Babylon 5: A Call To Arms (game) - History

History

Since its initial release in 2004, A Call to Arms has gone though several significant changes, with the release of supporting material and supplements. Initially the main boxed set contained the basic rules set and fleet lists for the Earth Alliance, Minbari, Centauri, Narn, Interstellar Alliance, Shadows, Vorlons, Raiders and League of Non-Aligned Worlds, as well as cardboard counters that could be used in place of miniatures to represent the ships. Some of these lists were extremely limited in options but most ships from the show were represented, including the iconic White Star but not the Babylon 5 space station.

With the help of feedback from players there were three Rules Supplements released in the following year, each providing a range of new units, rules and points of discussion. Rules Supplement 1 concentrated on new fighter rules, new missions, addressing several FAQ and finally releasing rules for space stations and Babylon 5 itself. Rules Supplement 2 included rules for fleet carriers and revised fleet lists for the Vorlons and the Shadows. Rules Supplement 3 included an expanded set of fleet lists for the League of Non-Aligned Worlds and new Refits and Duties tables for campaign play.

This was all part of the ongoing design and development process for what was essentially still a new game and Mongoose Publishing decided to publish in September 2005 a more comprehensive update for the game in the form of the book Sky Full of Stars (SFoS). This supplement not only pulled together all of the threads from the Rules Supplements but added more detail to certain sections of rules (particularly the campaign rules) and completely overhauled every fleet list. SFoS was a large expansion for the game both in terms of rules and in terms of the miniatures available. Soon after this there was a revised edition of the main boxed set to reflect any rules changes (although not the updated fleet lists).

Over the next year there were numerous articles in Mongoose's Signs & Portents magazine, and smaller supplements to cover the Earth-Minbari War, fleets for the Dilgar and Drakh. October 2006 saw the next significant release for the game with the hardback supplement Armageddon released. This supplement provided further rules updates, new ships for many races and new fleet lists for three different Earth Alliance eras, the Shadows, the Vorlons and the Ancients. This supplement has been the most controversial, with issues including the introduction of a new (Armageddon) priority level and Mongoose's problems with moulds for many ships collapsing.

Since then, there has been the release of the pak'ma'ra fleet followed by the release of the 2nd edition of the Call to Arms games in Aug 2007. This edition introduced new playable fleet list including the Gaim and Psi Corp as well as additional individual ships such as the Hurr Gunship, Technomage Pinnacle and the Ipsha Warglobe.

In Feb 2008 Mongoose Publishing announced on their website that;

''"After a very successful number of years producing miniatures for our Origins award-winning game A Call to Arms, Mongoose Publishing is announcing today that we will cease production of this range of models with effect from March 31st 2008. The increasing costs associated with this range combined with its sheer breadth means that production of miniatures is no longer commercially viable at this time. As a result we have reduced our prices on the miniatures by 20%, which will continue until March 31st 2008, when they will be removed from our catalogue. So, if you have been thinking about that new Shadow fleet or want to bolster the defences of the ISA, now is the time! We will still continue to support A Call to Arms through Signs & Portents and book releases."

The announcement came as a surprise to members of the Mongoose forums given the relatively active release schedule for new models and the short time after the release of the 2nd edition of the game. Speculation that the decision to cease miniature production was prompted by problems in extending the necessary license from Warner Bros to produce B5 miniatures was dismissed as false by Matthew Sprange, co-founder of Mongoose Publishing.

Mongoose Publishing purchased the license from Warner Bros following the demise of Agents of Gaming in November 2002 who had previous held said license to market and sell the Babylon 5 Wars game using many of the ship models as the current A Call to Arms line.