Session Report 21 January 2009

7 people this week as we saw Paul, Steve Perkins, Simon and Andy for the first time this year. As Andy turned up we just about to set up to try Battlestar Galactica with 6 players for the first time, so at this point we split 4 & 3, with Andy joining Mike & Paul to play San Marco, while the rest of us set up for yet another battle between humans and Cylons.
Both Simon and Steve P were new to the game, although Steve had seen the new series. Simon went first and he picked Starbuck, Steve H was next and went for Roslin, there seems to be some sort of pattern building up here as Steve has either started as or ended up as President in every game we've played, he seems to like the political leaders. Steve P took Chief Tyrol, which left me with a choice of one of the military leaders, another pattern building here as I have started every game at the club as Admiral, although I did play President Baltar at Dave's house. In this case I went with Helo as the only one of the 3 military leaders I had not played.
At the start of the game, the battle against the Cylon ships did not go well, with Starbuck heading out in a viper and ending up in sickbay, twice, having been executive ordered out of her bed only to get sent straight back on her turn only to have Roslin to use another EO to get her out, this president certainly didn't believe in allowing the pilot any time for recuperation. When I got back from Caprica, it was a case of immediately diving in a viper and going out to thin the horde of raiders, further cylons having arrived in the meantime, I destroyed a few with maximum firepower, but it wasn't very long before I was off to sickbay as well.
It would have been about this time that the fleet jumped for the first time, with all resources having taken a few points loss, including the loss of a civilian ship with 1 population. As Admiral I was presented with the choice of 2 3 distance destinations, one of which was a barren planet for the loss of 3 fuel, I didn't want to lose those (being human), so I went for the loss of 1 fuel and the fleet emerged in a Cylon ambush.
Despite the presence of the cylons, we reached the next jump without too many problems other than the loss of fuel when Galactica was damaged and population as another civilian ship was lost, but morale was good as president Roslin gave a rousing speech. There were a few off hand comments, such as when I had the fleet emerge in the ambush, but generally everyone seemed to trust each other.
The second jump had us emerge in deep space and all dials were still in the blue as we reached distance 5 and the sleeper phase. The second round of loyalty cards was dealt and Starbuck was revealed to be sympathising with the toasters, she took the first opportunity to head for Caprica and call in a squadron of Cylon ships. Things still seemed fairly good, but I felt the need to get a move on, there was certainly a skin job out there, although I knew I was human. When it came to my turn and the jump prep was on -3 pop, I decided we needed to get a move on, so I left sickbay where I had been sent by a crisis and headed to FTL control to jump the fleet. In retrospect this may have been a little premature as, although there were raiders out there, we seemed to have things in hand, but we were well off for population, so I went for it. We again emerged in Deep Space, now at a distance of 7, just 1 more to go before we could attempt the final jump.
This was when things started to go wrong. On his next turn Chief Tyrol headed to the Admiral's quarters and suggested I be sent to the brig, he said it was just to see what the space did, but I think I know better. Starbuck of course was going to play in favour, as would Tyrol, unfortunately I think I had made Roslin suspicious of me through my somewhat precipitous jump, so she went with the flow. Being a military type, I had no cards to help myself, so I was off to the brig and Tyrol became Admiral. When it came to my turn, I had no good cards to help so I didn't even attempt to get out, instead I launched a scout and left a Tylium planet on the top of the destination deck, a great card for the humans who only needed 1 distance and this only used 1 fuel with the possibility of gaining 2, it would be interesting, I thought to see what our new Admiral would do when he got the chance to choose a destination.
When we jumped again I was still in the brig, having attempted to get out but failed as the President still didn't trust me, it was at that point that I felt I had to point out that if I were a skin job, I would not be kicking my heels in the brig, but would have been over in the cylon area by now, taking direct action. Admiral Tyrol, did not choose the Tylium planet I had left, but instead an Icy moon, which was probably even better, especially as he used a raptor to gain us 1 food. I was starting to be sure that our president was the missing cylon.
So now we just needed the final jump, but the dials were all quite low in the red, and there were soon lots of cylon ships and civilian ships in space around Galactica, even worse the cylons were jamming our communications and we couldn't order the civilian ships. At this point, Roslin issued an executive order to Tyrol, but he used it to reveal that he was a cylon and headed to the resurrection ship, where he swapped his super crisis for a new one on his turn. The President (now also Admiral) now realised her error, and when it came round to her again, she executive ordered me, I got out of the brig with my first action (now having full presidential backing) and headed straight to Command, where I ordered Vipers into space to protect the civilian ships, there were also heavy raiders out there, but even if centurions got on board, things were going to be over one way or another, before they came near to taking over the ship.
The jump track advanced and we managed to survive the inbound nukes (courtesy of Tyrol's super crisis), mainly due to all the cards I had stacked up while in the brig. When it came to Roslin, the track was at -3, but population was on 2, so we couldn't jump, food and morale were on -1, if we could get a jump advance and we could survive Tyrol's machinations, then I could jump the fleet and we would be home. The president had a vision, but there was no choice but to risk a loss of morale. She chose to go with the loss of a friend, but destiny and the cylons were against us and we missed what we needed by 1. Morale hit zero and all humanity's hopes were snuffed out within sight of freedom.
Again a good time was had by all, I know Steve P enjoyed himself and he did a great job of not drawing suspicion on himself, I assume he became a cylon in the sleeper phase, but I didn't check.

