New to B5. Need Help in Summarizing Game Mechanics

[Iron Panda]

Well, I'm finally getting into B5 and before sinking my teeth into the rules (plan on getting the rulebooks and the minis next week) can anyone provide a summary on the rules and game mechanics of the game? As for purchasing minis, what should I start out with and how should I arrange my fleet?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Locutus9956]

Well the rules are pretty straightforward, you and your opponent take it in turns to move a ship until youve all moved your ships, then you take it in turn to shoot a ship at a time and so on. More than that is down to ship maneuvering, traits and weapon types really and cunning use of terrain and manuevers as with any wargame really

As for miniatures, to be honest I would suggest you buy the box set and play a few games with the counters in there first (the box set comes with enough counters to play any fleet from any of the races ). Play around with them a bit and find a race you enjoy playing before you go spending lots of money on miniatures Id suggest playing a few games at 5 point raid priority level as this is a pretty standard sized game. Maybe play a few at 5 pt Battle too though so you can get a feel for how things play in slightly larger engagments too

Once you've found your race of choice, a good starting point is the fleet box set for that race (the box sets are excellent value and usually pretty good starting fleets though you might want to add a ship or two here and there ).

 

[Obsidian]

I'll second that opinion, but add the caveat that you should evaluate your purchase of a fleet box on the basis of where the ships in it fall priority wise. To give you some more background by what I mean on this, there are currently 6 priority levels.

Patrol
Skirmish
Raid
Battle
War
Armegeddon

To try and give you an idea on what these mean, Patrol level are your light attack craft and fighter squadrons. Skirmish and raid are your destroyers and light cruisers. Battle and War are the heavy cruisers and battleships, and Armegeddon represents the really big and really powerful ships.

To give you an example, the Shadow fleet box is a particularly bad value at the moment because it comes with 4 Shadow ships which are all at armegeddon level. In the standard 5 point raid game you can't even field one of these so the liklihood that you'll be able to put all 4 on the table is effectively nill. Getting abreak on the price isn't that good if you can never use it in an actual game. I hear that is changing with the release of the second edition which will include a "Juvenile" Shadow ship that has a bit less power and drops down a level or two.

In the end, it is best to get the set with a number of counters so you can try the game with a few different factions to see which one you like best.

 

[Locutus9956]

Well to be honest with the shadows, I tend to field shadow ship models as hunters currently anyway as I simply HATE the hunter design (not the mini, cant fault mongoose for that, its spot on to the show).

 

[tneva82]

To give you an example, the Shadow fleet box is a particularly bad value at the moment

Which of course is subjective...If you like to play 5 point armageddon games(doable if you keep ship number DOWN! I can see myself playing 5 point armageddon between shadows and vorlons easily) that's nice buy again.

Though of course for most cases what you are saying is true :lol: