Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Set Up
- Gameplay
- Combat
- Cylon players
- PDF Manual
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Introduction
Battlestar Galactica is a team game with intrigue, betrayal, and drama. Players are on either the Human’s or the Cylon’s team, except they don’t know who is whom.
Objectives
Human players
The human player must travel 8 units of distance as indicated by the Destination Cards, then make one more jump to win the game.
The cylons win by preventing the humans from completing their objective. It can be done by
- Run out a resource
- Centurion Invasion
- Destroy Galactica
Set Up
crescent = raiders, triangle = vipers, H = heavy raiders, fly = Raptors
Board set up
- Set dials to 12 o’clock position
- Place 8 Vipers and 4 Raptors in reserve
- Fleet token on start space of Jump preparation
- Shuffle quorum deck, crisis deck, super crisis deck, and destination deck and place near game board
- Create Destiny Deck by dealing 2 skill card of each type and shuffling them. Place onto board
- Separate skill cards by color and place into matching regions on bottom of board
- Place Kobol objective next to Destination deck
- Place ships as shown

Player setup
Remove you are sympathizer card from deck. Remove cylon cards from deck and shuffle separately. Add cylon card to loyalty deck randomly per this table
Player number |
NOT cylons |
Cylons |
Sympathizer |
3 |
5 |
1 |
0 |
4 |
6 |
1 |
1 |
5 |
8 |
2 |
0 |
6 |
9 |
2 |
1 |
Add one extra “You are NOT cylon” card for each Sharon Valerii and Gauis Baltar chosen.
Deal one card to each player, place rest of deck beside table.
- Choose a start player, take first player marker
- Starting from the first player, choose character of character type that is most plentiful
- Take corresponding Character sheet and tokens
- Place tokens as indicated on character sheet onto board
- President is given to first available player from this list
- Admiral given to first available player from this list
- President takes quorum deck and draws one
- Admiral takes two nukes
- Each player draws skill cards according to character sheet
Gameplay
Each player takes a complete turn before moving to the next player. Each turn consists of the following 6 steps
- Receive skill
- Movement step
- Action step
- Crisis step
- Activate cylon ships
- Prepare for jump
Receive skill
Player draw skill cards listed on character sheet. Skill cards are played during skill checks using the strength number or used for the special text abilities.
- Max hand size of 10 skill cards
- Each skill card has a type, strength, and ability
- Some abilities are action to be played during the action phase
- Other abilities are played according to description
Movement step
Player may move character token to another location. If moving between Colonial One and Galactica, must discard one skill card. Humans may not move into Cylon locations. Revealed Cylons can only move in Cylon locations. Any number of players can move into the same location.
If the player is in a viper, they may move to adjacent region or discard skill card to move back to Colonial One or Galactica. The viper is placed in reserve.
Action step
Players may perform ONE action. All actions are identified by the word “action:” followed by ability
Perform action indicated on location. Some locations will cause an attack or ships to be activated. Some locations will cause a skill check. See
Combat,
FTL Control for details
Play
Skill Card with action text
Perform action indicated on Character sheet. Only some characters have actions listed
If player starts the turn in a viper, they may
activate it to move again or attack a cylon ship
Play one of these card as an action as indicated
The hidden cylon player may play their loyalty card to
Reveal themself as a cylon.
Crisis step
Draw a crisis card. As indicated by the type of card, resolve skill check, event, or place and activate ships. Crisis Cards drive the main story of the game. There are 3 types
These cards indicate the required strength and allowed skill card types to pass the crisis. Resolve the skill check as follows
- Read the card, make the required decision if any
- Draw 2 cards from the Destiny Deck
- Starting with the player to the left of current player, play any number of skill cards
- Shuffle the cards including the 2 from destiny deck
- All cards that match the required skill check colors has strength added, cards that don’t match are subtracted
- Equal or greater than the strength on the crisis card is a pass
- Follow text on card for reward or penalty
Follow the instructions on card and resolve immediately
Follow these steps
- Activate any existing ships as indicated
- Place new ships as illustrated. Vipers are placed from reserve
- Follow special rules
Crisis cards have symbols on the bottom. The left symbol indicate which ships are activated. The right symbol indicates if the player needs to move the jump marker up
Activate cylon ships
After the crisis has been resolved, if there is a cylon ship symbol on the bottom left, activate the ship indicated by the symbol. See Combat for more details.
