The Babylon 5 Wars List Magazine Issue #2 Aug 17, 1998 Well this is certainly a thick issue: we have numerous battle reports and a huge set of discussions revolving around fighters and the Thunderbolt. Not much Q&A form Bruce this time around and not many tactics being discussed, but the volume is there anyway if nothing else. I'm really hoping to get some submissions for next issue so try to do something especially those of you not on the list currently. Zeb Magby has agreed to do an HTML version of the magazine on his web page, so you can all look forward to that. - Editor, Jasper McChesney IN THIS ISSUE ------------- ANNOUNCEMENTS: Max Natzet announces players in campaign Jeff Hiat announces new mini pictures TACTICS/BATTLE REPORTS: Battle report: Narn vs. Centauri Narn END project scenario battle report Altarian vs Var'Nic battle report Battle report: Ka'Toc vs two Mograth RULES DISCUSSION/SUGGESTION: Twins on the side of the Octurian cannot be hit Moderator-less PBEM rules Little difference between HCVs and Medium warships? Thunderbolt changes needed? Thunderbolt: True to the show? Missiles on fighters OFFICIAL: Recent Q&A SCENARIOS/SHIP DESIGN: Attempted design of the Badger "The Ultimate Test" SUBMISSIONS: You may submit posts you think deserve to be in (not necessarily your own), as well as any column or article you write specifically to be submitted. I will not alter any text submitted but I will alter formatting. I reserve the right to reject any article or column for any reason (though it will not be for personal reasons). ----------------------------------- ANNOUNCEMENTS ----------------------------------- Max Natzet announces players in campaign "As the drums of war pound nearer, the Narn & Centauri high commands begin to gather in darkened war rooms to plan strategies. The Centauri Republic Players: Lord Admiral John Kennington Ga_Druid@email.msn.com Admiral Sidney Kuhn Sidneykuhn@fwb.gulf.net Admiral Jonathan Kiang jonathan.kiang@yale.edu Admiral Daniel Miller danielmi@expert.cc.purdue.edu The Narn Regime Players: War Leader Brad Bateman BLbateman@worldnet.att.net Warrior Dan Foxman DanFoxman@aol.com Warrior John Crouch JohnACrouch@compuserve.com Warrior Greg Kniaz nowhereman@aol.com Alternates List: Bob Marriott RMarriott@aol.com Laurent Leclerc jmar-ped@icrdl.net Chris Nasipak croaker@servtech.com The alternates list is at its lowest ebb since the start of the B5W PBeM campaign's start - sign up today. Campaign Rules, including the Atlas of the Narn-Centauri War inspired map, are available at: http://watt.seas.Virginia.EDU/~mfn8j/B5Campaign.html There's also now a link of the AoG webpage to the site for those players that keep losing the address - you know who you are. Players are expected to confir with their Admirals this week. I expect starting forces to be presented to me by Friday, 21 Aug and the war will commence the following Monday." ----------------------------------- Jeff Hiatt announces new mini pictures: I have just put up pictures of the Dargan, Altarian, Dag'Kar and Thentus minis here: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Coffeehouse/3552/NCW/4newmini.html Let me know what you think. I am especially interested in what everybody thinks of the color scheme that I chose for the Altarian ----------------------------------- TACTICS/BATTLE REPORTS ----------------------------------- Battle Report: Narn vs. Centauri Jamie Coleman posts: "1 Bin'Tak (with hardened armor on the rear twin & 2 lt pulse, for 1500 points) vs 1 Maximus defense frigate & 2 Mograth frigates (1474, IIRC). Whew... all I've got to say is.. AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRGHHHHH! Some very fluky die rolling, and for the record I always hit the hangar on my primary shots. *sigh* No boom today. Anyways, back to our regular scheduled battle reporting: Centauri start out all in one hex, speed 8. Bin'Tak at speed 1 (also all in one hex). Turn 1: Centauri figured to stay in one hex to greatly reduce odds of someone wandering into an emine, but increase the damage potential. Pretty much a trade off, and with all the guardians providing extra coverage vs. the ion torps.... Ended up next to an e-mine and it didn't scatter or fizzle. *sigh* Each ship was hit on a retro, crits on 2 of them (1 efficiency, 1 reduced) After that, pretty much didn't get into engagement range for the Centauri until turn 4. The Narn (moving at their stately speed of 1), wasn't able to hit until then, either (small profiles and everything in DEW..). The Centauri sped up to speed 12 on turn 2, since no e- mines would be firing so they didn't need thrust for wildly unpredictable (heh) maneuvers. ;) Turn 4: The Centauri forces split. Ranges around 13-20. One MC took out an HL on the B'T, and got a hit on a twin for a critical (-2 damage). The firing Mograth (#2) got a little chewed up, as well, a couple points on the Plasma stream (no crit), and a little structure. Heavy lasers missed. Mag Gun missed. Turn 5: Ranges close more, Bin'Tak throws it in reverse (speed -1). Mograth #2 going after the Bin'Tak's port side, where it's weak because the HLs have fired and the twins are half gone. Range 3, the other MC connected with an aimed shot at the thruster, but only for 9 points, and the plasma stream did a whopping 3D10 -6 (for range) = 2 + 1 + 3 - 6 = 0!!! Mograth #2 caught an ion torp in return, was chewed up by some more light weapons, lost both twins and is down to about half front structure at this point. The Maximus and Mograth #1 were at ranges 10 & 11 on the front, trying to chew up some of the weapon