The Babylon 5 Wars List Magazine Issue #5 Sep 5, 1998 Here it is, issue five. As you may have noticed its a bit late, this is due to my unfortunate return to school and so my time is limited. At the very moment my mailbox is backed up with messages from the last week and a half that need to be added to the next issue, which will have to follow this one pretty closely if I want to get it all in there. However, I am considering stopping work on the mag as it does take a lot of my time. PLEASE e-mail me if you enjoy reading it or think it's worth having, just a few messages will probably convince me to continue work on it. - Editor, Jasper McChesney IN THIS ISSUE ------------- ANNOUNCEMENTS: Unit stats table available Battle Report: Centauri fall to Narn TACTICS/BATTLE REPORTS: Maximus useful? Local tournament report How to counter EA and its fighters? RULES DISCUSSION/SUGGESTION: Guardian arrays Flagships and Nuclear Mines Bin'Tak and Sharlin analysis Light Pulse Cannon New Matter Cannon round OFFICIAL: Recent Q&A Miniature voting results SCENARIOS/SHIP DESIGN: Raider Surprise COLUMNS/HUMOR: Melee weapons: silly rule SUBMISSIONS: You may submit posts you think deserve to be in (not necessarily your own), as well as any column or article you write specifically to be submitted. I will not alter any text submitted but I will alter formatting. I reserve the right to reject any article or column for any reason. ----------------------------------- ANNOUNCEMENTS ----------------------------------- announces: Unit stats table available "I was curious about the various abilities of units in B5wars and created a table listing the important stats for each unit. As it can be useful for comparing two different ships (as has happened many times on this list) I have uploaded it to my web site. Warning: it is a bit cryptic, although I have included a list of what abbreviations mean. It can be found (by those interested) at: " http://www.best.com/~mcalhoon/b5w_stat.txt ----------------------------------- Battle Report: Centauri fall to Narn Steven W Rushing posted: "Battle Report 980830 Rules: 3500 Tourney Duel with flight rules except for individual fighter to-hit rolls. Narn: 1 Varnic with 6 Goriths, 3 Rongoths, 3 Thentus Centauri: 3 Centurion, 3 Mograth Setup 3 Centurions in 4201E speed 9, 3 Mograths in 4202D speed 10. 3 Thentus and 1 Varnic in 0120B speed 10, 3 Rongoths in 0121B speed 10, 1 flight Goriths in 0122B speed 10. Results: Centauri conceed after 3 turns. More detailed turn by turn and analysis can be seen at... http://townhall.webrpg.com/index.phtml?groupid=618 Suspicion: A fleet of 1 Primus, 2 Centurion, and 3 Darkners would have been more cohesive. Mograth is jack of all trades and master of none. Next Week: Centauri vs Jammerless Minbari at 3500." ----------------------------------- TACTICS/BATTLE REPORTS ----------------------------------- Maximus useful? Alex Fulton posted: "How about the Maximus, nice design, no? No! We have found thatlong range fire from Heavy Lasers will quickly destroy this craft long before it is used in the battle. And, for its cost, you can easily get a craft that can carry laser weapons." Carlos replied: Alex, I won the tourney with two Maximus. It is invaluable! Hard to hit. Makes others harder to hit (Think Ion Torps). The Twins can ALL fire down the port and starboard fore hex rows. (If you can't do the math thats 114 points of damage average if they all hit, every round.) Only a fool would contend that a ship with "Laser Weapons" is more useful than this Godlike ship." Alex Fulton responded: "Correct, but your opponents SHOULD have destroyed it with long-range weapons fire long before it got the opportunity to be useful. That way, when the range finally did close, the more agile Maximus frigates (which would undoubtedly screw up mag gun/twin arrays/fighter shots at such range) would not be present. At the range the Maximus SHOULD be attacked at, it is quite helpless. Especially against laser weapons, against which the guardian array does nothing. Fire 4-6 Heavy lasers at this thing and it's toast." To which Chris Sanders replied: "Of course, if your enemy is taking the time to take out this ship, they aren't shooting as much at your big guns which will give them a chance to get in some extra shots with their battle lasers. Not a terribly bad trade off, imo. Just call it a glorified decoy... :) " ----------------------------------- Local tournament report Asmaul McChesney posted: "I've just come from a small tournament my local gaming store held today. While there were no Narn players the tactics used were interesting and the battles very telling I think. First the background info: We were planning on having more people than we did but because no one showed up we did a round-robin tourney counting losses, victories, and decisive losses and victories. Fleets were at 2500 points. Criticals were rolled for each shot to a system, but not for thrusters or weapons (not that I entirely agreed with this mind you). Optional enhancements were allowed. Also, due to an error by the store owner EA interceptors were alloweed to intercept lasers, aaaargh! (when I played against EA I protested but the moderator said that the rule had to be kept since it had been in effect for earlier games). I played three games as did everyone else. First Game: Centauri (moi) vs. Minbari (sans jammer) We start on opposite ends of a long 2x3 board. My fleet consists of: 1 Primus w/hardened armor on two battle lasers 1 Kutai 1 Altarian 1 Sulust w/hardened armor on battle laser While Minbari fleet consisted of: 1 Sharlin w/17 EW, 2 extra thrust and probably some other stuff Seeing that I and every other player beat the Minbair player, we all agreed that the failing was obviously the poor ship selection - ONE ship, no matter how souped-up cannot compare to equal points of multiple ships (except maybe old ones' ships). My Primus took some moderate damage from the Sharlin but barage after barage of twin arrays and battle lasers stripped the Sharlin of its front VERY quickly. One side and the aft also recieved major damage before it parked itself