Stormtrooper (Star Wars)

This page is for the soldiers of the Galactic Empire. If you are looking for the page about the Imperial Guard elite units, please see Stormtrooper.

My name is Legion, for we are many. Like, a lot.

"Stormtrooper ideology is terrifying in its thoroughness. They can't be reasoned with, which means they can't be deprogrammed. They will be loyal to the Empire to the very last one, no mater what."

– Leia Organa, Imperial Handbook: A Commander's Guide

"I can't see a thing in this helmet!"

– Luke Skywalker

In Star Wars, the Stormtroopers are the iconic white armored soldiers of the Galactic Empire. They were formed out of the remaining clones of the Grand Army of the Republic when it was dissolved into the Empire. The increase in numbers needed to hold territory instead of just take it combined with a clone rebellion and exhaustion of the original Jango Fett DNA has seen the Empire transition away from a force exclusively made up of clones. As a result, rather than be children of a single clone daddy, Stormtroopers are made up of recruited humans as well as clones of newer templates created by Spaarti cloning, a process that produced much faster results than the Kaminoan cloning used by the original clones at the cost of lower quality. Their fancy armor isn't very good against blasters, even outside of the films (other sources even said that, yeah, blaster shots can totally just go through it), but hey, it's still iconic!

Clones? Skill Level?

Lucas has waffled on if Stormtroopers are cloned or not. The original films had large groups of uneven height stand next to each other and in his early notes for Expanded Universe material, he stated there were female Stormtroopers at other duty stations. Later on he made edits in the special edition and other re-re-leases, plus a gag in the prequels that the Stromtrooper hitting his head was inherited from Jango, that implied they were. Stormtroopers are also said to be elite soldiers with peerless marksmanship ("Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise."). Despite this, their poor showing during the Death Star escape (people often forget they were intentionally letting them get away to track them) and the Battle of Endor (for which there was no excuse) and minimal appearance of "normal" Imperial soldiers (The Holiday Special and SOLO: A Star Wars story are the only places in live action where they're anything but background details) have resulted in the expanded universe and most RPGs showing them as disposable mooks. But the fact is, Stormtroopers remain a separate institution within the Imperial military, kind of like the Waffen-SS or Napoleons Imperial Guard, with their own resources and command structures separated from the rest of it.

Imperial Army Troopers: slap some Aquillas on them and they'd pass for Guardsmen

Note the substantial height differences in a group that's supposedly a bunch of clones. There's a reason the EU didn't go with the idea that all Stormtroopers are clones. At least not clones of the same person.

The actual rank-and-file in the Imperial military is the aptly named Imperial Army which sees very little representation in any Star Wars media and many writers completely forget about, at least until recently. The brief occasions where the Army is represented in any capacity are the AT-ST pilots in Episode 6 and the poor schmucks slaughtered by the dozens in the awesome-as-heck Battle of Mimban in Solo. Apparently, Army troopers are mainly defensive garrisons and PDF forces, and they're not very willing to carry out the Empire's more dubious orders (aka most of them that appear on film), which is why they tend not to be featured in the major climactic events shown in most media. But again, most people, fans and writers alike, forget about this detail, and so Stormtroopers are made the primary infantry force in the franchise, even when it doesn't make sense for a supposedly elite force being used to garrison some no-name outpost. And consequentially, often portrayed as the lowly fodder. This was eventually rectified by establishing that while Vader's personal 501st Legion, the only ones Kenobi was familiar with (besides his own unit from the Clone Wars, the 212 under Cody, and other GAR units who obviously are better than conscript masses due to combat experience), were indeed cloned elites and the only unit to fully retain the Jango Fett template due to them being fanatically loyal, the majority of Stormtroopers in the galaxy are merely recruited humans with much lower standards or cloned from younger, inferior, clone daddies. The Commando Clones were also brought into the 501 and the rest of the Fett clones either retired early due to accelerated aging, defected to Mandalore through Kal Skirata or gave training to others like Cody and then retired after a few years of that. The 501st had their moment of glory at Hoth as the main infantry force accompanying Vader, but even then between the loss of several AT-ATs to Luke, Wedge and the other Rogue Squadron pilots and to the ice breaking under some of the others and the accelerated aging reducing performance, it was a tactical win but a strategic failure as many rebels managed to escape. The 501st Legion Fett clones were then retired in the next year before Endor due to the aging problems with clones and degradation in the original DNA sample, which helps explain their losses there. Thrawn later rebuilt the 501st with elite recruits and this version of the unit continues for more than a century with the best of the best being placed there, transferring from Thrawn to the Imperial Remnant at Bastion and serving until the end of Legends history.

Another phenomena in the expanded universe is attempts to explain the poor accuracy with gear issues. These range from poor vision in helmets to defective components in blasters. These two could be used together, saying that the armor was designed for a very limited size range (a literal bunch of clones) and fit poorly on recruited soldiers. This is especially so when it's outright canon that early generation clone armor was made by non-humans and did indeed impede movement. However, it is also worth pointing out that in the real world, 90% of the shots a soldier takes will miss anyway...while they'll be taking them at things they can generally barely see, so it's up to you whether it's (unintentionally) realistic or just poor cinematography to have them be regularly missing targets ten meters away.

Where Stormtroopers do excel consistently is in fights against equally nameless foes. All RPGs stats and asymmetrical video games show Stormtroopers are flat out better than the typical Rebel soldier, B1 droid or Hutt thug; in the Star Wars Legion wargame, Stormtroopers have below average aim (amusingly, they have the Precise keyword, though for better rerolls), but much better armor than Rebels or B1s; they're only beat by Clone Troopers, who are better in every way anyway. Stormtroopers aren't so curbstompingly better that they would win with 2-1 odds without better tactics (which they'd have in narrative but isn't represented mechanically) but they do have better stats. Officially they're just worse than any hero.

If you watch the original Star Wars movie (whether remastered or not), the Stormtroopers whenever fighting non-plot armored people absolutely curbstomp. Like in the first scene of the movie when they go through a single-file door into a heavily defended and narrow corridor and yet slaughter the absolute fuck out of the Rebels. In fact, the only time we see them faring badly in firefights in the movies is on the Death Star in the first movie (when there was a beacon on the Falcon and so their misses were likely due to orders to let the heroes escape), against Luke on Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back (he's a freaking Force-sensitive with some training and combat experience, oh and also the son of the literal Chosen One of the setting, so that isn't a fair measurement), and we don't really see anything in Return of the Jedi due to Ewok shenanigans. When the Millennium Falcon was escaping Tatooine where the troopers were arguably trying to damage the ship's engines and not actively trying to shoot Han Solo. With the Imperial Remnant they show competence fighting at the Yuuzhan Vong War and continue service until the end of the known timeline, even fighting on both sides of the last known war and one company takes part in the last battle known, witnessing the extinction of the Sith.

Within the Disney canon, Rogue One also indicates another factor in which Force Adept Chirrut Imwe walks out of cover (after a Rebel Soldier gets wasted by extra-special Black Stormtroopers (Deathtroopers) for being exposed from cover for a second) and walks through a hail of blaster fire sedately while chanting a mantra to the Force. This indicates that the Force is to some degree actively intervening for force-sensitive individuals by making shots run astray, though even this is not a 100% foolproof solution because as soon as he did what the Force wanted him to do, the Death Troopers hit a fuel tank and the resulting explosion killed him.

Oh, and the underlying insinuation if Leia's statement at the top of the page about Stormtroopers' loyalty was remotely true, then the New Republic probably would have had to execute captured Stormtroopers en masse since there was no chance of them reintegrating into a non-Imperial society. That probably didn't happen in current Canon though, as that guidebook is a part of the Legends continuity.

The exact size of the Stormtrooper Corps was not listed, but we do know the Galactic Empire had 25,000 Imperial-1 class Star Destroyers in service and these each carried 9,700, or 242,500,000 Stormtroopers.

Variants

That is not actually all of them, by the way.

"Are we blind!? DEPLOY THE GARRISON!!!"

