The Ghouls

I. Introduction

The first human probes into the far reaches of the Delta Sector made contact with an intelligent race that called themselves the Gra-hool. They were happy to exchange radio messages with us, and welcomed us to settle the uninhabited planets in the area, but refused personal contact. After we had established six colonies in the region, the aliens initiated contact in their own way: they invaded our colonies without warning, and the colonists... the few survivors renamed the aliens Ghouls, and the name has stuck.

A Ghoul resembles an emaciated human with gray skin and red, glowing eyes. Their life forces are different from most creatures', which makes them hard to kill. These life forces are maintained by the food they eat. And the food they eat is intelligent beings, which must still be alive when eaten. They keep slaves from other races as a food supply, and go to war to take prisoners so they can enhance the variety in their "diet." The battlefield after a Ghoul victory is too grisly to describe. StarMarines operating against the Ghouls have been issued poison pills to avoid being taken alive. Indeed, every race we know of would rather die than be captured by Ghouls.

The Ghouls wage war much like any other race, with one difference. Their weapons are made to injure, not to kill. They have special anti-vehicle weapons that damage the vehicle without harming the occupants. Because their goal is to take prisoners, they try to avoid killing their enemies, but they will not hesitate to cut down half of their foes so they can deal with the other half... their way. And when heavy armored vehicles attack them, they usually destroy them as quickly as possible. Their technology is very good, and very alien. The only good news about Ghouls is that they value their own lives highly, and this makes them prone to morale failure.

Perhaps the worst part of a Ghoul attack is the dread that falls on anyone who comes near them. This fear seems to be a pheromone they emit from their skin, and it affects all known races; armor and filter masks don't help. It results in a much higher rate of morale failure among their enemies than would normally occur.

The borders of all Ghoul counters and markers are gray.

The basic specifications of each unit and weapon are listed in tables at the end of this rule book. A general description of the units and weapons, along with specifics about special rules, takes up most of the book.

II. Troop & Vehicle Summary

• Hunters are the basic Ghoul foot soldier.
• Slayers are Ghouls equipped to use heavy weapons.
• Killers wear hologram projectors that make them hard to hit.
• Terrors are elite foot soldiers who use fear as their main weapon.
• Gliders wear modified hang-gliders on their backs.
• Healers are combat physicians who heal wounds on the battlefield.
• Fixers can fix damaged vehicles, enabling them to keep fighting.
• Leaders (Feldwebels and Leutnants) provide leadership to the foot soldiers. Every formation bigger than a den must have a leader.
• DeathWalkers are slow, heavy four-legged assault vehicles.
• Reapers are fast, light skimmer tanks.
• Weapons Sleds are heavy weapons on light hovering platforms.
• Hearses are personnel carriers, which also collect enemy wounded.
• Attack Tanks are well-equipped for taking out enemy vehicles.

III. Ghoul Soldiers

Ghouls fight best in groups. They suffer a -2 penalty on separation checks.

All non-Ghoul soldiers who must make morale checks, do so at -1 on their morale if a Ghoul soldier is adjacent to them. This is not cumulative if more than one Ghoul is nearby.

Ghouls will never kill enemy wounded. Enemy doctors are dead meat, though -- they heal casualties who would otherwise fall easily into the Ghouls' clutches.

III-a. Forming an Army

Pack must contain 3 dens of Hunters and at least one Feldwebel. At least one of the three dens must be hunters, and none of the three teams can be the same type, except for hunters. It can optionally include up to three vehicles, a Healer, a Fixer, and a Hero. Heavy-weapons soldiers cannot be part of a pack.

Troop must contain 3 full packs, including at least one den each of Killers, Terrors, and Gliders, plus a den of Slayers, a Leutnant, and a Feldwebel. It can optionally include unlimited vehicles, Healers, Fixers and Heroes.

III-b. Soldier Types

Name:	Hunter
Type:	Basic soldier

Hunters are your basic foot soldiers, which will make up the biggest part of your army. They can carry any hand, light or medium Ghoul weapon.

Name:	Slayer
Type:	Heavy-weapon soldier

Slayers are Ghouls with special armor to let them aim and handle heavy weapons. Heavies are all they will ever use. A Slayer cannot move and fire in the same turn; it takes a few moments to change the weapon from travel configuration to firing configuration.

Name:	Killer
Type:	Light soldier

Killers are foot soldiers who wear special backpacks. These packs project multiple holograms of the Ghoul which are fairly convincing, especially at a distance. When shooting at a Killer, the attacker must subtract 1 from the attack roll for each hex of range greater than 1; thus, if the attacker is 3 hexes away, the attack roll is at -2. Killers carry only light or hand weapons; their armor is quite light. They suffer no penalty on separation checks.

