E-Mine RAGE!

[Silvereye]

Its quite strange really though - only saw e-mines fired once on the show (I think?) vs. Shadows - you'd think the Narn would have sold their uber stealth beating weapon to the Earth Alliance during the Earth-Minbari war to say the least!

How effective were the e-mines you saw on the show?

They won a scream from the Shadow ships they hit. Also if you look carefully the G'Toc (the G'Quan that survived the narn/centauri war) carried one (though we never saw it fired). It is visible in some of the army of light shots and the scene where it flees to B5s jump gate escorted by Starfuries.

 

[thehod]

Any weapon that can deny special actions at 30 inches is very powerful not to mention makes fighters practically useless, beats stealth, and makes a mockery of white stars.

 

[Morgoth]

I too suspect that the emines will get totally ruined again...it took a big effort to get them back to useable in armageddon, so I suspect they will go belly up again and ruin many of the Narn ships. Also I feel that too few of the narn ships at lower priorities have them. one ship at skirmish - and they are pulsar mines, one at raid which sucks currently and one at battle.

 

[Silvereye]

I too suspect that the emines will get totally ruined again...it took a big effort to get them back to useable in armageddon, so I suspect they will go belly up again and ruin many of the Narn ships. Also I feel that too few of the narn ships at lower priorities have them. one ship at skirmish - and they are pulsar mines, one at raid which sucks currently and one at battle.

I think the PLs of the e-mine carriers was a leftover from Pre-revised. Where full e-mines were downright scary (splitting e-mine ADs...).

I am quite confident with what has been done to them. I don't think EP and Kattader would have been as quiet on the subject if they were pants.

 

[Locutus9956]

The problem is that the AoG E-mine system, which was very distinctive, unique, and, if it went well, hideously damaging to ships (just as bad as 1/2 a Primus' Battle Laser suite) heavily relied on mechanics from a hex grid -- notably, the hex number location. That isn't easy to translate to a miniature setting --- although it could conceivably be done, it'd be a pain. The rule would go something like:

Before any movement, any eligible E-mine systems may fire. If using this type of Emine, write down the location, in inches from each table edge, of the targetted Emine system. Point must be in arc of the Emine at the time of firing.

After all movement, resolve Emines. Roll one die. On a 5, deviate the mine (write up deviation process). One a 6, the E-mine system fails to detonate. Ships within 3" of a location suffer damage as per the normal Emine traits, ships within 1" suffer damage as if the Emine system had the trait E-mine, AP, DD, but can score criticals.

A royal pain for this one system. But, it would be a lot scarier.

Why not simply make them a guess weapon in much the same way as the Nova Cannon in BSG.

Now before anyone cries out in horror, yes the Nova Cannon in BSG was never quite right in that the original version was a little TOO accurate if you were any good at estimating ranges but the updated version with scatter wasnt too bad.

So why not simply make emines very nasty, but have you guess their range and then roll 2d6 scatter or something?

Also for this to work Narns would have to fire Emines before other weapons thus making them a first strike weapon much like fighters and it would take some tweaking to stop them becomming truly horrifically overpowered but thats always going to be the case with any rules change!

 

[Silvereye]

Why not simply make them a guess weapon in much the same way as the Nova Cannon in BSG.

Because you can measure anything you want at any time during the turn with ACTA. It kind of makes Guess range weaponry redundant.

The Narns are not into that whole pray to the fire button, annoint it with sacred oils, and hit it with the holy hammer to shoot (and then hope and pray some more that the god-emperor is watching and is pleased) thing like GW Imperials seem to be. The Narns no doubt prefer to use accurate scanners and targetting computers instead.

Also it should be worth noting that any changes to the E-mine trait will affect the Brakiri Gravatic Mines too (I think they were more into Earth gangster films than praying to starnge gods too).

 

[Locutus9956]

Irrelevant. The no measuring thing in BSG is nothing to do with the fluff, its just a game play mechanism.

And it would be simple change to just say you cant measure the range before firing emines. And when all's said and done, you could equally well just not have to guess the range allowing you to place the target marker wherever you like and increase the scatter. Jump points scatter now, why not emines too? They arent particularly accurate weapons after all!

 

[emperorpenguin]

Also if you look carefully the G'Toc (the G'Quan that survived the narn/centauri war) carried one (though we never saw it fired). It is visible in some of the army of light shots and the scene where it flees to B5s jump gate escorted by Starfuries.