systems. MC & some twins hit. Blew away the front pulse cannon darned good with the MC (woopee). Most everything else hitting structure. At this point, the Narn are rolling significantly below average for to-hits. Centauri are rolling hot for to-hits, but poor on either damage or location. (1's & 3's on all but one twin for damage). Turn 6: All three Centauri are able to work over the port side of the Bin'Tak. At this point, the speeds are 12 for Mograth #2, and 10 for the Maximus, and Mograth #1 slowed down to 9. Bin'Tak drops to - 3 for speed. Some more shooting. More bad luck for Narn gunners to hit. Centauri only moderately better, took out an ion torp, but missed with a plasma stream. Maximus gets hit on the front, mostly thruster hits - loses one retro (the one damaged by the e-mine in turn 1) and the other is down to 2 structure and a crit (thrust reduced). Turn 7: Some more circling around, Bin'Tak grinds the transmission a bit by throwing it into forward (well, came to a dead stop, anyways, and just sort of did the Sit'n'Spin thing). Maximus trying to figure out to get back into the fight.. but it dumped most EW into OEW and took some mid-range (13 hexes) shots. Got lucky and took out the Mag Gun, which the Narn had decided not to shoot back at it this turn (it was charged, but wouldn't've hit). The Mograths continue their dance, alternating on matter cannons to fire. Some more collateral damage all around. Turn 8: Mograths get good position - one on port side, one on rear - and the Maximus is out circling the fight at mid range (trying to get speed down a bit). Both plasma streams hit, mostly on structure (well, THAT finally worked out). Worked over the Bin'Tak a little bit. Mograth #2 lost its front end to a heavy laser, though. At this point we called it because of time. Outcome was still wide open. Status of ships: Mograth #2's front fell off in turn 8, but it still had a guardian to help cover other ships (but it was going to be a couple turns to slow down to a usable speed, though and loop back around into the fight). Mograth #1 had one retro blown off (took a second hit on the Efficiency reduced one), and 4 to front structure. Practically in mint condition! :) (especially by turn 8!!!!) Maximus: Lost 1 Retro, the other was down to 2 points left, and was thrust reduced to 2. 6 damage to front structure, 2 to rear structure. Also fairly unscathed, and I'm kicking myself for not pivoting it (forgot.. agile) 180 and slowing down with main thrusters sooner. Doh! Bin'Tak: Front: Mag gun, 1 HL, 1 Lt Pulse all gone. 1 Retro with 9 damage, an e-mine with 3 damage, no crits on either. Starboard: Lt pulse gone, 12 structure gone. Rear: twin gone, 1 thruster down by 9, 12 structure. rear structure down to 4 armor. Port: 1 twin gone, 1 ion torp gone, 1 twin down to 2 points with a crit on damage, thruster down to 2 points remaining with -1 thrust and 1 efficiency crits and down to 4 armor. Port structure down by 54 points (of 96) with armor reduced to 3. At the speeds it was going, the crits on the thruster were meaningless. Primary: Hangar down by 8, structure down by 7. Long list, but it was all pretty much little stuff. With the guardians and the maneuverability, the Centauri didn't have to worry much about the Mag gun, so it's loss wasn't that critical (although that did open up the front arc quite a bit). Guardians & twins were very effective against the ion torps, too. Those Heavy Lasers are sticking out everywhere and hard as hell to hit. The Bin'Tak still had 5 heavy lasers, 2 e-mines, 1 ion torp, 3 lt pulse cannon, & 3 twins. More than enough to ruin the Centauri's day. And they were only through about 1/10th of all its structure!!!!!!!!!!! Eek! We did see the difference in Narn vs Centauri twins come into play. The Centauri did split the defensive fire at different incoming shots, and the Narn at one point would have liked to, but instead split between offensive and defensive. (6 inbound twin shots, 2 twins to intercept. Had to do 2 intercept shots and two offensive shots). Summary: Fluky luck. Narn had bad luck on the to-hits. Centauri had awesome luck on to-hits, but poor damage and/or location. Only thing they had much luck with was the Matter Cannons hitting on low oddsand actually doing decent damage. Turn 8, we finally saw things balance out more, with some decent all around for both sides. This one could have gone either way REAL easily depending on the die rolls.. (The HANGAR!! Argh! I ALWAYS Hit the Hangar!!! Always!!!!!!! Can I hit the C&C? Noooooo. Can I hit a Reactor, or Sensors? Noooo.. Have I ever hit the Engines?? Noooooo.. Jump Engines, once, yes. Primary structure, yes. But the hangar...*sigh* At least I didn't land a 16 point matter cannon on a 2 point hangar this time, though..) Centauri strategy revolved around superior mobility (Mograths are awesome), plasma streams to reduce armor so twins are more effective (couldn't hit worth >deleted "Centauri: 1x Primus, 2x Altarian, 24x Sentri EarthForce: 1x Omega, 2x Olympus, 24x Starfury Turn 1 opened with both groups charging towards each other at speeds of 10 to 15. With the range closed to 14 or so, the Earthers were full Offensive on EW while the Centauri were split about half and half offensive vs defensive. Earthers hit with a heavy laser, heavy pulse, and several medium pulses, scraping the entire front off the Primus and took a few twin arrays and structure points off the port side (one Olympus managed to be just that slightest bit off the angle to concentrate fire on the bow...) Turn 2, everyone turns away and scatters. Primus