The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Babylon 5 Wars: Second Edition

(Agents of Gaming, catalog number BW-150, authors Bruce Graw and Robert Glass)

Released in plenty of time for the millenium, this revamping of AOG's eminently successful Babylon 5 Wars game is a nice little treat. Available in two formats, a boxed set (rulebooks, maps, counters, ship book, and a handful of miniatures, at $49.95US) or a shrinkwrapped package (rulebook, ship book, and counters only, at $29.95US) it makes both a fine introduction to the Babylon 5 gaming universe and an affordable upgrade for those who have already joined in with first edition.

Presentation

At first glance, it seems like quite a nice package. The rulebook is printed in full color on glossy paper, with lots and lots of full-color images throughout. The ship book is a separate packet this time (unlike first edition), on regular paper with a much-improved format: the system icons and check-boxes are presented on a silhouette of the ship itself, so that they correspond (approximately) to their actual location, rather than being spread arbitrarily over a blank square of paper. 3-view images of the ships are provided as well, here, very nice artwork. The counters are square and brightly colored, making them distinctive to stand out from the board - another improvement over first edition's fade-into-the-background counters. The hex map itself is a nice slick navy blue, further distinguishing it from the counters, and provided in two large sections instead of six small ones - quite convenient.

Where this product suffers most is in the editing. There are frequent spots in the rules text where lines and entire paragraphs have been dropped, the wrong word used, or obsolete text from a previous version left in unchanged. Almost as bad are a few spots where text has been overlain on illustrations without sufficient contrast between the text and the image, rendering entire pages difficult to read. (This motif actually continues throughout the book, with frequent use of image-under-text, but in most cases it is done well. Only a few pages present problems of this sort.) My only other gripe here is the continued use of landscape mode. The font choices are nice and readable, graphics are provided to illustrate points of the rules, and it's chock full of nifty pics of the ships in action.

Presentation grade: 6/10

Content

Overall, a quite satisfying game. The rules have enough complexity to give it some satisfying crunchiness, without degenerating into tedious plodding step-by-step turns. While the system shows its SFB-esque roots in places, it's still nicely sleek and has only a few problems. The turn structure is easily summarized:

Pre-Turn Actions
- Power Resolution: Once again, a nice and simple step that assumes that most ship design engineers do what they can to make sure their ships have enough power to work.
- Initiative Determination: A quick d20 roll, with bonuses to more maneuverable units and those with special advantages, determines the order of movement.
- Electronic Warfare: Lock-ons, jammers, stealth, and all sorts of fun.
Ship Movement
- A fairly middle-of-the-road vector-ish movement system is presented here, with a somewhat clunky setup to track management of available thrust, power to engines, and output capability of various thruster systems. It needs a little work, and it leaves ships very vulnerable to shots targeting the side thrusters used for turning - it's quite easy to leave a ship unable to maneuver this way. A good attempt and almost well thought out, it just needs to go a little further. Ships move in initiative order, thus allowing the more maneuverable units (frigates, fighters, etc) to get the full use of their agility.
Weapons Fire
- Fire Declaration: First, everyone decides who they're going to shoot at, and what weapons they're going to save for defensive interception fire. Should you use that pulse cannon to blow away the enemy fighters, shoot down the incoming missiles, or save it for the next turn? Now's the time to decide.
- Fire Resolution: See if you hit it, and if so, how much damage did you do to what systems. Divided into four substeps: 'Ballistic' missile weapons (fired before movement) impact, ships fire on each other, fighters fire on each other, and finally fighters fire on ships. This allows for the possibility of weapons being disabled before they can fire, fighters to be shot down as they make their attack run, and so forth. The subject of bitter online debate.
- Critical hits: Damage to systems can reduce their effectiveness, with a revamped system that increases the severity of the result as the damage to the system increases.
Post-Turn Actions
- The rest of the fun stuff happens here. Fighter launch and recovery, boarding party combat, and the promise of more as additional supplements add details to the game.

Once this is done, the book moves on to other fun stuff, giving brief histories and overviews of the four major powers covered - the Earth Alliance, Narn Regime, Minbari Federation, and Centauri Republic. Each section includes a background piece on the star nation in question, followed by descriptions (and rules for) the weapons technologies they use, a short description of the structure and practices of their military, and a full-page spread on each of the ships and fighters presented for that nation in the basic set. All of the most prominently seen ships from the show are covered, and a few more besides:

Earth Alliance: Omega Destroyer, Nova Dreadnought, Hyperion Cruiser, Olympus Corvette, Starfury Fighter, and Thunderbolt fighter
Minbari Federation: Sharlin War Cruiser, Tinashi Frigate, White Star, and Nial Fighter
Centauri Republic: Primus Battlecruiser, Demos Light Cruiser, Vorchan Attack Ship, Sentri Fighter
Narn Regime: G'Quan Heavy Cruiser, Ta'Loth Assault Ship, Frazi Fighter

The book closes with a brief afterword, credits, and contact information for Agents of Gaming.

Content Rating: 7.5/10

All in all: A very nice game, and one I have a lot of fun playing. Still, a few mistakes crop up....