Name:	Terror
Type:	Light soldier

Terrors are fast, lightly-armored elite troops who combine the roles of close-combat soldier and fast soldier. They always carry a Fear Enhancer and another hand weapon, and they seek out melees, even though their armor is not especially heavy. Their speed lets them choose their battles, and their fear tends to break up enemy formations in panic, allowing them to single out and pick off stragglers.

Name:	Glider
Type:	Airborne soldier

Gliders wear light armor and can carry only light or hand weapons. Their equipment makes them different from other races' airborne troops.

Gliders start the game in the air, soaring on the lightweight wings that extend from their backpacks. They must move at least 2 hexes in the air each turn to prevent falling to the ground. At will, they can land and fight normally; the wings fold into their backpacks automatically. A Glider can return to the air only by climbing to high ground, such as a hill or the roof of a building, and then jumping over a lower-ground hex. Gliders cannot move on the ground and in the air in the same turn. Unlike most airborne soldiers, a Glider can attack from the air, as long as the weapon is a Stun Pistol; the altitude adds 1 to the combat range.

Name:	Healer
Type:	Doctor

The Healer is much-loved among the Ghouls. Each turn, a Healer can turn one Ghoul in the same hex (but not himself) or in an adjacent hex, from Wounded to normal.

Name:	Fixer
Type:	Fixer

The Fixer can repair damaged tanks and skimmers anywhere on the battlefield. Each turn, a Fixer can do a level-1 repair on a Ghoul vehicle in the same hex or in an adjacent hex, or he can do a level-2 repair if he rolls a 4-6. The vehicle cannot move during turns when it is being repaired, although it can attack normally.

Name:	Feldwebel
Type:	Low leader

The Feldwebel is the most common leader. Soldiers within 3 hexes of a Feldwebel gain his benefit when facing morale checks. You can buy more Feldwebels than you need, and you will probably want to. these "extra" Feldwebels aren't attached to any formation, but can go wherever their leadership and fighting skills are needed.

Name:	Leutnant
Type:	Medium leader

A Leutnant must be part of every troop. Troops within 5 hexes of a Leutnant gain his benefit when facing morale checks.

Name:	Swarztod
Type:	Hero

Swarztod is a veteran Terror, and unusually terrifying at that. His effect on enemy soldiers' morale checks is -2, not -1, and when you include his Fear Enhancer, that makes a total of -3. His other hand weapon is the Commie Bar, and he can attack the same target with both ends in one turn. He always works with other Seekers.

Name:	Doomkof
Type:	Hero

Doomkof is a veteran Slayer, who can move twice as fast as other Slayers. His accuracy is unusually good, but he has a special liking for the Stun Cannon. When he shoots this weapon, he gets a +1 on attack and toughness rolls.

Name:	Swynhund
Type:	Hero

Swynhund is a Hunter and an elite Fahnrich. He always carries a medium weapon of some kind, and prefers to hunt enemy vehicles. He wears a necklace strung with nuts and washers, one from each vehicle he has taken out.

III-c. Soldier Attributes

III-d. Weapons

• Grenades (can carry 1 of these in addition to any other weapon):
• Tangle Grenades cover a soldier with sticky fibers, preventing him from moving. This weapon ignores toughness; only the attack roll counts. If the tangle grenade hits, place it on the target, who cannot move or turn for the rest of the battle unless he can rip free of the entanglement. He does this by rolling two dice at the end of the movement phase and adding his toughness; if the result is 11 or higher, he's free. He can attack while tangled, at -1 on the attack roll with ranged weapons or -2 with close-combat weapons. Tangle Grenades do nothing to vehicles, or to airborne soldiers while in the air.

• Hand weapons (can carry two of these):
• Stun Pistol is a hand-held version of the Stunner. This weapon cannot harm vehicles, unless the vehicle is vulnerable to frag weapons.
• Commie Bar is a short polearm with a hammer on one end and a sickle-like blade on the other. A Ghoul can choose which end to use each time he attacks.
• Gas Glove emits a puff of knockout gas every time its wearer punches something. This gas always wounds, never kills.
• Fear Enhancer increases the effect of the natural fear all races feel when confronting the Ghouls. Any soldier who must make a morale check when next to a Ghoul with a Fear Enhancer, must make the check at -2 instead of the usual -1 when Ghouls are involved. The effects of more than one Fear Enhancer are not cumulative.