goes off one way, Omega the other, Olymmpuses launch missiles. Centauri fighters are liberally scraped from the sky by Omega's particle beams. Starfurys mob Primus, and between them, the missiles, and the Omega's rear lasers, the Primus is reduced to one point of Primary structure. The Altarians managed to damage one Olympus, removing two pulse cannons, the forward interceptor, and about half the forward structure. The Omega took moderate rear damage (lost a thruster, some structure, and an interceptor) from the Centauri fighters. At this point, it was agreed that the Centauri would concede, as both players were hungry and wanted to get out to dinner. A short fight, but a bloody one." ----------------------------------- Altarin vs Var'Nic Battle Report by Alexander M Fulton : Okay, got a number of games in a Saturday (3 against the Streib, won't bother posting them here, but they did bring up some interesting questions): Game 1: 1 Altarian (6 Sentri) vs 1 Var'Nic (6 Gorith) Comments: 1) First, the horrible to-hit for the side of the Gorith is really not that much of a liability, assuming the Narn player saves enough thrust to do a combat pivot during the turn. You can almost always force the enemy to take a shot at your front or aft - to-hit of only "7" instead of "10". And, since the armor is the same all around, it really makes no difference in flight level combat WHERE your fighter is hit - the to-hits are the only thing that changes. 2) The Var'Nic is a nice platfom - 3 med. lasers and those twins ;^) And, of course, the Narn do not make the same mistake many Centauri ships seem to of putting the entire main armament on one structure block. Summary: Well, it didn't go as well as I (the Centauri) would like. The Altarian got some really crappy rolls and the Var'Nic was *lucky*, getting some hits it really should not have. Of course, my bro pointed out that this probably made up for by TBolt shots in the last game where, when firing the GPulses on 6 TBolts, I rolled 5 6's. Hehehehe - that was nice ;^) Anyway, I ended up with about 75% of my forward structure gone without accomplishing any significant damage to the enemy. I don't think hardly any damage came from his ships - it was almost all from the Goriths (which I could not keep off my back and which won - EVERY TURN - initiative over my Sentris). As he still had a number of fighters left and had finally finished off all of my Sentris (and had done heavy damage to my ship - including destroying 4 of my 5 twins) - I conceded the game. Battle Report: Turn 1) Started closing range - no real weapons fire as both sides had gone turtle. Sentris and Goriths closing at speed-10 and speed 12, respectively. Note that I forgot turn cost is rounded up - I should have been going speed 9 with the Sentris. Var'Nic travelling at 10 and I was at 6 (so I could turn twice). Turn 2) Turned towards the "top" of the map to put some range up - as my EW was better and my weapons recharged faster, I wanted to keep the range as high as possible with my Sentris doing damage to his ship. Fired stbd matter cannon- hit doing 7 pts of damage to his stbd. structure. He fired a heavy laser and removed 1 of my front twins and doing HEAVY damage to the other. Next turn the fighters closed to range with each other - he destroyed one Sentri and I (with better to-hits) completely missed his entire flight with my Sentris. Turn 3) My Sentris closed with his ship (they lost initiative to the Goriths, so I had no idea where they would be). His ship destroyed another Sentri with the twins and his Goriths finished off the front, damaged, twin array, as well as giving my matter cannons some nasty crits. Turn 4) Our ships are too close for my taste now, but I managed to get my fighters on top of my ship pointing back (hoping his Goriths go for the aft shot). They do, and I fire on them. My two aft-firing twins left manage to hit once (with four shots) and damage a Gorith (no drop-out). He destroys both my aft twins. My fighters, at point blank range with his and no jinking, again MISS all shots. The next 2-3 turns has him finish off the rest of my fighters. I managed to keep his Var'Nic out of a good firing position, but without anti-fighter weapons and no fighter support, I really can't win, so I concede the game. I really don't think the game was unbalanced, the forces we picked seemed to fight really well against each other. It is just that really crappy rolls decided the game (the matter cannon, while a GREAT weapon for smashing up primaries- as I found in the next game - relies ENTIRELY on good die rolls. And, when that is just not happening, you are in trouble if that is all you have)." ----------------------------------- Battle report: Ka'Toc vs two Mograth by Alexander Fulton "Next battle we played: Forces: 2 Mograth vs. 1 Ka'Toc (6 Frazis) Comments: 1) Boy was this one-sided. The advantage of always moving after your opponent in an AGILE ship is not to be ignored. 2) The Guardian array is a nice defensive weapon. I did not get to use it in its special role, but it makes a nice interceptor. 