Pride of the Kha'Ri - The G'Quan Class Heavy Cruiser in A Call to Arms

 

The Narn G'Quan Class Heavy Cruiser is the most commonly seen Narn warship in the Babylon 5 series, and one of only 3 Narn classes we see on screen. The other two being the T'Loth and the Frazi fighter. It is one of the most abused capital ships in the show suffering the most on screen losses in the original series. One is destroyed scouting Zha'ha'dum, one destroyed by the shadows at Quadrant 14, one destroyed by a centauri ship near babylon 5, one destroyed covering the escape of a Narn transport, and 7 lost at Gorash VII. We also see one destroyed in the film 'In the Beginning' for a total of at least 12 on screen losses. 

A thing of Beauty

Despite being the punching bag of Babylon 5, the G'Quan is, in my opinion, the best looking ship of the entire series, closely followed by the Brakiri Avioki, and the incredibly unsubtle Nova Dreadnought.

With the generally poor showing in the series, how does this ship stack up on the table in games of A Call to Arms?

The G'Quan in ACTA

The G'Quan is one of 3 ships available to the Narn Regime at battle priority level. The others being the G'Lan mag cruiser, and the G'Tel Command cruiser. both are variants of the G'Quan and have their own strengths and weaknesses but I won't discuss them here.

Stats for the ship appear in the Fleet Lists, and these were updated in Powers and Principalities, giving the ship a boost to its damage and crew, and also a 25% increase in firepower for it's Heavy Laser Cannon.

In addition to this, along with all races in the game, the Narn received a faction specific upgrade to Close blast doors, with certain ships now ignoring critical hits while under the effects of the order on a dice roll of a 6.

So, what do you get for your Battle priority point? The G'Quan has hull 6 and the second most damage and crew of any Battle level ship at 70/85 only being beaten by the Gaim Shrutaa with 72/100. The ship has a 30" range beam weapon with 5 shots and double damage, a frankly absurd number of secondary weapon shots at 16 per arc and the majority being twin linked, it carries a pair of Frazi fighters that you can switch for Goraths if you prefer, anti-fighter 1 gives it some protection against enemy fighter flights, with 8 troops you can board enemy ships and stand a very good chance of winning and it can easily contribute to planetary assaults, the jump engine provides some tactical utility, and best of all, it has a quite terrifying energy mine. 

So far all seems very good, but all these strengths come with some severe weaknesses. The most significant one is that the ship is quite difficult to maneuver. it has the lumbering trait, and the Heavy Laser Cannon is bore sighted, you have to turn the ship into whatever it wants to shoot. the 30" range helps somewhat, and you can mitigate the bore sight limitations with the 'Track That Target!' order from Powers and Principalities. It only goes off on a 9+ though, so in a normal battle where everyone is crew Quality 4, you are only getting it off a third of the time. There is also the fact that the Heavy Laser is quite weak compared to its peers, with most ships of the same priority having a much better primary armament.

The Secondary weapons, while having a ferocious number of shots lack AP, are single damage, and have a short range.at only 8". With the slow nature of the ship, it's quite easy to outmaneuver, and keep out of weapons range, and once you have been outmaneuvered, with no interceptors or damage mitigation outside of Close blast doors, you only have your hit points to fall back on, and even with 70 damage to chew through, it goes surprisingly quickly. The G'Quan CAN take a punch and swing back, it just can't keep taking them. Finally, the energy mine is single shot only, meaning you could be presented with the choice of firing it at a single target only if your opponent spaces out correctly, or not firing at all. This is a mixed blessing, as the threat of multiple ships getting hit can force your opponent to adopt a non optimal formation, but that threat only exists as long as you don't use it.

In terms of how to use it in games, the main strengths are the long range of the primary weapon combined with the fact that it is a beam weapon so will ignore high Hull values and interceptors, the energy mine can clear out fighters and force your opponent to consider whether bunching up is a good idea, and the fact that as ships go, it can take a beating. The lack of interceptors can be mitigated somewhat by supporting the ship with fighters and having them act as interceptors, you will lose them if you roll a 1 to intercept, but with Frazi's being generally slow and not terribly good, its a very good use for them.

Start your G'Quan's as far away from your opponent as you can so you can keep them in your front arc as long as possible, use your beams to deal the damage in the early stage, and try to maneuver so that you can get your short ranged secondaries into range. This will be difficult against some enemies, but against enemy lumbering ships you should be able to manage it. you will definitely need to support a G'Quan with other ships since it is so vulnerable to being outmaneuvered and then out ranged. 

Is it any good though?

The G'Quan is a terrible ship, It is tough, but relatively speaking under gunned, and often times the only thing the ships toughness does is make it so that you get to survive an extra turn before being blown up. I'm not sure i can adequately express how bad the ship is when compared to its competition. It's not the worst Battle priority ship in the game, that honour would probably have to go to the Early Earth Alliance Orestes, but the G'Quan comes a close second, in my opinion at least.

The Orestes beats the G'Quan handily in being just terrible

You will likely still want to take them in your Narn fleets, they look beautiful, they add something to your force, and while they are bad ships when compared to those of other races, in the context of the Narn fleet as a whole, they are quite decent. It's just a shame that the Narn fleet is so bad, but that is another story!

Do agree with me or not?

let me know in the comments.

See you next time.