5 players for Battlestar Galactica with the Pegasus expansion. The players were myself (Helena Cain), Dave C (Starbuck), Ben (Gaius Baltar), Andy (Dee/Boomer), and Steve H (Laura Roslin).
The early going was uneventful and things looked good for the humans, there was no sign of any overt Cylon activity although I succeeded in casting a little suspicion on myself as I think did Steve by underplaying into a couple of skill checks, not wishing to overkill and we ended up failing the check. My motivation for this was genuine as I think was that of Steve (I think he was human at this stage).
The sleeper phase was reached at distance 5 and the new loyalty cards were handed out, it was beginning to look like a close game as all resources drifted to lower levels. At one stage we jumped at -3 on the track and lost the population. I would have preferred at this stage to use Cain's Blind Jump ability, so the loss came from Civilian ships, meaning there were fewer to evacuate when we reached New Caprica, but I did not receive an XO, possibly because I wasn't entirely trusted due to the reasons mentioned earlier in the game.
Reaching New Caprica (this was a first for us), I was cast in Detention through a crisis card, but was still Admiral, then morale hit 2 and Dee shot herself. Andy selected Boomer as his new character and I think it was her first act to execute Roslin (who was also in detention, due to playing a Quorum card on New Caprica); this confirmed what we had suspected (that Roslin was a Cylon).
As the game drew to a close, we were able to evacuate all the civilian ships that hadn't been destroyed by Occupation forces and it came to my turn with morale at 2 and population at 2, so I was left with the decision to jump the fleet away from the planet. All the other humans had already left the surface, but I remained in detention, so I had to sacrifice myself for the human victory. The other cylon was Starbuck, who never really had a chance to show her true colours
So the humans won in a very close game. We had agreed at the start not to use the cylon leaders, but I'm not convince that this was the difference, since those games were marked by serious losses of morale early on that I don't think the leader was responsible for. I'd previously thought not to use the leaders in 5 player games for fear of unbalancing what was the sweet spot of the base game, but I would like to try the leaders again with 6 (or possibly 7) players.
Note that although declaring a human victory on the night, I have entered this in the stats as a tie, the reason for this is that we (I) made a mistake when Boomer came into the game, she should have started in Detention so at the very least we would have had to get her (or me) out of there before we could jump. Bearing in mind the closeness of the game this could easily have tipped the balance the other way. Andy might have chosen another character of course, if we'd realised at the time, but to compound the issues, he had used Boomer's once per game ability to automatically pass a skill check, which would not then have been possible.
Posn. | Player |
1= | Dave D |
1= | Dave C |
1= | Ben C |
1= | Andy |
1= | Steve H |
Battlestar never seems to get dull with repeat play and I don't think anyone at club dislikes it - which makes it fairly unique. I'm not convinced the expansion has really added a whole lot to the game (more complexity but game plays the same), and I still worry about those cylon leaders, but we will certainly keep playing to find out.
ReplyDeleteI was a little perplexed by my fellow cylon's play (Dave C), particularly on the last turn when he boldly launched his viper to interpose it between the raiders and the helpless civilian ships... But it turns out this was an attempt to eke out one more event that might cost morale, thus winning us the game. Possibly that would have worked just as well if he'd just sat in the hanger... :)
My bad luck came when I jailed myself through a dice roll. I'm reckoning that we could easily have won, particularly with the rules nuance that Dave D spotted.
Consequently I'm wondering whether a human victory might be a rare event with the expansion game. We shall see.
Hmm
ReplyDeleteBeing a Cylon from the outset and the only pilot in the Game meant my early options were limited - If I got thrown in the Brig then the chances were I'd never get out. I was trying to see who my fellow Cylon was but Steve hid himself too well. As we got to New Caprica (the first time ever) I wanted to see what would happen - we were down to 1 Fuel and there was a chance (admittiedly low|) that one would come out of the Crisis deck. The Civilian Fuel ships had already gone, hence my attempt to get the extra Turn right at the end. It didn't work - sorry I screwed up.