Rules and ships from previous months can be found on this page. Once a ship has been published in an official product, it will be removed.
You can download the six Abbai units originally seen in B5W's League-1 supplement from here (six PDF files in a single ZIP archive). Descriptions and rules follow.
One of several cruisers operated by the Abbai, the Lakara has a nice mix of defensive turrets surrounding a central pair of combat lasers. Blessed with a powerful sensor array and excellent shields, it can be difficult to hit in combat, while using its heavy guns to slowly pick opposing ships apart.
The Bimith was designed after the Dilgar War to accompany Lakara-class cruisers and defend them against incoming fighter swarms. With no heavy weapons of its own, the Bimith relies solely on its spread of quad arrays to slice fighters out of space.
The Abbai developed this ship during the Dilgar War in a vain attempt to counter the fighters the Dilgar employed. Unlike the larger races, the Abbai chose not to station fighters aboard their warships, using dedicated carriers instead. The Miliani is one such carrier, holding a full squadron of Kotha fighters.
Shyaries are fleet support vessels and are comparatively rare. They do not patrol alone, and often guard Abbai bases or critically important capital ships. They are passable as ELINT vessels, but their real strength is their array of communications disruptors, which, properly used, can turn a battle in favor of an Abbai fleet.
The Tiraca was developed during the late stages of the Dilgar War as a means to deliver maximum firepower from a small platform. The Abbai did not like having to build this ship, as it goes against their racial mindset, but felt they had no choice if they wanted to defeat the tyranny of the Dilgar. Many Tiracas, with their central combat laser, were later sold to other races, but the Abbai began producing this design again during the Shadow War. It is considered a fair match against the Centauri Vorchan, a similar ship which may have been the inspiration for the Tiraca?s design.
This craft was developed during the Dilgar War using captured Dilgar technology, but by the time it saw widespread use, the war had ended. Very few improvements were made in the design since that point, and Kothas were the primary Abbai fighters used during the Shadow War. While not particularly powerful, they are cheap to build and possess a gravitic shield. They usually rely on force of numbers and sheer staying power to defeat opposing fighters.
The shield?s built-in generator can be voluntarily deactivated at the start of any turn. If this is done, the shield's benefit is not available that turn, but increase the fighter?s move by 2.
This is the primary Abbai heavy weapon. While not particularly powerful, it has a piercing effect, resulting in a significant bonus to its damage dice, as shown in the weapon statistics chart.
The standard Abbai defensive turrets consists of four particle weapons that fire simultaneously. This allows the device to produce a tremendous amount of shots during a turn. The disadvantage of this style is that if a single weapon is destroyed on the ship, its firepower is reduced significantly.
These devices provide additional defense to an Abbai ship against a single enemy squadron. At the start of the turn, the player should choose which squadron each of his ships will apply its impeders against (write this in the "notes" portion of the control sheet, and use pencil since you can change it every turn). The ship's armor ratings and defense factors are considered 1 point better for each level of impeders the enemy squadron must fire through, but this applies only to that single enemy squadron.
A ship with more than one level of impeders can apply them all to a single squadron or can allocate them individually. For example, the Miliani has two levels of impeders. If it were under attack by a Centauri squadron and an Earth squadron, it could choose to allocate both against the Earthers, both against the Centauri, or one against each. This allocation can be changed each turn, but not every pulse.
One level of impeders is lost when a structure box containing an "I" is destroyed.
Some Abbai ships use this device, which scores no damage but temporarily disrupts a target unit's sensors. For each disruptor that hits, the target's sensor rating is reduced by 2 points for the next three pulses. There is no other effect.
NOTE: THIS WAS UPDATED TO 2 POINTS ON 10/8/01 AS A RESULT OF PLAYTEST REPORTS.