From: jtc1@chrysler.com To: Subject: [B5W]: battle report Date sent: Wed, 6 May 1998 22:11:56 -0400 Send reply to: babylon5-wars@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU Like General Sherman 134 years ago, I've made it to Atlanta and from the shadow of Kennesaw Mountain comes report of an engagement between 4 Vorchans (HCV variety) against a G'Quan cruiser and it's 2 flights of Frazis. Rules in use: Tournament firing sequence, flight level rules, fighters are suppresed for current turn if they take enough damage to suffer a critical hit, drop-out on D10>structure remaining (rolled during critical hit phase). Commentary: I was curious to see how the HCV version of the Vorchan would perform. The Narn player was one of the guys I work with whose been exposed to B5W (this was his 2nd game - I'd rate him as green crew quality). Anyway, the general idea with the Vorchans was to work around a flank, keeping out of the G'Quan firing arcs as much as possible. The Narn plan was to close with the Frazis while using the G'Quan for some long distance fire support. After some tentative maneuvering during the first several turns, the Vorchans managed to get outside the front firing arc of the G'Quan and closed to range 3. The port side of the G'Quan took 3 hits from the plasma accelerators, destroying the port structure and about 1/3 of the primary structure. After some more maneuvering, the Vorchans managed to send another volley of 2 hits from plasma accelerators through the crumbling rear structure of the G'Quan, into the primary structure, doing just enough damage to finish off the G'Quan. The Frazis had all been destroyed or dropped out by this time. The Narn player was bedeviled by bad luck. First, the Frazis were not handeled as aggresively as they probably should have been. Once they did engage, they failed to hit or do alot of damage with some truly terrible dice rolls. To somewhat offset this, the Vorchans were not deployed real well for fighter defense at first. But once they got serious about it, the Frazis began going down. Poor damage rolls also did not help with the battle laser that actually did hit. And to top it off, a nicely placed e-mine fizzeled, while another one scattered next to the 2 Frazi flights. By the end of the fight, 1 Vorchan had its aft structure destroyed, 2 more had their particle accelerators destroyed and 3 of the 4 had lost a twin array. There were also several systems that had taken some damage scattered among the Vorchans. In the end, everything went about as well as could be expected for the Vorchans, while the Narns had a rough night. This was the first time I've used the HCV version of the Vorchan. It's a killer when hunting down a damaged capital ship with its gauranteed initiative. After all the port side damage, the G'Quan went totally defensive, just trying to keep the Vorchans away from the damaged side and hoping the Frazis could finish off the Vorchans. The Frazis probably should have gone right at the Vorchans in an attempt to disarm them (how did Max put that? O yeah, it's like pulling a bad tooth), but the total number of twin arrays was a little intimidating. We'll try to find the time to run it again since we're staying in Atlanta another day for testing. Sometimes I love my job! JTC