• Light weapons:
• Stunner is a uniquely Ghoulish weapon. Its pale-yellow beam affects a soldier's nervous system, knocking him unconscious for hours. A successful hit with this weapon always wounds, never kills. This weapon cannot harm vehicles, unless the vehicle is vulnerable to frag weapons. This is the standard Ghoul foot soldier's weapon.
• Multi-Stunner is a rapid-fire Stunner. It can fire twice per turn at the same target, or at two adjacent targets at a penalty of -1 on the attack roll. This weapon cannot harm vehicles, unless the vehicle is vulnerable to frag weapons.
• Can Opener is a short-range cutting torch. The Ghouls use it against armored soldiers.
• Stasis Beam ignores attack rolls. If it passes the toughness roll, the target is frozen in place, unable to move or attack. When attacking a unit in stasis, the attacker adds +1 to all his rolls. Once it hits, the wielder can hold his target in stasis indefinitely, without having to attack again each turn, even if he (the wielder) moves. The weapon's drawback is that it can hold only one enemy in stasis at a time. If the stasis-beam user moves out of range, or attacks someone else, the frozen unit is instantly freed. This weapon cannot harm vehicles.

• Medium weapons:
• Disruptor is an unusual weapon that targets other weapons, rather than doing generic damage. It hits on a roll of 4-6, and ignores armor and toughness ratings. Assign a number to each weapon carried by the target (from 1 to 6; if a vehicle has more than 6 weapons, ignore the lightest ones), and roll a die. If the roll comes up equal to one of the weapons' numbers, that weapon is destroyed. If the roll doesn't equal a weapon's number, the disruptor does no damage. Obviously, this weapon is meant for anti-vehicle use, although it can take out a soldier's weapon if the gunner gets lucky.
• Recoilless Rifle is a double-ended weapon. The target in front gets the attack listed in the Weapons Table. If an enemy is directly behind and adjacent to the recoilless-rifle user, that enemy gets the backblast, which is an attack with an attack of 1 and damage of 3. Ghouls are careful never to hit their own kind with the backblast, even if one of them is in the backblast area.
• Heavy Stunner is a Stunner with a power pack for greater range and power. It can stop a small vehicle.
• Grenade Thrower shoots Tangle Grenades to a fair range. You do not have to buy Grenades to use this weapon.

• Heavy weapons:
• Blaster is a heavy gauss-type cannon. This is the Ghouls' main weapon against armored vehicles.
• Heavy Disruptor works like the standard Disruptor, but with longer range and power.
• Stun Cannon is a much-enlarged Stunner, with enough range and power to take down a large vehicle.
• Frag Cannon fills a seven-hex circle with diamond-hard shrapnel. Anyone (friend or foe!) in the target hex and the six surrounding hexes gets attacked.

III-e. Vehicles

Name:	DeathWalker
Type:	Large ground vehicle (walker)

The DeathWalker is a four-legged walker-type vehicle, slow but powerful. The Ghouls send them straight into melees so they can strike as many enemy soldiers as possible. A DeathWalker carries two medium weapons (usually of different types, and they must fire at the same target) firing front, and another medium weapon on each side, and can carry one Den of Ghouls. It suffers no penalty when shot from behind.

Name:	Reaper
Type:	Small skimmer vehicle

Reapers are fast, maneuverable attack vehicles that the Ghouls use for quick, slashing attacks. They have a medium weapon that can fire any direction except to the rear, and a light weapon (the "tail gunner") who covers the rear. They could probably move a lot faster, but the Ghouls preferred to add armor plate for survivability.

Name:	Weapons Sled
Type:	Small skimmer vehicle

This is a weapon platform on an anti-grav sled, allowing it to move and fire in the same turn without affecting its accuracy. It carries a heavy weapon on a 360 mount, and a light weapon on a front mount. It is flimsy and slow; the Ghouls use them as self-propelled artillery, rather than as assault weapons. Weapons sleds are vulnerable to frag weapons.

Name:	Hearse
Type:	Large ground vehicle

This armored personnel carrier epitomizes the Ghoul way of warfare. It carries two dens of Ghouls, and mounts five light weapons in remote-controlled turrets -- one in the front and two on either side. Its armor is good, and its speed fair. The most hated feature of this vehicle is that, once its troops have dismounted, it prowls the battlefield for enemy wounded. It will overrun them, but overrun wounded soldiers are not killed, but pulled inside the vehicle to be taken away. There is no limit to how many wounded can be packed into a Hearse. There have been heartbreaking episodes where other races' soldiers have blown up a Hearse full of their wounded friends, deliberately killing them rather than leaving them to the Ghouls.

Name:	Attack Tank
Type:	Large ground vehicle (supertank)

The Attack Tank is roughly equivalent to other races' supertanks, except that its weapons are mounted in fixed towers instead of rotating turrets. This tank carries a heavy weapon firing forward, four medium weapons firing to the sides, and a light weapon covering the rear. The absence of complex turret-rotation devices make this tank remarkably tough.

IV. Game Tables

V. Revision History