Battlestar Galactica - Sunday 17th July

There is a group of game players in the Thanet area that I discovered earlier this year. We mainly roleplay, so far having done some Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (3rd edition). We have also played a game of Arkham Horror. Yesterday we gathered to do Battlestar Galactica. None of the other players had done the game before, so it was a learning game.



Each player plays a character from the recent adaption of the first season of the TV show. The aim of the game is for the players to get the fleet through to Kobol. This is a semi co-operative game,  with the added spice that up to two of the players are working against the team as they are actually Cylons.

The players and their characters were as follows, Gavin as Giaus Baltar and President, Linda as Chief Tyrol, Andrea as Tom Zarak, Rebecca as Boomer and myself as William Adema and Admiral.

Each of the players is given a loyality card (or two in the case of Giaus), from a deck made of 12 cards which has 10 Human cards and 2 Cylons cards. These are kept secret from the other players.

Each playable character has their own abilities and weaknesses, and must all work together in order for humanity to have any hope of survival. However, one or more players in every game secretly side with the Cylons. Players must attempt to expose the traitor while fuel shortages, food contaminations, and political unrest threatens to tear the fleet apart.

I drew a cylon card!!

However as this was the other players first game, I decided to go easy on the others. Half way through the game, each of the players is given another loyality card (or two this time an extra card for Boomer). So a player for the first half of the game could be human and then gets a Cylon card and realises they have been playing for the wrong team. Once a player has a Cylon card, they are a Cylon for the rest of the game. this captures the feeling from the TV show that many of the Cylons do not know they are as they are sleeper agents.

The method of play is that each player does an action and then a Crisis card needs to be resolved. These cards usually require votes to be done, but the votes are done by cards that are usually played in secret. So that the Cylons can skew the votes so that the Humans fail and lose resources.

The Humans had managed to get to within one jump too win. They were running out of fuel and food, the Cylons had boarding parties on board and many of the civilian ships were being targeted by Cylon raiders.

At this point I revealed my Cylon heritage so that the boarding parties could progress and take the ship. Linda ( Chief Tyrol) then misdirected the Human fighter screen, revealing herself as the other Cylon. This left the civilian fleet unguarded. The shocked look on Gavins face was priceless...as the Cylons took over Galactica for the win.

An excellent game, enjoyed by all.

Quote of the game coming from Rebecca - She had just drawn her crisis card which was that one of Galactica water storage tanks had been ruptured and we were venting water into space...she had to make a decision, at that point she stood and run into the kitchen screaming, " I need a cookie!"