Babylon 5 - The Mighty Narn War Wachine

 In All Its 2.5D Glory

I was prompted to write this article for three reasons, first there is another attempt to reboot Babylon 5, second, I was reading an article by another blogger, A Terrible Loss of Lead and Wealth ' More StarTrekkin who was starting to build up a Star Trek fleet and it reminded me of my attempts to make cheap Babylon 5 ships. And third I am big fan of Babylon 5. 

I put these ships together about 15-20 years ago (before anything such as a 3D printer) as a quick and cheap way to refight parts of the Narn-Centauri war.  While there were some very nice metal models at the time, but at about £5 per capital ship this made putting on a large game an expensive option. And I always want big battles, which is one of the things that I loved about Babylon 5 was they weren't afraid on a big space battle. These ships were drawn on MS Paint and printed on an inkjet printer. Finally, the paper was stuck onto a medium card and cut out. I didn't want flat models but did want to be able to put a fleet together quickly. So, this was a compromise design. 

They look quite basic by today's standards, but I managed to face off against the Centauri a few times. The biggest issue at the time was the lack of a hex mat so distances etc. had to be measured out which slowed the games down. And the aim was big and reasonably fast space battles in order to fight out a war. 

Heavy cruisers with escorts and fighters

Babylon 5 managed to design some really cool spaceships which were every bit as iconic as its Star Trek competitors. Ships of both the Narn Regime and the Earth Alliance were my favourites. 

It is interesting that both Babylon 5 and Deep Space 9 produced at the same time (late nineties) started the multi-series story arc which is now the norm. But Babylon 5 was always designed as a multi-series story arc whereas Deep Space 9 developed this way.  I remember reading an article by the writers of Deep Space 9 saying that you just couldn't keep writing a story around a space station where everything went back to normal at the end of the episode and there wasn't any long-term consequence to the stories. Whereas in Star Trek - The Next Generation they could always fly away at the end of an episode. 

Season 1 with Commander Jeffery Sinclair

'You talk like a Minbari, commander' A compliment by the Minbari warrior Neroon to commander Sinclair. 

One of the points about Babylon 5 that the writer J. Michael Straczynski said was that he had a plan for every major character including a way to drop them out of the series. Which unfortunately he had to do to the series lead commander Jeffery Sinclair played by Michael O'Hare after the end of the first series. Not that it was known at the time, but he was suffering from a serious mental health condition and had to leave. 

The G'Quan Heavy Cruiser

'How many Centari does it take to screw in a light bulb? One but in the great old days of the Republic, hundreds of servants would screw in a thousand light bulbs at the slightest command!' Londo's joke about the faded glory of the Centari republic. 

Never too many...

Seasons 2 - 5 with captain John Sheridan

Commander Sinclair was replaced by captain Sheridan (centre) who ran through to the end of the series. 

'What's going on? Looks like a Pak'ma'ra ate your cat' Ivanova's life lessons

Frazi Heavy fighter

Size comparison

Londo, Vir and G'Kar in a more relaxed conversation

'Do you think I married them for their personalities? Their personalities could shatter entire planets!' Londo about his wives.

T'Loth Assault cruiser (right) alongside
a G'Quan heavy cruiser. 

Rob