next to my Primus. This meant serious hurt for the Primus but near death for the Sharlin. Two sensor criticals also evened the field a lot from that 17 EW. All I can say is that if yuou play Minbari - take more than one ship, or at least take some fighters (Nials could have seriously hurt my Kutai). Also, optional enhancements do not make good force necessarily - raw fire power wins every time it seems. Game 2: Centauri vs. Centauri Setup is unchanged from before, my fleet is the same. Enemy Centauri has: 1 Emporer's Transport w/12 EW 1 Primus w/12 EW 5 wings of Sentri (I think) We started out closing in one one another but it quickly got muddled and jumbled. I probably could have done much better had I kept my ships in better formation - failure to slow down my Kutai left it basically useless after its first attack run. After only the third turn I had destroyed his Primus by blasting through the front with everything I had. His transport had damage my Primus a bit but my only real damage was on the Kutai which was being beaten on by fighters. I take the crippling of the Kutai as a tactical loss because it wasn't worth diverting twins to protect it. In the end all our ships had damage but I had more ships left so it was called as a victory in my favor - though it was pretty close with his fighters. I could probably have benefiited from a few fighters to ward off his attacks but the additional fire from HCVs was preferable in this game - I was shocked at how quickly I brang his Primus down. I should also note that my Tactics usually consist of flanking to both sides and turtle-shelling until I go completely offensive once I get closer. Game 3: Centauri vs. EA Ea Fleet: 1 Omega 2 Olympus 4 Starfuries I knew that if I lost to anyone it would be EA. I have never really been able to counter the massive damage outputter by EA ships, and now missiles add to that. We didn't engage until pretty close range, and by a stroke of luck I stayed just out of his missiles ranges. I quickly took off one side of his Omega but it wasn't enough - poor maneuvering lost me good attacks from all of my ships until later when I could reorganize. Dispite being EA he pulled a good surprise maneuver and got my injurred Primus out of arc. He quickly took off the front and one side of my Primus there. Only minor damage was donr the the Olys and I ignored the furies and tried to take down the Omega. Poor maneuvering (actually TERRIBLE maneuvering and planning) led to my downfall however as my ships were usually too far away to do any good or (in the case of the Primus) out of arc all the time. It's not surprising that I lost but I was hoping to do better - if I had slowed down and stayed in better formations I could have concentrated my fire better and destroyed the Omega rather than damaging all sides of it (the same thing happened with the Emporer's transport in game two). Overview: I realy didn't use the Guardians very much and the sulust's main purpose was as a twin platform with an added battle laser. The Primus was still very useful. The altarian was not quite as good as I thought it would be, perhaps I am simply misusing it. The Kutai was more effective than I thought but usually it just served to draw fire from al my other ships - everyone always wants it dead, I don't know why. The Olympus are very powerful for their size and I should've payed them more attention. While the missiles are their main weapon extra shots from pulses and rail guns will wear you down a lot, especially on smaller craft. If it hadn't been for losing the last game I would have won the tourney but as it is we all (except the Minbari that is) tied." ----------------------------------- How to counter EA and its fighters? Asmaul McChesney posted: "For me this has always been the key factor in fighting EA - never knowing whether to engage the fighters or engage the ships. If you have enough ships of your own you could divide your fire between both. I tend to ignore the fighters because I underestimate their power or think I'd rather take out the enemy ship(s) with my twins. Unfortunately this has often been a mistake and many games have been lost because the starfuries destroyed my ships. At the same time EA has a lot of strucutre on its ships and outright destroying them is very difficult. As it stands I definately think that EA and Centauri are the more powerufl races in B5Wars (assuming no jammers) but I can still never effectively counter the EA's fighters without letting their cap ships free do to as they wish." Stephen C. Ford suggested: "I've found two strategies that work vs. EA fighters. If you are Centauri, keep your fighters around your ships. Between them and the twin arrays, you should be able to knock a big hole in his fighter squadrons. Your ships can reach out and touch the EA at range 20 to 30 with great weapon arcs. And with 8 twin arrays on a Primus and two flights of fighters next to your ship, you should whittle him down before he has a chance to do much damage. If you are Narn, buy the missile frigate, I never leave home without. 6 energy mines in one turn can really mess up an EA player. Their only recourse is to keep their fighters inside and then you have 6 ion torps and 6 energy mines versus his ships. This can take the front off a ships. My best battle, was when I fired four energy mines out in a pattern and he moved a flight into each one. The look on his face was priceless, especially since this was the first game he got to use Thunderbolts in. The Narn-Centauri Wars has really revitalized B5W in our area." ----------------------------------- RULES DISCUSSION/SUGGESTION ----------------------------------- Guardian arrays Sidney Kuhn posted: "Bruce's reply has a similar problem that TBP has for resolving ramming. The guardian must be closer to the firing ship part. For instance, if the guardian is in hex row 40xx, the firing ship in hex row 30xx and the target in hex row 10xx. Obviously the gardian is closer to the firing ship and can protect by the "RULE" but IMHO that isn't the effect they wanted. May I suggest that is you can trace/count a path of hexes