Call to Arms vs Fleet Action and B5Wars

[Taran]

I initially purchsed the B5Wars 2nd Ed Boxed set a couple weeks ago in a fit of pure joy. A Babylon 5 Miniatures game!
So I hurriedly told the gamestore owner to order a bunch more from the same game.
He didn't get it right, though and I ended up ordering a couple fleet boxes from A Call to Arms: Eart Alliance Early Era and ISA (these have different contents from the fleet boxes on this website, are they old?).
Anyway, I got to looking at the models, because I figured that as long as I had models from 1 game, I could probably use them for any of the others, Call to Arms, Fleet Action or B5Wars.

The questions I have for the local community (and I hope some of you are familiar with the games from the now defunct AoG) are:

"Are the models of comparable vessels all of similar size?"
"If the previous question is 'Yes' then which set has the best models?"

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Both ranges are the same, except that Mongoose has released models for ships AoG never had. The Mongoose scupts are the AoG sculpts more often than not.

Fleet Action used a smaller scale range that's not compatible with B5W as far as I know. The B5W models are the same as the ACtA range, with a few exceptions as noted above.

 

[LaranosTZ]

The other difference is B5W used a hex-map based system, though they did eventually come out with a hexless ruleset. If you have the rules for the hexless play style base sizes don't matter, otherwise they obviously do.

 

[Silvereye]

He didn't get it right, though and I ended up ordering a couple fleet boxes from A Call to Arms: Eart Alliance Early Era and ISA (these have different contents from the fleet boxes on this website, are they old?).

More then likely. The old boxes are white and did contain a different mix of minis to the new boxes (which have been optimised to contain a 5 point battle level fleet). However the old ISA box did contain a whole world of White Stars and 2 Victories. All the minis are still usable though.

Something to watch with the B5W and FA scales. Mongoose predominantly use AoGs B5W moulds, though have used FA scale ships in their line. The White Star Fighter, Vorlon Transport and Vree Xaar are all AoG's FA scale ships. The have also released a large pile of their own sculpts; the Armageddon level ships, The Drakh, The Gaim and many other vessels here and there among the races.

 

[Taran]

Ah, so I have the old boxes...

Here's hoping I didn't get the Old Books, too...

But, yes, I like the fact that I have 2 Victory-class Destroyers and 10 White Stars.

But I don't much care for the Early Era EA Fleet Box.

 

[Silvereye]

As long as your books are red had backs, you've got second ed.

 

[Locutus9956]

Well one word of warning, the 'revised' box set is NOT 2nd edition. There isnt a second edition box set (at least not yet). Basically the 2nd Edition books are big red hardbacks that clearly say '2nd Edition' on the front cover. If youve got black softback books that say 'Revised Edition' Im afraid youve got the old books there!

As for the fleet boxes, it doesnt really matter that much which version you buy, in fact some of the older ones gave you a few more ships (or different ships anyway), but you may find your short on fighters with quite a few of the old box sets. (again not a major issues as I tend to use counters when I run out of fighters anyway!). That said there are a few box sets that are slightly invalid now (the only one that springs to mind is Crusade EA that gives you I believe a Nemesis or two in the old box set (the Nemesis is no longer a Crusade EA ship in 2nd Edition).

Lastly: AoG stuff. Basically, mongoose bought the molds to the old AoG models. Captial ships in ACTA generally are the same as the B5Wars minis and Fighters are the Fleet action ones. There are a few exceptions where some ships have been resised to 'fit' better. Overall it doesnt really make much difference overall. ACTA measures most things from the stem so the ship model itself doesnt really do much other than look alot cooler than a dot on a stick with 'omega destroyer' written on the base

If you want to use the models in B5Wars or fleet action as well though you might want to base them on smaller hex bases as basing them on the larger mongoose flight stands makes it a bit hard to see what hex the ship is in unless of course you play on a HUGE hex map

Basically if you have any old AoG models you can still use them and they will look right at home as they, mostly ARE the same models

 

[Taran]

Thanks for the info, Locutus.
Are any of the older books hardcover? All I really know about the books I ordered is that they are all hardcover.