– Director Orson Krennic, Rogue One

"Where's the Anti-Boredom Trooper?"

– Han Solo, also Imperial Handbook: A Commander's Guide

Since the Empire is large and includes every biome known to man and several fictional ones (and the Star Wars franchise is built on toy sales), the Stormtrooper Corps has specialized units for nearly everything imaginable (sound familiar?). On top of this, there have also been many attempts to create even better versions of normal Stormtroopers, leading to quite a few different "elite" types that almost all wear black armor. This is a list of all the ones people care about because they are common, cool, or appeared in a movie or a good EU product, plus a few memorable one-offs. This isn't even mentioning other types of Imperials who also wear all-concealing armor and helmets, but are not members of the Stormtrooper Corps (like TIE Pilots).

• Aquatic Assault Trooper: More commonly known as "Sea Troopers", they're soldiers used for fighting in underwater environments. Despite a few aquatic species being present, this isn't the sort of thing Star Wars normally does. As such they don't show up much, but are confirmed to exist in Disney and Legends. The latter often shows them as having the same basic helmet design as Scout Troopers, probably because its visor resembles scuba diver goggles somewhat.
• Artillery Stormtroopers: Also called "Mortar Stormtrooper". One of these made a brief appearance in Season 2 of the Mandalorian. Identifiable by yellow markings and shoulder pad. Considering the writers and directors own known nerdhood into star wars, they were most likely made for the scene as parody on all the types and variants of the stormtroopers.
• Coastal Defender Stormtrooper: Also known by the less intimidating name of "Shore Troopers". Made for Rogue One, they basically get stationed on beaches and other tropical places like Scariff, where the movie's big battle takes place. In theory, this should mean they get the best jobs of any Stormtrooper, but as Rogue One and The Mandalorian both show, this isn't really the case. A Shore trooper also appears in Andor and actually sends the title character into a maximum security prison straight out of Face/Off for petty dickery reasons.
• Cold Assault Stormtrooper: More commonly known as "Snowtroopers", this is a normal group of Stormtroopers outfitted with cold weather gear. Most infamous for their appearance at the Battle of Hoth, but they've seen many other frozen battlefields. One of the few non-standard variants seen on film.
• Dark Trooper: A series of battle droids (and cybernetically augmented soldiers depending on iteration), with the later models also doubling as Power Armor that can be worn by a regular Stormtrooper (a bit like if you had Space Marine or Iron Man armor that could move and fight on its own as a robot as well as being worn by someone). Discontinued after Kyle "Chuck Norris of the Star Wars Universe" Katarn blew up their mobile production facility, taking the project notes and designer with it, in Dark Forces. Brought into Disney's canon in season 2 of The Mandalorian to the sound of questionable dubstep, but the Mouse House did remember to keep them dangerous... until Luke Skywalker shows up to fuck some shit up (by following] in Daddy's footsteps) that is.
  • Purge Trooper: A variant Dark Trooper in Legends designed to hunt down Force-users like surviving Jedi, making them basically the Sentinels to the Jedi's X-Men, but more consistently dangerous (*Ahem*, Days of Future Past). Made for The Force Unleashed, where they are easily one of the most annoying enemies in the game. Disney has their own Purge Troopers, but there they're Clone Troopers in black Paratrooper armor with some red instead of OP droids, and can be heard enjoying combat a little too much in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
• Death Trooper: One of two Stormtrooper variants of note introduced in Rogue One, they basically function as Disney's equivalent to Shadow Stormtroopers: black armored elites who are more stealthy than regular... even though Shadow Stormtroopers still exist also. For some reason their helmets garble their voices into sinister-sounding but completely incoherent gibberish, ensuring they'd be useless at any drive-thru (as more than one person online has already pointed out).
• Desert Stormtrooper: More commonly known as "Sandtroopers". Made for hot environments like Tatooine, making them the very first Stormtrooper variant ever shown. They all wear backpacks and an orange or black shoulder pad, the latter also sometimes showing up on regular Stormtroopers who are officers or heavy weapons specialists (it's a bit inconsistent).
