and a heavier armed “Weapons” team. With five players, each player can run a character from each team. A group of four players could drop the last rifleman from each team and play an understaffed squad.
This squad represents an alternate take from what is used by current US Army or Marine forces. The Attack Team will be a fast-strike team, and will be equipped with a light combat load. The Weapons Team will be slower-moving, but pack significantly more firepower. In Aliens, everyone carried either M41 Pulse Rifle, M240 Flame Unit, or M56 Smartgun. I’m not a fan of the Flame Unit, as I don’t feel a military force would field them as standard arms (and I felt like they were only thrown in because that’s what they had in the first Alien movie…the same goes for the motion trackers).
The Attack Team is primarily armed with 7mm Assault Carbines (UT 137), while one rifleman carries the heavier 10mm Storm Carbine (UT 137). The Grenadier also has an underbarrel grenade launcher. Simple, but still a force to be reckoned with.
The Weapons Team features a more diverse array of weaponry. There’s a couple of the standard 7mm Assault Carbines, along with a Light Support Weapon (UT 138, the ultra-tech version of the M249 SAW). We also see the introduction of a Storm Rifle (UT 137) and the Splat Gun (UT 138). The Storm Rifle can be used as a sniper rifle, or just to provide a bit of extra punch. The Splat Gun is kind of a Gatling Bazooka…fun!
The Squad Leader carries either an Assault Carbine, or a shotgun. The shotgun could be used against small UAVs or drones. I bet it would look pretty classy with a cigar, too.
Squad Leader – Assault Carbine, 7mmCL or Close Assault Weapon, 18.5mmPC
Medic/Synthetic
Team Leader – Assault Carbine, 7mmCL
Grenadier – Assault Carbine, 7mmCL/Underbarrel Grenade Launcher, 40mmPLB
Rifleman – Assault Carbine, 7mmCL
Rifleman – Storm Carbine, 10mmCL
Rifleman – Assault Carbine, 7mmCL
Team Leader – Assault Carbine, 7mmCL/Underbarrel Grenade Launcher, 40mmPLB
Machine Gunner – Light Support Weapon, 7mmCL
Sharpshooter – Storm Rifle, 10mmCLR
Rocker – Splat Gun, 15mmPLB
Rifleman – Assault Carbine, 7mmCL
So, there’s my teams. This probably should have been done for an iteration 2 (or later) build, but it seemed important to have a unit in mind before building out any templates. For the Attack Team, I should be able to build out a few generic space marines. There will almost certainly be some tweaking.
I should probably add something here.