Icarus: Alliance Drop Troopers

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Alliance Drop Troopers

The Alliance usually delivers troops to an objective or combat zone via armoured personnel carrier, or a drop ship aircraft.

However, in situations where a ground advanced cannot be made, and there is too much antiaircraft to land troops; the Alliance send the Drop Troopers.
Drop troops are delivered over the landing zone via a drop ship at high altitude before they jump from the aircraft.

Up until the first Nexus war, Alliance airborne troops were still using parachutes to drop to a location. Over the course of the war, thousands of airborne troopers were killed as they slowly descended to the ground. About a year before the end of the war, the Alliance Science Division finished the first prototype of a combat jetpack.

These first devices were little more than a small thruster attached to the soldier’s pack. The trooper would free fall until they were a few hundred feet off the ground and use the thruster to slow their descent to a manageable landing.
It was not a perfect system, and many soldiers were killed when the pack failed to activate, or did not give enough thrust to slow them down.

Through continuous improvement, the science division eventually constructed a pack very similar to modern ones. These devices were used in a similar way to the originals; soldiers would free fall and engage their thruster at the last moment. But unlike the original devices, modern jetpacks can also be used on the battlefield to propel troopers over obstacles, and give them enough lift to achieve limited flight.
Battlefield Role

It takes a special mind set to join Alliance Airborne. Throwing oneself out of an aircraft at 35,000 feet is not for everyone. Drop Troopers tend to be have very outgoing, aggressive, and adventurous personalities. They also tend to consider themselves above regular infantry, as their job is seen as more dangerous.

Drop Troopers’ missions usually involve capturing objectives to allow ground and air forces to advance. They will also be used during assaults to infiltrate behind enemy lines and disrupt their operations prior to an attack.

The other main area that Drop Troopers are used is during space combat. When assaulting an enemy ship, boarding troops will penetrate the enemy hull and work their way through the bowels of the ship. Drop Troopers disembark in space, and use their packs to move to another are of the ship. While the boarding troops pull the focus of the enemy, the Drop Troopers are able to infiltrate other areas of the ship because they are too small to be detected by external sensors.

This is another piece by our amazing artist, Hokunin, who was responsible for the Galactic Marine, the Gunslinger, and the other Alliance concepts that we have shown previously. My favourite part of this concept has to be the jetpack. I love the look of the single, articulated, thruster, as well as the smaller stabilisers. I also really like the gold visor, designed for actions in space to reduce the damaged caused by direct sunlight, it gives a really nice focus for the character.

As usual, the character is loaded with equipment, extra ammunition, a pistol, as well as a parachute strapped to their front. The Drop Troopers wear parachutes just in case there is a malfunction with their pack, but usually discard them once they have touched ground.

In The Icarus Project, The Drop Troopers add some speed to the Alliance list. With a movement of 10, and their jetpacks which allow them to ignore terrain, Drop Troopers are great at moving around the enemy force and drawing the enemy’s attention from two sides.

A small group of Drop Troopers can be used to aggressive push a flank of the table, forcing your opponent to divert resources to dealing with them before you get into combat.

Close range is where the Drop Troopers really excel. Their equipment choices are all geared around getting in close to the enemy.

Their Combat Drop special rule also means that they can enter the board anywhere more than six inches away from an enemy or objective. Keeping a Drop Trooper back to be combat dropped in the final turns and make a grab for an objective is a handy tactic, even if it does leave the rest of your strike force under-powered for the majority of the game.

Quelle: Icarus Miniatures