Return of the Forgotten Photos: Babylon 5 Fleet Action - The Battle of the Line

Another old set of photos, of a fleet-scale game of the Battle of the Line, from the Babylon 5 Universe, using the Babylon Fleet Action rules from the now defunct company, Agents of Gaming..  AoG was a good, if somewhat self-indulgent, company that produced Babylon 5 Wars and Babylon 5 Fleet Action.

Babylon 5 Wars looked and played a bit like a streamlined version of Star Fleet Battles, and while fun, could take a long time to complete a game. B5 Fleet Action organised mutliple ships  into squadrons, factored in weapons, shields and maneuvre, and enable players to engage in large fleet actions and finish in perhaps four hours.

These are old pictures, dating from 2001.  I think they were taken on film, developed and then scanned.  They were lurking on an old Iomega Zip disk - remember those?  Like a 3.5 diskette on steroids, they were.

I don't quite remember which side won the scenario - I tend to think that the Earth Force had to simply hang on for a certain number of turns, at which point the Minbari, who are up to this point wiping the map with the earthers, suddenly and mysteriously ask for a truce.  The rest is Television History...

I do remember the Evil Minbari Warlord, Myk'Ry'an, upon discovering the location of the Earth command ship (the only carrier on the map, hmm...) decided to concentrate fire, decapitate the Earth fleet, and break my scenario.  Only some desperate maneuvre on the part of the carrier and escorts helped avoid disaster.

Hold the Line!  The Minbari Advance

The blocky, wedge-shaped carrier and command ship (bottom centre) takes evasive action.

Two Hyperion cruisers, flanked by two pairs of Nova Battleships
Smaller escorts and some GZG in foreground

The Minbari Fleet

The Earth Alliance Command has ships to burn, which is fortunate, 'cuz they do.

The Earth Alliance Fleet

Fire, you Fool! Fire EVERYTHING!

Finding these pictures made me a bit nostalgic.  I think I'll try this scenarion again, or a smaller part of it, using Starmada...Ω

GZG 15mm 8-Wheeled APC

 Last week, painting was good, and i managed to finish four of Jon Tuffley's 8-Wheeled APC:s from the StarGrunt 15mm vehicle range. Specifically, V15-50A.

One significant difference is the vehicle weapon mount - those pictured are not supplied with the models as listed, they are from the GZG Grav APC V15-20A.  A platoon of which I've shown painted here.

V15-50A Miniature by Ground Zero Games

There was nothing wrong with the auto-cannon as supplied - I'm using these vehicles as part of a Traveller-universe TL-12/13 mercenary troop, named "Spinward Marches Solutions, LLIC".  They need plasma-guns for fire support. (I'll be including a writeup on SMS in the very near future...)

I'm well-pleased with these castings, the parts all fit nicely (I did need to dremel out the gun mount, as I was mixing bits) and the detail is up to GZG's usual excellent standards.
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V15-50A Miniature by Ground Zero Games

One minor hitch was my being able to find, after two year's delay, all of my GZG plasma turrets - only two could be found.  A frantic email to Himself at GZG resulted in a promise to cast me two more, at a very reasonable rate, to include with my next order.

Jon Tuffley's Customer Care simply CANNOT be beaten.  Full stop...Ω