Each raider takes the first action it is able to perform
- Attack viper
- Destroy civilian – choose a civilian and lose the resources indicated
- Move towards civilian, counter clockwise if same distances
- Attack Galactica
If no raiders on board when activated, launch 2 from basestar. If no basestar, nothing happens
Each base star Launches 3 raiders. Nothing happens if no basestar
Move heavy raider towards nearest viper launch, and move existing centurion tokens forward on boarding party. If a heavy raider starts turn in region with viper launch, Place centurion token on boarding party and remove heavy raider from board. If no heavy raider on board, launch one from each basestar
The basestar attacks Galactica
Prepare for jump
If the Crisis card has the “prepare for jump” symbol, move the token ahead on the jump preparation track. If the token is moved to the auto jump space, jump the fleet by performing these steps
- Remove all ships from game board, vipers placed in reserve
- Admiral draws 2 destination cards and choses 1
- Follow instructions on card
- If the current distance satisfies one of the Kobol objective, follow instruction on Kobol Card
If the marker is on one of the blue spaces on the track, player may force a jump by activating FTL control as an action. The player rolls a die. If 6 or lower then population is lost as indicated on blue space.
Combat
Attacks are performed when ships are activated. Roll a 8 sided dice
Unit Attacked |
Die Result |
Raider |
3-8 = Destroyed |
Heavy Raider
Centurion |
7-8 = Destroyed |
Civilian ship |
Automatically destroyed |
Galactica |
with Raider: 8 = Damaged
with Basestar: 4-8 = Damaged |
Basestar |
With viper: 8 = Damaged
With Galactica: 5-8 = Damaged |
Basestar with nuke |
1-2 = Damage twice
3-6 = Destroyed
7-8 = Destroyed and destroy 3 raiders in area |
Activating and piloting vipers
Vipers can be activated from the Command location. When a viper is activated choose one of the 3 options
- Launch a new viper in region with launch icon
- Move a viper that to adjacent space
- Attack cylon ship in same area
Only characters with the pilot ability can pilot a viper. The player may move the viper during the movement step, and may move again or attack during the action step. When the fleet jumps, the character is placed in the hangar.
Damages
When a viper is damaged or destroyed, the character is placed in the sick bay if piloted, viper is placed in damaged viper area or removed from game.
Destroyed cylon ships are removed from the board, but may return later.
When a Raptor is destroyed, it is removed from the game
When Basestar or Galactica is damaged, draw appropriate token
Galactica destroyed when 6 damage token at the same time. Humans lost the game.
-
- Damage location – Place on location, character sent to sick bay. Location may be moved to but not activated until repaired, shuffle token back
Lost resource – Lose listed resource, remove token from game
Basestar is destroyed when 3 or more damage tokens present. Remove from board
- Critical hit – counts as 2 damage
- Disabled Hangar – may not launch raiders
- Disabled weapons – may not attack Galactica
- Structural damage – All future attack rolls gain plus 2
Cylon player
Cylon players work secretly against the humans to run out a resource, destroy Galactica, or cause an centurion invasion.
After distance 4 is jumped, the sleeper agent phase is active. Players receive another loyalty card. Any player with at least one cylon card is a cylon. On some player counts, there is also a sympathizer card.
Sympathizer
Sympathizer sides with the losing team. When one gets this card, immediately reveal it. If at least one resource is in red, the sympathizer is on human team and ent to brig. Otherwise, the player becomes a revealed cylon.
Revealed cylon
Revealing yourself as cylon is an action. When that actioin is taken, perform these steps
- Discard down to 3 skill cards
- Lose title to line of succession if any
- Move to resurrection ship
- Receive one Super Crisis card
- End current turn (do not draw crisis card)
On the revealed cylon’s turn, perform these steps. There are no crisis or activate ship steps.
- Draw any 2 skills
- Move to any cylon location
- Perform location action
The Cylon player can play one skill into each skill check. They cannot use any skill abilities.