from the firing ship to the gardian and then to the target that does not increase the range or does not increase the range by 10%, then the gardian can defend." Jamie Coleman replied: "Well, they do specify that it has to be between the two ships in the book. But I'd prefer to see something along the lines of '..can intercept shots provided it is no more than 3 hexes off the line of fire.'" R.Eitzen added: "I would prefer that it ALSO say the intercepting ship cannot be farther from the firing ship than the target ship. Being able to be BEHIND the defended ship would be too good (in my opinion)." To which Jamie Coleman replied: "Certainly. I didn't mean for my phrasing to be a stand-alone definition.:) But I do agree with Steve that AoG's inclusion of the word "between" should prevent that positioning. How about something like: "Ships with Guardians may intercept shots at other ships provided they are within 3 hexes of the line of fire, are not further from the firing ship than the target is, nor further from the target than the firing ship is." This would end up giving you something of a oblong zone where the Guardian is effective, pinching in at the ends. Not sure if 3 hexes is a good number, I'd just tossed that out off the top of my head when I originally spouted off. :) " Rob Schultz also replied: "Why would it be too good? Beside I just don't think that makes much sense, take the following distribution of ships A, B, C and D A...........................B ...........................D.C Ship A fires on B, ship C and D are effectively situated about the same so far as the intercept goes (I can even argue that C in a better position because the intercept is never a deflection shot.) yet by your rule it can't even try. As an alternative how about, '1) The intercepting ship must be within 3 hexes of the line of fire and 2) The intercepting ship must be a least as close to the target ship as the firing ship.' This ignores the fact that the intercepting round may be much faster than the target round but you have to simplify somewhere." ----------------------------------- Flagships and Nuclear Mines Mike Staley posts: "Flagships: A Flagship of a fleet gives every warship on that side a +2 in initiative until its C & C is destroyed, the vessel looses power or otherwise disabled, and of course, destroyed. The rational behind this is that a significant force would have at least the equivalent of a Commodore or an Admiral coordinating all the efforts of the group. When the ship is destroyed, the group commander is considered dead and all ships lose the initiative bonus. Nuclear Mines: Many Earth Force Ships are equipped with nuclear mines for various purposes, usually involving the laying of traps for superior opponents. Although ships can technically deploy them, the preferred, and more covert method, is to use shuttles. Each shuttle can carry a maximum of two mines, which have a yield of 1 Gigaton. A 1 Gigaton Nuclear Mine inflicts damage over a six hex radius. 0 Hexes Away: 600 points of damage 1 Hexes Away: 500 points of damage 2 Hexes Away: 400 points of damage 3 Hexes Away: 300 points of damage 4 Hexes Away: 200 points of damage 5 Hexes Away: 100 points of damage 6 Hexes Away: 50 points of damage Damage is resolved by taking the total damage done by the mine and subtracting the weapons damage points of the weapons, plus their armor, on the three sides exposed to the blast. Example is Forward, Port and Aft or Forward, Starboard and Port and so on. So, on a Sharlin for instance, for the purposes of this discussion, the Black Star. The weapon detonates in the forward arc of the Black Star, 1 Hex Away. Not a good thing. Neutron Guns on Forward, Port and Starboard Side: 28 Damage Points Fusion Cannon on Forward, Port and Starboard Side: 154 Damage Points Retros on Forward, Port and Starboard Side: 66 Damage Points EP Gun: 8 Damage Points Forward, Port and Starboard Structure: 280 Damage Points Total: 512 points of damage. The way this is resolved would be to take the 500 and subtract 536. That gives you -36. With 36 points of damage left over, it is divided equally between the structure, giving each side only 12 points of structure left. All weapons are considered destroyed. A second mine which detonates from the same area would now take the remaining structure (and weapons if applicable) and total them up, including armor. So, 500 - 28 = 472. All of this is now considered overkill. As you've probably guessed, the Black Star is probably going to die here from the overkill. To figure out how to inflict damage on primary structure, simply add up everything except primary structure, subtract that from the damage done by the mine, then subtract the amount of primary structure from the remaining damage points of the blast. This ship just had a Viking Funeral. Absolutely vaporized. Any fighters or shuttles within six hexes from the detonation are automatically considered destroyed. Any un-detonated mines are also considered destroyed. Because of EMP effects, sensors, CSS arrays, ELINT jamming or Minbari jammers can not be used on the entire board for 1D6 turns because of electromagnetic interference. Detonation of these mines is an excellent diversion to escape from the grasp of an enemy." Rob C. replies: "One suggestion here: flag ships should not add, but COMMANDERS should give this bonus: Example, the Enphili (hope I got that right) was the flag ship for one battle in season four, and it was Sheridan who gave the orders, so shouldn't the system refer to Sheridan, who could command from any ship? Men fight the Battles, not the machines. And Admirals can change flag ships in the midst of battle, as we can see in many real life battles. after all, we have to have a use for Shuttles!" Mike Staley replies to that: "Thats very true of course, and if you want to transfer the flag, you would have to move your commander on a shuttle to another ship. In the meantime, there would be no flag ship of course. One could argue, in counterpoint, a true flagship has specialized communications gear to enhance it in this role, as well as a flag staff. However, I