B5W question

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> The minis are of good quality, but are oversized and thus expensive.
They
> are supposed to be coming out with a "micro" scale of mini (it's

Hm. I may buy some of those for EFSB play. The normal huge ones are awfully
pricey...

IMHO:

It's a hex based (although I think they just came out with a vector system)
representation of ship to ship combat in the B5 universe. The complexity is
between Full Thrust and Starfleet Battles, closer to the SFB side. The couple
of games I've played have been very slow paced even with just a few ships. The
level of detail is high (allocating damage to the section of the ship where
the weapon would have actually hit, allocating power to weapons and systems,
armor on individual systems, etc...) but the book keeping is very time
consuming.

It's not a bad game, but more than I want to go through when I just want to
have fun blowing a friend's cruisers out of space.

They've just released a 2nd edition that's supposed to tie up a few loose ends
and add some new rules. Haven't actually seen it yet.

The minis aren't bad either.

Thanks, Nathan

> -----Original Message-----

> Does anyone on the list have an opinion about this game? What is

> On Wed, 31 Mar 1999 11:43:53 -0800, Nathan Pettigrew writes:

Just to add some more bits of info:

official web site: www.agentsofgaming.com

I also happen to run the B5W mailing list.:) I can give you details
about it off-line if you want.

ps. Its really wierd how often the 3 space game mailing lists I run
(starfire, gzg-l and babylon5-wars) mention each other and ask for
info.

> ps. Its really wierd how often the 3 space game mailing lists I run
Why does that sound weird if people play the same type of game it would make
sense that they would try different systems

If you want cheap Earthforce Nova's & Omega Dreadnoughts, the easiest thing is
to get some GZG NSL Von Tegetthoff SDNs & glue some of the engine pods from
the NAC Excaliber BDN onto the central pylon after a little judicious filing.

'Neath Southern Skies
http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
Cmdr Robertson - GCV Southern Skies [BC3000AD]
Task Force Admiral Rollins - CNS Waterloo [MKW]
Fleet Admiral Doyle - NKV Vesuvius [La Fayette Incident]
Gunslinger, Emperor & all-around demigod.

[quoted original message omitted]

> It's a hex based (although I think they just came out with a vector

B5W is a very "hands on" kind of game. In my opinion, a person cannot
comfortably handle more that about 4 ships in a game by themselves (any more,
and it's more like work than it is play). It does an adequate job of
simulating B5 combat, with the exception of the way it handles fighters.
 In
the game, fighters are far tougher physically than they are depicted in the
show. In the soon to be released Second Edition, they've added a fighter
dropout roll at the end of the turn to "kill" damaged fighters that couldn't
be killed by the anti-fighter guns or other fighters.  Needless to say,
this doesn't help to streamline a game that could use all the streamlining it
can get.

You really don't have to allocate power like you do in SFB. Most systems have
power automatically allocated to them every turn. You can shut these systems
down and use the extra power elsewhere if you so desire, though. The real time
consuming part comes at the beginning of each turn where you do these "power
shennanigans", allocate EW to target specific ships, and figure which thruster
you're channelling your thrust through.

As far as a Vector system is concerned, AoG will not be adding any such thing.
There are a couple of sites on the Web that have very good vector movement
systems for B5W if that is what you like to use. In the
Narn/Centauri War of Retribution Atlas, they came out with a simple
hexless, tabletop movement system.

> It's not a bad game, but more than I want to go through when I just

It's not a very good "fleet" level game. It is much better for smaller
engagements.

> They've just released a 2nd edition that's supposed to tie up a few
The Second Edition is due out later in April, so don't buy the ones you see
out right now. Oh, and one of the goofy things they are doing is putting 6
Narn Frazi heavy fighters and 6 Centauri Sentri medium fighters in the boxed
Second Edition instead of the better assortment you got in the First Edition
(3 of each of the 4 main races' fighters).

> The minis aren't bad either.

The minis are of good quality, but are oversized and thus expensive. They are
supposed to be coming out with a "micro" scale of mini (it's actually a
normal sized mini - the kind they probably should have put out to begin
with) sometime in the ill-defined future.

All in all, it's a pretty good game. It can be very time consuming though
because of the detail involved.