The Shipyard: Tethys Variants for use in A Call To Arms

In the last Shipyard I updated the Tethys-class cutter for use in 3rd Age and Crusade era fleets. The Tethys is a small ship that fills a variety of roles in Earth Force with its primary uses being in the anti-piracy and customs roles. Being a very long lived design there have been numerous variants and conversions and I will be going over 3 of the less common ones here. As always, if you plan on using these in your games, discuss with your opponent first and I would appreciate any feedback if you do use them in your games.

Tethys-class Escort Carrier

The unexpected but, in hindsight, completely predictable entry of the Earth Alliance into the Dilgar war saw the Dilgar rapidly lose territory as the Earth Alliance and a newly emboldened League of Non Aligned worlds went on the offensive. 
The rapid advance saw the Earth Alliance supply lines stretched to breaking point and this was exacerbated by a lack of suitable escort ships. The Dilgar quickly adapted and would launch small raids on convoys and supply ships. The Earth Alliance was unwilling to divert front line warships away from direct combat so instead reactivated older ships and used them as escorts instead. This included the Venerable Epimetheus class ships but they proved to be vulnerable to strike fighters that were almost ubiquitous in Dilgar forces.

An Epimetheus backed up by a pair of escort carriers protect a Cotten class tender from a Dilgar raiding force

An interim solution was required, and this arrived in the form of the Tethys class Escort Carrier. This was a rapid conversion of the Tethys class cutter to carry fighters. The conversion required the removal of a great deal of the ships armament for hangar space and stores, and resulted in a ship that was cramped, unpopular with crews, had limited endurance, but nevertheless gave the Earth Alliance the ability to protect their supply lines with fighters.

Barely adequate to achieve the task at hand, as soon as the Dilgar war was over, the ships that had been converted to Escort carriers were either converted back to their original configuration, or if they were older hulls, scrapped.

Notes: This design is a ship from Babylon 5 Wars and I have had to take a few liberties with it as the rule sets are not compatible. the B5W version does not carry fighters but instead assault shuttles. As these do not exist in A Call to Arms, I instead opted to use Tiger class fighters. Additionally, since this is a ship converted to defend merchant ships, it can only be used in the relevant missions.
Finally, the B5W version has anti-fighter missiles. I think having those would make the ship a little too good at its role, so instead I left the secondary weapons in place, and just added Anti-fighter. This ship has next to no firepower but it does carry fighters.

Tethys-class Police Leader

A Police Leader leads a small squadron of Patrol ships

The Police Leader is an enlarged version of the Tethys class laser boat that is designed to act as a command ship in anti-raider operations. The expanded hull allows for more extensive command and control facilities than that found on a regular Tethys as well as more powerful and numerous weapon emplacements. there was also room to fit additional power generation allowing the Medium Laser cannon to charge more rapidly than on a standard Tethys.

Notes: This ship is a design from Babylon 5 wars and in that game is a ship that is in almost all respects, a Tethys, with a slight initiative bonus against raiders. I felt that this would be a perfect opportunity to depart significantly and have a ship that fills a more combat oriented role than the Hermes, and is more survivable than a regular Tethys. Consequently, I have increased the hit points of the ship to bring it in line with the Hermes, and the laser cannon is no longer slow loading. this combined with doubling the weapon batteries gives it a requisite increase in firepower. It can do the same damage as 2 normal Tethys, but as a single ship, it is less survivable overall.
Finally, the command bonus is there to allow it to fulfill its reason for existing, a command vessel against raiders and, finally, making it unique reflects that it is an uncommon variant and also stops it being spammed.

Tethys-VBSS class cutter (Visit, Board, Search & Seizure)

A Pair of Tethys VBSS investigate a pair of suspicious ships

During the Earth-Minbari War the Earth Alliance purchased weapons from the Narn Regime. Amongst those armaments were Burst Beams. These weapons were not suitable for the situation that was developing and so were put into storage.

After the conclusion of the War, there were a large number of the Narn weapons in storage, and the decision was made to make use of them. The Burst beam is an EM weapon that can disable ships systems, and thus allow the capture of that ship, and it was deemed to be a perfect fit for the Tethys, being a relatively small system that would be effective against raiders. Early field Testing revealed that the weapon was effective in disabling raiders, but then the ship lacked the ability to board an uncooperative ship, so a breaching pod was later added. The stockpile of Burst beams was limited, so the number of VBSS that were converted remained relatively small. the ship nevertheless proves to be a nasty surprise to raiders if they are unfortunate enough to encounter one.

Notes: This ship appears in Babcom 14 and I have just made a few changes to the standard Tethys. the Burst beam in B5W does damage to a ships power systems and degrades the ships ability to fight without doing significant actual damage. since no such ability exists in A Call to Arms I simply used the stats for the burst beam from the Narn regime, and added a breaching pod. This ship is no more survivable than a normal Tethys, and has to get close to the enemy to do anything, so I don't think its unbalanced. I also added the Unique keyword since its an uncommon version of the ship and too many breaching pods could be quite onerous to face.

With that, this weeks Shipyard is done.

I hope you like the ships presented above. If you like them let me know. If you use them please feedback your experiences.

Thanks for reading, and I will see you next time when I go over the Brakiri Im-Rehsa Mearkat line of ships.