3) The plasma stream sucks as a weapon. Assuming average die rolls on 3d10, it will make 16.5 (16) damage. But, it degrades at a rate of -2/hex, meaning this weapon will do 0 damage at anything farther than 8 hexes. You have to be, at the absolute MAXIMUM 6 hexes away for any effect, and if you don't roll well, you'd better be a point blank for him to feel it. Of course, the armor-reducing effect is nice on primaries, which makes the weapon an enigma in the Centauri navy. It would be much better placed on an EA ship to reduce armor on a target so all the EA pulse weapons can be used effectively. As the Centauri concentrate on raking and plasma weapons and standard weapons (and, their MOST used heavy weapon, ignoring armor COMPLETELY), and have NO pulse weapons at all, it seems kind of odd to have an armor-reducing weapon. Since, after all, armor is most effective against pulse weapons which they don't use. Go figure. Summary: This one went well. We closed range slowly, he fired a heavy laser at range 30 or so as we passed. It did rather extensive damage to the front of a Mograth - losing a twin, but nothing more. I turned and, staying in the arc of the H.L. that just fired, closed ranged. His fighters were a nuisance, but my rolls were much more reasonable this game and I managed to clean them up nicely. Matter cannons and twins removed a structure block, which I took advantage off. This game was interrupted due to time, but it was obvious I would win. Turn Report: 1) The Mograths started at speed 9 (so I can do a 180 if I feel like it ;^) I believe he was going 8 and his Frazis 10. I stayed close to the top of the map and we closed range. 2) His ship fired a battle laser (amazingly, with a 20 to-hit.) Did minimal damage, removed a twin. I fired my stbd. matter cannons and one plasma stream. It was a bit, but did, like, - 30+ damage. That stunk. 3) Turned to face the weapon arc that just fired. His fighters closed ranged and, using the twins, I wasted a few of them. I had pivoted to stbd. so I could fire my two port matter cannons and the other ships plasma stream. It hit, did like 2 damage. Matter cannons had almost removed his stbd. structure by now. 4) Closed range with his ship more, fired my two stbd. matter cannons and the now recharged plasma stream on the first ship. It actually did damage to his armor this turn, which did not matter as the matter cannons removed that side of his ship. The fighters managed to remove the plasma stream on ship #2 (would have been fired next turn). Also, they had been messing with my ships pretty bad, one had 75% forward structure, the other 50%. Had lost 1 twin, a crit on another, a plasma stream, 1 retro each. This was also the result of hit Lt. Pulse cannon fire from this turn. He had also got a number of lucky primary hits with his fighters. My engine was down to one block on one ship, and both had taken some primary structure hits. 5) He kept trying to turn, but, being agile, I could stay in his destroyed structure arc. One of my ships had taken an engine crit, which made this difficult, but it was possible. I had finished him off to one Frazi left and had destroyed a structure block I always was in the arc of. Fire two port matter cannons at primaries. LOVE THAT IGNORING ARMOR!!! He fired one Frazi, one shot hit, minimal damage. 6) Fired two stbd. matter cannons as well as plasma stream at primaries. His ship is really starting to look messy now, and his fighter drops out. Game interrupted, but it is obvious to all involved the Centauri will win in a few turns." ----------------------------------- RULES DISCUSSION/SUGGESTION ----------------------------------- Twins on the side of the Octurian cannot be hit Carlos posts: "The Twin Arrays on the side of an Octurian Battleship cannot be hit. Perhaps an oversight. Perhaps on purpose. Turn your side to the opponant. He hits you with his Battle lasers or Ion torps. You take heavy damage but you still have starboard structure. You have just fired your Battle lasers and Matter Cannons so if they have been destroyed you don't mind, 'cause they were recharging. Then you go in close and turn you port side toward the enemy. Your Twin Arrays (which you are guaranteed to have) have great arcs and fire for the rest of the game, even though your starboard side is almost gone." ----------------------------------- Moderator-less PBEM rules In response to a question byZebulin Magby , Max Natzet posted: "My campaign system is based upon moderatorless rules that can be found on the campaign webpage." http://watt.seas.Virginia.EDU/~mfn8j/B5Campaign.html ----------------------------------- Little difference between HCVs and Medium warships? Laurent Leclerc voices his concerns: "When I first saw War of Retribution, I was surprised to see the lack of difference between the Heavy Combat Vessels and the Medium Warship. The difference between the HCV and Capital is clear, 2 side for the former and 4 for the later, but the MW do have the same number of "sides" but the quantity of structure is in many case similar or very close of one another. Not only the MW are thougher they should be but many of them are heavily armed and all are faster and more agile than HCV. For exemple, take the Rongoth and the Thentus, (the first number is always the Rongoth) the structure boxes: forward 50/42, aft 50/42 and primairy 30/24. The weaponry is equivalent: 2 Hpulses, 4 dual array, 2 Lpulses for the Rongoth versus 2 Mlasers, 4 dual array and 2 Burst Beams for the Thentus. The Thentus is faster, more manoeuvrable and agile. I'm not saying that the Thentus or the Rongoth are under or outpointed, I'm simply saying that Medium warship in general are far too powerful compare to HCV. I would have liked to see a clear difference between HCV and Medium Warship. You could give to Medium Warship one exterior side and the primairy, with many system (main engine, weapons, thrusters, etc...) attach to primairy. Or Medium Warship could have only one structure block and all system would be attach to it, all system could be hit and targeted with a called shot. That