Game: Battlestar Galactica Collectible Card Game

Thread: Re: A few rules and general questions...

emptystep — 2008-11-26T00:37:13+00:00

I'm not an expert, only recently discovered the game but my friends and I play every time we get together, we love it. Still, here goes:

1. Yes, you do have to pay the resource cost for Events when you play them, anytime; the only exception I can think of are cards with the Expedite keyword, where you can choose to pay the cost shown on the card as usual or use excess resources you have left over when paying cost for another card you bring into play. An example would be "Presidential Candidate".

2. How you structure your Resource area probably depends to some extent on what kind of cards you included in your deck (or your oppenent is playing) and whether these produce effects that influence assets and resource stacks.

For example, "Concentrated Firepower" offers the following effect:

[c]Target unit gets +X power, where X is the number of supply cards in target resource stack you control.[/c]

Here you will seek to have at least one stack with several supply cards to fully utilize the effect. Playing cards with Expedite will make you go a more concentrated resource route like that as well.

Laying out your assets and resource stacks in a more widespread fashion can be helpful to make effects that would immobilize stacks of yours less damaging, e.g. when your opponent plays something like "Starbuck, Resistance Fighter":

[c]Commit and exhaust: Exhaust target resource stack.[/c]

Having several assets versus just a few but with more supply cards underneath might help you in not constantly overpaying for cards early in the turn and soon not having any resources left. Sometimes it probably can be a good idea to not supplying your Base too much if you plan on playing its effect regularly.

Hope that helps a bit, just some thoughts regarding your questions.

As far as BSG CCG forums go, I'd love to find an active one too. I plan to read through the - now old but still interesting - posts on the WK forum (hidden in their "Other games" section) though.

Thread: A few rules and general questions...

grimbergen — 2008-11-11T16:54:01+00:00

Hello, I finally got some cards and played a few games with the wife (who's a bigger fanatic than I am of the tv show).

Anyhow, it went well for her first foray in ccg/tcg.

The rules were quite clear, but I only had one area that was not explained well -- and bit confusing due to the quickstart demo:

Do you have to pay resource costs for playing events during challenges? I'm assuming yes, but in the demo game an event was played during a challenge but no mention of exhausting a resource.

Other questions...

In general is it better to just create new assets rather than supplying existing (unless it's a mission/event of course or you don't want this asset class)?

Are there any forums out there in English? The WK site is now gone, and I can't find any other on google or yahoo.

thanks

Image

Martin Ralya — 2008-03-17T22:56:47+00:00

Comparison of a foil with a regular card (the "rainbow" is the foil reflecting the light)

Image

Harkonnen13 — 2007-10-11T19:07:50+00:00

"Best Pilot in the Fleet" promo card

Thread: Re: An MtG lush loses his BSG cherry - and my, it hurt

bigmop — 2007-08-20T18:09:02+00:00

I enjoy this game.

Most specifically I like the Cylon phase. Only really powerfull cards have cylon powers so if you don't want to get crunched in that phase don't put them in your deck. I thought it was a great way to balance out some really good cards.

Thread: Re: Wizkids drops BSG CCG and upcoming Martial Law expansion

bigmop — 2007-05-28T14:39:55+00:00

This was a fantastic CCG and I for one am dissappointed that its gone. Great work on this one MR..
MDE

Thread: Re: An MtG lush loses his BSG cherry - and my, it hurt

Oni no board — 2007-04-02T06:49:32+00:00

Let me start by saying that I enjoyed your review except having to scroll through all those pictures.

I felt that I should address some of the problems you had with the game. I understand that someone demonstrated the game for you and that you are basing much of your opinion on that one demonstration. I am far from being an expert in this game. I have played it several times (in fact I spend much of Wizard World playing this game) and personally, when I figured out how to play, it really had the atmosphere of the show and I felt they took the best mechanics seen from other CCGs.

OK, let's start...

Back to Gameland. I started off with the basic starter set. A more experienced player helped myself and another newbie get our heads round it. The starter set has a run-through game where all the cards are ordered. I found this helpful in one way although when I started to gain a little understanding of how the game worked I ended up questioning some of the choices that were being made in this walkthrough.

There were 2 different starter sets made. The first one was poorly made from what I understand. It was poorly balanced and there were some confusion with the rules. The second starter set was much more balanced, explained the steps better (still had problems), and was fun to play with the extra boosters included.

Also, I'm not sure about how well that person demoed the game for you but the people who demoed the game for me did a terrible job with the rules but I liked what little I understood and by the end of the convention, the demo people and I figured out how to play the game correctly.

At first I thought this was brilliant, providing both the ease of getting resources into play à la WoW but with the interesting aspect features of Magic's colours. How wrong I was. The first thing about using a regular card as a resource is that you play it face up, which has the potential to convey information about your deck to your opponent. I could see this as potentially detrimental in a constructed game.

Actually that is not entirely true. Only cards that are used as Assets are face up (these are the cards with the resource type printed on them). Any card from a player's hand can be used as a Supply card. These cards are placed faced down beneath your base or an Asset. These add one extra resource of that type (whatever resource the Asset represents).Incidently, not every card has a resource type printed on it (only the personnel and ship cards) and this is one good reason why you may want to use certain cards as a Supply card and not as an Assett.

The second problem with resources was that you needed to have quite an intimate knowledge of what was in your deck. As a newcomer who had received some help in building a deck I didn't have a clue of how to manage these resources.

Resource management is key in any CCG. Just as in any CCG, you have to know how your deck works to know how much resource is required in play to pull off whatever your deck was made to do. As a newbie, your only concern in the demo was to have a feel for what was an Assett and what was a Supply card and how to place them in play. As you learn more about the game and build your own deck, then and only then do you start worrying about the decision of Assett or Supply.

