Battlestar Galactica Board Game : The Frackin’ Review

Who you calling a toaster?

Who you calling a toaster?

Amongst our team at BusyGamer.com, we have been known in the past to delve not only into the land of video games, comics and rpg’s (did I just admit that? Shhh!) but also into the realm of board games. Ok, well, when time and schedules allow us to anyhow. I pretty much just end up collecting them because my co-workers live miles away which makes game nights few and far between. Nonetheless, with the final season of Battlestar Galactica arriving next week, I thought it would be refreshing to talk about one of the most awaited table top releases (for me) of this past year.

During our excurison to the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle (PAX 2008), I ran across this game at the Fantasy Flight Gaming tables which I attempted to purchase during day 2 of the expo. To my dismay, the company had sold out of BSG on day 1 and politely told me I could currently bid on one at Ebay starting at $140.00. Well, I decided to wait untill last week to pick one up after its release. After several trips to my local nerd store, I acquired one for $50, a very welcomed birthday gift from my editor Gritskrieg, thanks again! Ok, enough babble, let’s talk some frackin’ board game dorkyness.

First, I’d like to say the game has an excellent presentation. The game board features a map of the Galactica and its important areas such as The Admiral’s Quarters, The Brig, The Hangar, Research Lab, etc., all of which allow you to activate a certain ability in the game. They range from drawing extra skill cards, launching Vipers, or fire the ship’s weapons at oncoming cylon raiders. There are plenty of cards (I’d say about 4 types of decks you will be drawing from), some awesome 3D ships (Vipers, Raiders and Raptors) for dogfights, 10 nice portrait standups of the main characters, one of whom you will be representing , and one 8 sided die. There are a lot of rules and phases for the game which will escalate the learning curve here (discouraging some players) but once you absorb it all, there are some really intriguing elements to the game play including some role-playing. Yeah, geeks!

See that Brig over there, that's where your parents live.

See that Brig over there, that's where your real parents live.

Each player chooses their character, selecting from Adama, Apollo, Roslin, Baltar, Boomer, Tigh, Chief, Starbuck, Zarek and Helo. Each wields 2 strenghs and 1 weakness, which will in turn provide some interesting gaming combinations. For example, Tigh has the ‘alcoholic’ penalty making him throw cards away, while Baltar has the ‘delusional intuition’ perk allowing him to draw extra cards. For those that follow the series, the abilities will make perfect sense but I can see for others, they will just be one more rule they have to remember. 

The object of the game is for the humans to travel 8 units of distance home (to Kobol) by making the Galactica jump through space by use of the FTL drive (Faster Than Light, damn I’m a dork). Simple enough, huh? Well, during each player’s turn, a crisis card is drawn which will present an obstacle that the team must combine abilities to overcome. Each character posesses certain areas of expertise. For example Baltar’s are Politics, Leadership and Engineering, while Boomer (a pilot) has Tactics, Piloting and Engineering. Sometimes this event will be a Cylon attack with Raiders  - so the pilots will have to activate vipers and physically chase and destroy them – while other events call for the team to donate skill cards to overcome a downfall like food shortage or a civillian revolt. These skill checks require all of the players to place skill cards in a pile (face down) dictated by the crisis after which the result is calculated (pass/fail). One event may require politics or tactics while another may call for engineering or leadership. The players may or may not control characters that have those skills, hence a well rounded party and assortment of abilities is always encouraged for survival.

Because of an awful skin job crush, I claim all dibbs on Boomer.

Because of an awful skin job crush, I claim all dibbs on Boomer.

Oh wait, did I forget to mention one small detail? One or two of you are Cylons. And guess what? You may not even know it until halfway through the game. This puts an awesome twist on things when you find out you are playing for the other team. Beause most of the time, unless you declare it, you are the only one that knows your role has now been shifted to foiling the plans of the pesky humans’ race to get home.

At the beginning of the game, each player is dealt a ‘loyalty card’, which tells you which side you’re playing on. Unless there is more than four playing, there is just one Cylon player. This creates quite the acting game if you know you are the toaster on board. Halfway through the game, during  the ‘sleeper phase’, each player is dealt another ‘loyalty card’ so you have yet another chance of becoming the Cylon if not one already.

The Cylons have 3 ways they can win. One is to reduce any of the fleets resources (population, food, fuel and morale) to zero by forcing humans to lose skill checks or playing other bad mojo cards. Two, by Galactica suffering damage to 6 areas of the ship from Raiders or Basestars blasting it, or lastly by the Centurions actually boarding the ship and launching everyone out of the air locks (my personal favorite, ha ha).

So, as a Cylon player you get to thwart skill checks by throwing in cards that count against the humans, play really nasty ‘super crisis’ event cards and command waves of Raiders to flank the Battlestar killing civilian ships and Vipers, ultimately depleting more resources for the humans.

There are a few other great parts of the game as well that I’d like to touch on. Whoever is elected ‘President’ gets to draw ’quorum’ cards that can do things like raise morale and ration food (increasing the humans’ resources),while the player named ‘Admiral’ gets the power to control 2 nukes. These warheads can get the Galactica out of a bind like destroying a Basestar or groups of Raiders. After they are used, they are removed from play so you must use the two wisely.

So what if The President is a Cylon? Or The Admiral? Or your main pilot? See what kind of scene this game can set? I think the developers did a great job at creating an aura of  ‘politics, betrayal and survival’ and kept true to the kindred spirit of the new series. I highly recommend this game for BSG fans, Sci-Fi nerds, and skin jobs.

Because even though the card does say “you are not a Cylon”, one can never know for sure.

- Crutchboy totally dorking out, frak.


You can pick up your own copy of Battlestar Galactica : The Board Game at www.fantasyflightgames.com.

Posted By Crutchboy

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