Had a great time time with my first playing of BSG. A friend had picked it up at GenCon.

5 players – 1st time playing for everyone. Time playing after setup and rules explanation was about 2:45 minutes.

I’m doing this from memory as I didn’t take notes. I’ll recount the memorable events.

I've added a couple of answers in color from the designer that resolves some questions we had during play.

Round 1 (Note: The game does not track or consider rounds, I just use them to break up the progress of the game.)


Apollo (me) is first player. Since Apollo starts off in a viper and there are raiders on the board, Apollo moved to attack and played a card that allows for 4 attacks. Apollo killed the 2 or 3 raiders that are present but missed against the basestar. The first crisis card adds another basestar, 4 heavy raiders and a few more raiders. It’s looking ugly.

Baltar is up next. He is the President and moved to Colonial One and drew 2 quorum cards. The 13 difficulty crisis card is passed for no effect, but we spent a lot of action cards

Adama (Admiral) moved to the Fire Control Station and shot one raider down. This seemed to be a less than optimal move, but the player is known to be a sub-optimal (dumb) kind of guy. The crisis card activated the basestars to attack Galactica. The Cylons got their revenge, generating two hits: lose 1 fuel and damaging the Fire Control Station sending Adama to Sick Bay.

Side Note: I was hoping that Adama was moving to the Fire Control Station and had a better action than the one printed on the board. I think there is an opportunity here for an expansion card, probably for the tactics deck, i.e. Flak Guns: Action: Take an action in the Fire Control Station to make 3 attacks on raiders and heavy raiders. I don’t think there are any skill card actions that are location dependent except for some of the piloting cards. (you’ve got to be in a viper)

Chief Tyrol took his action – I believe he repaired the Fire Control Station. His special ability allows him to take another action when he performs a repair action. (The repair actions are provided on the blue engineering cards.)

I don’t remember the crisis card, but at this point we had 2 undamaged basestars, 4 heavy raiders and about 5 raiders, 3 of which were 1 space away from 3 civilian ships. The FTL drive had moved up the ready track a couple of times but we couldn’t go yet and we were feeling the pressure.

Starbuck moved to Flight Control to move the 2 unmanned vipers that start in space. One is able to enter the space with the civilian ships the other is 1 space away. The crisis card activated the raiders. At this point the 3 raiders attacked in the space where we had 1 unmanned viper and 3 civilian ships. The first raider’s attack missed the viper, the second hit and Apollo played a card to force the raider to re-roll which generated another hit, sending the viper to the damaged vipers box. The third raider destroyed a civilian ship, killing 1 population.

I don’t remember if we were playing correctly, or my memory is faulty here. I don’t have the rules (it’s not my game) so I don’t know if when the raiders activate they can move 1 space and attack or if they only move 1 space and must wait for another activation to perform their attack. The raiders may have moved into the space with the civilian ships during the Chief’s turn, or we may have played this incorrectly.

Details about crisis cards are hard to recall. During the turn I believe we passed 2 or 3 and failed 1 or 2, losing at least 1 morale.


Round 2


Apollo was out of position in his viper to help defend the civilian ships, so he spent a skill card to return to Galactica and used the Flight Control station to move 2 vipers, 1 of which was moved to help defend the 2 remaining civilian ships that were threatened.
The raiders were activated by the crisis card and destroyed the viper and another civilian ship which had no resource icon on it, so no resource was lost.

We decided that ship must be a useless toy factory ship.

The crisis card also advanced the FTL drive and Galactica jumped away clearing the board of all Cylons. We breathed a sigh of relief. We jumped a distance of 1 and used up 1 fuel.

At this point in the game I had no suspicions that any of the players were Cylons. I thought that everyone had played reasonably well in the defense of the fleet.

Baltar on Colonial One, drew 1 quorum card and played 1, rolling successfully to give an inspirational speech and raising morale by 1 which had been previously lost to a failed crisis card.

