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

Babylon 5 Starmada: Ambush at Ragesh 3

Narn Battle Squadron

The Narn-Centauri War broke out anew last night as the Friday Pals met to try Starmada: Admiralty by Majestic 12 games.  I brought out my AOG B5 Fleet Action miniatures. In past games, we have been using a modified Full Thrust/Earth Force Sourcebook rules set by Jon Tuffley , and while the carnage was everything one could hope for, some dissatisfaction about the movement of ships had cropped up. Starmada:Admiralty was going to help prevent the fleets from closing too quickly, and preserve a "fleet action" feel.

The year was 2259, the name of the place is Ragesh 3. The Centauri have a Marcanos-class base and a small fleet protecting it.  Two squadrons of Narn cruisers with two squadrons of Narn heavy destroyers enter the Ragesh system - their orders is to sweep and clear the system of the Centauri.

Rob C. (as Lord Cassdo) and myself (Lord Frylari) took the Centauri (Rob had the fleet, and I manned the station) while Warleaders D'Jay and K'enzie assumed the mantle of the thrice-damned Narns.

The Centauri Battle Line

The Centauri squadron consisted of: two Primus battlecruisers (with attendant fighter flights), two Sullust destroyers and a Vorchar Elint heavy combat vessel. The Marcanos base had four flights of fighters for system defence. The Elint vessel protected any friendly ships within 4 hexes by jamming enemy sensors and increasing the range by one band (i.e. medium range to long range, long range to no target).

The Narn Fleet

The Narn had two identical squadrons, each with: 2 G'Quan heavy cruisers, a G'Quonth attack cruiser, and two Katok battledestroyers. That would be a total of ten warships against five plus a base.


As the outnumbered parties, the Centauri had to destroy twice as many points of ships than they took as casualties to win  The Narn had to clear the system.
 

Marcanos Station

Fighters: Engage and Destroy

Turn 1 - 2 Opening moves. As the opposing squadrons closed, the fighters swooped in to engage their opposites.  B5 fleet games usually involve masses of fighters, and we've learned to try and hold a few flights in reserve to use against ships. So, instead of engaging in the optional Dogfights, the Centauri fighters stood off at range one while engaging the Narn and the Narn complied. The Narn, having more fighters, quickly gained the advantage in the fighter fight.

An Energy-mine Strike

Turn 3 - Energy Mines. The Narn energy mines began to drop on the Centauri fighters. As an area-effect weapon, each fighter in a flight was attacked, and each fighter in each adjacent hex was attacked at a slightly lower chance to hit.  The Centauri lost about 60% of their fighter screen.


Turn 3b - It's a Trap!  A second Centauri squadron, identical to the first, hidden in the planet's sensor-shadow, entered the battle.  Fresh fighters rushed forward  while the surviving Centauri flights withdrew to the relative safety of the Elint jamming field. When the Narn tried to track them, they found they were unable to fire (long range = no target).  Warleader D'Jay was outraged, and promised terrible retribution against the perfidious Centauri plague.

The Narns Advance

Turn 4, 5 - CGI Rendering Slows to a Halt.  Or that's what it felt like.  As the main fleet elements began to trade laser and pulse volleys, the game slowed to a crawl.
 

A Sullust destroyer in trouble

To Centauri dismay, the armour on the Narn cruisers was proving hard to crack (a bit too hard, if you ask me). The Narn lasers were carving up the larger Primuses at an alarming rate. The station had moved closer in it's orbit to the protective Elint screen, but hadn't quite reached yet, and was being pummeled by energy mines.


Endgame - It was getting late, so we called the game for the Narn - they had inflicted about 60 damage points to the Centauri 30. As one Centauri philosophically observed "We had them where we didn't want them..."


Post-game Thoughts:

The Ambush is Sprung

While I enjoy playing the Centauri, mainly due to their cheerful methods of skullduggery, I had intended to referee this session, due to the number of "gotchas" the Centauri were employing (Elint ships, and ambush).  Fortunately, while DJ was suitably outraged at each turn of the worm (or Spoo - 10 credits an ounce, if you can believe it), it didn't effect the outcome of the game. The Centauri still lost.

I had more detailed fighter flights printed out, but failed to bring them to the game. Thus all the fighters were treated as "standard" when really, the Centauri Sentris should have trait "Dogfight (+1 against fighters) and the Narn Frazis should have "Anti-Ship +1".

Centauri in Disarray

The B5 templates (downloadable from the MJ12 forums) need auditing.  The points were off, with the Centauri having about 50% more points then the Narn.  Certainly, the Narn Energy Mine needs some tweaking.

One of the reasons we used Starmada Admiralty was to limit ship speeds so the fleets actually operated like fleets - that was satisfactory.