Finally the third problem with resources was that in supplying and resupplying resources you just end up with a resource that generates a certain number of resources that can't be split. So if you have a logistics resource that has been supplied three times in the game you generate four logistics resources every time you exhaust this resource. If you had nothing else out this would be all you could generate. If you wanted to bring out something that costed three logistics resources then you would have to use this four resource supply. Before you Geeks jump down my throat - I know. I should put two logistics resources into play and then supply them both twice, generating two plus two.

The way resource is managed in this game adds another depth to this game. It adds an element of risk management. If you ever see the show, one constant theme is the finite resources available to the fleet and the risks they undertake in getting those supplies. One of the things that make you feel the tension that is portrayed in the show is this resource mechanic. A wrong decision in the way you allocated your resources can cause you the game.

In Magic you are a Planeswalker (whatever that is) casting your spells on whatever other Planewalkers you come into contact with (in my case a few good mates or at a pre-release). In WoW you are a hero with a quantity of life points and a sexy special ability. In Battlestar Galactica you are a crappy-looking base that has a set amount of influence that you either need to increase to 20 to win the game or to avoid having your opponent reduce it to zero, in which case you lose the game.

You only got to see 2 out of 9 (or more since I don't know how many ship bases were released with the expansion). The 2 bases that you saw may or may not had an ability. Every base including the two from the starter set (the newer version anyway) has an ability. There are even multiple versions of come ship bases giving a player a wide range of play style using the same ship. For example one version of Colonial One has the ability, "Exhaust: Target player gains 1 influence." The other version has the ability, "Each time you lose influence,you may exhaust this base. If you do, reduce that loss by 2."

The ship bases adds another complication by forcing you to make choices. Will you use the base as a resource or will you use it for its special ability.

Influence

This word lacked any of the Byzantine politicking that you get in, say, Illuminati. It was basically life dressed up.

I disagree. In BSG, you see a lot of political maneuvering by the major characters in the show. From ships to individuals, each is trying to gain influence over the others. In the show, you see the fight to gain control over the fleet between Adama and the Roslin, between Roslin and Zarek, between the refueling ship (don't remember the name) and Galactica...you get the picture. The cardgame portrays this nicely through the use of influence. The military (Galactica) uses force to wittle down an opponent's influence. The polticians (represented by Colonial One) manipulates influence for their own ends (either increasing their own influence through popularity or turning the public against their opponent causing their opponent to lose influence). Lots of flavor in that one mechanic.

[Missions – like Quests in WoW, a nice touch.

You put the cards into play in three rows: resources, reserve, where things come into play (with summoning sickness as in Magic) and an alert row.

Missions are a cool concept! Multiple missions that play off one another are dificult to pull off but once they do, it feels so sweet! The rush one feels when multiple missions cascade...

[Combat

It's like Magic, only worse. When a personnel squares up to a personnel or a ship squares up to a ship you look at the cards' power. Then you and your opponent flip over the top card of your deck to get a 'mystic' rating which is added to the power. I don't know whether the 'mystic' thing refers to something in the TV series but it seemed super-dumb to me. Also, to indicate a card in combat you move the card from the alert row which is furthest from you to the reserve row which is nearer to you. This is the opposite of Magic and felt counter-intuitive to me.

The mystic value is just like the destiny point found in Star Wars CCG. It was a very popular mechanic among those fans. Mystic value gives you greater control over your deck's performance. It also adds another complexity in deckbuilding because that number is very important during combat as well as to determine other effects. I never understood why players loved that particuliar aspect of Star Wars CCG until I experienced it in this game.

To give you somewhat of an alogogy. Think about how in Magic, you send a 1/1 creature against an opponent who has a 2/2 creature. He blocks thinking he'll win, only to realize his error when you smack "Giant Growth" down. Of course in BSG CCG, your opponent also gets to play a card with a mystic value but if you know that you have a high chance of getting a high value mystic value, you're more likely to square off with your opponent.

To show that you have used that personnel/ship, you relegate it back to the reserve area (equivalent to tapping only that some abilities only work while in the reserve area). On your next turn, you bring it back up to Alert area and attack/defend/use ability.

There is a lot of religious references in the show. The weird thing is that humanity believes in many gods (in the image of the Greek gods) and the Cylons believe in one god.

Cylon attack phase

This was by far the worst idea in the game and felt it was there purely to tie in with the TV show. Once you have completed all your actions, such as getting cards into play and doing combat you and your opponent turn over the top card of your deck and look at a little red number on it. This is a Cylon attack value and you can basically ignore it and lose influence or fight it off with one of your alert personnel or ships to gain influence. Both this and the mystic value in combat have the dreadful effect of moving your deck into the discard pile (known as milling) so that if you have a bomb card in your deck you risk losing it in one of these utterly pointless phases.

One thing needs to be clear. There is no milling as experienced in Magic. Once you deplete your deck, you simply reshuffle your discard pile and this becomes your new deck. Also, the Cylon phase doesn't happen every turn.

At first, I didn't like the Cylon phase either but once you actually learn how to do it correctly, it is a nice feature. This is another balancing mechanic as well as adding to the atmosphere. This is another example of a risk management introduced into the game mechanics. The more cards you put into play, the greater the chance becomes that Cylons will appear and cause some havoc. Cylons only appear if the sum of all the cards in the reserve and alert areas have greater total threat number than the total defense value of the fleet (the defense value of your base and your opponent's added together).

So if you are going to swarm your opponent, you have to be prepared to deal with the cylons. Oh! If a Cylon card is revealed during the Cylon phase, not only do you have to worry about fighting it off, you have to deal with nasty effect(s) that goes off.

This game felt like far more of a cash-in than WoW. The gameplay was unwelcoming to newcomers and the idea of milling my deck as part of the game was just plain stupid. Much has been made of the game's octagonal cards. I wish they had been regular octagons so that I could have devised a game flinging them about the room. As it is I would rate this game as a 3 on the BGG scale. I'm sorry if I've offended anyone in writing this (mainly Richard Hatch and the new Colonel Adama).

