Author: Bruce Graw and Robert Glass
Category: miniature
Company/Publisher: Agents of Gaming
Cost: $45
Page count: 80
Playtest Review by Chris Nasipak on 08/07/98.
Genre tags: none
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Babylon 5 Wars< | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Author: Bruce Graw and Robert Glass
Category: miniature Company/Publisher: Agents of Gaming Cost: $45 Page count: 80 Playtest Review by Chris Nasipak on 08/07/98. Genre tags: none | Babylon 5 Wars is a fine product from Agents of Gaming, a board game detailing starship combat in the Babylon 5 universe. All in all, I believe the game to be well-executed, with a few exceptions I'll note later.
Presentation:
The game comes in a nicely decorated sturdy cardboard box. The top illustration is a still from the show, the Agamemmnon and Hamato firing on an off-screen target. One corner is overlaid with the B5Wars logo. The back repeats the B5Wars logo, with a small screen-shot of a Narn cruiser. A brief teaser fiction is accompanied by a 'what's in this box' list, copyright notices, and a 'what is this game' paragraph.
Inside, we find (as promised): A rulebook, several large hex maps, two counter sheets (one of capital ships, one of fighters), a sheet of generic counters, and a pair of dice. I was concerned at first, because I didn't see the booklet of ship control sheets, but further examination found them inserted as perforated pages at the end of the rulebook.
The Rulebook:
The book opens with a brief fiction piece, to introduce players to the world of Babylon 5 and welcome back the fans. After that, we are plunged directly into the meat of the rules. An overview of the turn sequence may look intimidating at first, but it's actually fairly simple. See the section on 'The Rules' below.
The font choices are excellent, highly readable, and there are quite a few nice illustrations included. One poor choice of illustration was for the Narn Ta'Loth-class assault vessel, which shows almost nothing of the ship's actual shape and left me trying to guess which counter to use to represent it. (But, then, we never do get a good view of it in the show, so this isn't a real big surprise.)
My only organizational gripe is with the placement of the descriptions and statistics on the various weapons. This information is scattered into three locations in the rulebook: The main descriptive text on the weapons and special rules for their individual use is located with the descriptions of the individual races who use them. Generic rules on weapons are filed under the Combat section of the rules. The actual numbers - damage, range, power consumption, and so forth - are listed only on the actual ship control sheets.
Countersheets:
The artwork on the two full-color countersheets is -very- nice. Individual ships are well-detailed, and fit well with their depictions in the series. A nice point: The (hexagonal) counters are slightly smaller than the hexes on the maps, making it easy for one to pick a single ship out of a mass of closely-moving craft. Some things bothered me, however - 18 counters were included for the EarthForce, Narn, and Centauri fighters, but only 17 Minbari, along with 12 Minbari Flyers and 12 Raider fighters. Also, several ship counters were included that I have completely failed to identify, I presume they are race-specific generic freighters, shuttles, or other craft. (Some have noted that the counters are a bit hard to see, black on the black of the map, I've never had this problem myself but others might. I recommend substituting the map with one from another game, such as FASA's BattleSpace, or with a felt or vinyl mat available from your local gaming shop.)
The generic countersheet includes markers for turn locations, direction of movement for pivoting ships, and so on: all the markers one might need during the game. A few are also tossed in to represent asteroids and escape pods. These are done in 3/8" squares, black on white, to provide a high contrast with the color-on-black-hexagon ship counters.
Mapboards:
Six hex mapboards, each about 18" on a side, are provided. They're made of a nice stiff paper, and the hexes are numbered sequentially from map to map. A blank edge is included along the right and bottom sides, so the map cards can be overlaid to allow more convenient arrangement. While I have yet to test it, the glossy finish should easily resist damage from scotch tape used to hold them down.
Dice:
1d6 and 1d20 are provided. The game will need at least 1d20 per player, and I recommend adding at least 4 d10's and a few d6's. Fighters and pulse weapons will use d6's extensively (the game reccommends using 1d20/4 for the d5 to determine pulse weapon damage, but rolling the d6 and re-rolling 6's is considerably easier on the mathematically disinclined.) All other weapon damage uses d10's, and while this can easily be simulated with d20's, most gamers will have plenty of d10's to hand.
