Bowcaster troopers, also referred to as bowcaster trooper recruits in their early training stages and heavy bowcaster recruits with even more training, were the basic infantry soldiers in armies of the Wookiee species. They used bowcasters to fight their enemies and defend their homeworld Kashyyyk.
Bowcaster troopers were members of the Wookiee species trained at troop centers to wield bowcasters, traditional Wookiee projectile weapons. Such Wookiees began their training as bowcaster trooper recruits, and as Wookiee tribes cultivated resources and improved their technology level recruits could progress to standard bowcaster troopers, then to heavy bowcaster troopers, and finally to repeating bowcaster troopers, who could wield a more advanced type of bowcaster that fired repeating bolts. Bowcaster troopers could be improved with technology from institutions such as War Centers and fortresses. They were also more effective firing at long distances compared to short range combat.
Chewbacca and several bowcaster troopers on Alaris Prime
Bowcaster troopers saw action during the colonization of the moon Alaris Prime, which occurred between 39 BBY and 36 BBY. A group of at least ten bowcaster troopers were trained on the advice of Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and led by the Wookiee Chewbacca to attack a nest of gundarks, a predatory species on Alaris Prime. The bowcaster troopers shot down two gundarks on their march to the nest but encountered B1-Series battle droids of the Trade Federation already eliminating the creatures. The droids attacked the Wookiees after dispatching all the gundarks, but the bowcaster troopers defeated them instead.
After that incident the leader of the colonists; Attichitcuk, set out to scout the Trade Federation's activity on Alaris Prime, taking two bowcaster troopers with him. On his return trip to a Wookiee base Attichitcuk was ambushed by a group of battle droids, who killed his trooper companions and critically injured him. To save his father Chewbacca mustered a force of at least ten bowcaster troopers and led them into the wilderness, while more bowcaster troopers were trained at the base in order to protect it. As Chewbacca and his company returned to the base with his wounded father the newly trained troops started on the path they had left on, with both groups surrounding and destroying another group of battle droids. Once Attichitcuk safely arrived at the base the bowcaster troopers had to fight off an attack from three droidekas.
The attack on the Trade Federation outpost
Chewbacca then became the new leader of the Wookiee colonists while his father recovered, and he began a campaign to remove the Trade Federation from Alaris Prime, starting with an outpost that contained a droid-building troop center. He trained an army of twelve Wookiees, including bowcaster troopers, mounted dragon troopers, and thermal detonator troopers. At the outpost the dragon and thermal detonator troopers destroyed the walls surrounding it while Chewbacca and the bowcaster troopers fired on the five B1 battle droids that guarded it. After breaking through the walls all the Wookiees concentrated their fire on the troop center and destroyed it.
At least two bowcaster troopers were present at a camp run by Chewbacca when it was attacked by battle droids commanded by LUH-989. These troopers fought off the droids and later participated in an attack on a Trade Federation listening array, destroying the Federation's droids and transmitters, along with one heavy bowcaster trooper from the Wookiee Shoran's camp who was killed in the attack. Seven bowcaster troopers were present at base from which the Battle for Alaris Prime was waged, and five heavy bowcaster troopers participated as the infantry in the attack on the Trade Federation base that saw the company removed from the moon.
Bowcaster troopers also fought in the Hunt for the Decimator, the Battle of Geddes and the Liberation of Kashyyyk.
Bowcaster troopers appeared in the 2001 LucasArts video game Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds as the basic trooper unit of the Wookiee civilization. In the game they are created at troop centers for the cost of 25 food and 35 carbon. At the beginning of the standard game mode the player can create bowcaster trooper recruits, and can upgrade them to bowcaster trooper, heavy bowcaster trooper, and repeater bowcaster troopers once the research becomes available to them as they progress through the games tech levels.