I'm sorry that you had a bad experience with the demo.

I disagree with your notion that this was an attempt for WizKids to make some quick cash without putting some love and care into their product. They made the game accessible to both players and collectors. There are multiple versions of each major characters so You will always be able to play with the characters you love in the show. They gave out many participation prizes for joining in a sponsored casual play or tournaments.

I do agree with you with WizKids' decision for the card's shape. Although it adds flavor, it is much more of an inconvenience.

Thread: Re: Ok so it's dead, when does it get cheap?

sanguine — 2007-03-20T01:01:24+00:00

I have no idea what the latency period is for dead game price drop, but the place I check to track prices of remaindered, dead CCGs is:

http://www.wholesalegaming.com/

They sell the BSG CCG:

http://www.wholesalegaming.com/battlestargalactica/

Poking around the site a bit will give you a read on just how far the prices can drop on a dead collectible game (want three boster boxes of Hecatomb? $27.).

Thread: Ok so it's dead, when does it get cheap?

latindog — 2007-03-20T00:49:28+00:00

Just a question for people with more CCG experience -- I have been interested in this game for a while because I like the show and the mechanics seem decent from reading the rules. About how long after a publisher declares a CCG dead, do you start to see booster boxes going for a fraction of the original price online? Has anyone heard of this game available in the clearance bin somewhere?

Thread: Re: Wizkids drops BSG CCG and upcoming Martial Law expansion

Akhnaten — 2007-03-19T18:52:05+00:00

I'm not impotent - I was "hard on" the game

Thread: Re: Wizkids drops BSG CCG and upcoming Martial Law expansion

Kozure — 2007-03-16T20:33:00+00:00

Erm... do you mean "impotent"?

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/impotent

Thread: Re: Wizkids drops BSG CCG and upcoming Martial Law expansion

Akhnaten — 2007-03-16T20:09:03+00:00

Flase Alarm - I've just read the post about the new flag system. Still feel a tad omnipotent though!

Thread: Re: Wizkids drops BSG CCG and upcoming Martial Law expansion

Akhnaten — 2007-03-16T20:02:31+00:00

Was it anything to do with my review?

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/156193

Incidentally, this thread has been closed for violating the rules. I'm not entirely sure why but I'm left with a bizarre and frightening feeling of omnipotence. I'll talk to my therapist about this.

Thread: Re: Wizkids drops BSG CCG and upcoming Martial Law expansion

Kozure — 2007-03-16T15:40:49+00:00

Unfortunate, but as others have commented, it's a decent CCG without much to set it apart. It doesn't really feel much like the BSG world.

Then again, as much as I'm a fan of the series, it has its ups and downs as well and some of the dramatics gets a little much.

Oh well.

Thread: Re: Wizkids drops BSG CCG and upcoming Martial Law expansion

Weapon — 2007-03-16T14:54:15+00:00

WHoooooa. Wizkids drops a game. What a surprise.

Thread: Re: Wizkids drops BSG CCG and upcoming Martial Law expansion

kevinfelker42 — 2007-03-16T13:40:54+00:00

Ah! Here it is:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1309469

Thread: Re: Wizkids drops BSG CCG and upcoming Martial Law expansion

kevinfelker42 — 2007-03-16T13:34:48+00:00

Hehe, Yeah, Shadows over Caprica, I had a good time brainstorming for that one.

Can't seem to find that forum now.

Thread: Re: Wizkids drops BSG CCG and upcoming Martial Law expansion

Eddy Bee — 2007-03-16T07:15:28+00:00

Not too surprising, but nonetheless unfortunate.

It's a fairly decent CCG, but certainly not extraordinary. My biggest problem with it is that it didn't "feel" like BSG. The cards and game play were not tied strongly enough to the BSG characters and events in any kind of meaningful way, so I never felt like I was participating in the BSG world.

Oh well. The best idea for a BSG board game was raised in a thread about a month ago: Shadows Over Galactica - or something like that. Basically a cooperative game ala Shadows Over Camelot, with the traitor being a Cylon. That sounds like a promising idea!

Thread: Re: Wizkids drops BSG CCG and upcoming Martial Law expansion

sdiberar — 2007-03-16T04:49:21+00:00

Aldaron wrote:
When this came out, I predicted it woldn't last a year. Did it?

Nope. Though it almost would have, if Martial Law came out.

Thread: Re: Wizkids drops BSG CCG and upcoming Martial Law expansion

Aldaron — 2007-03-16T00:45:45+00:00

When this came out, I predicted it woldn't last a year. Did it?

Thread: Wizkids drops BSG CCG and upcoming Martial Law expansion

kevinfelker42 — 2007-03-16T00:35:03+00:00

I'm relaying the message from the site:

http://www.wizkidsgames.com/battlestar/article.asp?a=41315

Dear Battlestar Galactica CCG Retailers and Distributors:

We are sorry to announce that the next expansion for the Battlestar Galactica CCG, Martial Law, previously planned for February, will not be releasing. Although we diligently tried to extend this property into the CCG category, we are no longer able to maintain the product.

It is important to us that you be aware of how much we have appreciated your support of the Battlestar Galactica CCG. We can only hope that you and your customers enjoyed our game half as much as we enjoyed creating it. Saying good-bye to any product like this one, into which we have poured so much of ourselves, is always difficult and we understand that you may have similar feelings. We are grateful for your dedication and we promise to continue to make more quality games in the future for you to enjoy.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this cancellation may have caused, and we thank you in advance for your understanding.

Sincerely,

Tiffany O’Brien
Associate Brand Manager

Thread: Re: An MtG lush loses his BSG cherry - and my, it hurt

Akhnaten — 2007-03-14T22:36:20+00:00

supertris wrote:
That was a really well written (in style terms) and illustrated review. I'm not sure it was a good review though. Each heading seems like it could read "Why this game sucks (1); Why this game sucks (2)..."