Ship control sheets:
As I mentioned earlier, these ended up being placed as perforated pages at the end of the rulebook. Unlike the rest of the book, they're printed in portrait mode, again confusing me as to why they chose to print in landscape mode. The various ship systems are readily identifiable by the appropriately-shaped icons, and the various numeric data required for each ship is easily locatable. The systems are organized into Front, Left, Right, Aft, and Primary (or Internal) portions of the ship, and all systems on the appropriate section are connected by a dotted line, to make it quite clear where they belong. As the friend who purchased the game for me got it autographed by JMS, I've left these sheets in the book, making a single set of photocopy masters to take further copies from.
Note that SCS' are now being set in a new format, with the icons placed on an actual silhouette of the vessel. War of Retribution (covering the Narn-Centauri War) uses the old format, but I have been informed that all later supplements will utilize the new form.
Of course, the Vorlons were completely left out, being saved for the 'Shadow War' supplement. *sigh*
As is the Babylon 5 station itself. *sigh*
The Rules, by turn sequence:
1> Power Allocation, Initiative, EW, Accelerations
Power allocation (one of the great spectres of games like StarFleet Battles) is simplified considerably: Each ship has sufficient power for all of its systems. If the engines are damaged, or the player wants to divert power for additional ECM, thrust, or other special actions, systems must be deactivated to provide it.
Initiative is based on a 1d20 roll, with modifiers for a few factors (ship size, extremely slow speed, just-launched fighters, and so forth.) Movement is done in the order of initiative rolls, with a few modifications.
Electronic warfare uses a fast, elegant system. Each ship has a set sensor rating, though additional points can be generated for a significant power expenditure. Each of these points can be allocated to locking on to an enemy ship (thus giving a to-hit bonus), or to defenseive ECCM (making your own ship harder to hit). Firing at a ship you don't have a 'lock-on' with (at least one point of ECM allocated to the target) nets you big penalties on the to-hit rolls.
Accelerations: All changes in movement speed are handled at this point. Each ship has a variety of thrusters - at least one to each side - though acceleration is usually handled through the rear or front thrusters, depending on the direction one wishes to move. Some strategy is required in doing so, however, as each thruster can only channel a certain amount of energy towards these vector changes.
2> Movement and Maneuver
This section describes the rules involved in (obviously enough) the movement phase of the turn. Rules regarding engine, reactor, and thruster use are fully described, along with the various movement options: Turns, Sideslips, Extended Turns, Rolls, and Pivots. Turns are one of the more complex maneuvers, actually: First, the thrust cost must be calculated. This involves multiplying the ship's current speed by a constant, with no look-up tables required. This amount of thrust must then be generated through two sets of thrusters, generally those to the aft and the side opposite the direction of the turn. The ship must then wait until it has moved forward a certain number of hexes (known as the Turn Delay, and generated in the same manner) before it can turn again.
Extended Turns are a real advantage to ships moving at high speed or with thruster damage: the thrust cost of a turn can be paid over the course of two game turns.
Pivots and Rolls involve rotating the ship without changing the direction of movement, and are handled in the same manner: a thrust cost is paid, from the side, to start the rotation, and a second thrust is made to stop it.
Fighters and Shuttles have a somewhat simplified set of movement rules, and a big advantage (obviously based on the Starfury's combat maneuvering, but extended to all fighters): the Combat Pivot. At the end of the movement phase, any fighter may pay double the cost of a turn to change facing to any hex-side it wishes. The combat potential of such a maneuver is, of course, obvious. Fighters also have another advantage over capital ships: All capital ships move in initiative order, then all fighters move. Emphasizes their mobility advantage.
3> Combat Procedure
Unlike movement, weapons fire is declared and resolved simultaneously. Each player declares their targets in advance (writing them down is recommended), then the actual resolution goes around the table.
Resolving a shot: Each vessel has a Defensive Value (two, actually, one for shots coming from the side, one for fire from the front and rear), which is the base to-hit number for all fire directed at the ship. ECM and fire-control modifiers for each ship and the specific weapon type are applied. The player then attempts to roll under the final result on 1d20.