think the specialized communications idea is way beyond the scope of the game and i'm sure everyone would agree. We simply use the rules for loading personelle on shuttles in the Core rules (2 turns to load ten naval personnelle IIRC). Finally, shuttles become extremely valuable. Thus, this flagship idea just opened up something big, I think. Commanders. We can now easily name commanders of a group (or if you really want to nit pick, captains as well) for campaign purposes as well as purely tactical battles. When a Flag Officer is present in the group, we give all ships a certain offensive and defensive bonus as well as an initiative. An excellent commander can raise the values of the entire group above the base values on offense, defense and with initiative, a poor commander can decrease offensive and defensive values and hurt initiative. What effect do you a captain like Sheridian would have to a normal group, or on the opposite side, Lord Captain Va Mota from the short story in the core rules. It adds a different wrinkle to the game that is low impact (in terms of changes that need to be made) but has good campaign implications, like if your flag officer gets killed you need to use someone else of lesser capability. Especially when doing battles with the Centauri, they have great ships, but the cronyism (sp) in their Royal Navy certainly degrades the effectiveness of their ships and fleets, which are almost certainly not as well commanded as an equivalent Narn or Earth Force Fleet, or especially a Minbari Warfleet. Under this rule I'm going to use in the campaign, the Minbari will get their +1 initiative plus this commander bonus. Does this sound like a workable idea to anyone? I'll have to try it with my Rochester, NY gaming group." ----------------------------------- Bin'Tak and Sharlin analysis Andrew Warwick posted: "Offer the weekend I had a couple of small battles, testing out various ships. The first was to test the Narn's claim that a Bin'Tak was capable of taking on a Sharlin Warcruiser (without jammer.) Bin'Tak vs Sharlin. After 10 rounds of a brutal slugfest, the Bin'Tak went down. It had the Starboard side stripped off in about thr 5th round, and the Sharlin managed to stay inside that arc and pound the interior of the ship for the next 5 rounds. The test was one of sheer firepower and damage absorbtion - I wasn't focusing on manouvering or the like much. The next few tests will involve that, as well as testing the difference with jammers active and not. Also, the dice rolls favoured the Minbari horribly. The Mag Gun was gone in the first round, and between 1/4 and 1/3 of all Fusion Cannon shots rolled 10 for damage. The Narn did mange 2 40 pt heavy laser hits, but it didn't balance out the Minbari's dice luck... Bin'Tak This ship is tough. Very tough. After 10 rounds and something like 15 Neutron Cannon and 50 Fusion cannon hits it finally went down. At the time, it still had 5 functioning Heavy Lasers, both E-Mines, 2 Lt-Pulse Cannons and a Twin Array. The port structure was down to half and the forward and aft were at about 1/4 damage. The ship also has great arcs of fire, so can generally offload something in return fire, no matter where the enemy is. Sharlin Ouch. Those Fusion Cannons are downright nasty. They'd rip light ships apart in a blink, even without Neutron Cannons. No matter what side you coem from, you'll be clobbered by them (and coupled with its high range and the high sensor value of the Sharlin, sitting back out at heavy weapon range is no guarantee...) It's multiple systems with their high armour/structure lessens the effect of lasers. You can't destroy a system with a single rake, and if you hit again, it can be offloaded onto another of those systems. Coupled with structures high armour and damage potential, it makes them hard to kill. The Bin'Tak managed to destroy 7 Fusion Cannons, 2 Neuron cannons, and damage a further 2 Neutron and 1 Fusion cannons, as well as knock off 75% of the forward, 33% of the port and 20% of the aft structure. Not bad with the dice rolls seriously against it. Hopefully a couple more tests with more even dicerolls will show if the Bin'Tak has any chance against the Sharlin." ----------------------------------- Light Pulse Cannon Alex Fulton posted (I think -ed.): "Right now the Lt. Pulse is balanced with the twin array. Over two turns, a twin array will do a maximum of 56 damage (1d10+4 = 14 *2 *2). The Lt. Pulse will do a maximum of 40 (8*5). Two twin arrays firing on a plasma shot coming in get a -1 on the to-hit. Two Lt. Pulse cannons can bring it down -3!" replied: "Compare apples to apples . . . Two twin arrays(centauri) can give FOUR shots a -1 to hit every turn. Two LPC's can give two shots a -2 to hit every other turn. Regarding damage(vs 4 armor), an LPC can do from 4-20pts of damage every other turn. A twin array can do 4-40pts of damage over the same time period. Also, the twin has better fire control and half the range penalty. No sorry, they aren't quite balanced. BTW, I'm not saying that they have to balance - just that they don't. The twin is a better weapon." Richard Bax added: "DAMAGE: Ignore maximums and play averages (like most of us roll) A Twin Array (d10 yields and average of.....call it 6) meaning (6+4)*2 = 20 point per round or 40 every two rounds. A Lt. Pulse Cannon does (d5 average is 3) does 24 every two round. 