Re: EFSB

On Tue, 20 Jan 1998, Jim 'Jiji' Foster wrote:

> For the sake of those of us not flush enough to buy both, could you
give a
> rundown of how B5 Wars works? I've yet to meet anyone who owns, let
alone
> plays it....

	Comparison with EFSB, it's a matter of taste.
	B5 Wars sacrifices a bit of playability for
	more detail.  For instance, the ship damage sheets
	have damage boxes to check off for *every single
	weapon, drive, engine and sensor* !!

	The game comes with some very nice cardboard
	ship counters with wonderful illustrations.
	The game comes with 12 metal miniatures,
	3 fighters for EarthForce, Narn, Centauri and
	Minbari.

	The combat system is ok, but the movement
	system is pretty ad-hoc.  Owners of the game
	should subsitute the vector movement system
	variant developed by Christopher Weuve and
	Arius Kaufmann, available at
	http://www.wizard.net/~caw/vms.htm
	
	The Hit Location chart determines what
	item was hit.  Some items are in the
	ship's core, these are called "Primary" items.
	The hit table uses 1d20, rolls of 1-18 hit
	various non-primary items (thrusters, weapons,
	jump engines, etc). Rolls of 19-20 mean
	that one got lucky, and gets to roll 1d20 on the Primary Hit
	Location chart (sensors, engines, hangars, reactors,
	C and C).

	Weapons have different firing options.
	Standard: take the volley's damage points,
	subtract the armor of the item hit (each
	weapon, drive, engine, and sensor has their
	own armor rating!) and check the remaining
	damage points off the item. When all of
	the points are gone, the item is toast.

	Raking: the volley's damage points are divided
	into separate volleys of 10, with the remainder
	going into a less than 10 volley.  Each volley
	gets a separate roll on the hit location chart.

	Piercing: the volley is divided into two volleys.
	The first is treated like a raking volley.
	The second volley gets to roll on the Primary
	hit location chart!

	Plasma: as standard, except the amount of
	damage points goes down with each hex of
	range between firer and target ship.
	
	Sustained: only in the most advanced weapons,
	when these hit, by feeding power into the 
	weapon on the next turn, it continues to
	inflict damage on the target.

	When a ship system undergoes damage, it
	has to roll on the critical hit table.
	50% chance of nothing happening, 50%
	chance of something dire.

	If a system has all its damage boxes destroyed, 
	and there are damage points left over, the
	remaining damage goes to "structure".
	There is a Forward structure, Aft, Port,
	Starbord, and Primary.
	When a structure block is totally destroyed,
	*all* items attached to that block are
	destroyed as well!

	
	In summary: EFSB is for people who want
	more action, faster gameplay, and less detail.
	B5 Wars is the opposite.

	IMHO, EFSB gives more "bang for the buck".
-- 
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