Design Exercise: Helldivers 2 Foes in All-Out Apocalypse
UPDATED April 8th 2026: In retrospect I decided I didn't care for how I was handling armour for the Automatons. My design goal was to encourage players to seek situational advantage dice to try to hit the "weak spot" but then they still need to chip away at the robot's absurdly high armour. Instead I think hitting the weak spot should ignore armour. I've gone through and adjusted the Automatons accordingly.
I've been playing a lot of Helldivers 2 lately. Arguably too much. It's a pretty fun shooter and it's a good way to "hang out" with friends periodically when we're too busy to meet up in real life. It helps that it's a good game with a nice variety of enemy unit designs. I've become pretty familiar with the strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities of each enemy, and I thought it would be a fun design exercise to reimagine some of them through the lens of the All-Out Apocalypse ruleset.
It's a rare game that actually feels as cool and cinematic as the poster makes it look, but Helldivers 2 somehow does it.
There are three factions, so let's examine them each in turn.
Terminids
Big nasty bugs! These guys are straight out of Starship Troopers (the film version, anyway). Many of them are just basic melee attackers but some of the more advanced units have cool abilities.
Stalkers
Stalkers can make themselves invisible, which makes them dangerous ambush predators. They uncloak as they attack, but they can disengage and re-cloak at any point. They also have a tongue lash that is mainly meant to knock down Helldivers rather than do damage.
Stalker:
3HP
Slashing Claws
Tongue Bludgeon ○
Cloaking: Can't be targeted by most basic attacks (splash damage not included) ○○
Charger
Chargers do exactly what they say on the tin. They're extremely heavily armoured on the front, but when they charge they expose their naked backside (hee hee).
Charger:
4HP
Hefty
Charge: Knockdown. Next round the Charger cannot attack or use its Heavy Carapace to negate damage
Heavy Carapace ○○○○○○
Bile Titan
Bile Titans are enormously tall, often visible clear across the map. The main danger is the bile they spew great distances, but their spear-like feet make shish kebabs out of Helldivers.
Bile Titan:
5HP
Lamp-Post Legs: It can't be hit by melee attacks
Bile: Successes deal radiation damage, and can be distributed among up to 2 targets. 2-in-6 chance of recharging at the start of each turn ○
Interlocking Carapace ○○○
Shrieker
Shriekers are not individually much of a threat, but they are never encountered individually. This feels like an opportunity to test out a swarm-type enemy.
Shrieker:
3HP
Flying
Swarm: Attacks can be distributed among up to 3 targets
Impalers
These huge bugs are totally covered in armour and are basically immune to all damage. They jam their three face-tentacles underground, which pop out nearby and try to stab people. When they do this, their faces become a weak point.
Impaler:
4HP
Titanic Size
Burrow Tentacles: Spawns 3 Impaler Tentacles nearby. The Impaler can't move, can't use its Bulwark Carapace to reduce damage, and attackers gain a situational advantage die against it.
Bulwark Carapace ○○○○○○○○○○
Impaler Tentacle:
2HP
Immobile
Reach
Automatons
Legions of heavily-armoured robots sporting laser weaponry. Where the Terminids force you to move constantly to avoid the swarms, Automatons force you into cover with withering barrages of gunfire.
Honestly a lot of these guys aren't actually that different from one another, so I'm going to use fewer units to showcase the special abilities I think might suit their heavy armour and weak spots.
The idea with the Armour Threshold mechanic that I've given the Hulk and the Cannon Turret is intended to encourage players to use the Create An Advantage or the Help action. This is supposed to model players moving into position or drawing enemy fire to expose the weak spot.
Hulk
The Hulk is a good stand-in for the Automatons, because it is a simple enemy that has heavy armour on all sides, but a weak spot on the back that you can use to quickly destroy it... IF you can get into position before it kills you.
Hulk:
4HP
Armour Threshold 3: Incoming attacks that deal 3 or more damage cannot be blocked by Angular Plating.