40 versus 24 Winner: Twin Array Also include the better fire control for the Twin Array.......so the average number of hits will favor the twins INTERCEPTION DUTY: The fact of the matter is for a single shot in a single turn, two pulse cannons are going to do better than two twin arrays (except of course missiles where they are dead even). But lets include the second round where the twin array gets to fire again in defense mode. Lt.. Pulse Cannon......zip. And while the twin array can group only a single intercept at a particular incoming shot it can fire at multiple incoming shots (if your the Centauri) or fire once offensively. It has way more flexibility than the Lt.. Pulse Cannon. Let's face it........the Lt.. Pulse Cannon (ship board version) stinks.........which is OK if the Narn ship point values were lower. I believe the Narn ship BVP's are for the most part on the high side and should be scaled down a bit. Personally, I say let the Lt.. Pulse Cannon Fire defensively every round and offensively every other round and leave the ship values alone." To which Alex Fulton replies: "I am aware that they do not balance perfectly. Just that they fit the same roll and both do it fairly equally, as indicated by the numbers I cited. They are not identical. Sometimes a Lt. Pulse is better (like, say, when shooting up fighters and you can allocate pulses to each one. Or, perhaps, when few shots are coming in and you want to concentrate interception of them). Sometimes a twin array is better, like when you want to make a large number of shots have just a bit harder a time to hit you. I would not advise switching the Lt. Pulse cannon to a 1-turn recharge. The weapon would become a monster. Compare a 1-turn Lt. pulse to a twin: Maximum per turn damage: Twin Array: 28 Lt. Pulse: 20 (40/2) 1-turn Lt Pulse: 40! Intercept single shot in a turn: Twin Array: -1 Lt. Pulse: -1 (-2/2) 1-turn Lt Pulse: -2! You'll note the current Lt. Pulse is a much better match for the twin than the 1-turn Lt. Pulse. Also, two things to consider for the "But the TBolt has a..." argument. 1) The TBolt is entirely dedicated to the weapon - the entire weapons system power core is tied to it and it alone! Perhaps that helps it recharge faster. 2) It sacrifices several abilities: no intercept capability, can be destroyed in one hit instead of four, has no armor of its own, has no fire control bonus, and has hideous range penalties. Wanna mount this weapon on a capital ship? GO AHEAD! (let's see - no fire control, -2/hex range penalty, 1 box, no armor, 8 d5 times, but no intercept capability! Still want it?)" ----------------------------------- New Matter Cannon round Alex Fulton posts: "Got another one. This one will quadruple the cost of any ship using it, and can ONLY be used in a campaign in which the Centauri are executing "unrestricted warfare" and do not care about angering neutral races. Chemical weapon round: This round is designed to punch through to the primary systems where it realeses a nerve toxin into the atmosphere. The interior of ships is not as compartmentalized as the exterior, and much of the life support equipment is located there. To resolve damage from a hit: Roll 1d6. *For ships with 4 sides and Primarys (5 sections) 1-2: Primary hits 3, 4, 5, 6: each correspond to a side *For ships with 2 sides and Primary (3 section) 1-2: Primary 3-4, 5-6: each correspond to a side For the section that is hit, roll 3 times on the to-hit tables to represent the systems the nerve gas is sent to through the air ducts. That system is disabled for 6 turns (while the crew attempts to vent the air from the compartment and the replacement crew is sent in). Pretty sick, I know. But, hey, if the Centauri use mass drivers to annhialate huge numbers of civilians, I doubt they would have reservations about chemical weapons on warships." To which Orion replies: "Not bad. Of course, the toxin would have to be specific to the race you were shooting at (VX may be an aphrodisiac to Narns...now, THAT's a sick thought...) so in a multi-race scenario you might want to rate the toxin as "primary", "secondary", and "ineffective" based on the races aligned against you. Primary would of course be the most lethal and secondary would be considered an irritant and only moderately effective against that race. Ineffective would be...ineffective. Also, you may be underestimating the compartmentalization of combatants: Under GQ all airtight doors would be sealed, air supplies localized, and at least the Damage Control crews would be suited up. If you had time and knew your enemy used CW rounds you would probably go in with all crew on suit air or at least 1 flip of the face shield away from it. How 'bout this as an alternative: Sticky foam. The round penetrates the hull and releases a harmless, self-expanding foam that hardens into a sticky mess that would completely fill any reasonably sized compartment. Crew caught in that stuff would be cocooned and helpless until someone could locate a suitable solvent: Any equipment in that room would of course be rendered useless until the sticky foam (which gets into EVERYTHING, you know) is flushed out." ----------------------------------- OFFICIAL ----------------------------------- Recent Q&A: > When firing at a base, how do you deal with piercing shots since there > is no Primary Structure on a base? Do you just allocate the damage that > would go to Primary to that section's structure, or do piercing shots > have no special effect? Piercing shots have no special effect, so there would be little reason to use them. > In your recent post regarding possible revisions to the Thunderbolt, > you stated - > > "Jinking vs. Missiles: I'm also VERY interested in hearing some playtest > reports regarding jinking counting double against missiles. The fear is > that any fighter you launch a missile at will simply jink like crazy > (which it can do due to the sequence of play), " > > Does this mean you are thinking of changing the time that jinking is > announced and paid for? I've actually been playing all along (by mistake) > that it is done during movement, and this works quite well. We're considering it, but are concerned with the interactions between this and double-jinking. It may be that we adopt either one of the two solutions: either (a) you decide to jink during movement or (b) you get double benefit, but not both. Obviously, the jury's still out on this. > BTW, we've had good luck with the doubled jinking rule - it gives a good > reason for the three sizes of fighters, and you can always just fire a > couple of missiles at a flight, and give your opponent a tough decision to > jink or not. > A couple of times you and Robert have mentioned Narn and Centauri ship > and weapon background (the Mag Gun secondary damage being due to EMP, the > age of the Altarian design etc.) that didn't