BattleStar Galactica: The Board Game - Review Link to heading
(This review was originally posted on Boardgaming.com and subsequently posted on the old version of this blog)
Humanity has lost Link to heading
The second Cylon war is over. Humanity has lost, and now it’s only hope for survival is a small fleet of ships carrying all that remains of the human population, lead by the aging Battlestar Galactica.
Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game is based on the first season of the 2004 re-imagining of the classic 70’s TV show, where the surviving human fleet desperately tries to escape their Cylon pursuers on their way to the planet Kobol – the legendary planet where humanity began (and a waypoint on their longer journey to find the fabled 13th colony, Earth).
Players each play a character from the show, each with their own special abilities, and must work together to survive Cylon attacks and the perils of deep space…but there’s a twist! The Cylon’s have evolved and can now take human form – making them almost indistinguishable from any normal person.
Good use is made of this premise to add an excellent bluffing and strategy element to the game, as at any time up to 3 Cylon’s (depending on the number of players and stage of the game) may be working against the human players, with their only aim being to destroy Galactica and end human life forever!
Gameplay
The game starts with each player choosing a character, performing their set-up (positioning their player marker on the board, drawing cards etc) and drawing their loyalty card – which determines whether they truly are human, or a cylon in disguise! (At this point its usually wise to invoke a house rule for viewing your loyalty card for 60 seconds, as the Cylon ones often have special powers on them, so staring at them can give the game away!)
Frakin’ toasters!
Cylon’s can either attempt to sabotage skill checks, or can reveal themselves to gain additional powers.
Each players turn (whilst they are either human, or unrevealed as a cylon) takes place over 6 stages:
- Draw skill cards (as defined by their character)
- Move (to different board locations)
- Action – this can be either activating a character action, using a board location, piloting a ship, using special cards (in the case of the president character) or revealing themselves as a Cylon if they hold a ‘You are a Cylon’ loyalty card.
- Draw and resolve a Crisis card (all players partake in most crisis resolutions).
- Resolve Cylon fleet activity if marked on the Crisis card (i.e. launching ships from Cylon basestars and moving cylon raiders to either attack ships in space or to land boarding parties aboard Galactica.
- Resolve the FTL jump track if marked on the Crisis card – jumping the human fleet a certain distance is the human’s win condition, so increasing the FTL drives preparation track is essential!
The Crisis resolution is the core of the game, and in most cases this is where all players interact in ‘skill checks’. If a skill check crisis occurs then each character can play as many cards face down into a pile as they like to attempt to match the win condition – for example, a skill check might ask for a total score of 10, and be coloured yellow and purple (different skill types have different colours such as Tactics being purple, Politics being yellow etc). Only colours which match those requested on the skill check count as positive, all other colours are negative to the score.
In addition to all the players being able to play cards, two random cards are played into each skill check from the ‘destiny deck’ – this allows any potential Cylon sabotage activity to be masked… or at least be less obvious!
At the beginning of the game it’s possible that there are no Cylon’s in play, however at the half way point a second draw of loyalty cards occurs meaning that in the latter half of the game there are definitely forces working against the humans! In larger games there is also a ‘sleeper agent’, who becomes a Cylon in the second half if the human’s resources are all above a certain level – this provides an interesting meta-game, where it can actually be sensible for the human players to purposefully lose some resources to make the later game easier… although it isn’t always easy to convince other players of this without receiving accusations of being a “frakkin’ toaster!”
This really just scratches the surface of this great game, and doesn’t really touch on the space combat or roles of special characters like the president and admiral…
Components
As usual the quality of the components provided by Fantasy Flight is top-notch: the board is solid and the cards are all excellent (although the skill cards are a little on the small side).
Let’s play!
The game also comes with several ship miniatures, which whilst not on par with dedicated miniatures games are still nicer than using wee tokens for the space combat element of the game (other ships, such as the rest of the colonial fleet are represented by tokens which have values printed on their underside.)
It’s a shame the Cylon basestars don’t have their own models, instead represented by large ‘tokens’, however I believe two are contained within the Pegasus expansion (which expands the game into the events depicted in the second TV series…)
Play time
BSG is a big complex game, so be prepared to lose an afternoon or evening to it, especially on the first few plays as it’s likely you’ll be double checking the rules as you go along. My first play (with a full group of 6) took us about 5-6 hours, although subsequent plays tend to be closer to 3 hours long now that we’re accustomed to the rules.
Whilst the long playtime may put some people off, the game does always keep all players engaged, and the time flies by as alliances are made to attempt to root out and beat the hidden Cylons!
Summary
Battlestar Galactica is a favourite with my regular gaming friends. It can be tough going, but the co-operative nature of the game along with the constant threat of a hidden Cylon sabotaging your actions makes for a tense and exciting game.
So far, every game we’ve had has also been a very close call, with the humans either just managing to eek a win, or the Cylon’s managing to destroy the humans moments from their final FTL jump. The tension throughout the game is excellent, which has left us craving more every time we’ve played it – there is a lot of replayability in this, and there are lots of strategy options to employ for both human and cyclon players (whichever you end up being!)
I first picked it up as a fan of the show, however knowledge of the show isn’t a pre-requisite. Gamers who enjoy a bit of strategy, working together and (of course) stabbing others in the back will all enjoy it. Even some of my harder to please gaming friends often ask to pull this out for a game.
It’s not for everyone though – those that get upset easily might want to give it a miss, as it’s not uncommon to be accused of being a Cylon then locked in a cell (only for your accuser to turn out to be the real toaster!), and it certainly does need a good investment of time to play through – especially for the first few games.
It also certainly shouldn’t be played without first having a good read of the rules (and I’d suggest watching a quick gameplay video or two in advance as well, as it can be quite complex to begin with).
Overall though, since buying the game 3-4 years ago* this remains one of my favourite board games.
*Now 10+ years ago…
Verdict: 9/10