Best 5 players, ~4+hrs + food time
Take aways
One of the best “hidden traitor” games
Cooperative & competitive -win or lose as a team, though you don’t always know who is on your team
Very thematic, include photographic card art based on the TV-series
Class-based player powers, 6 total classes
Pros
-Immersive
-Low downtime, all players participate every turn
Cons
-A longer game
-If on the Cylon side, you must know how to play the game without strategic help, as your allegiance is a secret for much of the game
Gameplay
A Battlestar spaceship is trying to escape to Earth from lethal sentient robots called Cylons, some of which looks like humans. A secret Cylon (or 2) secretly tries to derail the success of the group, as each turn an event card is revealed, where bad stuff may happen to the whole group. Each player plays facedown numbed 1-5 “skill” cards from his or her hand to help “pass” the crisis, which are of varying difficulty. If the players fail the crisis card, then bad stuff happens, and if enough bad stuff happens the humans lose! These cards from your hand can also be used to help eliminate attacking enemy ships on the board, so choose wisely.
Win Conditions
-Some crisis cards allow your ship power up the “jump drive”, to warp, or “jump”, closer to earth.
-Jumping also allows you to get away from enemy ships.
-After 3-4 jumps, you reach Earth and the humans win unless you run out of food, fuel, and moral resources being eroded by the crises.
Wildcard
The twist from the Sci-Fi Channel TV show of the same name is that each player is dealt one secret allegiance card at the beginning of the game, and a second one half way through. Half way through the game, you may find out you are actually a Cylon and your strategy has to change to hurt the group. You can play secretly or you can “reveal” as a Cylon, and powerfully hurt the humans using your reveal power card, while then continuing to play with your newly revealed powers. Beware though, if your fellow players don’t trust you, they can send you out the “Airlock”, forcing you to reveal your true identity, and preventing you from using your “reveal” power card. But if the humans are wrong, and you flushed a human out the airlock, you have wasted valuable skill cards and your turn!
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