"Perhaps today IS a good day to die!" - Galactica lost! All hands!

"Basestars, ten and two o'clock! Raiders incoming! They're launching missiles!!" And that was how our epic 5 hour Battlestar Galactica game ended on Saturday night, Sunday morning!! Battlestar Galactica (BSG) is one of my favourite themed games and I'll jump at a chance to play. Steve kindly lent his parents grand house whilst they were away and 6 players came to the table, Brian (who supplied BSG, the Pegasus and Exodus add-ons), Tom (Mathematics wizz, but not so good apparently when it comes to setting up the Loyalty deck, but more on that later), Nigel H, Steve, Paul (BSG newbie) and myself. As you can see the table was covered with boards, chits and cards which goes to show the depth of the game and the excitement that was due to come.

Game well under way, my Boomer character is
in the launch hanger ready to go!

Firstly there is the Character Selection - I cheekily jumped in and asked for Boomer - we needed a pilot, but I didn't count on her getting TWO loyalty cards dealt later on (again more later). Steve went for Tom Zarek (Political leader), Nigel went for Col Tigh, Paul went for Support/Engineer Cally, Tom went for President Baltar and finally Brian went for Commander Adama. Being the only pilot I also got the CAG position - a new role that allows my character to control other Vipers whilst flying myself.

Yay I'm Boomer! I was CAG, but what?! I'm a Cylon!? Noooo!

Then came the Loyalty deck - this is a secret hand of cards that determines if you are a Cylon or not - twisting the way you play. I was dealt Not a Cylon. The game set off and straight away there was combat that needed to be resolved. With Pegasus on hand to help we made short work of a basestar but my character ended up in sickbay. That seemed a theme of the night, as soon as I got into a Viper, I'd quickly end up in sickbay! A lot of suspicion was also being laid at my feet for not displaying strong human traits for some reason. Then a lot of suspicion was being laid at Tom's feet - I didn't know why - until suddenly he declared he was a Cylon and Resurrected back to the Cylon fleet; ready to start causing havoc on the human fleet - something which he took with relish.

It's all going wrong...two humans are actually
Cylons - the only pilot and the President!

Mid way to Cobol, the next set of Loyalty cards are dealt; as I was Boomer, I get two cards as did President Baltar. I was dealt a non-Cylon and Cylon Sympathiser ... oh no! It was as it happened in the show! Boomer finds out she's a Cylon! Then we found out there was an irregularity with the cards and they were handed out again. Good - I doubt I'll get the Cylon card again and I get out in my Viper and start blasting toasters!! Except I got it again! Exactly the same card! It must have been fate. So automatically I became a Cylon and transferred to the Cylon fleet. So now my fellow humans suddenly became targets - something I wasn't really sure about - conflicted loyalties! Typical Boomer.

Things start to come to an end - with the new President also a Cylon -
two Basestars attack complete with an attack armada of raiders and heavy raiders.
Galactica suffers its fifth and almost final serious damage marker.

From there it went downhill for the humans - first came one hammering from the Cylons and they suffered some heavy damage. Then suddenly Steve (Tom Zarak) was revealed as a Cylon - leaving the humans without a President (Presidential powers passed to Commander Adama who also had taken on the position of CAG after Boomer had jumped ship) - and hope fading fast. But they battled on, taking on one Crisis card after another, but for some reason, they suffered a serious lack of Jump Prep markers. Finally, after a combined series of assaults by Centurions, several key locations taken and a cataclysmic attack from virtually all directions, Galactica suffered its 6th, and final, serious damage and she was lost, all hands.

"Game over man, game over!" Galactica is gone! 

Over 5 hours had flown by - the game had swung back and forth in favour of the humans and the cylons. In the end the cylons won - but just - the humans just needed to make one more jump to win and the cards were stacked against them. Brilliant game!