Resolving Damage: Most weapons do damage in the range of xd10+y, which can be resolved in one of several modes, from Standard which applies all the damage to one system, Raking weapons which spread huge chunks of damage over several systems, and Piercing which can cut right through the hull to damage the internal systems. Finally, some light weapons can be fired in Interception mode, providing additional penalties to the to-hit roll. (EarthForce ships are equipped with weapons dedicated to this roll, the infamous 'Interceptors'. They also make potent anti-fighter weapons.)
Speaking of Interceptors, however, I've another gripe with the system here. Despite its being passed by JMS' scrutiny, I'm not quite sure I'm reading things correctly. According to AOG's rules, weapons in Interception mode can affect any fire except lasers. EarthForce Interceptor batteries generate an 'energy web' around the ship that *is* able to block laser fire. This sounds suspiciously like a force field to me, and Earth is the -lowest- tech of the four main races.... I suppose you could call it 'chaff' or some such, but it's still suspicious to me.
Fighters have a simplified version of these rules, again: They have only one location to hit, and at varying damage levels along that track automatically take criticals. Each crit has a choice of three effects, depending on the direction the incoming fire came from. 'Flight level' rules for fighters allow one to handle fighter combat by squadrons, with a table printed on the fighter control sheets to determine how many of the group hit the target with a single die roll.
All in all, I found the combat system elegant, nicely done, and fitting to the genre.
4> Other Rules and Procedures
5> The Races
Summaries and historical information is provided for each of the four major races (Human, Minbari, Narn, Centauri). Each section includes a brief history, a description of the weapons used by that race, and a paragraph or two on the race's armed forces. After this, a description is provided of each vessel included in the book, along with a screen shot of the ship in question. The section ends with a fiction piece describing combat from the point of view of a ship's crew of the race in question.
My main gripe with this (the inclusion of weapons descriptions only here) has already been dealt with, but I've one or two others. The use of screen shots will appeal to the fans of the show, but the fighter shots tend to be blurry or grainy, and the Narn Ta'Loth cruiser is shown head-on and mixed in with other ships, leaving it nearly impossible to identify its counter.
6> Scenario Notes:
Plenty of ideas on setting up scenarios, including rules for varying types of terrain - asteroid fields, nebulae, et cetera. However, only a couple of brief actual scenarios are included, almost detailless. The other notes, however, make up for this quite well for those players who prefer to create their own scenarios.
7> Afterword:
A thanks to everyone who helped, submission guidelines (including "don't bother to send stuff that conflicts with the show" and an explanation of -why- all submissions become their copyrighted property), and a highly useful index.
8> The ship control sheets:
Already commented on.
All in all, a nicely done game. A summary of my pros and cons:
1 - Landscaped rulebook.
2 + Well-written rules, easily understood.
3 + Excellent vector movement system, easily the best I've seen yet.
4 + Combat system readily re-creates the feel of the show.
5 - Interceptors and 'energy webs'? Uh...It's JMS-approved, yes, but I'm still not sure I buy it.
6 - No shuttles? (Note, rules for these have come out since, and are not really needed since the shuttles are not normally used in combat.)
7 + Excellent handling of fighters, and their advantages and disadvantages over capital ships. (In one game we ran, a fighter group was able to seriously maul a capital ship until the cruiser was able to nail it with several weapons, the fighters once hit didn't stick around.)
8 + NICEly done ship control sheets. Much better than SFB or Fasa's games, easily the best I've seen for the genre.
9 + Vetted (and autographed) by JMS. 'nuff said.
Summary:
The B5 fan/Gamer must buy this game, though there will be bits he'll have to twiddle. Joe Gamer who wants a good space-battle system will find it a hell of a lot simpler and sleeker than SFB, and a heck of a lot more realistic than most other games on the market. The B5 fan who is just getting into gaming will find it a fine system to learn on.
I highly recommend it, a definite 4.5 stars. Back to the Top of the Review
Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
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One of my
particular gripes turns up here, as the rulebook is printed in
landscape mode. Sure, it fits better with the cover portrait (a
reprint of the same B5 still as the box top), but it makes the
book harder to flip through and encumbering. Other than this,
however, I have few gripes about the rulebook (one
organizational, the other simple: three or four typoes made it
through the editing process.)