Yeah - it's cos the game kinda sucked

supertris wrote:
To me, this review seems to lack balance. You set out to compare with M:TG, and in a really readable style manage to describe well what frustrates you about BSG, but without unbiased reference to how these features relate to M:TG, and without consideration of potential positives about the game you are reviewing.

I agree that the review isn't balanced. I wrote a review of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game in which I made greater comparison between it and Magic and so fearful was I of sounding like a dullard that I didn't want to repeat any of it. I also assumed (rightly or wrongly, I dunno) that many people on this site have played Magic at least once as it is such a well-known game. My apologies for not including this and I'll take that criticism on board for the next review I write.

supertris wrote:
For instance I'd really like to hear discussion on things like:

Is shuffling your deck before play broken? Because it might place a bomb effect on the bottom of your deck?

Milling a card to see a value does the same, except it also informs you that the particular bomb you might be waiting for is gone.

I'd be interested to know why you see these things as so different.

Shuffling is not broken. What is broken is having cards that perform one of three different functions depending on the stage of the game and having a bomb card perform an auxilliary function seems pointless to me. I appreciate that in Magic I might be holding a bomb card and my opponent plays a card that forces me to discard. C'est la vie!

To give an analogy - Magic doesn't have a card that says something like, "Rip this card up into tiny pieces and throw the pieces into your opponent's face. While he or she isn't looking adjust your life total to 20 and your opponents to 0. Then smugly point out that you've won."
That would be broken and stupid. Actually this sounds like one of the cards in the Unhinged set but those are meant to be played with a few cool ones in you.

supertris wrote:
The supply/resupply thing doesn't seem much more about resource management than does Magic's 5 colours (from various sources) and mana curves.

Where do you see the big difference between these two resource puzzles?

Land screw or flood is a big problem in Magic - it is for me the worst thing about Magic and I appreciate the games that have attempted to get around this. WoW does it very well. Both Magic and WoW allow you to use resources in units of 1. This is not always the case in BSG. You could argue that in life resources are not supplied evenly. But this is a game and for me a game needs to be playable. WoW is eminently playable when it comes to this issue, Magic follows behind but BSG is dragging its heels at the back. My own feeling was that the system used of using cards as resources and supplying them was far more constraining than the other games.

supertris wrote:
Anyway, you've clearly got a talent for composing reviews, even if I'd like to see less of a hatchet job :-)

I'll take that as a compliment - I used to read a lot of punk fanzines which I feel have informed my style. My favorite (negative) review of an album said, "Imagine complete stupidity then double it." I think that people are attracted to outspoken review. I got a lot more thumbs up for this than my last (positive) review.

Finally, I just wanted to add that if a few of my mates had designed this game in their spare time I'd be far more forgiving. However, the game was designed by WizKids - they should know better. They produced Tsuro which I love. Shame on you, WizKids!

Thread: Re: An MtG lush loses his BSG cherry - and my, it hurt

Gryfon — 2007-03-14T22:07:22+00:00

As a fan of the show, I also tried the card game with a fair investment. I have to agree with the review; it is not a good game for all of the reasons mentioned.

Same with the series, seasons 1 and 2 excellent, season 3 is a major disappointment.

Still watching the series, traded the game.

Thread: Re: An MtG lush loses his BSG cherry - and my, it hurt

riledguy — 2007-03-14T19:06:43+00:00

SanguinousRex wrote:
At least they haven't found earth already and restarted the series as "Galactica 2007"

Who knows they just might. I hope they do reach a sound conclusion in the series though and they get there in the time it needs to instead of either rushing it or worse padding it out with all to much filler (looking your way Lost).

If they do I could still see them doing something fun with it. It is hard to say with the writers though. They seem to use a heck of a lot from the original though just about all of it gets spun in some way.

(sorry about the thread derail)

The card game still looks interesting to me the only thing keeping me back is the collectable aspect. I think they did to a pretty good job of trying to bring the things that are key in the show into the game which is not an easy thing to do with a show that is mostly politics.

Thread: Re: An MtG lush loses his BSG cherry - and my, it hurt

SanguinousRex — 2007-03-14T18:09:42+00:00

riledguy wrote:
I think the show has maintained very well after the first season. I don't mind the UN bickerfest I guess. To me it makes sense. I could do with less of the 1 off episodes and prefer the ones that advance the whole stories but at least the one offs usually flesh characters out more.

At least they haven't found earth already and restarted the series as "Galactica 2007"

Thread: Re: An MtG lush loses his BSG cherry - and my, it hurt

riledguy — 2007-03-14T16:58:18+00:00

I think the show has maintained very well after the first season. I don't mind the UN bickerfest I guess. To me it makes sense. I could do with less of the 1 off episodes and prefer the ones that advance the whole stories but at least the one offs usually flesh characters out more.

Thread: Re: An MtG lush loses his BSG cherry - and my, it hurt

samidha — 2007-03-14T13:47:52+00:00

I agree that it's more just an entertaining read. As far as the show, we gave up as well, for the same reason. Ah, well. It'll still hold a special plaace in my heart for the cool female characters though.

Thread: Re: An MtG lush loses his BSG cherry - and my, it hurt

Boss Happy — 2007-03-14T13:38:07+00:00

I'm not sure it was a good review though. Each heading seems like it could read "Why this game sucks (1); Why this game sucks (2)..."
Gotta agree with this statement. There's a vein of sourness running throughout the review, but then again, Michael Barnes has proven that there's a market for it. (No offense Mike)

As far as the current TV show goes, the Miniseries and the 1st Season are as good as TV can get. Absolutely fantastic scenes in which characters are brutally shown what's important in life and what they thought was so important is baloney. Sadly, the show has slowly deteriorated into a U.N. bickerfest.

I keep watching in hopes of that the show will return to it's roots but alas, I'm giving up after this season.

