South Bay Boardgamers Session Report May 25th, 2009
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Ted, Jesse, Jeremiah, Bruce (Dominion)
Winner: Jeremiah
Ted, Jesse, Jeremiah, Bruce (Dominion)
Winner: Bruce
Ted, Jesse, Jeremiah, Bruce (Dominion)
Winner: Jeremiah, Bruce (tie)
Ted, Jesse, Jeremiah, Bruce (Dominion)
Winner: Ted & Bruce
Eugene, Aliza (Race for the Galaxy exp1)
Winner: Eugene
JC, Aliza, Ray G.* (18mex)
Winner: unfinished
Eugene, Danita, Dave D.*, John, Joe F., Dan (Battlestar Galactica)
Winner: Dan & Eugene
Alon*, Eddie*, Randy*, Adam* (Cavum)
Winner: Eddie (with incorrect rules)
Tim, Clark, Craig, Kevin (Through the Ages)
Winner: Clark
Tim, Craig, Ray G.*, Danita* (Race for the Galaxy exp1)
Winner: Tim Best newbie: Danita
Kevin, Joe F., Danita (Race for the Galaxy exp1)
Winner: Kevin
Ray G., Danita, Dave D.* (Lexio)
Winner: Dave D.
John, Dan, Eric*, Eddie*, Joe F.* (Le Havre)
Winner: Dan
It was a light turnout for Memorial Day, but we still had a couple of players
new to the group: Danita, Ray G.'s wife, and Dave D.
With the extra time available, we had time for a game of Battlestar
Galactica:
--- Battlestar Galactica ---
We played using the variant to balance the game better. I was President
Tom Zarek, Joe was the pilot Apollo, Danita was Admiral Adama, John was
Communications Officer Dee, Dan was the pilot Boomer, and Dave was Felix
Gaeta. In this variant, Boomer's drawback has been changed to : you may
not look at your loyalty cards until after 2 jumps and 2 jump preps.
I was NOT A CYLON, started with a morale-increasing speech in my hand,
and drew two more speeches. Joe/Apollo then used his turn to fly up to the
basestar and got blasted out of the sky by cylon raiders. Admiral
Danita then used Command to launch two vipers and freeing Apollo to leap
out of sickbay back into space (his special power). But on the Cylons'
turn, he got blasted again. We lost some morale from crises and kept failing
to prepare the engine for jumps. I tried a speech to rally the population, but
it had no effect as the cylons managed to destroy the 2 civilian ships outside
Galactica, costing us 3 population and another morale. The vipers surrounded
Galactica and fired 10 times/turn inflict up that hurt morale and my
presidential speeches fell flat. Still, we were working fairly effectively as
a team and there was absolutely no cylon activity in the crises. Finally, we
managed to activate the jump engine, and the admiral jumped us 2 towards Kobol,
but Galactica was damaged and we were low on morale and population.
The second loyalty card was then dealt to us, with many people publicly
praying to be dealt a Cylon card, and I was still NOT A CYLON. I was given an
executive order by John/Dee to raise our morale (which was in the red) and
failed twice, even with Dave/Felix's help. Joe/Apollo then drew a crisis and
was forced to take the -1 morale as his drawback, leaving us at just 3 morale.
No cylon ships appeared, though, and we jumped again, this time moving to 4
(with 8-9 being a likely victory). Everyone still seemed human! Hmm.
Then, Dan/Boomer finally got to look at his loyalty cards. Shortly after,
Admiral Danita drew a Crisis, that, if failed, would lose 1 morale. Dan
then used Boomer's special ability to automatically fail the crisis, so we knew
she was a cylon. I urged John to brig Boomer on his turn, and John hesitated,
then gave me an Executive Order to prove my humanity and do it myself. Being
human, I pulled out an arrest order from my presidential cards and threw Boomer
in the Brig without a skill check. Boomer then revealed as Cylon, but could
not use the Cylon ability. We jumped again and Admiral Danita hemmed and
hawed and pulled out a 1! Oh no, we were only 5 steps towards Kobol! But,
she claimed the other card was actually worse, because she hinted it
hurt morale.
Stuck barely halfway towards winning, I was given an executive order to
perhaps improve morale, but I had run out of speeches. Instead, I was
wondering who the other Cylon was and suspected that maybe Dan had drawn
both Cylon cards. If that were the case, Dan would be giving his extra Cylon
card away to one of us. I decided to play a card that made it difficult
for others to take the Presidency away from me. Sure enough, on Dan's
turn, he went to the Resurrection Ship, drew a different Super Crisis, and
passed me his remaining Loyalty Card ... and just like that, I WAS A CYLON --
and if I revealed outside the brig, I would damage morale by 1! Naturally
I pointed out that he was just trying to sow dissension but the others
grew wary of me. However, cylon ships then showed up and we had to worry
about fending them off. Dee used her communications ability to rescue
a bunch of civilian ships, but things were dire and the group decided to
try to escape early. John hit the big red FTL button to jump early, but
we ended up losing 3 population in the process, dropping us to 3. The
Admiral jumped us 2, giving us a total of 7, leaving the humans probably
1 jump short of victory. John's crisis summoned more Cylon ships and jammed
our communications, leaving civilian ships unable to move. Then, Dan
played his super-crisis, BOMB ON COLONIAL ONE, which on a failure,
subtracts 2 morale and destroys the presidential craft. At this point, I
chucked in 4 strong negative cards to make sure the bomb went off, and the
humans catastrophically failed the super-crisis, lowering morale to 1. John
and the rest then knew that I was the cylon, but meanwhile Dave had a turn and
chose to try to guard the civilian ships with fighters. Since I was the
next player, I then revealed as a cylon and since I wasn't in the brig,
got to use my special Cylon power of subtracting morale by 1. This sent
morale to 0 and the Cylons (Dan and Eugene) thus won the game, once
again on the final jump. This was in spite of the fact that there was
absolutely no malicious Cylon activity for the entire first half of the game,
since Dan was dealt both Cylon Loyalty cards originally and did not know it.
--
Eugene Hung
eyhung <at> gmail.com__._,_.___
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