Also, if I use the AoG models for ACTA, how do I measure? A lot of the bigger models for B5W are on multiple stands. The Omega and Babylon 5 herself spring to mind as examples...

 

[Myrm]

All models firing arcs, distances are measured to a fixed point in space, using the base stem. In the case of multiple bases and hence multiple stems, the rules state you pick one as the aiming point and stick with it for the game.

 

[Silvereye]

Some of the older ones were. Sky Full of Stars and Armageddon. The big distinction is they have black covers.

All measuring is done from stem to stem (fighters from/to the edge ofthe counter/base). As to multi-base minis, do exactly like you did in AoG's games. Pick a stem* it is using and measure all distances from it. The alternative is to re-base them on a single flight stand. (The first option seems easier to me though.)

--Edit--
* Corrected from 'base' to 'stem'.

 

[Myrm]

*deleted double post*

 

[Kyle81]

I would recommend you give B5 Wars a try. I play both, but our gaming group actually prefers and plays more B5 Wars. Call To Arms is a quicker to play game, but doesn't capture that babylon 5 combat feel as well as B5 Wars did. B5 Wars is a far more tactical game, but at the same time its more complex and takes longer to play.

The models for either game are generally compatible with b5 wars as you don't play to miniature scale and its hex based.

 

[Taran]

That was generally the idea: play both. Rather, to play all 3, if I get around to buying the Fleet Action books.

I was going to base all my ACTA models on hexes and just was wondering what to do about using multi-based B5W models when I play ACTA...

 

[Lord David the Denied]

You just indicate which base is the ship's location. The other base becomes irrelevent except as a physical obstruction on the table.

 

[Kyle81]

Really don't bother with fleet action, they never really finished that line so lot of missing things and you can play fleet level play with Call to Arms easier. If anything Call to Arms is much more like Fleet Action, while Babylon 5 Wars was actually a simulation.

Much more detailed play in B5 Wars, and the ships were much more accurate to what is seen in the TV series.... Call to Arms pretty much abstracts things like ship armaments. Movement is very detailed in B5Wars...movement is the most important aspect of the game and is designed to simulate vector based space combat as seen in the TV series. Call to Arms uses a simplified movement system.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

B5Wars seems to have had the Centauri all wrong. Masses of beams and rubbish pulse weapons...

 

[Kyle81]

No.... the main centauri weapon found on all ships and in most quantities was the twin arrays.... little pew pew pew guns as seen on the vorchans and primus cruisers in the show. They put in some beam weaponry but only a few and they were very low powered beams. Main point of Centauri in B5Wars was mass amounts of fast firing little weapons.

Both Call to Arms and B5wars made up stuff, but Call to Arms is far less accurate with its weapon allocations and especially lot of mistakes on the fire arcs of various weapons....

This is likely largely due to call to arms being more abstract representation of weapons and not actual weapons that you would count and see on ships.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Since when is little guns the point of the Centauri? Didn't you see those handful of ion cannon hits sheer a chunk off B5? :?

 

[Kyle81]

Those aren't ion cannons. Never in the show are guns even referred to as ion cannons... and the fandom never even noted such things. Ion cannons were just tossed in by Mongoose when creating their own fluff for the universe.

And the guns I am talking about are the twin barreled guns that fire on B5. Rapid fire pulses if anything.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

G'Kar refers to ion cannons specifically in season 2 when chewing out the mardy Narn population of the station.

We do see the ion cannons firing rapidly, but only two or three of the shots actually strike B5. Those handful are enough to blow off a large piece of the station. Hardly little pew-pew guns.

We also see a pair (or is it three?) of Vorchans kill a G'Quan with a few shots from their "little pew-pew guns." While this is the most destroyed ship in the series, this suggest more firepower than some tiny little deep-space machinegun.