From: Christopher Weuve <caw@w...>
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:52:43 -0400
Subject: OFF-TOPIC mini review B5 Wars
CAVEATS 1) I haven't played the final version; I was a playtester, though, for two earlier incarnations, and I have looked over (somewhat briefly) the final version purchased at Origins. 2) Almost all of the suggestions our playtest group made were ignored. If this means you think that I am a cranky and bitter old coot whose pissed he didn't get his way, well, I would like to point out that my opinion of the product hasn't changed since I saw the first playtest copy. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY It's better -- barely -- than the playtest version. Unfortunately, most of the things that were broken are still broken, with the likelyhood that something was fixed being inversely proportional to how seriously it was broken (i.e., they spent a lot of time changing light bulbs on the Titanic). PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION Black unmounted maps with white hexes. Counters are beautiful (they were done by Mike Wikan) but printed too darkly. Includes a half dozen minis which need to be assembled and painted. (I wonder if they tried to arrange a deal with Galoob for B5 micromachines? Probably not.) PROS 1) Lots of background info, it seems. Big thick rulebook (90+ pages) with plenty of black and white photos from the show. 2) They also came up with a somewhat-clunky-but-I-guess-it-works fix to one of the more serious problems, the "energy point" problem. In the playtest version, ships moved by funnelling energy points from the reactor through their thrusters, which generate thrust points. Each reactor point (regardless of the ship) generated one thrust point, and each thrust point (regardless of the ship) generated one one hex per turn of thrust. Think about this for thirty seconds, max, and you will realize that implies that ALL SHIPS HAVE THE SAME MASS. Well, they fixed it, and while it wasn't exactly how we would do it, I guess it will do. They added an "engine", which has two salient features: first, it provides a certain number of "free" thrust points which can be routed through the thrusters to produce thrust; second, for "extra" thrust, it converts energy points to thrust points which are then routed through the thrusters, based on an "engine efficiency" rating. While this is somewhat cumbersome from an engineering point of view, it has the distinct advanatage that, in most cases, the players don't have to calculate anything to expend thrust. 4) Combat system has been simplified a little. Basically, its a d20 system now, instead of d100, with DRMs based on 150+ variables. (Okay, it's really only about ten variables.) CONS 1) The biggest con is that the movement system is STILL broken. Anyone who has read my earlier comments on this game knows that I think the movement system is clunky and unrealistic. (See [http://www.wizard.net/~caw/ aogprob.htm] for details.) Well, it appears that they have tweaked it a bit, but you still have things like rotating is in increments of 180 degrees and takes *exactly* three turns (regardless of the size of the ship), 60 degree turns cost less energy than 30 degree turns, etc. 2) One other problem with the playtest version that I have not had a chance to test with this one was the arbitrary nature of the combat system. This is an excerpt from our second playtest report: > The more we play the game, the more uneasy we feel about the combat At > best, we would have only a vague feeling that this or that value is > totally arbitrary manner. > design the ship's included in the game. Second, even if the original 3) My personal pet peeve -- the Earthforce Omega class destroyer does not have a rotating section. Anyone who has seen the episode where the loyalist forces attacked Babylon 5 know that the bridge crew of the _Alexander_ was VERY worried about damage to the spin section forcing them to stop rotation. Considering the damage system involves specific hit locations, you would think the rotating section would have to be included. Yet, there is nothing in the game to indicate the ship even has a rotating section! 4) The Earthforce ships have "interceptors", which are CIWS designed to intercept incoming fire. To their credit, AoG change it so that the interceptors can no longer intercept incoming laser fire. However, they have added the idea that the interceptors somehow generate a forcefield that degrades laser fire. Yuck. 5) The ship sheets are in the back of the book, perforated for removal. Why do it this way? Why not make the ship sheets a separate booklet, where they would be easy to photocopy (which they grant permission for), like GDW did with _Star Cruiser_, TFG does with _SFB_, etc.? Players are left with the alternatives of defacing the rules or limiting the quality of the copies that can be made. OVERALL ASSESSMENT This is a generic tactical space combat game with the name "Babylon 5" slapped on the front. As such, there is little to recommend it *out of the box* over simply playing _Renegade Legion:Leviathan_, _Silent Death_, _Battlespace_ or a host of other such games. Anyone wanting to play a B5 game would be better off playing _Full Thrust_ with one of the four or five B5 rulesets floating around the net ([http://www.uwm.edu/~cthulhu/FT/thrust.html] is a good place to start searching for them), or waiting a month and getting Chameleon Eclectic's _Earthforce Sourcebook_, which, as we all know, includes Jon Tuffley's _Full Thrust_-derived system. This is not to say that I don't intend to purchase it. While pretty much useless as is, I think that _B5W_ can be saved by scrapping the movement system and replacing it with a homegrown system. A colleague and I are working on such a system, which I will put on my website as soon as it's done, and which we hope to run at NOVAGCon in August.