Adama was in Sick Bay so he only drew 1 skill card. The rest of his turn was not memorable.

The Chief’s turn was not memorable.

Starbuck launched herself in a viper. She gets two actions when in a viper and although there were no Cylon ships on the board she wanted to be in a position to attack them when they showed up.

Side Note: I think this is a pretty good play for Starbuck. The position of the launch tubes on the port side (bottom of the board) makes getting in position to where basestars and raiders show up (typically left, right or top of the board) a multiple turn effort. I think that Starbuck can move to the Hanger Bay, use 1 action to launch and then use her special ability to move again. On subsequent turns she can move up to 3 spaces in the viper.
Starbuck's ability of 2 actions is only during her turn (assuming she started it in a viper).

Crisis cards: One of the crisis cards during this round was not a skill check, but instead presented the Admiral with a choice: give up 1 nuke or lose some resources (and perhaps cards). Adama decided to give up a nuke.


Round 3


I don’t remember many details about round 3 with the following exceptions:

Baltar’s crisis card resolution turned up 3 skill cards that subtracted from the pass/fail check. Since the destiny deck only contributed 2 cards it was apparent that we had a Cylon. Also, Adama and Starbuck didn’t play cards at all so the choices for Cylon were Apollo (played by myself, so I knew it wasn’t me), Baltar or the Chief. Since Baltar draws 2 loyalty cards at the beginning of the game the odds were it was Baltar. I began to campaign for someone to throw Baltar in the brig, but Adama pointed the finger at me.

During the turn a basestar and two raiders showed up in front of Galactica.

On Starbuck’s turn she moved into the space with the basestar and raiders and played an action card that allowed her to make 4 attacks. She destroyed the two raiders with a shot apiece and then attacked the basestar. She played a card that gives her a +2 to the die roll and rolled a 6 which gave the required 8 that is normally needed for a viper to hit a basestar. The damage marker was the double damage maker (it takes 3 hits to kill a basestar). She played another +2 card for her final attack and hit again, destroying the basestar. Hurrah!

I was pretty sure from Starbuck’s performance that she was not a Cylon.

Near the end of the round we did another auto FTL jump for a distance of 2 and used up 2 more fuel. We were down to 4 fuel and we had lost some more morale due to crisis cards. Food and population were in pretty good shape, only down 1 or 2 notches each.


Round 4


Apollo moved to the Admiral’s Quarters and used the location action to send Baltar to the Brig. The vote passed and Baltar was put behind bars. The crisis card placed a basestar and some raiders on the board.

Baltar was in the Brig. Seeing that no one seemed to want to help him get out he decided to reveal himself as a Cylon. The Presidency passed to Apollo.

Side Note: Although Baltar wasn’t able to get out of the Brig without some help, a better play may have been to stay there and hold on to the Presidency. There seems to be plenty of crisis cards, that instead of being a skill check present either the Admiral or the President with a choice of two unpleasant results. Putting Baltar in the Brig didn’t end his Presidency, another player would still need to take an action on Colonial One and pass a skill check to do that. Also, by staying in the Brig and claiming innocence, he may have been able to convince the other players (and perhaps me) that he was not a Cylon.

Adama moved to Colonial One and drew 2 political cards, another sub-optimal play. Adama had been short of cards most of the game, having been in Sick Bay, giving them up from crisis cards results and playing them in crisis skill checks. I understood the player’s motivation but this wasn’t a good choice of play.

The crisis card activated the basestar to attack Galactica which hit the Admiral’s Quarters sending Apollo to the Sick Bay. Doh!

The Chief repaired the Admiral’s Quarters and did something else.

Starbuck’s action wasn’t memorable. I think she tried and failed to destroy a Cylon boarding party that had managed to get aboard Galactica.

Sometime during the turn a failed crisis card check caused us to lose another fuel, Galactica was now down to 3 fuel.


