From: Mike Wikan <mww@n...>
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 05:23:02 -0400
Subject: Detailed B5wars report (long)
> > SO how about a more detailed review of the game?! Turn sequence, > YES! Please Oh Please Unca Mike. Tell us about the game. <snip> Ok, you young whipper snappers, gather round the fire n' ahll tell you a story sure t'scare the bujeezuz out uh ya.. oops-wrong story..;-) B5Wars detailed report: The game is a turn-based system that flows in the following order: 1)Start of turn actions (Electronic Warfare allocation, announce accel/decel, determine power, roll initiative, launch mines) 2) Movement (open jump points, move ships taking turns from the lowest roll moving first. fighters move after capitals, which move after civilian) 3)Combat 4)End of turn functions For those of you who played the playtest version, they got rid of the two pseudo turn concept (I never understood it anyway). They changed the to-hit system to a d20 based system to speed things up (hooray!) you may apply EW points defensively on a 1 point subtracts one from opponent's to hit roll or offensively by assigning it to lock on an enemy ship (as opposed to assigning EW to a firing weapon) improving your to-hit score on a 1 to 1 basis. Weapons capable of intercepting subtract from the to hit number of the attacking weapon by it's intercept rating. One weapon can only be used to intercept one attack. One weapon may not intercept two attacks (but two or more weapons may intercept one attack) They made maneuvering a bit easier with a base thrust point pool to maneuver with. You can still overthrust and roll and pivot. Damage allocation depends on the type of weapon attacking. A pulse cannon delevers a randomized number of damage volleys distributed randomly across the target, Beam weapons have modifiers like Raking, Piercing, or Sustained with eachmodifier applied against the target differently. Every system has an armor rating that all damage is applied against. any damage over the armor rating is applied to the system it protects. When all the system's boxes are destroyed, the system is gone. There are Fwd, Port, Starboard, aft, and primary (core) sections to the capital ships. Damage transfers in if a side's structure is gone. If you lose the Primary structure..*boom* Fighters have a neat little damage strip with integrated criticals based on the direction the damage came from. I will only use the flight level rules, ever. Who wants to maneuver 24 Frazis individually with your G'Quon, anyway..;-) They made the Centauri Vorchan more useful with the addition of two twin arrays. Limited ship customization is possible by purchasing special equipment. Never fight the Minbari. Just don't. Anyway, while the ship control templates are somewhat reminiscent of SFB, the game is nowhere near that much of a kludge. I think AoG hit a good balance between detail and speed of play (no small thanks, I think to the on-line playtesters..) and there is a special thanks in the PBEM rules section to Jim Bell and the Electronic Playtest group. All this having been said, I would buy it. I like B5. I like Full Thrust. Star Fleet battles was Okay, but went way, way out of control. This reminds me of how SFB was in the beginning before anyone EVER thought of UIM modules or Transporter bombs or Pseudo Plasma torpedoes.. Happy Hunting, gang- I think it'll be hitting shelves this and next week..