(Mongoose) Babylon 5 Space Combat Game - Comments Needed!

[Hemlock Stones]

Babylon 5 Space Should Have Compatible Miniatures

GREETINGS!

Babylon 5 is in the right environment for role-playing, D20. The Babylon 5 Space Combat game, well I think the miniatures need to use the same scale as before. Plastic vs. metal. Not all of us are artists. Yet we want something nifty and sharp. Well why not do something like Hero Clix? With one minor exception, screw the whole unique vs. common availability crap. All of us will buy the fleets based on what we want to use. It would be a powerful incentive to find a way to use the D20 mechanics in the game. ie. Dexterity as a measurement of a ships ability to maneuver; Constitution as a mechanic of the ships toughness, etc.

The Star Wars D20 mechanics are too damned cumbersome. Can you say kludge? Making the Babylon 5 Space Combat game stand alone for those with a penchant for strategic gaming makes sense. The simpler the mechanics for space combat, the easier to integrate space combat into a role playing setting. Nobody wants to learn an additional set of rules for D20 relating to events that don't occur all that often.

The stats for the ship might include the equivalent of Feats as specific enhancements to the ship. ie. Jump Gate capability. The idea of being able to easily customize a ship the way characters can be customized certainly has its appeal. Granted this is all bit premature on my part.

I loved playing the B5 Wars game. Yes certain mechanics were difficult to deal with. But isn't that why we have calculators? B5 Wars had a mechanic to allow fleet based combat vs. individual ship combat. I'd think that individual ship combat would be a starting point. A later expansion would be for fleet based combat.

So sayeth the Bone Daddy!

 

[Ghostwind]

In my opinion, the Micromachine scale would be perfect for plastic miniatures. It would also a greater freedom of flexibility of size vs. detail and let you put together squadrons of Starfuries on a single base easily enough. I'm excited to see this, to say the least.

 

[Axegrrl]

Apologies in advance for the rambling nature of this post....

If you make the new rules system incompatible with the old minis, you will most likely alienate that group of potential customers. If you make it easy for them to use the stuff they've spent so many hundreds of $$ on acquiring and 1000s of hours painting, they may flock to your banner.

I think you would do well to find forums where the people who played the old B5 minis game hang out and ask them what they want.
Plastic vs. metal... You can do much finer (thinner) detailing in plastic than you can in metal. Take a look at a standard metal mini's sword, then look at some of the pointy bits on a GW dark elf. However, I've read that setup cost for plastics is much more expensive. Further, the perceived value is lower, so that you need to sell more product to recoup costs.

Another thing you should consider: not everyone is going to want to pay the increased game price that the "miniatures included" approach would require. The people with existing hordes of minis may not want the new minis, either, especially if the minis are not of their preferred faction.

> The space combat game is coming out anyway (slated for an August release).
> (though we would _seriously_ need to get our skates on for that!!!)
Miniatures production is SOOO very much NOT something to rush into. One thing you must consider, should you choose to produce minis: fighting-size forces from all the major groups should be available when the product ships. These can be small forces, but you need to have more to play with than two arbitrarily chosen factions!

Look at how poorly two of GW's more recent games did: Warmaster and Battlefleet Gothic. Both came out with two -- count 'em, two -- armies available. If you wanted to play any other army, you either had to make or convert your own pieces, or wait -- up to several months! -- to get the minis for your preferred army. Neither game ever became very popular, despite a lot of marketing and game-pushing by GW.

I just thought of a possible compromise between the "only two armies available" cost-saving approach and the "appeal to more fans via availability of all armies" expensive approach: Initially, have two small forces available, in plastic or metal, perhaps available separately or in a "deluxe" version of the boxed game. But include counters for every force in the main box.