single structure block could have from 60 to 120 boxes, and Medium Warship would be clearly less powerful than HCV." Daniel Miller replies: "I think the problem isn't as pronounced as you do. Check it out: Of note: The Rongoth has more structure to its thrusters in general, and three forward thrusters, where the Thentus has only the one large one. Yet the hit locations are equal, meaning it will be that much easier to reduce the Thentus's ability to maneuver. Also of note: The Thentus's internal systems have less structure, and generally one less armor. Rongoth Thentus Struct 30(5) 24(4) Engine 16(5) 14(4) Sensors 18(4) 16(4) Reactor 13(5) 13(4) C&C 12(5) 10(4) (note that these are both rotten for C&C armor!) Hangar 2(4) 2(4) [In response to Rongoth and Thentus weaponry being equivelant...] I'd take the HPCs over the ML's any day. Assuming 4 armor, the HPCs will do an average of 33 damage; the ML's average damage *before* armor is 24.5. I'd also take the LPC's over the burst beams, as they do about 1.5 times the damage given recharge rates, better in my book than causing dubious crits."... ..."To be honest, me too. I'd have liked mediums to be about half the size of a Rongoth, not 3/4." Steven W Rushing adds: "I suggested LCV's to AOG a short while back. No exterior sides. One primary structure with everything on it and everything on the "hit location charts." my original goal was to solve some of a certain palytest ships designs . CNC would be stiing on the chart just like say a forward spinal gun. If hit from the rear by 3 pulses, some could kill rear systems and some front as the ship "bucks" etc..." ----------------------------------- Thunderbolt changes needed? Zebulin Magby suggested the following: "I would propose the following changes to the Thunderbolt: First an increase in offensive bonus of +1. This should show that the pilot can react a little better because of the RIO in back. The Thunderbolt's Galting Gun needs a little work. Say two damage codes- 6 d6 times versus Fighters/Shuttles 10 d3 times versus ships -OR- 10 d4 times all the time (to better model the damage we've seen this beast cause) This should put the Thunderbolt in its rightful place as being better than the Starfury. It would explain why Starfuries are being phased out to be replaced by the Thunderbolts." Wraith replies: "This would be way too much IMO, especially with its ability to choose its pulse targets in a fighter flight, whcih I'm not sure accurately describes what we see in the show, even if it does jive with the pulse rules as described by AoG. Rather than a better Offensive rate, I'd rather see better manuverability comperable to a Aurora, say 12 thrust. The more I play this game the more I discover manuverability is everything. (Well maybe not everything, but damn important.)" While Ryan Lawson comments: "I kind of like 10 d3 times and make it so any hits in a fighter flight are either random or all on one target. Being able to pick and choose who gets hit with which pulse from a fighter really contradicts the show and just doesn't make sense." ----------------------------------- Thunderbolt: True to the show? Wraith posts: "Okay so we just got the Thrunderbolt off of the AoG website (thanx Bruce). Now when I look at the ship information sheet and description of how the EA uses the Thunderbolt, and then look at the control sheet, I'd have to say that the control sheet reflects this nicely. However, to me this information dos not seem to jive with the information that the show presents to us. #1 AoG's ship information sheet essentially says that there are 1/4 the number of Thunderbolt's as there are Aurora's. However, when we see Thunderbolts on the show, there are far more of them than that. In "Severed Dreams" both the Churchill and the other Omega on Sheridins side, launch a full hanger of Thunderbolt. From each we see 3 sets of 6 Thunderbolts exit. We then see 2 more Thunderbolt, of what may be another flight begin to exit at which point the scene shifts. That's at lease 20 Thunderbolts on one Omega. Then again in "Between the Darkness and the Light" we see a good 3 flight of Thunderbolts exit a Shadowomega. #2 The Thunderbolt that we have has missles. This is great and makes the ship very powerful however, the only time that I can find in the show that we see the Thunderbolt with its missile compliment is when it is bombing Mars. All other times it is simply used as a spcae superiority fighter in the same roll as the Aurora. Now if you strip away the missiles is a Thunderbolt superior to an Aurora. If not, why would the EA in the show equip its brand new superdestroyers with all Thunderbolts. Thunderbolt Aurora Manuvering is all the same (Turn Cost, Jinking, etc.) FWR/AFT Def 8 8 STB/PORT Def 7 6 Free Thrust 10 12 Offensive Bonus 5 5 Initiative 0 0 Armor Same Structure 15 13 Weapon Ave Damage 18(24) 15 Weapon Max Damage 36 20 Weapon Verses Armor of 4 (ave) 6(8) 7 Weapons Verses Armor of 4 (max) 12 12 When you figure armors of capital ships in, the two weapons seem comprible. Thunderbolt is going to do less to more systems, while the Aurora is going to do more to less systems. Against Fighters of armor 2 Thunderbolt wins in average damage with 12(15) to the Auroras 11. With armor 3 they come close to tieing with 9(12) to the Auroras 9. Howewver as the Thunderbolt is a pulse weapon and can direct its damage, this weapon is superior against fighters. However it is this players oppinion that he does not know how a Thunderbolt is going to be able to jump around in the short time that those pulses fire to hit more