You can SEE the energy mine? Really?? What does it look like? :?

 

[emperorpenguin]

I too suspect that the emines will get totally ruined again...it took a big effort to get them back to useable in armageddon, so I suspect they will go belly up again and ruin many of the Narn ships. Also I feel that too few of the narn ships at lower priorities have them. one ship at skirmish - and they are pulsar mines, one at raid which sucks currently and one at battle.

I am quite confident with what has been done to them. I don't think EP and Kattader would have been as quiet on the subject if they were pants.

In fact Katadder thinks they are too good! Getting the balance right is tricky because, as has been mentioned, the Minbari and ISA rely on defences which these ignore.

 

[H]

this is true, but then It just forces them to spread their fleet out to minimise impact I guess.

TOO GOOD eh? I'm intrigued now

 

[Silvereye]

You can SEE the energy mine? Really?? What does it look like? :?

It is just the swirly ball of energy you see in The Long Twilight Struggle.

 

[emperorpenguin]

You can SEE the energy mine? Really?? What does it look like? :?

It is just the swirly ball of energy you see in The Long Twilight Struggle.

Yeah but what do they look like stored inside the G'Toc?

 

[katadder]

from all the g'quans carrying e-mines they never seem to hav them stored insdie, its always sitting on top at the front of the hull then released when they fire them.
Yes i think e-mines currently are too good but hopefully something is being done about them.
and yes Hash my centauri did beat the Narn bat squad, but it was bloody scary facing down so many AD of beams (nearly triple the number i had in beams).

 

[emperorpenguin]

from all the g'quans carrying e-mines they never seem to hav them stored insdie, its always sitting on top at the front of the hull then released when they fire them.
Yes i think e-mines currently are too good but hopefully something is being done about them.
and yes Hash my centauri did beat the Narn bat squad, but it was bloody scary facing down so many AD of beams (nearly triple the number i had in beams).

What were the two fleets involved exactly?

 

[katadder]

i had a tertius, prefect, dargan, vorchat, 2 corvans against 6 ka'tans, 2 thentus and 2 sho'kars? (the scout). 1 squadron of ka'tans and a scout came in behind me too.

 

[Hash]

from all the g'quans carrying e-mines they never seem to hav them stored insdie, its always sitting on top at the front of the hull then released when they fire them.
Yes i think e-mines currently are too good but hopefully something is being done about them.
and yes Hash my centauri did beat the Narn bat squad, but it was bloody scary facing down so many AD of beams (nearly triple the number i had in beams).

Hey I'm just impressed - I've only ever beaten the bat squad once (and that was with a thoroughly broken fleet (Shadows) and a 'handicapped' bat squad as we used the old tourney list Narns (no Ka'Tans!) vs. uber Shadow Hunters x 2 + Scout)...guess any fleet can beat any other though if the dice gods are smiling on you

@ Locutus - I like the idea of saying e-mines scatter; it might alleviate problems with pin-point fighter clearance weapons (the number of times Reaverman has taken out a template to optimally place an e-mine so the 6 inch circle takes a maximum amount of ships makes my headache

 

[emperorpenguin]

You can SEE the energy mine? Really?? What does it look like? :?

It is just the swirly ball of energy you see in The Long Twilight Struggle.

Yeah but what do they look like stored inside the G'Toc?

Just went back and watched it. You are right, what I thought were simple navigation lights are energy mines!

 

[H]

from all the g'quans carrying e-mines they never seem to hav them stored insdie, its always sitting on top at the front of the hull then released when they fire them.
Yes i think e-mines currently are too good but hopefully something is being done about them.
and yes Hash my centauri did beat the Narn bat squad, but it was bloody scary facing down so many AD of beams (nearly triple the number i had in beams).

E-mines are currently too good? I assume from earlier you mean the second ed version ... just to clarify

 

[katadder]

yep, sorry, didnt clarify.

 

[Locutus9956]

Well it just makes sense really doesnt it? I mean how many wargames can you think of have weapons with a great big blast radius that DONT scatter or have some form of randomness/guess acuracy factored into them?

Incidentally Id like to see Pulsar mines (on the GKarith) closer to how they were in B5Wars, ie. emines but with the blast always centered on the firing ship (but not hitting it of course, that would just be stupid) (basically the same way the Vorlon antifighter pulse works currently)