appear in NCW. Did these things > get cut for space, and if so, is there any chance that they (and any other > not-to-be published background) might get posted at some point? There's a chance, since we want (someday) to do an integrated timeline with all sorts of neat little details like this. However, the approval process for such a thing would be frightening at best! > I want some clarification on "Fighter Launch Bays" for bases. > > Does this term refer to: > a) The total number of fighters the base can hold? > b) The total number of fighters that can be launched per turn? > c) Something entirely different? That term is poorly worded. Pretend it isn't there. The launch rates and capacities shown on the control sheets are correct. See the Errata. > In the rules on Guardians, p. 80, it says: > ".. It follows from this that the defending ship must obviously be in > the same hex as, or closer to, the firing ship than the target." > > Does this mean you can't use Guardians to protect another ship if > you're in the same hex as the target, but you can if you're in the > same hex as the shooter? I would think it should be the other way > around. Obviously this is poorly worded so as to be confusing. It should be read as: "...the defending ship must obviously be in the same hex as the target, or closer to the firing ship than the target." > Also, I believe the criteria for the Guardian vessel would > allow it to be several hexes off the line of fire for the shot to be > intercepted, which seems a little extreme. Wouldn't it be better to > use the same criteria as proposed for fighters intercepting missiles > (i.e. draw a straight line, must be in a hex intersected by that line, > including the target hex)? That is true, but we wanted the guardian to have a bit more flexibility. It can shoot at a weapon passing close by, whereas the fighters must be almost directly in front of the missile to have any chance. > BG> No, pulsar mines are different, since that system actually > BG> attempts to lock onto fighters and fire. Since skin dancing > BG> rules prohibit anyone from shooting at you if they aren't > BG> skin dancing, the pulsar mine ship could not shoot unless it > BG> were skin dancing with you. > > Depending on the angle of the deployed mine, though, the mine > *might* have a shot on the fighter that would risk hitting the > ship. > > For those who don't mind extra rolls in pursuit of realism, how > about a table to roll on for pulsar mine fire vs skin dancers? > > 1-5: No safe line of fire available, mines don't fire. > 6-8: Mines fire @ skin dancing ships > 9-10: Mines miscalculate and fire @ enormous ship That sounds like an excellent optional rule. Of course, the mines wouldn't affect the enormous ship (see the description of the pulsar mine) unless this were ruled as an exception (and if that exception existed, there should be one for normal fire at ship-sized targets, so that effectively rules it out). Instead, how about just saying on a 1-7 there is no safe line and an 8-10 gives a safe one. > While trying to work out a few tricks to use with deactivating systems and > extra power, I tried to rember how the rules affected this siuation: What > happens if a system which you had voluntarily deactivated earlier is > destroyed? I know active ones means you no longer have access to that > power, but is it the same for voluntarily deactivated systems? (I was > wondering 'cause I was trying to increase a Bin'Tak's manouverabilty, and if > systems that were being used to provide extra thrust were destroyed and the > power lost..well, it would be back to its normal sluggish self. The power is lost whenever the system is destroyed, regardless of whether or not it was activated during your turn. Nice try, though. > The rules for the fighter rails say they are a part of the structure. > Now, the SCS has one box for each rail. Is this just to indicate that the > structure has that many rails, or can these be marked off while I'm taking > damage? > > Or put another way: If taking a 10-point stanard shot on structure, the > armor takes off 4. Can I then mark off three regualar boxes and three > rails? > Yes, that's exactly how it works. The rail boxes are part of the structure block. Originally, we had a more confusing rule where if you took more damage in one volley that the structure block (assuming no rails were there) was completely destroyed, the rail boxes couldn't be used for damage. However, that was deleted. > Now that NCW has indicated there are two types of twin arrays (Narn vs > Centauri technology). From the FAQ: > > The Narn and Centauri arrays differ for purposes of defensive fire > only. The Narn one can fire defensively at only one incoming shot, > meaning it's pointless to use both barrels at anything other than > a missile or ion torpedo, since the second one fired at the same > incoming weapon degrades to a zero value. The Centauri version, on > the other hand, can fire at two different incoming shots in the same > turn. > > Which type does the Battlewagon have? > > Is one or the other considered default technology when not specified for > other races/groups? > > Or does this need to be specified with each new ship like the Battlewagon? Good question, actually. It's the weaker Narn version unless stated otherwise. ----------------------------------- Miniature voting results "Although I promised you until Sunday night, Rob had to go out of town and demanded I collect all the votes today so he could call the sculptors before he departed. Therefore, the voting is over, and no further votes will be counted. My apologies to anyone who didn't get a chance to vote, and thanks to everyone who participated! We received over 60 separate votes, which is a pretty good return for a survey of this type, especially one dropped on you with no warning. And now, the winners... Actually, it wasn't as close as you might think. Overwhelmingly, players voted for the two scouts, making them shoo-ins. Over half the voters had at least one of the two scouts, and 9 of them had both. In addition, the Rongoth was another much-demanded ship. Over half