Thread: Re: An MtG lush loses his BSG cherry - and my, it hurt

derscheid — 2007-03-14T13:24:34+00:00

Thanks, this was great.

Sounds better than the X-Files CCG, at least.

Thread: Re: An MtG lush loses his BSG cherry - and my, it hurt

supertris — 2007-03-14T11:23:50+00:00

That was a really well written (in style terms) and illustrated review. I'm not sure it was a good review though. Each heading seems like it could read "Why this game sucks (1); Why this game sucks (2)..."

To me, this review seems to lack balance. You set out to compare with M:TG, and in a really readable style manage to describe well what frustrates you about BSG, but without unbiased reference to how these features relate to M:TG, and without consideration of potential positives about the game you are reviewing.

For instance I'd really like to hear discussion on things like:

Is shuffling your deck before play broken? Because it might place a bomb effect on the bottom of your deck?

Milling a card to see a value does the same, except it also informs you that the particular bomb you might be waiting for is gone.

I'd be interested to know why you see these things as so different.

The supply/resupply thing doesn't seem much more about resource management than does Magic's 5 colours (from various sources) and mana curves.

Where do you see the big difference between these two resource puzzles?

Anyway, you've clearly got a talent for composing reviews, even if I'd like to see less of a hatchet job :-)

Thread: Re: An MtG lush loses his BSG cherry - and my, it hurt

samidha — 2007-03-13T22:37:33+00:00

I don't know about the game, but female Starbuck and the President are pretty cool characters in the show. And the politics works reasonably well. After all, they are sort of trying to run an entire nation from space....

Thread: Re: New 'Link' Mechanic

roman1967 — 2007-03-13T21:52:40+00:00

"Link" pretty much attaches itself to a card when the mission (or whatever) is complete and becomes part of that card. It may give the personnel it is attached to +1 power, or give a ship "strafe" or something. Once it is attached, it stays with the card until defeated, and would go to the discard pile with the original personnel or ship.

I don't have a specific example in front of me, but hope that answers your question.

p.s. Did you get my email??? Haven't gotten a reply yet.

Thread: An MtG lush loses his BSG cherry - and my, it hurt

Akhnaten — 2007-03-13T21:11:23+00:00

At my regular games club I recently had the opportunity to play the Battlestar Galactica Collectible Card Game. As a regular Magic player I've been interested in other CCGs and have had the opportunity to try the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game which I wrote about:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/153695

Battlestar Galactica is something lodged in my childhood memories. The late 70's/early 80's TV show was something I recall watching although I wasn't totally hooked on it. The things I remember about it (some of which will be relevant to this review) are:

1. The two heroes were Apollo and Starbuck

2. Apollo was boring and had bad hair

3. Starbuck was cool and later joined the A-Team

4. There was a monkey dressed as a wombat with antenna ears

5. There was a nice lady who had blow-dried hair and lip gloss

6. The 'Daddy' of Battlestar Galactica was a cowboy in Bonanza

7. He was not a 'Daddy' in the Ray Winstone/Scum sense of the word

I only realised several years ago that the original Battlestar Galactica was the Book of Exodus in space, which slightly offended my agnostic sensibilities. I have not actually seen the new series of Battlestar Galactica. The people who played the CCG said that the TV show was now more about politics. I had doubts about politics in a fantastical setting. I mean, here in Britain we can get live coverage of the House of Lords. That's pretty surreal, to say the least. Kind of like politics meets George Romero.

Back to Gameland. I started off with the basic starter set. A more experienced player helped myself and another newbie get our heads round it. The starter set has a run-through game where all the cards are ordered. I found this helpful in one way although when I started to gain a little understanding of how the game worked I ended up questioning some of the choices that were being made in this walkthrough.

I wanted to compare this CCG to one that I think most Geek users are familiar with – the 'Daddy' of CCGs – Magic. I'll run through the game structure focussing on the mechanics much like I did in my WoW review

Land vs Resources

In Magic you are constantly at the mercy of whether you have lands in your hand or not. Land enables you to cast spells on your opponent. Too little and you are paralysed. Too much and you have few spells in your hand to play. I get the sense that other CCGs are addressing this problem. Battlestar Galactica does this in a way that is similar to WoW, that is by being able to use any card as some sort of resource. However, it is also like Magic in that there are different resource types. Magic has five different types of land that generate five different colours of mana (how pretty). Battlestar Galactica has three different resource types: logistics, personnel and security. These aren't very pretty and, as someone who works as a nurse in the UK's health service (the NHS) I have rather negative associations with all three of these words.

Many cards in the game have a resource symbol at the bottom which means that the card can be used as a resource instead of their regular card function. Additional cards can be used to 'supply' that resources. For example, I could put a card with a personnel symbol into play then on my subsequent turn I could stick a card beneath it to supply it, enabling me to put into play a card that cost two personnel resources.

At first I thought this was brilliant, providing both the ease of getting resources into play à la WoW but with the interesting aspect features of Magic's colours. How wrong I was. The first thing about using a regular card as a resource is that you play it face up, which has the potential to convey information about your deck to your opponent. I could see this as potentially detrimental in a constructed game. However, I had moved on to play sealed.

The second problem with resources was that you needed to have quite an intimate knowledge of what was in your deck. As a newcomer who had received some help in building a deck I didn't have a clue of how to manage these resources.

Finally the third problem with resources was that in supplying and resupplying resources you just end up with a resource that generates a certain number of resources that can't be split. So if you have a logistics resource that has been supplied three times in the game you generate four logistics resources every time you exhaust this resource. If you had nothing else out this would be all you could generate. If you wanted to bring out something that costed three logistics resources then you would have to use this four resource supply. Before you Geeks jump down my throat - I know. I should put two logistics resources into play and then supply them both twice, generating two plus two.

Now this might be some people's idea of fun – resource management – but if I want to do this I'd rather play Puerto Rico or Power Grid. It reminded me of a great card in Magic called Aether Vial (so good it got banned). However, this system lack any of the power of Aether Vial.