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Babylon 5 Wars: Second Edition
Author: Bruce Graw and Robert Glass Category: Miniature Company/Publisher: Agents of Gaming Line: Babylon 5 Wars Cost: Varies Page count: 96 SKU: BW-150 Capsule Review by Chris Nasipak on 12/28/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction Space	Babylon 5 Wars: Second Edition (Agents of Gaming, catalog number BW-150, authors Bruce Graw and Robert Glass) Released in plenty of time for the millenium, this revamping of AOG's eminently successful Babylon 5 Wars game is a nice little treat. Available in two formats, a boxed set (rulebooks, maps, counters, ship book, and a handful of miniatures, at $49.95US) or a shrinkwrapped package (rulebook, ship book, and counters only, at $29.95US) it makes both a fine introduction to the Babylon 5 gaming universe and an affordable upgrade for those who have already joined in with first edition. Presentation At first glance, it seems like quite a nice package. The rulebook is printed in full color on glossy paper, with lots and lots of full-color images throughout. The ship book is a separate packet this time (unlike first edition), on regular paper with a much-improved format: the system icons and check-boxes are presented on a silhouette of the ship itself, so that they correspond (approximately) to their actual location, rather than being spread arbitrarily over a blank square of paper. 3-view images of the ships are provided as well, here, very nice artwork. The counters are square and brightly colored, making them distinctive to stand out from the board - another improvement over first edition's fade-into-the-background counters. The hex map itself is a nice slick navy blue, further distinguishing it from the counters, and provided in two large sections instead of six small ones - quite convenient. Where this product suffers most is in the editing. There are frequent spots in the rules text where lines and entire paragraphs have been dropped, the wrong word used, or obsolete text from a previous version left in unchanged. Almost as bad are a few spots where text has been overlain on illustrations without sufficient contrast between the text and the image, rendering entire pages difficult to read. (This motif actually continues throughout the book, with frequent use of image-under-text, but in most cases it is done well. Only a few pages present problems of this sort.) My only other gripe here is the continued use of landscape mode. The font choices are nice and readable, graphics are provided to illustrate points of the rules, and it's chock full of nifty pics of the ships in action. Presentation grade: 6/10 Content Overall, a quite satisfying game. The rules have enough complexity to give it some satisfying crunchiness, without degenerating into tedious plodding step-by-step turns. While the system shows its SFB-esque roots in places, it's still nicely sleek and has only a few problems. The turn structure is easily summarized: Pre-Turn Actions Power Resolution: Once again, a nice and simple step that assumes that most ship design engineers do what they can to make sure their ships have enough power to work. Initiative Determination: A quick d20 roll, with bonuses to more maneuverable units and those with special advantages, determines the order of movement. Electronic Warfare: Lock-ons, jammers, stealth, and all sorts of fun. Ship Movement A fairly middle-of-the-road vector-ish movement system is presented here, with a somewhat clunky setup to track management of available thrust, power to engines, and output capability of various thruster systems. It needs a little work, and it leaves ships very vulnerable to shots targeting the side thrusters used for turning - it's quite easy to leave a ship unable to maneuver this way. A good attempt and almost well thought out, it just needs to go a little further. Ships move in initiative order, thus allowing the more maneuverable units (frigates, fighters, etc) to get the full use of their agility. Weapons Fire Fire Declaration: First, everyone decides who they're going to shoot at, and what weapons they're going to save for defensive interception fire. Should you use that pulse cannon to blow away the enemy fighters, shoot down the incoming missiles, or save it for the next turn? Now's the time to decide. Fire Resolution: See if you hit it, and if so, how much damage did you do to what systems. Divided into four substeps: 'Ballistic' missile weapons (fired before movement) impact, ships fire on each other, fighters fire on each other, and finally fighters fire on ships. This allows for the possibility of weapons being disabled before they can fire, fighters to be shot down as they make their attack run, and so forth. The subject of bitter online debate. Critical hits: Damage to systems can reduce their effectiveness, with a revamped system that increases the severity of the result as the damage to the system increases. Post-Turn Actions The rest of the fun stuff happens here. Fighter launch and recovery, boarding party combat, and the promise of more as additional supplements add details to the game. Once this is done, the book moves on to other fun stuff, giving brief histories and overviews of the four major powers covered - the Earth Alliance, Narn Regime, Minbari Federation, and Centauri Republic. Each section includes a background piece on the star nation in question, followed by descriptions (and rules for) the weapons technologies they use, a short description of the structure and practices of their military, and a full-page spread on each of the ships and fighters presented for that nation in the basic set. All of the most prominently seen ships from the show are covered, and a few more besides: Earth Alliance: Omega Destroyer, Nova Dreadnought, Hyperion Cruiser, Olympus Corvette, Starfury Fighter, and Thunderbolt fighter Minbari Federation: Sharlin War Cruiser, Tinashi Frigate, White Star, and Nial Fighter Centauri Republic: Primus Battlecruiser, Demos Light Cruiser, Vorchan Attack Ship, Sentri Fighter Narn Regime: G'Quan Heavy Cruiser, Ta'Loth Assault Ship, Frazi Fighter The book closes with a brief afterword, credits, and contact information for Agents of Gaming. Content Rating: 7.5/10 All in all: A very nice game, and one I have a lot of fun playing. Still, a few mistakes crop up.... Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)