BSG

We're up to five players so far:

Laga
-t
Kalshane
StuntHusband
Polter Cow

I'll leave it open until the weekend to see if anyone else wants in.

I liked megan's idea for character selection, so we'll try a preference system for this one too. Once I've sent out the list of available characters, if the players can send me their top four or five preferences, I'll do the character choice from them. Two principles:

1. It has to be a legitimate crew
2. I'll try to give everyone a choice as close to the top of their list as possible.

I'm thinking I'm interested in playing this round.

Well then, I'm thinking we'd be happy to include you.

This just in: my copy of Battlestar Galactica: Exodus has arrived. In addition to the three new rules modules (Conflicted Loyalties, Cylon Fleet and Ionian Nebula), it contains new skill cards, Crisis Cards, Super Crises, Quorum Cards, Destinations and characters. The new characters:

Military leader: Felix Gaeta (OPG: "Coup")
Politician: Tory Foster (Weakness: "Amoral")
Pilot: Samuel T. Anders (OPG: "Longshot")
Support: Callandra "Cally" Tyrol (OPG: "Discharge of a Firearm")

I am a happy Antipodean tonight.

I really love how each character's special abilities and weaknesses are so tied to the character's actions on the show. It's very clever.

I really love how each character's special abilities and weaknesses are so tied to the character's actions on the show. It's very clever.

BSG does a great job with the thematic elements. Playing Laura Roslin is a very different experience from playing Boomer, for instance.

With the Exodus expansion, there are now 18 characters to choose from - five in each of the main categories, and three support characters. They're not all necessarily created equal - BSG doesn't strive for perfect balance - but I think they've done well in making them all playable, and (with maybe one exception) not overpowered.

My only regret is they haven't yet written up Doc Cottle.

Playing Laura Roslin is a very different experience from playing Boomer, for instance.

Well, yeah, it seems like playing Boomer blows. (Although someone did mention the fact that she would have been perfect for the guy who had to leave halfway through the game. She only gets to play half a game, really!)

Well, yeah, it seems like playing Boomer blows. (Although someone did mention the fact that she would have been perfect for the guy who had to leave halfway through the game. She only gets to play half a game, really!)

Having played Boomer in game 4, I'd dispute that assessment. Playing her actually made for a pretty enjoyable challenge. She's not handicapped either, in fact, far from it. Over 70 games on Boardgamegeek, only Roslin has a better victory record. Boomer performs well either as a human or as a Cylon.

She is less forgiving for newbies, and not such a popular choice (even given her success rate). I wouldn't recommend her for someone's first experience (although omnis played her in the very first Buffistica game, and wound up becoming the hero of the resistance). But for me, I found her greatest weakness to be that she doesn't draw XOs.

In the game we played, President Baltar and Admiral Adama were Cylons from the start. Baltar revealed herself before the Sleeper phase, and I became President Lee. (And she gave all her Loyalty cards to me after the Sleeper phase.) My motherfucking brother was Adama, and he did not reveal until near the end of the game: instead he spent the whole time giving us newbies bad advice since we didn't know better. Dirty bastard.

We had a very interesting skill check early on, though, where one player was able to narrow down the potential Cylons because a couple of us hadn't played any cards AND we had three negative cards AND the color of the negative cards was only drawn by a couple players. We couldn't pinpoint anyone, though, so we didn't pursue her suspicions any further.

In the game we played, President Baltar and Admiral Adama were Cylons from the start.

Yeah, you were royally screwed from the outset there. Having two starting Cylons is bad enough, but if they happen to be Admiral and President too? That's gonna hurt.