Round 5


Apollo moved to Colonial One and drew 1 quorum card and played 1, attempting to give an inspirational speech to raise morale which was down to around 4. The attempt failed. Apparently Cylon Presidents are better at raising morale.

Baltar (Cylon) moved to the Caprica Cylon location and played his super crisis card. This had a difficulty of 18 and we were mostly depleted of skill cards so we didn’t even try to prevent it. It put two Cylon boarding parties on Galactica and there was already one boarding party that had advanced to the second space from prior crisis cards.

Adama’s turn was not memorable.

I think the Chief moved to the Armory and destroyed the Cylon boarding party that was in the second space of the boarding track.

Starbuck’s action was not memorable; it may have been a failed attack on a boarding party.
Her crisis card was a normal skill check. I don’t remember the pass/fail consequences, but she played 3 cards, Apollo played 1, Baltar played 0, Adama played 4 and the Chief played 1 or 2. When we laid them out there were 6 cards that subtracted from the skill check. The Adama player was not only a sub-optimal player; he was also not very subtle.

Bad news for the humans. The (former) President and the Admiral were both Cylons. We were so screwed. Adama said he was not a Cylon and blamed Starbuck, but the math didn’t add up.


Round 6


Apollo stayed on Colonial One and drew another quorum card and played one that allowed him to look at Adama’s loyalty card. Apollo confirmed that Adama is a Cylon. (In retrospect, this wasn’t the best play but I was hoping to find a quorum card that would provide fuel.)

The crisis card activated the basestar which fired on Galactica and Adama played a card to give the basestar a +2 on the attack. (Is this allowed? We decided it was.) The FTL Control station was damaged.
Unrevealed Cylon players may play cards to modify any die roll, including a Cylon attack.

Baltar (Cylon) took the Cylon action that allowed him to activate a ship type. The Baltar player didn’t think he could activate heavy raiders since there were no heavy raider ships on the board, only heavy raider boarding parties. (I think this is incorrect, I think the Cylon player should be able to activate the heavy raider boarding parties even with no heavy raider ships.) He moved some raiders.
Yes, a revealed Cylon player may activate heavy raiders to activate the centurions on the boarding party track.


Adama played a leadership action card which effectively sacrificed his action to give two actions to another player. He picked Baltar the revealed Cylon. (Is this allowed? We decided it was.) Baltar activated the raiders two more times and destroyed a civilian ship, costing the humans another population point.
Revealed Cylons may not be targeted by executive order.

The Chief visited the Admiral’s Quarters and had Adama thrown in the Brig. The skill check just passed because we were low on skill cards and Adama used several to fight it off. Adama used his once per game ability to pick up all of the played skill cards.

We were worried at first because there was no space on the board to remove the Admiralty from Adama, even though we knew he was a Cylon. We found in the rules where the Admiral is stripped of his rank when he’s thrown in the Brig. The Admiral card passed to Apollo who was now Admiral and President.

At this point we auto FTL jumped and we realized how bad our situation was. When we jumped we had 3 fuel; the destination cards drawn were: distance 2/-2 fuel and distance 3/-3 fuel. Apollo had no choice but to select the 2/-2 card leaving us with 1 fuel and the understanding that each distance costs 1 fuel.

We knew there are some cards in the destination deck where fuel can be gained. We needed one desperately.

We had gone a distance of 5, which put us past Kobal. We knew at this point there were no more Cylon cards, but we passed out the loyalty cards anyways.


Round 7


Apollo used a tactics card action to risk a raptor and scout the destination deck. Yes! The next location was a distance 1/ -1 fuel ore location card that provided a reasonable (roll 3-8) chance to gain +2 (net+1) fuel.

Baltar took a Cylon action.

Adama revealed himself as a Cylon and his turn was over.

The Chief’s action was unmemorable, but the crisis card was decisive. The pass condition was +1 fuel, and the fail condition was -1 fuel (and perhaps some skill card losses). The humans mustered everything they could, but the Cylons and the destiny deck worked against them and we failed. Fuel went to 0 and the Galactia was dead in space.