Battlestar Galactica 160 mins
Player	Posn.
Simon	1=
Steve Pe	1=
Steve H	3=
Dave D	3=

Over on the other table, Paul had a narrow win at San Marco.

San Marco 100 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Paul	1	66
Mike	2	64
Andy	3	52

Then they played Dominion, another close game as these often seem to be.

Dominion 30 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Mike	1	36
Andy	2	35
Paul	3	31

Session Report 14 January 2009

Humanity was toasted
Five of us tonight, when Ben and I arrived, Mike, Dave and Steve were already there and immediately requested another game of Battlestar Galactica.

I was first player and chose Karl ‘Helo’ Agathon, Ben chose Laura Roslin (President), Mike chose Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace, Steve chose Tom Zarek and Dave chose Saul Tigh (Admiral).
Loyalty cards were dealt and I was a Cylon. So, how to plot against the Humans until being forced to reveal? I decided to try to keep hidden as long as I could, whilst trying to figure out if anyone else was on my side at this time. I laid some groundwork by taking out a Viper and destroying several raiders; the fleet then jumped to a fairly rubbish system. Tigh became convinced that Zarek was a Cylon and had him thrown in the brig; an action I went along with. I then introduced some bad cards into the mix on most of the Crisis checks; eventually Tigh smelt a rat and conspired to have me thrown in the brig. An early attack from a Basestar had taken out the armoury and nobody seemed too rushed to fix it. Meanwhile, a huge Cylon fleet had turned up and it seemed a good point to reveal myself and get to the Resurrection Ship. A Super Crisis got a Centurion on board Galactica (Frak! – one point off getting two on board).. This went on for some time until Zarek got himself freed by a Quorum Card played by Roslin; in response, Tigh declared a Military Coup and became President, Roslin commented that the Offices of Admiral and President held by the same player were too powerful.
Finally, the fleet got to Kobol. This is where the fun started. The fleet was very low on resources, especially Fuel and Food.. The Sleeper phase revealed I was the second Cylon! Zarek used the Administration Office to gain the Presidency (as he agreed with Roslin’s comments). Tigh accused him of being a Cylon and accusations started flying. On my turn I activated the Resurrection Ship and stirred it up a bit by making Starbuck a Cylon.. On Roslin’s turn, she used her ability to activate a Quorum card to have Starbuck thrown in the brig! (I couldn’t believe this – there was no way he could have known!). However, this served to reinforce in the minds of the Admiral and President that Roslin might be a Cylon; especially after my comments that the action had weakened Galactica ( now down to three operational Vipers and two Raptors).
The curtain fell when Starbuck got herself released from the Brig with the help of Tigh and Zarek. The Crisis card was either lose 1 Morale or make a check and lose 2 Morale on a fail. Neither Tigh. Roslin or Zarek had any useful cards left after springing Starbuck.. With brilliant timing, Starbuck went for the check anyway; without any surprise it failed and the Humans were on 0 Morale. Toasters win!

Battlestar Galactica 180 mins
Player	Posn.
Dave C	1=
Mike	1=
Dave D	3=
Steve H	3=
Ben	3=

Session Report 7 January 2009

This was the first meeting of 2009 and 5 people in attendance. This report has been written in bits and pieces over several days and seems to read OK, but if it does seem disjointed at some points, I gues that's the reason. The game played was Battlestar Galactica by FFG based on the TV series of the same name (that is the current reimagining, rather than the original Star Wars cash in). I have only watched the series up to half way through season 3, when the Sky channels went off Virgin Media and haven't caught up, but the game only references events up to the end of season 1 and don't really see that knowing the series is a prerequisite for enjoying the game.
I had intended to get a copy of this and preordered from Amazon at a ridiculously low price, which as it turned out was somewhat too low, as Amazon claimed they could not get it at that price and cancelled the order, claiming non availability. I got somewhat irritated at the obviously standard e-mails I received in answer to my complaints and resolved after an amicable but fruitless phone conversation that in future I would always buy from elsewhere, when the price was no higher than Amazon. Suffice it to say that Amazon has already lost considerably more in lost orders than they gained by not supplying this game at the original price. This is Dave's copy which he received for Christmas, I suspect the fact that Lisa is an avid BG fan, is no coincidence.
Anyway enough of that, what about the game? The players are characters aboard a fleet of human ships, fleeing after the destruction of the 12 human colonies by the Cylons (a robotic race originally created by the humans as manual labour). They aim to find Earth, the legendary home of humanity and to do this they need to reach Kobol (twice) before making one final jump. So everyone works together to save humanity, well not quite because 1 or more will be Cylons who will do their best to sabotage the human cause, first secretly and maybe later, openly when they can do severe damage. The way the game works (as in the series) is that it is possible a character may be a cylon without even realising it at the beginning.
The action of the game takes place aboard the last remaining human warship, the mighty Battlestar Galactica and also in the space surrounding the Galactica together with Colonial 1, a civilian ship which is the administrative centre and base of the President of the Colonies. The humans will win if they can make one final FTL jump after reaching Kobol for the second time, while the Cylons win if (before this can happen), they can reduce any of Fuel, Morale, Food or Population to zero or by the destruction of Galactica.
Each player plays in turn, first taking skill cards, then moving and performing an action, before finally drawing a crisis card to resolve, which is usually potentially something bad for the humans. These crises and also some player actions may involve the resolution of a skill check, where each player can play cards to help or hinder the human cause, this is a clever mechanism within the game as you can't be sure who played which card, but if there are a large number of negatives (more than 2) you can be sure there is sabotage afoot, suggesting that a Cylon is present, which of course can lead to much paranoia among the players. If you are a Cylon then you will want the humans to fail skill checks, but you need to be careful as if you commit too many overt acts of sabotage, then someone will notice. The sequence just mentioned is potentially modified for special circumstances such as character abilities or revealed Cylon players.
Each character in the game has 3 special abilities, the first of which can be used multiple times, the second is usable once per game maybe requiring an action, while the third is a negative trait, handicapping the character in some way. None of the abilities can be used, once the character is revealed as a Cylon. In our game, I got to pick characters first and went for William Adama, commander of the Galactica (I see from reading certain comments that he is not regarded as that strong a character, ability wise, but I then proceeded to forget about my own abilities for the rest of the game anyway), what I did know was that as the most senior military commander, I would get to be the Admiral and I quite fancied that. The character choice rules do their best to make sure the characters in a game are balanced, so Steve (picking next) was not allowed to pick a Military Leader and went for Tom Zarek, former terrorist and the third ranked Political leader in the game, Mike had to go for a Pilot or Support character and chose a pilot with Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, who those familiar with the series will know is revealed early on to be a Cylon, so the character has a slightly higher chance of being one in the game. All 3 of the main character types had now been picked, so Ben had a free choice and went for Lee "Apollo" Adama, another pilot and the son of my own character. Dave picking last went for the sole support character in the game Chief Galen Tyrol, probably just as well for the human cause as he is a useful man to have around to repair all the damage done by Cylon attacks. As highest in the order of priority Tom Zarek was appointed President and Steve took the Quorum deck and a card from it.
The game started with the Galactica attacked by Cylons as is normal, but 2 (or was it 3?) of the crisis cards drawn ended up adding extra Cylons to the already large numbers (we actually ran out of raiders), we had both pilots out in vipers while I headed to weapon control to take pot-shots at the Cylon Basestar, I followed this up by launching a nuke (which was my prerogative as Admiral) and destroyed a Basestar as there were now 2 of them. I think it was Tyrol who headed over to communications to try and order the unmanned vipers. During this time President Zarek sat in his office issuing orders. Eventually the humans had the chance to jump and took it leaving the carnage behind, even managing to avoid the -3 population, which was a potential result of the early jump, both our pilots were in sickbay at this time, having been heavily outnumbered by the Cylon raiders.
After this there was a quiet period, the crises were not causing too great a problem, possibly due to the series of investigative committees set up by the president that made it very hard for a Cylon to act in secrecy, then the bombshell dropped. Lee Adama, that is Ben, my son for this game was a Cylon and he revealed himself, possibly due to the inconvenience caused by the committees. Things were now in some ways harder, because as a revealed Cylon he could perform powerful actions against the human, such as using Super Crisis cards, but had lost the ability to secretly influence the crises, so we could be on our guard if he should throw a card in.
The fleet made a second jump and reached Kobol for the first time, which meant another round of loyalty cards dealt out, Boomer receiving 2 due to her negative trait, we realised after that she should have also been sent to the brig, but we missed this at the time. Ben was already a revealed Cylon and handed me the new card he received, this is quite a clever mechanism to increase the paranoia, had he given me a Cylon card and therefore I was now the mortal enemy of the human race, or was it a human card, only Ben & I knew the answer, for the moment.
We were soon attacked by another heavy wave of Cylon ships and I nuked another Basestar, reasoning that the Cylons (of which I actually was now one) still had one left in play, the fleet would jump soon anyway and I wanted to get rid of all the nukes so that there would be none left for my successor as Admiral, when I revealed myself. This I did fairly soon after the next jump, following a crisis, that possibly threatened to expose me, i also thought that Dave might be a bit suspicious so off I went to the resurrection ship and drew, what would have been a great super crisis if only there had been a Cylon fleet in play.
I think I only had one remaining turn, in which I pinched a card from Dave, but failed to damage Galactica, using the human fleet location. We had to stop the game early, but I thought that the odds were on a Cylon victory with morale down to 2. This is a long game, but I think should be finishable in a session, without rules explanations and with quicker play, the pace of the game did pick up markedly during the game with more familiarity. We did make some mistakes, such as not throwing Boomer in the brig and me personally totally forgetting about my character abilities (or maybe I subconsciously knew that I was actually a toaster), but despite this I believe everyone enjoyed the experience.
I got to play again on Saturday and again was a Cylon, I hope this does not happen all the time or people may become suspicious. The humans won that one, but it was close with both morale and population running low. Having played again I will say that I think this is a GREAT game and I can't wait to play again.

Battlestar Galactica 150 mins
Player	Posn.
Dave D	1=
Dave C	1=
Steve H	1=
Mike	1=
Ben	1=

Stats review 2008

I've catching up on the stats for the year and I've updated the website here. The list of games played in 2008 is here. Having looked at them, these are some of my observations of what we've been up to during the year. Note the stats only include games played on Wednesday nights.
Games Played
We played a total of 142 games during the year including 64 different ones. 40 games were played only once (although several of these were new toward the end of the year and I expect will get further play in 2009). 38 games were played for the first time this year.
The number of games played is up from 127 in 2007 and the total player time at 656 player hours is up from 588. These figures are slightly misleading (not a lot), because I have completely excluded any role-playing this year. If we exclude the 2 games of Star Wars RPG, then the 2007 figures fall to 125 and 573, so that gives increases of 13.6% in games played and 14.5% in player time.
The most played games (in terms of player time were as follows:
1. Power Grid (11 plays, 92.8 player hours)
For the second year running, Power Grid is the most played game and it was also top in 2005. It is interesting to note that since the game appeared in 2004, the number of plays has increased each year, which is some indication of its continuing popularity.
2. The Pillars of the Earth (5 plays, 43.3 player hours)
Again for the second year running this is the second most played game, latterly with the expansion allowing the number of players to increase from 4 to 6. The fact that the figures are less than half those of Power Grid, though, give some indication of the hold that game has over the club.
3. Agricola (4 plays, 36 player hours)
A new entry, this is of course everybody's favourite game on the geek. It will be interesting to see if maintains its play in 2009.
4. Brass (3 plays, 26 player hours)
Another new one, this by Martin Wallace. All the plays were in the first 3 months of the year. I remember quite enjoying it, but was unsure about the effect of the Shipyards. We must try this again soon.
5. Tinners' Trail (6 plays, 22.8 player hours)
Another new Martin Wallace, introduced at the UK expo. This is a shorter game than Brass and got its play in the middle months of the year. It is another that could do with more play.
The most played game in terms of games played was Tsuro, which is a wonderful quick filler. It had 12 plays, just edging out Power Grid.
Games that have stood the test of time
The records I have date back to September 2003 and the overall figures for all years are here. Looking at the figures I see that there are 5 games out of 226, that we played in 2003, that we also played in 2008, these are Vinci, Amun-Re, Industrial Waste, Acquire and Ra, so these games could be said to have staying power. Of these games, all except Ra (which was not played in 2007) have been played every year since the records began.
Of course we only have 4 months records in 2003, so I have also compared with 2004 and that adds San Juan, Power Grid and Kremlin to the 5 above, all these 3 have been played in every year from 2004 to 2008.
I'll stop there, although I'm sure that there is more esoteric data to draw from the figures.

End of year catch up 26 November – 17 December 2008

Happy New Year to you all. Tomorrow is the first meeting of 2009, so to get things up to date, this is very belated catchup to round out the year, no great details.
26 November
7 this week, Steve Hilton, Steve Perkins, Andy & I, played Pillars of the Earth. Steve H had a good win and I think he is probably the best player of this among us. It was Andy's first game and although he wasn't able to match either of the Steves I think he got the hang of it and he managed to beat me. For some reason I seem to be able to screw up the opening far too often, I know what to do but for some reason don't.

Pillars of the Earth, The 120 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve H	1	54
Steve Pe	2	51
Andy	3	47
Dave D	4	45

On the other table Dave C, Ben & Mike played After the Flood, the new game by Martin Wallace designed for exactly that number. This was not finished in the session so goes down as a tie.

After the Flood 140 mins
Player	Posn.
Dave C	1=
Ben	1=
Mike	1=

3 December
4 of us and first up was Mykerinos. My first play and I can't say I was very enthused about it, although I can't now recall enough to say why. It just came across as bland, I would not say I would never play again, but there are a lot of games I would play in preference.

Mykerinos 70 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Mike	1	48
Steve H	2	43
Julian	3	35
Dave D	4	33

Next up was San Juan, which amazingly is the first and only play at the club in 2008. A close game with Julian just edging it over Mike, I had one of those games where the 6 buildings didn't want to show themselves. A City Hall would have made all the difference.

San Juan 35 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Julian	1	38
Mike	2	37
Dave D	3	30
Steve H	4	28

We rounded off the evening with 2 games at Tsuro, where I continued my poor form.

Tsuro 10 mins
Player	Posn.
Mike	1
Steve H	2
Julian	3
Dave D	4
Tsuro 10 mins
Player	Posn.
Steve H	1
Mike	2
Julian	3
Dave D	4

10 December
Steve H was off for the rest of the year, about the head off to the States, so there were 4 of us. We introduced Mike to Pandemic and in our first game we seemed to be doing remarkably well, too well as it happened as it eventually dawned on me that there was only one epidemic in the deck and that was in the bottom quarter of it. We abandoned the game at that point and started again.
The second game was a close fought affair, but despite only playing with 4 epidemics, we eventually lost due to the number of outbreaks, the world was doomed. Still a good time was had by all.

Pandemic 30 mins
Player	Posn.
Dave C	1=
Dave D	1=
Ben	1=
Mike	1=
Pandemic 30 mins
Player	Posn.
Dave C	1=
Dave D	1=
Mike	1=
Ben	1=

We then introduced Dave & Ben to Dominion. Mike & I had learned the game at Midcon and earlier in the week I had gone of Christmas Shopping and ended up spending more on me than on others (Pandemic & Dominion). Again everyone enjoyed the game and it was my first win of the month. The game went on a bit longer than normal, but that should be reduced with further play. I played again with Dave & Jenny just before Christmas and she liked it so much Dave got a copy for Christmas. I think this could get a lot of play in the future.

Dominion 40 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	37
Mike	2	30
Ben	3	22
Dave C	4	17

17 December
First up was Great Fire, a prototype by Richard Denning, which Mike & Dave had a chance to try at Midcon and I mentioned in the Midcon reports by Dave & myself. The theme is the Great Fire of London in 1666 and you are a Land owner trying to save property from burning down (more specifically your own property, you're usually not worried about other peoples'). I think the game went down well, although there were a few issues which I've passed back to Richard. If anyone else has any comments mail them to me and I'll pass them on or you can send them to Richard (rDenning on the geek). I snapped a picture of the end position.

Great Fire 80 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave C	1	41
Dave D	2	40
Mike	3	39
Ben	4	33
Andy	5	31

After that Dave & Ben went and the rest of us played Pandemic. I was the Scientist, Mike the Operations expert and Andy the Dispatcher. Unfortunately we failed again, although we came close and would have won had we got round to my turn as I had the cards to cure the last disease. It was not to be as the final outbreak happened.

Pandemic 35 mins
Player	Posn.
Dave D	1=
Mike	1=
Andy	1=

See you tomorrow.