• Emperor's Royal Guard: The best of the best. Stormtroopers trained to protect Emperor Palpatine himself. Their members are drawn from the ranks of the best Stormtrooper forces, then put through exceptionally brutal training on a barren desert hellhole which only the best survive, turning them into functional supersoldiers, a premise you definitely haven't seen before. That said, Palpatine had these even when he was Chancellor, indicating that the original Royal Guards weren't Stormtroopers. Either way, they're under the direct command of Palpatine, with orders to protect him and undertake any sabotage/assassination/frontline combat missions he commands them to. They mainly use force pikes (shock sticks basically), or double-bladed vibroswords to stab and slash things to death in the Emperor's name, and even get their own special red TIE Interceptors when they need to be sent out on missions. While obviously not able to take down Luke Skywalker-types, they are still among the best non-Force Users in the setting, a fact the Crimson Empire comics went to great lengths to emphasize. In Legends, Royal Guards also have a secondary function of keeping an eye on Vader, reporting on his every activity so that Vader doesn't have an opportunity to betray Palpatine; they may not be a match for him, but they made it much harder for Vader to do anything without the Emperor knowing about it (not that he didn't try). Also in Legends, the Imperial Senate Guards and Saber Guards (both invented for the Force Unleashed games), wear palette swaps of the Royal Guard's outfits in blue and gold respectively, but unlike the Guards they don't appear to be members of the Stormtrooper Corps.
  • Coruscant Guard: Another red-armored elite branch of the Empire, they're basically Coruscant's brutal, no-nonsense police force, and acted as a successor to both the Clone Shock Troops of the Clone Wars, and Coruscant's original police force before that. Mostly showed up in Shadows of the Empire, where Luke disguising himself as one allowed them to (sort of), get an action figure.
  • Riot Trooper: Made exclusively for Force Unleashed II. They are also trained on Yinchorr, but wear white armor and are seemingly more common and less skilled than the red-robed Royal Guards. Use electro-staves like the ones wielded by Grievous' Magnaguards.
  • Shadow Guard: Black armored, Force-sensitive versions of the Royal Guard. They use red-bladed lightsaber pikes and Force powers in combat, acting as Palpatine's elite (well, more elite) enforcers and assassins. Exactly where they come from is a complete mystery, with even Vader kept in the dark on their origins - in-universe theories range from them being Jedi Knights captured, tortured, and mind-broken by the Empire until they're little more than speechless living weapons to them being Force-sensitives promoted from the rank of the regular Royal Guard. Of course, these explanations are hardly mutually exclusive.
  • Praetorian Guards: Before they became the bodyguards of Snoke and the stars of one of the most contentious fight scenes in a Star Wars movie, Season 3 of the Mandalorian reveals that the Praetorians were already active as part of the Imperial Remnant. Armor is possibly Beskar.
• EVO Trooper: Short for "environmental". Debuting in The Force Unleashed, they're sent to particularly exotic and dangerous locales where its felt a more specialized trooper is needed (because the Empire never has enough of those). Wield a rifle that looks a bit like a miniature chaingun, and are said to be selected from the ranks of Stormtroopers with particularly pronounced hatred of non-humans.
  • Shadow EVO Trooper: Variant of the variant; Shadow Stormtroopers with experimental version of the EVO armor that can go invisible like Shadow Stormtrooper armor.
• Hazard Troopers: The Empire's Space Marines. Having super-bulky armor and as such much tankier than other varieties, they are sent on planets with extremely hostile conditions (like acid rain, lava lakes, and so on). Made their first and only appearance in Jedi Academy, where they're more or less the toughest recurring enemy in the game that doesn't have a lightsaber. Taking them head-on is not advised, as besides being able to take multiple lightsaber strikes, they can swat you hard enough to send you flying back, which also opens you up to a shot from their gun. Said gun is the game's equivalent to the BFG and as such will most likely one-shot or two-shot you. Using this same gun against them is the way to go.