the voters had it as one of the two Narn choices. The only real close race was the second Centauri ship. The most common choices were the Centurion, Kutai, Maximus, and Balvarin. In the end, however, the Balvarin beat the Centurion by two votes and was declared the winner. And so, by popular demand, we will be doing these four miniatures immediately: 1. Centauri Balvarin Carrier 2. Centauri Covran Scout 3. Narn Rongoth Destroyer 4. Narn Sho'Kar Scout Again, thanks for your voting! --Agent One" ----------------------------------- SCENARIOS/SHIP DESIGNS ----------------------------------- Raider Surprise by Wraith "Raiders Surprise: A Scenario for B5 Wars For 2 to 3 Players BACKGROUND: During a routine patrol of an outer sector a Narn Patrol Cruiser ran into an interesting situation. As it was preparing to escort a convoy through its next jump at the sectors jump point, the gate opened up with a raiding party, apparently sent to ambush the convoy. Little did those raiders expect a fully trained Narn millitary vessel to be waiting for them. Unfortunately there was no where to run. PLAYER#1: (Narn) 1 G'Karith Patrol Cruiser w/ 6 Gorath Medium Fighters PLAYER#2: (Raider) 1 Modified Altarian Destroyer, 12 Raider Light Fighters, 6 Modified Razik Light Fighters MODIFIED ALTARIAN DESTROYER: All Matter Cannons become Burst Beams with Same Firing Arc. Twin Array #5 in the center of the Forward Structure does not exist. Jump Drive is converted into an exterior fighter hanger with a 12 capasity and 6 launch rate (simply use the jump drive icon w/ its structure boxes and armor to represent this.) Sensors are reduced to 8) MODIFIED RAZIC LIGHT FIGHTER: Twin particle beams are replaced with raider bolters and do 1d6+2 damage. To make room for this 2 Thrust are lost bringing the ship down to 12. SET UP: Map: ABC DEF Map may need to float. There is a permanent jump gate in hex 2114 There is one Civilian Transport in each of these hexes at speed zero. 1816, 1916, 1917, 2015, 2016, 2116 The G'Karith begins in hex 1817 at a speed of zero. Fighters are in the hangar and may not launch until round 2. Round 1 jump gate opens to allow the Raider to exit. All fighters are deployed. Pick starting speeds. VICTORY CONDITIONS: Narn: Illiminate the Raiders. How dare they poach on Narn territory, especially with Centauri ships. Raiders: Disable of the Civilian Transports (i.e. knocking out 2 or more thrusters, or disabling the engine or reactor) and destroy the Narns or force them to surrender (i.e. knocking out their weapons.) You may not damage any of the cargo pods. If this is done, then that ship cannot count toward the disabled, as the cargo is ruined. Moral Victory, survive long enough for the jump gate to recharge and escape through it. OPTIONS: Allow the raiders to some how get there hands on a fully functional Altarian Destroyer (w/out the jump drive of course.) See what kind of advantage this is. Play with standard Raziks, instead of modified, or w/ 18 Raider Light Fighters Replace the Goraths w/ Frazis Replace the Altarian with a Lias Supply Freighter, except the cargo pods represent exterior hangers of 12 fighters each. Replace the G'Karith with a Var'Nic that was on patrol" ----------------------------------- COLUMNS/HUMOR ----------------------------------- Melee weapons: silly rule Asmaul McChesney posted: "Melee Weapons for ships in B5 Wars 1998 Jasper L. McChesney This is a set of silly optional rules which allow ships in Babylon Five Wars ships to wield melee weapons in combat. The idea was first hatched by a friend and myself to allow ships to carry swords and other melee weapons and strike at other ships when in close range. The following rules describe the use of melee weapons in B5 Wars, keep in mind that they are quite silly. Fitting melee weapons to a ship... Melee weapons are essentially a form of optional enhancements which can be bought for ships and fighters. However, cost is typically flat with the weapon type being purchased, rather than varying with some aspect of the ship. Melee weapons are available for all ship classes including fighters but a ship may only employ weapons designed for its class or a smaller class (gigantic units may not use melee weapons). A cost is assigned to each weapon type and must be payed for each weapon of that type that is fitted to a ship. Ships are restricted to buying a certain number of melee weapons, depending on the ship's class and basic nature. Capitol ships and Hevay Combat Vessels have a number of available melee weapon slots based on the number and type of normal weapons they carry. For every three heavy weapons a ship carries, one melee weapon may be bought. A heavy weapon is considered to be any weapon which is capable of doing 26 points of damage or more with a given shot, after an armor of five is considered. For example, a heavy laser is capable of rolling 40+10=50 raw damge points. Assuming the best case scenario, all volleys could hit one location, subtracting only five from that total, giving 45. Obviously the haevy laser is considered a heavy weapon. Special firing modes are not considered when determining a weapon's status, thus all lasers are assuming to be firing in raking mode. Medium ships and fighters are restricted to purchasing only a single melee weapon a piece no matter how many weapons are on the ship with one exception for fighters. A fighter with a turret (in addition to normal forward-facing guns) which is capable of delivering at least twenty points of damage raw (no armor considered) may carry a second melee weapon. A fighter with only one such turret may carry one melee weapon; a fighter with one turret which is not capable of 20 damage may not carry any. Individuals fighter weapons may also have restrictions as to the size of the fighter required to use them (raider and Centauri rasiks will not be able to use larger fighter weapons for example). Use of melee weapons... For a ship to use a melee weapon it must pass very close to its target, attacking as it passes. Determining if the ship is able to make a melee attack requires a ramming check with a minus two modifier