The Shipyard: Narn Na'Rok class Light Cruiser for A Call To Arms

The Na'Rok class Light Cruiser was one of the first new capital ship classes designed by the Narn Regime following the withdrawal of the Centauri from Narn in 2261.

With the need to rapidly reconstitute their fleet the Narn required a ship that could operate for extended periods on patrols, possess sufficient firepower to challenge any raiders that managed to avoid the Whitestar fleet which, in the immediate period following the formation of the ISA took a lot of responsibility for conducting anti-piracy patrols, and be able to support the main expeditionary fleet in a primary role.

The Na'Rok alongside a G'Quan

The resulting ship can fill the roles of both the G'Karith and Var'Nic and resembles, at least superficially, the G'Quan class Heavy Cruiser. The ship is built around its primary armament of laser cannons supplemented by pulse weapons of various sizes rather than the mixed battery of light pulse and ion weapons present on previous Narn ships. This measure simplifies production and maintenance.

The Na'Rok was also the first class equipped with artificial gravity as designed, although the first batch of ships were constructed and launched 'for but not with' this capability as Narn industry was still recovering from the planetary bombardment and subsequent Centauri occupation.

The lead ship, the NRS Na'Rok was launched in late 2265 and accepted for service in early 2266. Currently quite a rare ship, the post war Narn regime have many limitations on their manufacturing capabilities so the class is supplementing the much easier to produce and still reasonably effective Improved Th'Nor that is being manufactured at volume.

Designing the ship

The NRS Na'Rok, lead ship of the class

The majority of the hard work was done by others for this ships inclusion in Babylon 5 Wars. My conception of it is very much a baby G'Quan.

I've given the ship 36 damage so that it can benefit from the Narn rule that allows ships to Ignore critical hits if they close blast doors, and Hull 5 which is fairly standard for Raid ships. Movement wise its the same as the G'Karith with an 8" movement and 2/45 turns so quite nimble.
As far as armament, the ship has Double Damage beams and Pulse weapons giving it a respectable amount of firepower, with an emphasis on forward weapons. I decided to give the beams an 18" range so that there was a difference between the Beams on the Var'Nic, albeit a slight one. Finally it has a 1 shot e-mine which is taken from the Ka'Tan and a flight of Frazi fighters.

The result is a reasonably agile, tough, and fairly hard hitting ship. It lacks the specialization that you will usually find in Narn ships so is more a multi role platform.

The Na'Rok being escorted by a new Var'Nit class escort ship

I hope you like it, Let me know what you think.

Thanks to Ginge for helping with design and playtesting.
From a Design by Paul Brown, Great Machine Issue 3
STL by Tyrel Lohr.
Painted by me

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