than 1 target. In the show we normally see all the pulses going toward the same fighter, and often that fighter blows up before all the pulses hit. However when all this is taken into acount the two fighter seem to equal out. The Thunderbolt has a higher defense rating but more stucture than the Aurora to equal out on this front. The Aurora has more thrust while the Thunderbolt seems to have a superior weapon, again canceling out. Relatively equal. Why then do we see so many Thunderbolts later in the show, especially on the Shadowmegas if they cost more to produce, and essentially they are equal. This is my question. One though I had is that it seems a little odd for the EA to produce a less manuverable fighter. As far as game balance is concerned, I can see this need, but... hears my thought. When the Thunderbolt is equiped with missiles, somehow this makes it less manuverable, i.e. 10 thrust. For every two less missile it mores up 1 thrust. 11 thrust for 2 missiles and 12 for 0 missiles, making the Thunderbolt slightly superior to the Aurora with is gatteling pulse gun. On tha gattling pulse gun. It does 6 d6 times, and I believe that AoG did this because they counted 6 pulses from a Thunderbolt on the show. Which episode was this. I watched "Severed Dreams" in which the Thunderbolt seem to fire 5 pulses, and in "Between the Darkness and the Light" they seem to be firing in pulses of 3. Beyond this in "Between the Darkness and the Light" we see Thunderbolts w/out missiles engaging White Stars and doing damage to them. As a playtester for Shadow Wars, I would suggest AoG look at this and compare this Thunderbolt and its damage potential to what may become the WS. (If that break NDA please inform me, and I will never do it again. I attempted to remain vague.) If the Pulses were d5 damage would seem to be 7 (max 35 to max of 36) If the Pulses were d3 damage would seem to be 12 What if the Gattling pulse had two settings d6 and d3 d6 = 6 damage (more for fighters) and d3 = 12 damage (more for capital ships) Maybe that is too powerful. What if the d3 lost some damage potential and became 10's Anyways just some thoughts. What do others feel about this. Its not so much that I don't like the Thunderbolt as it is, its more that I want it to reflect the show. Also what do people feel the cost of a non-missile equiped Thunderbolt would be?" Alexander M Fulton replies: I think probably 9 d3 times would be good. Currently, the TBolt will not be able to destroy any capital ships without missiles. (Hint: no matter HOW tempting it is to fire all your missiles to clean out that side structure, DON'T DO IT!!! Your pulse gone does NOTHING to primaries - your missiles are the *only* thing that can destroy them!)" Ryan Lawson comments: "Hmmm, here's an interesting idea: The missiles have to be purchased for the fighter. In other words the Thunderbolt comes just with its gatling cannon but for like 15 points or so you can buy them a load out of missiles. I kind of like this. I also think its a little off that the Thunderbolts all come with missiles yet we have only seen the Thunderbolts fire air to ground missiles......once." To which Sean Wadey adds: "Maybe all fighter SCS's should be done without missiles, although any special missile fire control notes could be add, and one side crit should specify when missiles are lost when they are carried. The reasoning here is that in the Show we have seen both Thunderbolts, Auroras and Raiders with and with out missiles. The Badger was only shown with them but this would make a constant format for most fighters. The missiles could then be bought in sets of 2. Maximum of two sets for the Tbolts and Raiders and 3 sets for Auroras and Badgers. The thrust would probably not be significantly effected by the missiles being there or not being there. In Thirdspace missile armed Auroras were holding there own against a larger force of Raiders, if they wer lossing thrust with those six missiles they would have had trouble keeping the targets infront of them. The Thunderbolt should probably have more thrust 2 to 3 points only. And single crew fighters should not be allowed to fire both missiles and guns in one turn, again see combat at beginning of Thirdspace." Wraith comments: "One idea that I had was that they make the fighter less manuverable in some way. Someone else responded that the four little missile that it uses wouldn't be enough to throw the ship off two thrust which I will conceed, but what if it isn't the missiles that through off the manuverability but the missile launch system. Say something must be added to the ship to hold and launch the missiles and to make room for this something else must go, and what ever that system is, it affect the fighters manuverability. I'd just like to see a good reason why not having a missile load on the Thunderbolt would be a worthy tactic, because the EA on the show seems to think it is, while at the same time the EA on the show seems to think that a Thunderbolt w/out missiles is superior to a Aurora." ----------------------------------- Missiles on fighters Ryan Lawson posts: "Did the raiders have missiles? I don't remember that. What I really don't get is that they used missiles on the raiders....and missed bad. Then they didn't even bother to use the missiles on the Thirdspacers. This makes me think that missiles must suck so bad that they would only be remotely useful against raiders. This would explain why we never see space- to-space missiles ever again (Accept for from the Drazi and they proved to be just as useless). The Thuds only