In a sealed game you are forced to cobble together a deck that has two of these resources in it. I found this a nightmare to manage. Hey, it is like the NHS!!!

Bases

In Magic you are a Planeswalker (whatever that is) casting your spells on whatever other Planewalkers you come into contact with (in my case a few good mates or at a pre-release). In WoW you are a hero with a quantity of life points and a sexy special ability. In Battlestar Galactica you are a crappy-looking base that has a set amount of influence that you either need to increase to 20 to win the game or to avoid having your opponent reduce it to zero, in which case you lose the game. Out of interest I 'googled' for images the words 'Planeswalker', 'Hero' and 'Base.' The first two got me some fabulous-looking artwork. The last got me this as the number two Google choice:

Influence

This word lacked any of the Byzantine politicking that you get in, say, Illuminati. It was basically life dressed up.

The cards

There are four types of card:
Personnel and Ships – these are like your creatures in Magic, that duke it out with one another. In doing so you can reduce your opponent's influence.

Events – like instants in Magic.

Missions – like Quests in WoW, a nice touch.

You put the cards into play in three rows: resources, reserve, where things come into play (with summoning sickness as in Magic) and an alert row

Combat

It's like Magic, only worse. When a personnel squares up to a personnel or a ship squares up to a ship you look at the cards' power. Then you and your opponent flip over the top card of your deck to get a 'mystic' rating which is added to the power. I don't know whether the 'mystic' thing refers to something in the TV series but it seemed super-dumb to me. Also, to indicate a card in combat you move the card from the alert row which is furthest from you to the reserve row which is nearer to you. This is the opposite of Magic and felt counter-intuitive to me.

Cylon attack phase

This was by far the worst idea in the game and felt it was there purely to tie in with the TV show. Once you have completed all your actions, such as getting cards into play and doing combat you and your opponent turn over the top card of your deck and look at a little red number on it. This is a Cylon attack value and you can basically ignore it and lose influence or fight it off with one of your alert personnel or ships to gain influence. Both this and the mystic value in combat have the dreadful effect of moving your deck into the discard pile (known as milling) so that if you have a bomb card in your deck you risk losing it in one of these utterly pointless phases.

What I learned about the new Battlestar Galactica TV show

1. There are more heroes in the show now

2.Apollo's hair has got a bit better but he still seems boring

3. Starbuck is now a lady in comfortable shoes!!!

4. No space wombats any more

5. There are lots of nice ladies in the show now

6. The 'Daddy' of the show, Colonel Adama, is no longer the 'Daddy'. He now looks like a weathered accountant

7.The 'Daddy' is now a 'Mummy'. She was Kevin Costner's wife in 'Dances with Wolves'. She should be called President Stands-with-a-Fist.

In Conclusion
This game felt like far more of a cash-in than WoW. The gameplay was unwelcoming to newcomers and the idea of milling my deck as part of the game was just plain stupid. Much has been made of the game's octagonal cards. I wish they had been regular octagons so that I could have devised a game flinging them about the room. As it is I would rate this game as a 3 on the BGG scale. I'm sorry if I've offended anyone in writing this (mainly Richard Hatch and the new Colonel Adama).

Thread: New 'Link' Mechanic

GVogel — 2007-03-07T02:59:11+00:00

Hi - have the game, haven't had much of a chance to play, but I intend on rectifying that situation. I have a question regarding the expansion, particularly the new 'link' mechanic. What does it do?

Thread: Re: Bingo Fuel

roman1967 — 2007-02-12T19:16:54+00:00

Thanks for the reply.

I figured it was legal. The legality of it was only my secondary concern.

As far as the rulebook goes, it never really said whether or not the Astral Queen would be committed. I'm thinking it wouldn't because it wasn't really victorious in the challenge. The challenge never really existed after Bingo Fuel was played.

Anyhow, confirmation of the legality of it is good. I am still wondering if anyone is sure of the resolution of the challenge.

Thanks.

Thread: Re: Bingo Fuel

Jedit — 2007-02-11T22:49:14+00:00

It's a legal play. As for the rest, it's in the rulebook.

Thread: Bingo Fuel

roman1967 — 2007-02-11T20:50:26+00:00

Hey all

Ran across this situation today, and not exactly sure we handled it correctly.

My opponent was challenging with a viper that had the sniper ability. He decided to pick on my Astral Queen. Not wanting to lose such a nice ship, I played Bingo Fuel which sent the sniper viper back to his hand and the challenge was over.

Our main question was: Since the challenge never really happened, the Astral Queen stays in the Alert area...right? I mean, it wasn't victorious in the challenge, so it wouldn't get committed.

Our other question was: Was I even allowed to do this? I think so, because the way a challenge works is:

1. Challenge
2. Challenged player chooses defender (in this case, the defender was chosen for me.
3. Players continue to play abilities and events until all players pass.
4. Resolve challenge by revealing Mystic Values.

So, Bingo Fuel, as the event played during the resolution of the challenge, seems to be a legal play.

Anyhow...if anyone concurs (or disagrees) with this, I would appreciate discussion - or at least an opinion.

Thanks.

Image

Viriato — 2007-01-11T13:15:01+00:00

Booster Packs

Image

Viriato — 2007-01-11T11:55:55+00:00

Two-Player Starter Set - Back

Image

Viriato — 2007-01-11T11:55:45+00:00

Two-Player Starter Set - Front

Thread: Re: Can you play duplicate Mission cards?

Eddy Bee — 2006-12-01T00:36:12+00:00

D'oh! Resolve only one mission per execution phase - that's the rule we missed!

Yup, my opponent smacked me with 3 Investigations in one turn, sending 3 of my people to my deck, eliminating my ability to attack or defend, and that's what prompted my question. We should've paid closer attention to the rules.

Thanks for the response!

