Ancients

[AdrianH]

I have a few questions about the B5 Ancients. Not the little pretenders, i.e. the Shadows and Vorlons - the real Ancients.

The Traveller drains power from any ship which approaches within 10". Does this also apply if the Traveller moves to within 10" of a ship which has already moved? Also, part of the effect of power drain is that the ship acts as if skeleton crewed; does this override the Flight Computer trait, since the ship loses its capability due to loss of power rather than loss of crew?

The Triumviron has three 6AD beams and gets +2AD for each additional one which attacks the same target. Does this apply if it splits the beams between multiple targets? Best case, the opposition has put six ships into a nice tight formation so that the beam can split between all of them. Beam 1 aims 1AD at each target. Beams 2 and 3 do exactly the same. So each target is being attacked by 1AD from all three beams - do they then all get the +2AD for additional beams, +4AD total bonus, so +5AD per target? (The obvious answer is you wouldn't put such a formation in front of a Dag'Kar, so don't put them in front of a Triumviron either. :twisted

 

[Burger]

Traveller, I would say yes it applies if he moves into you after you've moved, and yes he powers down your flight computer.

Triumviron I seem to remember asking this a long long time ago, you may be able to dig it up if your forum-fu is strong. I think the general consensus was that if you tried such a gamey tactic you would probably end up with bits of Triumviron sticking out of your face :lol: Common sense would say that he must use his beam un-split to get the 2AD bonus.

ETA: Here it is... it never got answered in 2006 so I doubt it will now. http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?t=23443

 

[AdrianH]

I don't see how the Triumviron exploiting the rules to splat lots of small ships is more gamey than a Dag'Kar picking the exact spot to drop an e-mine and hit them all with a full strength attack. Besides, the Triumviron needs help against such a swarm because if they get round its side or back, it's stuffed. It has no weapons there, nor any supporting ships which can cover it, unless you play a cataclysmic scale game with multiple Ancients on the table at once. And the best defence against either attack is simply not to pack ships together in front of such a weapon. However, if the consensus is that it can't get the bonus AD except against a single target, that's how I'll play.

If an Ancient is crippled, presumably it works the same as a White Star, i.e. it stays crippled even if it self-repairs itself back to above the threshold. It can then be subject to "Stand Down and Prepare to be Boarded", which could be very amusing, not to mention difficult against something with initial damage 250 and CQ 7. On the other hand, if it cripples an enemy, it can declare "Stand Down and Prepare to be Boarded". And the Traveller, which automatically cripples anything which comes within 10", has just started giggling insanely. :twisted: