Battlestar Galactica - 5th October 2011

We decided to give Battlestar Galactica a go with 5 players instead of the usual 6 as it meant we could avoid the unloved Sympathizer card and hopefully reduce time between turns a little too.

I played Baltar, James as Adama, Andy as Boomer (surprise), Kieron as Tigh and Stu as Apollo. The first part of the game progressed with no evidence of Cylons as everyone pulled together to get us to the halfway point without too much damage.

After the second round of loyalty cards things began to change. At this point I'd seen all of Kieron's cards (he was human) and one of James' (also human) and somehow I'd dodged the cylons with my three cards. So Andy and/or Stu were looking a bit tin-plated to me, but the others hadn't seen any other cards and didn't know.

Then during a Cylon attack, Stu showed his hand and refused to fight, instead steering two civilian ships into the path of the raiders. Carnage ensued, but Stu was clearly mistified when he got no help with a follow up crisis that would have put the humans in a much worse position. More cylons and basestars attacked, and the humans found themselves with no pilots as Andy repeated Stu's approach a turn later.

In a typically close finish, fuel and morale were hovering just above zero and the humans needed one more jump to win. Andy and Stu managed to trigger a final crisis that was decided by a die roll. The result was the loss of one more fuel and defeat for the humans.

It felt frustrating to have decided the result of the game on a dice roll - a skill card showdown would have felt more satisfying, but ultimately the humans put the fuel at risk and then the cylons managed to exploit it.

It felt a bit odd having the declared Cylons pick a crisis and (as current player) choose the worst option, but that's exactly what an undeclared cylon would do I suppose.

Great fun and felt better without the Sympathizer card. At some point we should check out the expansion as I think they provide more variety for the cylon players and give the humans the option of kicking cylons out of the airlock!