Date sent: Sun, 17 May 1998 12:59:56 -0400 From: Andy Blazdell Subject: [B5W]: Newbie battle report To: B5W Mailing List Send reply to: babylon5-wars@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU Okay, you experienced B5Warriors may want to skip to the next message, as this is just a newbie rambling on about 3 solo games I played while dog-sitting in a house in the middle of nowhere with nothing better to do. I've never actually finished a game of B5W before now, since this was the first time I've been able to actually devote an entire day with no distractions to B5W. You might want to look at my summary, though. It will act as fuel for the list's next flame war... Other newbies might find this interesting, so here goes... 1) Primus vs G'Quan This pretty much went as expected, except the Primus got in a lucky hit on the G'Quan's Engine in the second turn, getting a critical which shaved off two free Thrust points. I probably could have compensated for this by turning off some systems, but I didn't feel confident enough, so I kept everything turned on and hoped the loss of the TP advantage wouldn't count for much. Wrong! The Centauri Twin Arrays continually tore into whatever side was facing them. It took all the G'Quan's maneuvering power just to stop the Primus battering the same side over and over. The Primus also held the range open as much as possible, which all but neutralised the G'Quan Pulse Cannons. Pretty soon the G'Quan had lost port, rear and starboard sides, and never got to bring its Heavy Lasers to bear before its forced course (having lost all but the retro thrusters) allowed the Primus to pick and choose its angle of attack, then blow it to smithereens. All in all, it was the recharge time of the G'Quan weapons that was the killer - and that the Energy Mines only got in one hit in the entire game (and that's with me playing both sides - fortunately I have the remarkable ability to forget stuff very easily ). The battle took 2 1/2 hours, mainly because I was trying to find the best way to write stuff down, and I was constantly looking things up in the book. 2) T'Loth vs (new) Vorchan Based on the relative Point Values, this should have been a walkover for the Narn, but the better maneuverability of the Vorchan meant it could hold the range open and stay away from those Pulse Cannons. Over the course of 14 turns, the Vorchan took out the front and port sides of the T'Loth, most of the starboard side, and actually took the Primary structure down to 5 points left! It looked all over for the Narn, since the Vorchan, although having taken substantial damage to its forward structure, hadn't lost any weapons, and was lying 3 hexes in front turned so as not to expose its forward side, ready to pummel the last few primaries of the Narn with the wide arc of the Twin Arrays. Suddenly, the Narn had a brainstorm, and accelerated using the Main thrusters (the only ones left) to one hex in front of the Vorchan, and let rip with it's last aft Pulse Cannon. The T'Loth took a lot of damage to its aft side, but it blew the forward side off the Vorchan, leaving it toothless. There was a stalemate, since the Narn couldn't turn to chase the Vorchan (except at speed 1), and the Vorchan couldn't finish off the Narn, so they parted company. This was my favourite match, as it was a real nailbiter until the very last shot. It was a lot shorter too, only 1 hour 20 minutes. If I'd had more experience, I probably would have maneuvered the T'Loth better, turning off stuff to get extra TP, but I didn't want to start from scratch recharging. Twin Arrays rule. 3) Starfury vs Frazi I hadn't played any fighter engagements, so I tried a one on one duel for fun. It took a _long_ time for anyone to get a shot in, and even that missed. Fighters are hard to hit, I've discovered . But it felt like a real dogfight, and eventually the Starfury's better thrust allowed it to get up the Frazi's tailpipe and stay there until it hit something. Once the first hit was scored, it was all over, as the Frazi was too crippled to dodge the next attack. Summary: This was the first time I played with miniatures instead of counters - and I loved it. Except for when both ships were in the same hex, when it sucked big time. My miniatures aren't even painted, and they're the fighters out of the core set (not even the actual capital ships I was using). I also used the big map for the first time (I normally use a 1/2 inch map with SFB counters) since I had the space to put it down. Although I am not keen on spending a huge wad of cash on buying and painting miniatures, I'd jump at the chance to use someone else's . I guess you never know until you try. I'd love someone to do a spreadsheet to work out turn costs, thrust points and turn delays. Working it out in my head sucked for anything but the simplest maneuvers. I'd also like to see some advice on how best to use those extra non-ship counters you get with the core rules. I ended up not using them, rather than confuse myself. I used the GIFs done by various kind people on the net, rather than pay for photocopying the core sheets.It was hard to read a lot of the details, especially tellling 6 from 8, and I had to refer to the original sheets a number of times. Please, AOG, do PDFs! You can do GIFs as well for those anti-PDFists, but at least do the official ships in PDF format! And I'm DEFINITELY buying some d10s - working it out from a d20 almost all the time sucked. Most importantly, I _loved_ playing the game. I may not have power-played, and I may have got some fundamental things wrong (I hope not), and I didn't get to argue with my opponent (well, only once ), but it was a lot of fun. Well done AOG! Andy