• Imperial Armored Commando: Before they went and genocided them, the Empire had tried to control the Mandalorians, and to this end, had some of them working for them as elite, jetpack-wearing soldiers (somewhat fitting, given that the original concept for Boba Fett was as a super Stormtrooper). Understandably liking the idea of having their own personal Mandos, the Empire in Season 3 of the Mandalorian introduced these guys to act as a substitute. They're Stormtroopers outfitted with jetpacks, beskar armor, and all the other Mandalorian goodies to basically serve as Imperial Mandalorians. Unclear if any survived the Mandalorians retaking their homeworld.
• Incinerator Trooper: Another type introduced in The Force Unleashed, identifiable by their red markings and shoulder pauldron. Their thing is, naturally, being the flamethrower guys. Made it into Disney's canon (and got a live action debut at the same time) thanks to showing up in The Mandalorian (does make one wonder why the Empire didn't use them on Endor though, given that's an environment they would have been ideal for). In a case of internal inconsistency / redundancy, Disney also has a "Flametrooper" that serves the same basic role. The Flametroopers (somewhat ironically) look a lot like Snowtroopers.
• Jump Trooper: AKA Rocket Trooper, Sky Trooper and Air Assault Trooper. Stormtroopers with jetpacks. Originally only suitable for short jumps, by the New Republic era the technology has evolved enough for them to get proper jetpacks that let them fly indefinitely.
• Magma Stormtrooper: Also called "Lavatroopers" in the old Legends Canon, which also gives them the more distinct design of red Stormtrooper armor. In Disney (where to date they've only really appeared in DICE's first Battlefront game), they basically just look exactly the same as Sandtroopers.
• Novatrooper: Oh look, another black-armored variant, though these ones are only a bit better trained than standard Stormtroopers and have similar equipment. Have a bit of gold to balance out all the black, and appear only in the Star Wars: Galaxies MMO. Generally meant to be ceremonial rather than front-line infantry, which may explain why they're not that much better trained.
• Night Trooper: Obligatory new variant introduced in Ahsoka. They are the remnants of Thrawn's forces that ended up getting marooned with him in a galaxy far, far, away. As far as variants go, these guys have some personality, with every trooper's gear being repaired with whatever it is they happen to have on hand (such as having cracks covered up with gold like Kintsugi, ribbons wrapped around certain parts, and other stuff); there's a lot of speculation going on about these guys, but we'll let the series end first. Turns out they are pretty much your bog-standard trooper but with awesome personalized armor, however what makes them stand out is that if they end up dying, some Nightsister witches that work with Thrawn can just bring them back to life as zombies, not really as deadly as the Undead Troopers but definitely a force to be reckoned with since they can still use blasters and just straight up shrug off lethal wounds (unless its to the head, y'know standard zombie rules).
• Range Trooper: The cooler™ Snowtrooper. Debuted in Solo (since nary a new OT-Era Star Wars product comes out without introducing at least one new Stormtrooper variant). Have big magnetized boots that let them stick to moving trains instead of being sent flying. Not entirely clear what their specialized role is (beyond selling more toys of course). They also wear fur with their armor and are considered some of the toughest in the Empire.
• Scout Trooper: Scouts, obviously (also snipers according to a bunch of the video games). Scout troopers have a distinct helmet that allows for greater visibility as well as lighter leg and shoulder armor for greater mobility. They typically use Speederbikes and long ranged rifles. Scout troopers are the only type of Stormtrooper besides Mimban Stormtroopers known to even occasionally make use of camouflage (though the ones at Endor did not). One of the few variants shown on film.
  • Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and its sequel gives us variants of the variant in the form of Scout Troopers who carry electric batons and are basically the low-level melee enemy. Sequel adds ones that also have riot shields.
• Shadow Stormtrooper: Also known as "Shadowtroopers" and "Blackhole Stormtroopers", they're your standard Stormtroopers, but their armor is black. Depending on the writer, this is either just for show, or means they have stealth capabilities and are a cut above standard Stormtroopers. Exist in Disney as well as Legends, even though the Death Troopers make them somewhat redundant in the former.