Angular Plating ○○○○○○○○
Whirring Saw Arm ○○○
Flamethrower Arm: Successful hits also set targets on fire. They must roll a single die Test on subsequent turns, taking a point of damage on a success, until they successfully extinguish the flames ○○○
Cannon Turret
The Cannon Turret is a huge pain in the butt once it catches sight of you. Similar to the Hulk it also has tons of armour, but a weak point on the back. It has ridiculous range, damage, and accuracy, but it has to wait a long time before firing shots. Maybe we can model that delay somehow.
Cannon Turret:
2HP
Immobile
Long-Range
Armour Threshold 4: Incoming attacks that deal 4 or more damage cannot be blocked by Fortified Structure.
Recharge: Adds one usage point to the Cannon
Cannon: Cannot fire with fewer than 3 usage points, and uses them all at once ○○○
Fortified Structure ○○○○○○○○
Factory Strider
Factory Striders are the worst combination of all the Automaton units. It fabricates mooks on the fly, has armour out the wazoo, has absurdly long range vision and accuracy, plus a bazillion different weapons. I think the best way to model this outside of just giving it stacks of armour and weapon usage points is to give it a special ability that lets it make multiple attacks on its turn: one attack with each weapon.
Factory Strider
4HP
Long-Range
Stompy Feet
Multi-Attack: Make an attack for each weapon
Dorsal Cannon: +1 die ○○○
Cheek Guns ○○○○○
Robotic Plating ○○○○○○○○○○
Manufacture Mooks ○○
Illuminate
There are a couple of cool mechanics among these classic UFO alien enemies. The first is that many of the higher-tier units have recharging shields. The other interesting thing is the Stingray, a strafing aircraft that flies down, drops its bombardment, and then flies off, all in the blink of an eye. I think that will work well with the initiative system All-Out employs.
Harvester
These guys are the main "heavy" unit for the Illuminate. They have a recharging attack like the Cannon Tower, so we'll use that again, but they also have that signature recharging shield I mentioned.
Harvester:
3HP
Stilt Legs: It can't be hit by melee attacks
Shield Recharge: Every round, add one usage point to the Energy Sheild
Energy Shield ○○○○
Recharge: Adds one usage point to the Beam Cannon
Beam Cannon: Cannot fire with fewer than 3 usage points, and uses them all at once. Spread successes among up to 2 enemies ○○○
Stingray
These guys are pretty cool. They can absolutely wreck your shit, but they aren't actually that hard to take down if you can hit them. The thing is, they swoop over the battlefield dropping their payload and then scram the heck out of there. I think the way I'd handle this in All-Out is to only announce that they're arriving on the enemy declaration phase, so if you fail initiative, you don't even know they're coming!
Stingray:
2HP
Flying
Hit-And-Run: It reappears during the NPC declaration phase, then flies off into the distance at the end of the turn. Returns in 1d6 rounds. Bombardment: Applies all successes against up to 3 targets ○○○
Watcher
Watchers are basically just guard dogs. They have a zap attack, but their real purpose is to call in the troops. As a Helldiver, your job is to shoot them down before they can do that.
Watcher:
1HP
Flare: Summons reinforcements to the area 1d6 turns later ○
Zapper ○○○
Closing Thoughts
These enemies aren't really thematically appropriate for All-Out, I don't think. However, I think it's a good exercise when designing a TTRPG to see what it can handle. My design goal with All-Out is to keep the rules fairly simple, so it's a bit of a balancing act to make tactically interesting enemies, while keeping the rules from getting too puffy looking. I'm not sure I succeeded.
It's also just good practise for game designers and GMs alike to spend time thinking about how to inject variety into their games. At least, that's what I think.
My 8 year old (who has only ever hear about this game and has never seen it played) really wants me to translate ALL the enemies from Helldivers 2 into All-Out monsters, but I think this is enough for me. But maybe at some point I'll do this exercise using the various bits of kit the Helldivers use. There are a great variety of weapons and armour in that game that might be fun to play with in the post-apocalypse.
This article uses material from the the Helldivers wiki at Fandom and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.