for difficulty. Unlike with a ram, a ships making a melee attack does not need to stop on the same hex as its target, it merely needs to pass through teh target's resting hex during the movement phase. Fighters making a melee attack on a non- fighter do not make a ramming check, instead they must use the skin-dancing rules (WoR); this applies to attacks on medium through cap shipsas well as gigantic units. Obviously the attacking ship must win intitiative in order to make a melee attack. It should also be noted that interceptors have no effect against melee attacks from ships. However, a fighter making a melee attack may be shot at by an interceptor as though the fighter were an incoming shot: the skin-dancing roll's difficulty is increased by the weapon's intercept rating and a failed skin-danicng attempt (no matter the result) results in the fighter taking damage as though the interceptor were on offensive mode (no additional to-hit roll is required). If a melee attack is unsuccesful the attacking ship could either simply miss the target and pass by unhindered or accidentally ram the target. Consult the following table based on the margin of failure to determine the result of the failure. A failed skin dancing roll is treated normally. Margin of Faulire Result 1-6 Miss - the attack vector fails 7-9 Ram, "glancing blow" (p. 34 Core) 10-12 Ram, "moderate hit" 13-15 Ram, "solid blow" 16+ Ram, "perfect shot" A succesful ramming or skin-dancing check results in resolution of the melee attack. Weapon damage is handled as stated in the individual weapon specs, no other special rules apply. Fighters making a melee attack are fully considered to be skin-dancing and thus may also fire their weapons agaisnt the ship. Fighters attacking gigantic targets have the option of firing their weapons and making one melee attack or making two melee attacks. Defensive use of melee weapons... Just like an interceptor all melee weapons have a defensive mode which can be used to block incoming fire normally or can be used to "parry" or block an attempted melee attack. The melee attack's to-hit roll has the blocking weapon's defensive rating applied to it. Since parying involves a physical hit upon the defending weapons as well as the attacing weapon, a roll must be made to check the endurance of both weapons if either is of a different class from the other. To succeed the endurance check against a weapon of one class difference (capitol and HCV) a 10-20 must be rolled on a D20; to pass when there is a diference in class of two requires a 15-20 roll result. If the weapon fails, its defesive raiting is reduced by one for the remainder of the game (or campaign). Should a weapon's defensive rating reach zero it is considered to be destroyed. A weapon which has a natural defensive rating of zero is also destroyed if it fails an endurance check. Ship melee weapon types... Sword Modes: Standard (1/3 damage to closest side, 1/3 to primary and 1/3 to far side) Damage: Great sword: 6D10+20 (capitol) Long sword: 5D10+9 (HCV) Short sword: 3D10+6 (medium) Defensive: -2 Note: no armor, no overkill Axe/Mace Modes: Standard (3/4 damage to first side, 1/4 to primary, 1/4 to far side) Damage: Battle Axe: 6D10+14 (capitol) 4D10+9 (HCV) Defensive: -1 Note: no armor, no overkill Lance Modes: Standard (1/2 damage to closest side, 1/2 primary) Damage: 5D10+5 (capitol) 3D10+5 (HCV) Defensive: -- Note: no armor Morning Star Modes: Standard Damage: 6D10+16 (capitol) 5D10+10 (HCV) Defensive: -- Note: no armor, no overkill past structure Bladed Wheel aka Pizza Cutter Mode: Raking in volleys of 5 (1/3 to first side, 1/3 to primary and 1/3 to far side) Damage: 5D10+5 (medium only) Defensive: -1 Note: no armor, no overkill Dirk (dagger) Modes: Standard Damage: 2D10+6 (medium only) Defensive: -1 Note: no armor, no overkill Many of the melee weapons use a special sort of mode: they do damage in standard mode but have their daamge divided into two or three groups which are spread through several sections of the ship they attack. Damage is divided equally as stated next to the weapon's mode. The "closest side" of a ship is the side closest to the front of the attacker when it passed through the defender's hex, and the "far side" is the opposite side. In the event that a ship's side is destroyed the damage from a melee weapon is devided among the remaining sides that sould have been hit. For example, an Omega is being attakced by a Vorchan with a long sword. However, the Omega has lost its aft section which is the closest side to the Vorchan as it passed through that hex. Therefore the sword's damage is deivded equally between the primary and forward sections. A ship with only one section remaining has all damage allocated to it. Lances, which attack the closest and primary sections, have their damage allocated to the primary and far side if the closest side is destroyed. Fighter melee weapons... Knife Damage: 1D6+3 Note: no armor, no overkill (against ships) Mini Pizza Cutter Damage: 6 Note: no armor, no overkill (against ships) Well, that's it for now. I don't currently have any point costs calculated, I was thinking about 50-100 points a pop for ships but that may be too much." David Reeves replied: "hey Asmaul, shouldn't the "Pizza Cutter" cause special damage to a Vree ship? ;) " To which Asmaul McChesney replied: "That depends on if you hit them from the top or not I suppose. Perhaps the Vree should be able to fit a giant blade around the edge of their ship making it one giant saw! How about: Giant Vree Blade Mode: Raking, volleys of 10 (1/3 first side, 1/3 primary, 1/3 far side) Damage: 6D10+15 Defensive: 0 Note: no armor, no overkill May only be fitted to Vree saucer ships" Daniel Miller comments: "I want to see minis for this!" ----------------------------------- That's it for this issue, I finally got one of my own messages into it too. If you've read this far you must have enjoyed it (I hope, unless you're some sort of a massachist I guess) so please send me a short message saying you enjoy it. If I don't get any feedback I'm assume no one is interested. Well, see you soon, I hope.