Babylon 5 Wars Conversion to Firestorm Armada

[Stephan]

Ok, here's a link to where you can download all of the materials.  I've done a sampling of ships from some of the major fleets we used to play and written up a summary of the major rules additions/changes.  My initial goal is to get reasonable balance between Earth, Centauri, and Narn.  Once we're comfortable with those, I think we'll be able to take the lessons learned into the other fleets.

http://www.sendspace.com/filegroup/wtTEgZmDuPNWfThNUWfp48mEF8Lrsz6xJvkwLdUCbFR8diMV4xulsfkc0DmvdDPa

Here's more inspiration! 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGRxM1I-M_0

[Dakkar]

Files downloaded for analysis...probably tomorrow when head not pounding. ;-)

Also, found this quite inspirational B5 montage. Spoilery as heck though, so B5 newbs DO NOT WATCH>
https://youtu.be/jSa6Zl8fcyo

[TimoftheC]

Hi Stephen,

Joined the forum just to say that I'm extremely interested in the conversion that you are doing of B5 to Firestorm Armada.

I play Babylon 5 ACTA myself although I do have a copy  of the Firestorm rulebook.

Well, just wanted to say that for now 

[Landlubber]

Hi Stephen,

Joined the forum just to say that I'm extremely interested in the conversion that you are doing of B5 to Firestorm Armada.

I play Babylon 5 ACTA myself although I do have a copy  of the Firestorm rulebook.

Well, just wanted to say that for now 

Hey Tim, welcome to Man Battlestations! If you want to, head over to the Introductions thread a tell us a bit about yourself--what games you play (and factions), where you usually play, etc. Glad you found our little corner of the internet!

[Stephan]

Hi Tim, thanks for your interest!  Where about are you?  Dale and I will be playtesting EA vs Centauri at Gamers Haven in Colorado Springs on Wed of this week if you're interested.  Otherwise, feel free to download the materials and give them a spin, I'm always interested in feedback.

[Stephan]

I had a great playtest game against Dale last night at Gamer's Haven.  I took Earth Alliance vs Dale's Centauri Republic.  The points worked out that we both took exactly 1005 points. 

EA -
2x Omegas (2 squadrons of 1 each)
Squadron of 2 Hyperion Theta
Squadron of 3 Sagittarius Missile Cruisers
Squadron of 3 Artemis Escorts

Centauri -
1 Primus
Squadron of 2 Centurions
Squadron of 2 Dargans
2 Squadrons of 3 each Vorchan

The game was pretty evenly matched throughout:
- Both Centurions, one Dargan, and 3 Vorchan lost, with the the Primus at about half damage.
- One Omega lost, one Hyperion lost, 2 Sagittarius lost, 2 Artemis lost, and one Omega badly damaged.

We found that the original Sagittarius stats were kind of crazy so I reduced them to 8 AD of Missiles (Torps) with a 360 fire arc.  We played with adding the Combustible Cargo MAR, but the Sagittarius are vulnerable enough compared to the rest of the fleet that anyone crewing one would have to be suicidal to fly them in a formation, so I dropped it.  That reduced their cost to 50 pts each.

We also modified the Plasma Accelerator special rule to simplify it.  Rather than having an AD boost on the first time it's fired each game, the weapon instead gets a +1 to hit.  I also boosted the basic AD at RB 1 to 8 AD and to 4 AD at RB 2.

The Dargan was mis-typed as a Battlecruiser.  We agreed its stats were better typed as a Heavy Cruiser.  I made the adjustment, but because the type is factored into the cost and DR/CR calculations, it had the net effect of dropping the CR to 6 and reducing the cost to 135 pts.

I modified the EA Interceptor special rule.  Rather than going with the Black 6 mechanic when intercepting Laser weapons, EA Interceptors now count as impeded against  Laser weapons.  This made things a bit simpler and seemed to make the EA defenses more manageable.

Our game also raised the question of whether Direct fire counts as simultaneous when determining PD reduction due to Hull/Crew loss.  We decided that it would be best to have the PD reduction take effect immediately upon loss of Hull/Crew.  That simulates the interceptors getting saturated due to overwhelming fire from a single ship/squadron and keeps the game from moving too slowly due to the effects of the interceptor rule.

I've updated the EA, Centauri, and Summary files at the following link:

File Name: Abbai.pdf https://www.sendspace.com/file/v72lq8

File Name: Babylon 5 Firestorm Rules Summary.pdf https://www.sendspace.com/file/7qebpm

File Name: Centauri.pdf https://www.sendspace.com/file/6fqajy

File Name: Earth Alliance.pdf https://www.sendspace.com/file/lbr2ad

File Name: Minbari.pdf https://www.sendspace.com/file/ywvh9l

File Name: Narn.pdf https://www.sendspace.com/file/1vju6z

File Name: Vree.pdf https://www.sendspace.com/file/si2fub

[Ruckdog]

Wow! I'm impressed with all the work you have been putting into this  .  I will have to buy some more B5 minis so I can try them out for myself.

[Stephan]

You  may be able to find the punch-out sets from B5 A Call to Arms that Mongoose put out.  Those aren't as good as the actual ships, but they work well enough. 

[Stephan]

I need volunteers to help with the ship conversion.  I'm working on instructions on what I'll need you to do and I can provide all the original B5 Wars stat sheets for each fleet in PDF for you to work from.  This will work best if you have Excel on your computer.  The work is relatively minor, I just need you to collect some stats and put them into a spreadsheet for me.  I can then bring them into my master spreadsheet that has all the conversion equations in it.

If you're interested, let me know and I'll get the materials to you.  I've got a lot of the EA, Centauri, Minbari, Vree, Abbai, and Narn core stats converted, but I need someone to work on Drazi as the next big fleet I'd like to bring in, and then pretty much all the other fleets you can imagine from the series.

[Ruckdog]

You  may be able to find the punch-out sets from B5 A Call to Arms that Mongoose put out.  Those aren't as good as the actual ships, but they work well enough.

I actually have all those sheets in the B5 ACTA box set sitting on my shelf...found it on Ebay a few years back

[Dakkar]

Throw Drazi my way... they are my 2nd fleet after all :-)

[TimoftheC]

Hi Tim, thanks for your interest!  Where about are you?  Dale and I will be playtesting EA vs Centauri at Gamers Haven in Colorado Springs on Wed of this week if you're interested.  Otherwise, feel free to download the materials and give them a spin, I'm always interested in feedback.

Hi Stephen - I'm from the UK mate so getting over to watch your game  was a little difficult I'm afraid 

I will be downloading your amendments Stephen (thanks for making them freely available) and hope to give them a try in a couple of weeks  - other game commitments allowing.  Just to explain though that I am a B5 acta player and very little experience of the Firestorm Armada rules so will have to try and learn those rules AND your conversion at the same time 

I currently own two fleets for B5 - EA and Narn.  I gave you a list of the ships that I currently own would you be able to give me input of creating 2 balanced small fleets to start testing the rules with at all?  That we free my brain cells up for just remembering the rules and not worrying about what ships to try and field.

Many Thanks

Tim

[Stephan]

Sure thing Tim.  Send me a PM with your list of ships.  If you've got something that I haven't converted yet, I can add them to the uploads as well.

[Dakkar]

Unrelated per se, but I've just been discussing a side project with another friend to stat out B5 ships for Attack Wing, ala Star Trek Attack Wing (only better balanced...). If I get anywhere with it, I'll start a new thread.

[Landlubber]

You guys are making me feel like a lazy bum.

I'll volunteer to play test, but I can't help with the math on the conversions due to not having the MS suite on my Mac.