The Cylons had won.

Observations

This was a really fun game. I am a fan of BSG and was interested in this game. The descriptions that I’d read here on BGG over the weekend increased my interest some but the game was still not a “must buy” for me. After one play, I’d say this is the best new game I’ve played in awhile. (I received and played Agricola a couple of weeks ago, and while I like that game a lot, I think this one is better. They are two completely different types of game, but I would choose BSG over Agricola.)

I think that in initial plays, the humans will lose more until players better understand which actions and decks they need to use to handle the challenges that are presented. There aren’t very many different types of actions in each of the skill decks, so it’s reasonable for people to expect characters with certain high skill levels to get the actions that the group needs (i.e. repair out of the engineering deck) in a reasonable amount of time.

Fuel is a critical resource, probably the most critical. The game starts with 8 fuel. There appears to be a cost of 1 fuel to advance 1 distance. There are some distance cards that that provide fuel (net +1) but none of them are guaranteed and the card count is about 4-5 of the fuel ore cards and 1 Cylon refueling station card which also provides a net +1 fuel but is harder to achieve than the regular fuel ore destinations. I don’t know the total count of cards in the destination deck, my estimate is about 35.

With all of this in mind, the humans do not start with enough fuel to win the game, they will have to get at least one more fuel from somewhere. The destinations are the best bet. There are one or two crisis cards that will provide fuel for the pass condition, but the odds of them coming up is low. The humans need to use the tactics card that allows them to scout the destination deck (keeping the card on top or putting on the bottom) to find fuel. Also, a Cylon Admiral will be fatal if not discovered. If the humans lose any more fuel (we lost 3: 1 basestar hit and 2 failed crisis cards) then that’s even more that has to be found.

The other resources appear to be less critical. Morale was at 3 or 4 at the end of the game and food and population were still high. These resources are only lost to crisis cards or combat (mostly population) and are not spent like fuel to advance the game.

Morale and food can be regained using the President’s quorum cards. The President can choose to draw two of these cards a turn from a location on Colonial One, so these can be managed to a degree when at a critical level.
Population appears to be the hardest resource to recover. I saw one crisis card that provided +1 population as the pass condition, but it also starts with the greatest quantity of the four resources (12, I think).

The Chief is not glamorous but critical. Galactica took at least 5 hits during the game, 3 locations which were repaired plus a -1 fuel hit and a -1 food hit. His ability to repair and take another action is very valuable. A human team without him will be much less effective in responding to damage caused by basestars.

Space combat action varies widely. Before our first jump, we had 2 basestars, 4 heavy raiders and about 5 raiders on the board before we had advanced one space on the FTL track. In a situation like this you have to respond heavily to kill the Cylon ships.
In other instances, we were able to advance the FTL drive most of the way before a basestar appeared and we could ignore the Cylon ships.

It appears that any crisis card that activates Cylon ships for movement/attack also advances the FTL track. The crisis cards that place basestars have lots of different placement configurations, so it’s tough for anyone except Starbuck to reasonably place them self in space ready for action.

I didn’t realize the full utility of Apollo’s special action to place himself in an unmanned viper when it is first placed in space and take an immediate action. I figured that it would be useful when someone else launched a viper from Flight Control, but the true utility of it is to place Apollo in an unmanned viper that is placed on the board as part of the setup for a crisis card that brings in a basestar. Not all of the basestar setup cards add vipers, but I know that some do.

Cylons should definitely be subtle.

A Cylon President or Admiral can probably play exactly like a human with regards to crisis resolution, perhaps playing sub-optimally but not risking a negative skill card play unless the group believes that someone else is a Cylon.

The Admiral’s ability to screw Galactica with short jumps and bypassing fuel can mean the game. As people get a better idea of the card distribution in the destination deck this will be less of a sure thing.

The Cylon super crisis cards are powerful, but can be played later in the game and the uncertainty generated with no revealed Cylons is very powerful.