I need to work out how bad may cards really were. Every time I was surprised by how many ones and twos I drew.

Attention lurkers!

Billytea and I were discussing GMing and wanted to know if there are any lurkers interested in trying a game (either now or in the near future).

I know you are out there. Speak now, or forever be suspected of being a cylon.

Yeah, Laga, there was really only one point where I had an amazing hand of high cards (and really wanted to pull Legendary Discovery). But otherwise, I felt like we couldn't really compete on skill checks.

BSG

For much of the game my hand was almost completely Y1 and R1 cards.

I need to work out how bad may cards really were. Every time I was surprised by how many ones and twos I drew.

Two thirds of the skill cards are worth 1 or 2, so there's roughly a 13% chance of drawing nothing better. Usually you'll get at least something better, but it certainly happens.

Yeah, Laga, there was really only one point where I had an amazing hand of high cards (and really wanted to pull Legendary Discovery). But otherwise, I felt like we couldn't really compete on skill checks.

You actually only ever lost two skill checks that you tried to pass. (There were a number that you chose to tank without trying.) Unfortunately, those two were the last ones that finished off your Population. Destiny was double negative for both checks too.

It was, from my end, a deliberate strategy to try to keep you guys short on cards. As far as I was able to anyway, revealed Cylons don't get much chance to be proactive; but where possible, I tried to get you guys to spend up. My own hand had its ups and downs, but I drew the Purple-5 back on my second turn, and then held onto it for almost the whole game. In the end, I didn't get much out of it beyond stopping you guys from drawing it.

But even if I had drawn it on that last hand it wouldn't have helped.

Yeah, I think lack of cards was hurting us more than the value of those cards. We got hit with a lot of forced discards and people being sent to sick bay in rapid succession and I don't think we ever really recovered. There was a point after I became President that I considered using the Quorum card to name someone my VP just because it would let me draw two cards, but there was never an oppurunity to "waste" a turn like that.

As far as scouting, I don't think we had many oppurtunities where there wasn't something more urgent to do at the time, or where if not, the person in question actually had the ability to scout.

As far as our Cylons, I suspected Zarek and Apollo up until Zarek and Tigh confirmed whatever was on a card or civvie or something they both saw (I can't remember the details) at which point I thought maybe Apollo had both Cylon cards. Boomer's reveal caught me by surprise.

Boomer's reveal caught me by surprise.

I think that's my cue for an evil laugh. MUWAHAHAHA!

I found Boomer to be an interesting character to play. She was quite frustrating for the first half, simply because she doesn't draw XOs. Funnily enough, my interest in playing her jumped after I was brigged.There are two big moments in a young Cylon's life - when she blows her cover, and when she plays her Super Crisis. My brigging marked the beginning of the first venture, working out how and when to reveal. It was a lot of fun trying to get the crew's trust for a jailbreak. (And I think the ex-President earned a big ol' "I told you so".) Still, that's an itch I'm happy to have scratched, next time I'll likely opt for a pollie or military leader.

I recently played another game as Laura Roslin, in which we had a Boomer. Most unconvincing "no, really, you can trust me" performance ever. Her arguments more or less boiled down to "You're being mean to me because I have an extra loyalty card. No one's ever this mean to Baltar" and "Look out! There's a Cylon behind you with an axe!" However, she was a real pain just stuck in the Brig (once she dropped the act, that is). One nifty technique I'd never really noticed before - when the fleet's under attack, you can play Evasive Maneouvres when a raider misses as well as when it hits. We had one attack where Starbuck and Boomer kept trading EMs as this hapless raider alternated between hitting and missing. Add in playing SPs on basestar attacks, and a brigged Boomer is quite dangerous when there are birds in the air.

In non-BSG news, I finally decided to purchase the full version of the Scott Pilgrim game earlier this week. I beat it playing as Scott last night (why, oh, why does it not support online multiplayer?) and got one of the "bad" endings. (Apparently the only way to get the "real" ending is to have Ramona in your group, or play as her if you're going solo, which is odd.)

Overall, it's fun, though it kind of goes from hard (I was playing on "Rough and Tumble" aka Medium difficulty) to kind of easy at about the midway point when you gain access to weapon combos and also run into enemies that drop swords/asp batons/shock rods and then knock people (including most of the bosses) into the corner and just spam the attack button to air juggle them into oblivion.

It is amusing that it was released in conjunction with the movie since it is very much based on the comic books and their storyline.

Yeah, Boomer caught me by surprise. Although, with nothing to really go on, besides Apollo (and myself) I figured it could be anyone.

I'd say my order of suspects was:
Apollo (it was gut instinct, but I felt this from the beginning of the sleep phase)
Chief/Zarek
Boomer
Tigh (as sure as I was that Apollo was a cylon, I was sure Tigh was not)