Thread: Re: Can you play duplicate Mission cards?

roman1967 — 2006-11-30T19:18:39+00:00

I believe you can lay them out, but you can only resolve one mission during your execution phase.

Imagine four Shuttle Diplomacy on the table....resolved all in one execution phase. **shudder**

Thread: Can you play duplicate Mission cards?

Eddy Bee — 2006-11-28T22:46:47+00:00

According to the letter of the rules, singular cards that have the same TITLE must be overlayed to form a stack when they are played. So if you play multiple Apollo cards, they must all form a single Apollo stack.

Does this also apply to identical Mission cards?

The reason I ask is Personnel and Ship cards both have a TITLE, but Mission cards do not have a TITLE, therefore a strict reading of the rules would indicate Mission cards are exempt from the overlay rule.

If this is true, it means you can have several copies of the same Mission card in alert status at the same time, and during the course of a single Execution phase, you can resolve all of them.

I find this problematic, because this basically allows you to re-use the same identical cards to satisfy the conditions of duplicate Missions, and also, some of the Missions (like the ones that affect your opponent's cards) can be far too powerful when resolved back to back.

Any thoughts, answers, comments...?

Thread: Re: Expansion Set #1-Betrayal

Viper031 — 2006-11-20T15:43:17+00:00

Late November Update:

Capricorn Cards & Games (www.capricorncg.com) now has Betrayal Card
Lists, singles, and a new Forum section up and running. Plus a chance
for you to win one of the Cally Autograph cards. Thank you.

Viper031

Thread: Re: Expansion Set #1-Betrayal

Viper031 — 2006-11-13T18:10:15+00:00

Ward wrote:
I'm still hoping to try out this game soon to see if it is any good or appeals to me at all, other than the theme of course.

The best way to try this game out is to pick up one of the Starter Sets (i.e. a starter deck). It comes with 2, 30 card decks that allow two people to play a game. In fact, there is a prescripted 5 turn demo game in the rulebook that plays you through your first game. I've found that most people who want to give this game a try buy two starter sets. They combine the 30 card decks into 60 card decks-and that's all you need to play some games to try it out. If you can't find any Starter Sets near you, visit me over at my website and I can help you out. It's a fun, relatively fast game that really does a good job capturing the flavor of the show.

The first expansion set, Betrayal, is pretty good and it continues on where the base set left off.

Viper031

Thread: Re: Expansion Set #1-Betrayal

roman1967 — 2006-11-12T02:19:11+00:00

It looks like a pretty good set.

Some of the new mechanics

Link - mission attached to a unit
Strafe - Unit can attack a ship or a personnel. Must declare first.
Vulnerable - Unit can be defended by a ship or a personnel.

But still no Hot Dog personnel card.

Thread: Re: Expansion Set #1-Betrayal

Ward — 2006-11-08T17:48:45+00:00

I find it odd that there are fairly frequent ads for Magic: the Gathering on SciFi all the time, but I have yet to see one of this game during the show that it is tied into.

I'm still hoping to try out this game soon to see if it is any good or appeals to me at all, other than the theme of course.

Thread: Expansion Set #1-Betrayal

Viper031 — 2006-11-08T15:57:02+00:00

08NOV06

The first expansion set for the Battlestar Galactica CCG releases today. So if you missed the press release, this is what you need to know:

Betrayal expands on the base set with new images, game play, and characters, all while bringing its own style to the game. The action never stops in Battlestar Galactica, including more exclusive images from the show to the game with this expansion. With Caprica as the backdrop for Betrayal, there is a lot of action to cover, both in terms of imagery and game play.

+This set adds new characters and new versions of fan favorites. Five hundred autographed cards will also be made available through random Booster purchases.

+Betrayal covers the action on Caprica, including the initial Cylon attack, Helo’s trials thereafter, Starbuck’s quest for the Arrow of Apollo, and their initial meeting with the Resistance, leading up to Starbuck’s and Helo’s return to the fleet with the Arrow and Sharon.

+Betrayal will introduce a new mission mechanic called Link.

Viper031
www.capricorncg.com

Thread: Persuasion Deck

roman1967 — 2006-10-21T23:36:06+00:00

This deck is (hopefully) designed to counter some of the lightning fast Logistics decks that are out there by removing your opponent's cards from play while gaining you influence.

Base: Celestra

Hand - 5
Influence - 9
Ability - Look at the top two cards of your deck. Put one on the bottom and one on the top.

Personnel

3x Billy Keikeya - Presidential Aide
3x D'Anna Biers - Reporter
3x Dee - Security Advisor
3x Dr. Baltar - Award Winner
3x Tom Zarek - Sagittaron Representative
3x William Adama - The Old man

Ships

3x Astral Queen - Prison Ship
3x Cloud 9 - Cruise Ship
3x Colonial Shuttle
3x Luxury Liner
3x Raptor 342

Events

3x Bingo Fuel
3x Downed Pilot
3x Fury
3x Outmaneuvered
3x Power of Prayer
3x Test of Faith

Missions

2x Hand of God
2x Press Junket
2x Red: You're an Evil Cylon
3x Shuttle Diplomacy

*************************************

I use the Celestra in order to manipulate my mystic values a bit during challenges. Also the hand 5 matches the Cylon Base Star starting hand while the influence of 9 pretty much insures that I go first.

Bingo Fuel, Downed Pilot and Outmaneuvered are used to remove ships and personnel or reduce their effect (-2 with Outmaneuvered). Test of Faith increases influence while the other two events are used as pumps for the cards.

Red: You're an Evil Cylon should work well with Dr. Baltar and D'Anna Biers (both Civilians) to remove a unit and reduce opponents influence by 2. Hand of God gets me more cards when Billy or Zarek are out there and the other missions increase my influence.