We had high hopes for Starmada Admiralty, but there are some issues.  Movement aside, the single biggest issue we had was with the damage resolution phase. It seems straightforward enough - roll to hit, roll to penetrate shielding, roll damage - in practise, the game slows down drastically when more than a few ships are involved on each side.  This should improve with practise, so perhaps a smaller fight is in order for the next run.

We've agreed to try again, and I will add some game data to the ship rosters to help speed the game: advanced firing arcs, ship and weapon trait effects, damage charts, etc....Ω

Babylon 5 Full Thrust: Earthforce Sourcebook

Meanwhile, in Space, in an altogether different franchise…

Back in the Golden Days of TV Space Franchises. we would gather in a friend’s basement to play war games. But first, we would watch a series that told of the Third Age of Mankind, and a place named

BABYLON 5

(Cue dramatic music)
My circle of wargame pals have been Bab 5 enthusiasts since the mid 90’s. Me, I liked the pilot, though I must admit to initially only catching the last half. Anyway, we’ve been table-top gaming B5 for a good while.

When an invitation from my friend DJ (in gaming aka Ming the Merciless, and not because he looks like Max von Sydow) arrived to teach the Full Thrust system to his friend, Jay, I decided to teach it using the B5 Earth Force Source Book modifications.

The scenario was set during the Earth Alliance Civil War (and sometime before the episode “Severed Dreams”). An EA Loyalist patrol (commanded by Jay) of two Omega Destroyers and an Olympus gunboat encounters an EA Separatist patrol (commanded by DJ) of two Hyperion cruisers and an old Nova dreadnaught (these are the B5 side, cheer for them!). Each side’s objective was to clear the enemy from this sector (which happened to be the Euphrates Sector, but more of this anon).

BTW, Jay vs. DeeJay? Isn’t that a bit confusing? Such is the tragedy of a civil war…

Turn One: Both task forces began the game at speed 4, representing a normal cruising speed. The Loyalist taskforce enters through the jump gate, accelerates to 8, and deploys fighters. The Separatists also launch fighters. Both sides are evenly matched with fighters - this does not bode well for the fighter jocks.



Turn Two: Both sides fighters flashed forward, and immediately locked themselves into a series of furballs. The Separatists turned to starboard to attempt to keep distance, while charging up the lasers on the Nova. A single flight of starfuries slipped past the otherwise-occupied loyalist fighters to strafe one of the Omegas. The Loyalists accelerated (rather unexpected by both the Seps and the ref, who thought Jay might be more cautious, considering his first game and all…impetuous youth) and by doing so caught the Nova at medium range.


The Loyalist heavy lasers flashed, and an entire damage row disappeared from the Nova. Several lasers fell off, including those charging. Oh dear.

Turn Three: The Loyalist Olympus gunboat had zipped forward last turn, wee little railguns powering up. As the two rough battle lines passed, and pulse cannons exchanged a deadly caress, the Olympus discharged two high velocity depleted uranium sabots at the Nova. One struck, dealing two points of damage, which is really a pittance, unless it leads to a threshold check, which this did. More systems went down, fell off, or were sold off by the PTEN.

Turn Four: The Separatist commander considered that without his main laser platform (the Nova) his two cruisers were no match for the Loyalist taskforce, and accelerated for the jump gate. The Loyalists let them go, having a bigger fish to fry – a 2.5 million ton fish...a place named:

BABYLON 5…(cue dramatic tag music)…















Post-Game Thoughts

It had been about four years since I’d played the Full Thrust/B5/EFSB mod. Back in the day, we had migrated over to this from Babylon 5 Wars, a fun but somewhat slow game from the now defunct Agents of Games. Even back then, we tended to avoid using the elder races, as they were just too powerful for an enjoyable game. For FT purposes, we stick to the Narn-Centauri conflict, the EA Civil War, and some White Star – EA/Shadowtech scenarios.

Due to the nature of the conflict, EA fighters tend to charge into dogfights like English Civil War cavalry rush into melee, thereby removing themselves from the rest of the battle. Ah, this war without an enemy…

Fighters in Full Thrust are too effective as written for use in B5 games, so we usually halve their effectiveness – 1 die attack per two full starfuries. Starfuries are rated as heavy, so they take a hit on a 5 or 6, with a 6 eligible for a re-roll.

The scenario plan actually came from the FT/Traveller mod, Power Projection: Fleet. The PP:F scenario engine is useful beyond measure.

Losing his main laser platform is hardly like DJ on a normal day. Post-game discussion had us agreeing that the Nova should have been kept back, behind the Hyperions. This would have allowed the cruisers to coordinate their fire with the Nova, which could easily have knocked out an Omega Destroyer. Jay’s rapid advance caught DJ off guard – apparently Jay has learned from other games not to let DJ’s battle plans develop.

Upon seeing the miniatures, Jay commented that he remembered the Babylon 5 series from when he was a kid. Saying nothing, I could not help but notice the umbilicus trailing him as he walked about the game table.

Impertinent youth…Ω