Detailed B5wars report (long)

 
> > SO how about a more detailed review of the game?! Turn sequence,
flow,
> > combat, etc>?!?!

>	YES!  Please Oh Please Unca Mike.  Tell us about the game. 
> PLEEEEEEAAAASSSSSEEEEEE!!!
> 
<snip>

Ok, you young whipper snappers, gather round the fire n' ahll tell 
you a story sure t'scare the bujeezuz out uh ya..

oops-wrong story..;-)

B5Wars detailed report:

The game is a turn-based system that flows in the following order:

1)Start of turn actions (Electronic Warfare allocation, announce 
accel/decel, determine power, roll initiative, launch mines)
2) Movement (open jump points, move ships taking turns from the 
lowest roll moving first. fighters move after capitals, which move 
after civilian)
3)Combat 
4)End of turn functions

For those of you who played the playtest version, they got rid of the 
two pseudo turn concept (I never understood it anyway). They changed 
the to-hit system to a d20 based system to speed things up (hooray!) 
you may apply EW points defensively on a 1 point subtracts one from 
opponent's to hit roll or offensively by assigning it to lock on an 
enemy ship (as opposed to assigning EW to a firing weapon) improving 
your to-hit score on a 1 to 1 basis. Weapons capable of intercepting 
subtract from the to hit number of the attacking weapon by it's 
intercept rating. One weapon can only be used to intercept one 
attack. One weapon may not intercept two attacks (but two or more 
weapons may intercept one attack) They made maneuvering a bit easier 
with a base thrust point pool to maneuver with. You can still 
overthrust and roll and pivot. Damage allocation depends on the type 
of weapon attacking. A pulse cannon delevers a randomized number of 
damage volleys distributed randomly across the target, Beam weapons 
have modifiers like Raking, Piercing, or Sustained with eachmodifier 
applied against the target differently. Every system has an armor 
rating that all damage is applied against. any damage over the armor 
rating is applied to the system it protects. When all the system's 
boxes are destroyed, the system is gone. There are Fwd, Port, 
Starboard, aft, and primary (core) sections to the capital ships. 
Damage transfers in if a side's structure is gone. If you lose the 
Primary structure..*boom* Fighters have a neat little damage strip 
with integrated criticals based on the direction the damage came 
from. I will only use the flight level rules, ever. Who wants to 
maneuver 24 Frazis individually with your G'Quon, anyway..;-)
They made the Centauri Vorchan more useful with the addition of two 
twin arrays. Limited ship customization is possible by purchasing 
special equipment.

Never fight the Minbari. 

Just don't.

Anyway, while the ship control templates are somewhat reminiscent of 
SFB, the game is nowhere near that much of a kludge. I think AoG hit 
a good balance between detail and speed of play (no small thanks, I 
think to the on-line playtesters..) and there is a special thanks in 
the PBEM rules section to Jim Bell and the Electronic Playtest group.

All this having been said, I would buy it. I like B5. I like Full 
Thrust. Star Fleet battles was Okay, but went way, way out of 
control. This reminds me of how SFB was in the beginning before 
anyone EVER thought of UIM modules or Transporter bombs or Pseudo 
Plasma torpedoes..

Happy Hunting, gang- I think it'll be hitting shelves this and next 
week..
Mike Wikan
Game Design\Conceptual Art
n-Space, Inc.
A Producer of 3D Entertainment Software