used missiles once on a large stationary target." To which Alexander M Fulton replies: "Very interesting point. Although we see rather widespread use of missiles in the show (IE., Badger 'furies, Aurora 'furies, TBolts, Drazi, Centauri Demos, EA defense platforms, etc.) they don't ever seem to be used against anything other than BIG or SLOW targets. Even then, with only dubious accuracy. Perhaps they really are not worth having on fighters???" Ryan Lawson posts: "If missiles soon become all the rage for fighters in B5W I might have to pull an Imre A. Szabo myself. The thought of every fighter flying around with a wing load of missiles makes me really sick." Jim Emerick replies: "I hate to 'me too' but I'm going to in this case... I really don't want to see every fighter in the game capable of carrying missiles... it is NOT something we see on the show... OK, fine, Starfuries carried them in Thirdspace... is that ANY reason to assume that they do it on a regular basis??? Should the one occurrence in that movie outweigh the fact that in the five seasons of the show we NEVER saw an Aurora carrying missiles??? I don't think so...." Wraith adds: "I think was this is going to have to be is a carefull balance between show continuity, game balance and game fun. For show continuity they can become a standard, for game balance they can't become so powerful that the advantage in having them doesn't outway the continuity aspect, and the game fun means that they have to be there (since we most of us seem enjoy using them on accassion) but have to come with a price. Some one is bound to not like what ever the end result is with that many key variables. I guess that we'll just have to see." ----------------------------------- OFFICIAL ----------------------------------- Recent Q&A: (in reference to the new 3d art on the Thunderbolt SCS) > AOG: do you plan to use thse graphics in official releases (on paper) > for future ships or would their be too many legal entanglements? We are going to use SOME art. Probably not that particular one since it was shamelessly lifted from another web site. While technically anything posted on the web is free unless it has a copyright notice on it, I still have a real problem with taking someone else's work and publishing it in a product (unless, of course, we pay for the privilege or get permission). However, it will work fine on the web ship of the month. > Is a flight restricted to launching missiles at a single target, the > same as they are with DF weapons? Would assume it's the same but wanna > make clear. Yes, this would be the same as with any other weapon, although the flight can launch missiles at one target and then (later on) fire its guns at a different target, if desired. > If a flight launches 12 missiles at a ship... is this resolved by > rolling 12d20 and checking each for a to-hit roll OR by using 1 to-hit > roll and determining how many missiles hit just like they do with DF > weapons? Would assume so but.. Strictly according to the rules, you would make one roll just like regular weapons do. The main reason for this is to cut down on the number of die rolls in the game. > Finally, if the answer to 2 is "one roll" how would intercept fire > work? Right now intercept a fighter flight with a -2 applies to the > one to-hit roll. Same thing for missiles... ? Would a 12 missile volley > with a 10 to-hit be reduced to zero to-hit by 10 twins? That would match > the mechanism defensive fire usually has on flights but really makes the > non-deg rule killer against tbolts? That would seem to be the case, but I could have sworn there was errata about that somewhere, even though I cannot find it. I seem to recall explaining in the past that if you intercept a fighter flight, you divide your intercept rating by 6 and round fractions of 0.5 or more up. Thus, if you have a total intercept rating of -12, that's only -2 against a full flight. This seems more reasonable, as otherwise flights can be intercepted way too easily. > The ugly question... does the gatling gun get to distribute its > pulses by choice against fighter flights? Makes for a real good anti- > fighter weapon. Yes. These are PULSE WEAPONS. Pulse weapons can, as described in the Core Rules (p25), pick out individual fighters to shoot at. "The player names the targets for each pulse (before roling to hit or to see how many pulses are even available)..." That is what makes the weapon so deadly. A T-bolt flight can basically rip up enemy flights at will, using missiles on ships since the GPC isn't very effective against them. ----------------------------------- SCENARIOS/SHIP DESIGNS ----------------------------------- Attempted design of the Badger heavy fighter Don Shaffer posted: "Okey dokey, been fooling around with possible Badger stats and here's my take on the matter. :) Badger Attack Fighter Specs Combat Stats Weapon Data -------------------- ------------------- ------------------------- Class: Heavy Fighter Fwd/Aft: 8 Uni Pulse Cannon Crew 1 Port/Stb: 7 Guns: 2 Points:? Free Thrust: 9 Fire Rate: 1 Turn Offensive Bonus: +5 Range Penalty: -2 per hex Init Bonus: -1 Fire Control: N/A Damage: 1d6+3 (per gun) -------------------- Firing Arc: 60 degree arc Armor ------------------------- 4 Pulse Cannon Turret 2 2 Guns: 2 2 Fire Rate: 1 Turn Range Penalty: -2 per hex Fire Control: N/A Damage: 1d6+4 (Per gun) Arc: 120 Degree (Rear) ------------------------- Missile Hardpoints Number: 6 Fire Rate: 2 per turn Damage: 12 Range: 10 Reload Rate: 1 per turn ---------------------------------------- |--- Forward Thrusters |--- Missiles (3) |--- Engine |--Uni-Pulse Cannon | |--Lateral Thruster | |--Aft Thruster |--Cockpit | | |--Fire Control | | |--Rear Turret --Power Plant | | | | | | | | OOO OOO OOO OOO OOO ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes: Due to power requirements, the Badger may NOT fire both sets of guns at once. Rear Turret critical hit. : This acts as a combined Weapon critical hit as well as a Cockpit critical hit. Rear Cockpit rolls do the following 1-3 Lose -1 Offensive and -1 Defensive 4-5 Unable to fire Missiles or Rear turret for 2 turns 6 Rear gunner killed: May not fire rear turret or missile for rest of game Sorry bout the ASCII, but its all I got at the moment. ;) Based the crits by coparison with the Aurora and Thunderbolt with modifications for the rear. Comments? Disagreements? Kill threats? :)" ----------------------------------- "The Ultimate Test" by Wraith "The Ultimate Test: A Scenario for B5 Wars for 2-3 Players BACKGROUND: In the years after the Narn broke away from the Centauri they implemented the END (Emergency Naval Development) program. Taking everything that they had learned from the Centauri and what ever they could beg, borrow and/or steal from other races in the League of Non-aligned worlds, the Narn created their first warship, the T'loth Assault Cruiser. Design specs and test runs are all fine and good, but the Narn are a hard people and so they believe in hard tests. With the first few of the T'loths coming of the line, the Narn discovered that a number of components which they had stolen from the Centauri, or bought on the interstellar black market, were drying up. More would be needed if they were to continue in producing the T'loth. It seemed like great luck then when Narn intelligence announced the discovery of a possible ambush that the Narns could make on a Centauri military transport. The perfect test for their brand new T'loth. PLAYER#1 (Narn) - 1 T'loth Assault Cruiser w/ 12 Gorath Medium Fighters PLAYER#2 (Narn) - 1 T'loth Assault Cruiser w/ 12 Gorath Medium Fighters PLAYER#3 (Centauri) - 1 Lias Supply Ship, 1 Altarian Destroyer w/ 18 Razik Light Fighters (12 on patrol, 6 in hanger, rotating every 4 hours.) SETUP Map: ABC(A) DEF(D) Note: ( ) represents where map will float. In (D) there is a Jump Gate at 1024 Narn Players must choose which hex in the D section of the board they will jump into and write down this hex number and the exit speed of all ships. They may jump in together or separately. Centauri Player must place his ships in the A section of the map, speeds of 3 or 4. The only exception is one flight or Raziks may be scouting anywhere on the board at any speed. On round 1 Narn player jumps in. VICTORY CONDITIONS: Narn - They must disable and capture the Lias and utterly destroy the rest of the Centauri ships. Nothing and no one can be allowed to escape. If the Centauri hear word of a new Narn warship they will inevitably retaliate, and that cannot be allowed to happen at this point in their development. Centauri - Cannot allow the Narns to get the Lias. If the Lias escapes then the Centauri are considered victorious. Any and all losses can be considered acceptable so long as the Lias escapes. SPECIAL RULES: Fighter Flight Rules are being used. Ramming is possibly allowed for the Altarian, but not the Raziks or Lias. Altarian cannot jump out until the Lias is safe. Altarian cannot launch fighters until the turn 2 as the pilots are not prepared. Lias is considered to still have 3 turns of jump delay. T'loths are still early production models and as such, have some bugs. Beginning at the end of turn 3 during the adjust ships systems phase, and each additional turn there after, the T'loth must make a random critical roll to see if any system gives the ship problems. To do this roll d6 to choose between: 1 - forward 2 - aft 3 - port 4 - starboard 5 - primary 6 - no problem that round Then roll on whichever chart was chosen until a system is rolled. Make a critical roll for that system. OPTIONS: Jumping in from Hyperspace: Rather than having the exactness of jumping to a specific hex, this system may be used. Have the player choose the hex they want to jump into. Then roll a d6 for direction and either a d6 or d10 for how far off the jump is. On a d6 1-5 equal the number of hexes off the ship is while a 6 hits it on the money. A d10 is the same except a 10 hits it on the money. COMMENTS: The Centauri out numbered, but they also has maneuverability on their side, as well as the twin array. The Narns have to strike hard and fast. The first move for the Narns has to be to knock out the jump drives of the two ships. The Goraths can do a good job of this with called shots to the Jump Drive systems. They T'loths have to work together to take out the Altarian, or else its maneuverability will kill them. Unfortunately the T'loths weapons are close range. Think ahead and set traps. Once the Jump drive on the Lias is taken out, it can be ignored until the Altarian is taken care of, as its nearest point of escape is rather far away. Centauri, the Altarian has a tough job ahead of it and may very well die, however it's HCV status is a massive benefit once the battle closes. Use those twin arrays to punish the Narn. The Raziks should be near undestroyable. Flights that win initiative should kill Goraths (ever so slowly) while those that lose should jink, jink, jink." ----------------------------------- That's it for this issue; next time you can look forward to at least one column and perhaps an HTML version as well. Tell me what you think so far by e-mailing me at .