  • Shadowtrooper: No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. There is another, unrelated type of black-armored elite Imperial called "Shadowtrooper". These ones are only in Legends, and are Stormtroopers forcibly made Force-Sensitive, outfitted with cortosis armor that can take multiple hits from a lightsaber, and used by the Imperial Remnant against the Jedi of Luke's Order. Kyle Katarn fights them in Jedi Outcast.
• Storm Commandos: Looking very similar to Scout Troopers, but in black. So aesthetically to Scout Troopers what Shadow Stormtroopers are to regular Stormtroopers. One of many black-armored elites the Empire use, but they don't get much exposure in either Legends or Disney (despite existing in both). General Crix Madine used to lead them before joining the Rebels.
• Stormtrooper Commander: Exactly what it sounds like. Only really a unique variant in The Force Unleashed, where they're differentiated from standard Stormtroopers with blue markings intended to evoke the ARC Troopers (as they were meant to be a spiritual successor to them), and personal force-fields. Whenever Stormtrooper officers and squad leaders show up anywhere else, they usually just get orange shoulder pads instead of the blue markings.
• Terror Trooper: Introduced in The Force Unleashed II, they're an experimental Stormtrooper type recognizable by their sharp claws, skull-like masks, and the fact that they're merciless, bloodthirsty killers. Their masks are clearly based off of General Grievous' mask.
• Undead Stormtrooper: Also called Death Troopers (but no relation to Disney's elite Stormtroopers of the same name), and yes you are reading their name right these are actually Zombie Stormtroopers. Created by Sith Scientists/Sith Alchemy via Project Blackwing (cooler "Canon" name) or Imperial bioweapons Project I71A (longer "Legends" name). While they are the usual lumbering and flesh-hungry zombies, they also come with the ability to telepathically communicate with each other (Sith alchemy bullshit) and also being able to learn. So far from being your standard-fare Zombies who are totally mindless and have no sense of strategy, these zombies are actually scarily good at adapting, including being able to operate machinery and vehicles if they see someone else using them. All of this allows them to actually be more effective by organizing themselves into hordes and coordinating strikes against Imperial and Rebel forces alike. So yeah basically telepathic smart zombies, the Galaxy would have been irreversibly fucked if these guys really got out of hand.
• Wet Weather Gear Stormtrooper: Also called "Mimban Stormtroopers" because their only big appearance so far is on Mimban in the Han Solo movie. Armor has a light gray camo pattern, and they get capes. Presumably meant for rainy and muddy environments (so basically the ones who go to shitty weather planets).
• Wetland Assault Stormtrooper: More commonly known as "Swamptroopers", this branch wears green colored gear optimized for swamps. Fairly obscure, mostly making appearances in Jedi Outcast and Galaxies and that's it.
• Zero-G Assault Stormtrooper: More commonly known as "Spacetroopers", this branch wears Power Armor designed for boarding and capturing disabled ships. They are first mentioned in Star Wars RPG materials by West End Games, but are most famous for their appearance in the climax of Heir to the Empire, the first book of the Thrawn trilogy. There is a pair of Stormtroopers with an unusual backpack (possibly a jetpack) that are very briefly seen in the original movie (one of them played by Joe Johnston himself!), but they look nothing like future deceptions of spacetroopers, fanoned as that configuration being more for guys patrolling out of atmosphere but in gravity. They also appear in the computer game X-Wing: Alliance. Between their bulky armor and the fact that they're supposed to be one of the very best types of Stormtroopers, you can think of them as the Empire's Space Marines alongside the Hazard Trooper.

OK, I think we got them all. If not, you can always check the Wookiepedia page, which pretty extensive.

As a closing note, Stormtroopers are one of the most iconic things in Star Wars. Soldiers clad from head to foot in stark white armour, faces hidden under a helmet which gives the impression of a scowling skull, voices distorted and referred to by numbers. There are plenty of variants but they are all representation of extreme militarized conformity, tyranny and repression. Despite this, people love stormies. Thousands of people spend thousands of dollars to make movie accurate Stormtrooper costumes and wear them to raise money for charity and help cheer up sick kids. Daniel Craig, star of the modern James Bond films, had a cameo in The Force Awakens as a Stormtrooper.