D'Anna is designed to sit there. With a power of 3 (4 if the Astral Queen is out), she has a strong defense. She can't attack, so will sit and wait. Meanwhile, Adama - Old man gets +2 power if there is an alert personnel in play. The two compliment each other nicely. Committing Dee to give challenging unit +2 power works great here too (a 6-power Adama challenging is a pretty good bet). Billy gets the influence up when he enters play. Zarek is a little harder to get out there, but his 2-power manipulate could come in handy to increase influence. Baltar is used for recovering losses and makes a good defense.

Most of my ships are pretty much fodder, except for the Astral Queen. The +1 to all defenders helps out a lot with D'Anna sitting up there. Cloud 9 also works good to counter any influence losses as well as having a two power of its own.

*******************************************

Thoughts??

Thread: Re: First Expansion: Betrayal, due September

roman1967 — 2006-10-17T04:14:04+00:00

Pushed back to November, although I am sure most people who play this game know that.

I am looking forward to the "Boomer: Betrayer to the Cylons" card as well as the new Laura card (can't remember the name of it)

Thread: Re: Missing characters

Geosphere — 2006-09-07T15:50:48+00:00

Tension

Thread: Missing characters

roman1967 — 2006-09-07T15:36:48+00:00

I was just running through Season 1 again (October is a long time away still), and realized that some of my favorite characters did not get into the starter deck.

Especially my favorite nugget "Hot Dog"

Anyone else have something from Season 1 that they wish would have made the first CCG release?

Thread: Re: Bases In The First Series

baronricks — 2006-07-24T14:17:35+00:00

Jedit wrote:
Jedit wrote:
animegothgrrl wrote:
There are also three generic base ships for use in booster limited; I don't have stats, but at a guess I'd say they'll be hand 4 influence 10 and there'll be one for each resource type.

OK, I was close - they're hand 4 influence 11, and have power 5.

Actually they are Power 4. The reset of the information is correct.

Image

roman1967 — 2006-07-09T03:18:19+00:00
I'm about ready to win this one.

Thread: My first Multi-player BSG experience

roman1967 — 2006-07-09T02:52:41+00:00
I've played this game against just one opponent numerous times. After getting another friend hooked on the game, we decided to give a 3-player game a go. The players are Shawn, Chris, and me.

Shawn, whom I just introduced to the game, immediately went and bought a starter and 7 boosters. Lucky stiff that he is, he got a Cylon Base as one of his boosters. In case you didn't know, the Base stats are:

Hand: 5
Influence: 10
Defense: 3
Exhaust: Ready target Cylon Unit

A very powerful base indeed. He went through all of his boosters, pulled all the Cylons and just added them to his starter deck. No extra tweaking involved.

I played the Celestra Base, with a few good cards (or so I thought) added to the starter deck:

Hand: 5
Influence: 9
Defense: 4
Exhaust: Look at the top two cards of your deck. Place one back on the top, place the other on the bottom.

Chris played the Galactica from the Starter Box, with a few of his favorite cards added to the starter deck:

Hand: 4
Influence: 9
Defense: 6
Exhaust: Cause target player to lose one influence.

I thought this might be a little tricky because the fleet defense level was only 13 for 3 players. The Cylons would be coming after us quickly. But, I had hoped that Shawn's ramshackle method of deckbuilding would not give him an immediate good hand.

Play went normally for a few rounds. I used my ability to choose the next card up when I thought it would be helpful for me to do so, but it was mostly a resource building time for all of us. A few challenges here and there and after three rounds we were all hanging around the same influence we started with, plus or minus a couple of points.

Then, the Cylon Threat Level was high enough for us to reveal our cards. As luck would have it, all three cards revealed stayed for the Cylon Phase. This was at about the 5th round of play or so. And there was never a round after this when there wasn't a Cylon Threat.

The first Cylon Phase passed without incident. We all passed and lost an influence rather than risk our limited supply of ships and/or personnel trying to beat them away.

Shawn then started to get some good card draws. As the more experienced player, it seemed I had somehow acquired a target painted on my forehead. Challenges came my way. A lot of them. I would not defend some, when I thought I could lose the influence, and defend when I was sure I could beat the player. Sadly, the Mystic Values did not work in my favor. Crashdown challenged me and I defended with Billy. His +2 defense would work in my favor, I hoped. Shawn flipped his card for a Mystic Value of 5 while mine showed a 0. No more Billy (and, subtract one politician for a mission I was trying to complete.) I retaliated on Chris, mostly because he didn't have any ships out, hoping to drag someone down in influence rank with me.

Sadly, this pattern continued. My card draws did not work in my favor as I continued to draw events and missions, but not too many more personnel and ships to replenish my lost stock. The Cylons kept on attacking us and while they hurt us all some, I took the larger hit due to my dwindling fleet.

The final round came. I was down to 1 influence, Chris had 7 and Shawn had 9. He also had a Cylon Raider and three personnel. His new personnel were ready immediately due to the ability of his base. With 4 undefended attacks, Shawn was able to take out me and Chris for the victory.

====

I found this to be a very enjoyable game as a multi-player. Some card games really don't work well, but BSG does. Now...to tweak my deck a bit more.

Image

roman1967 — 2006-07-09T02:45:23+00:00
2-player game in progress

Image

niels — 2006-07-07T02:35:15+00:00
Some of the main characters in the series

Image

niels — 2006-07-07T02:34:19+00:00
Some more cards, including the two bases in the starter

Image

niels — 2006-07-07T02:33:26+00:00
Collection tin

Thread: Re: Card Errata

Mounthail — 2006-07-03T19:34:30+00:00
roman1967 wrote:

EDIT^2: OK, I think I am getting it now. The card goes into the resource area for display, so you know to get the benefit at all times. Is that right? That makes sense to me. Thanks for all your help.

Yes, that seems to be correct. The "Reserve" area is used only for showing the status of a card as "used/new and to be readied next ready-phase".
A persistent mission does not belong there because it does'nt have to be readied but is available permanently.