Battlestar Galactica

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Set Up
3. Gameplay
4. Combat
5. Cylon players
6. PDF Manual

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

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

Ship identification

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

Create loyalty deck

Deal one card to each player, place rest of deck beside table.

1. Choose a start player, take first player marker
2. Starting from the first player, choose character of character type that is most plentiful
3. Take corresponding Character sheet and tokens
4. Place tokens as indicated on character sheet onto board
5. President is given to first available player from this list
6. Admiral given to first available player from this list
7. President takes quorum deck and draws one
8. Admiral takes two nukes
9. 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

1. Receive skill
2. Movement step
3. Action step
4. Crisis step
5. Activate cylon ships
6. Prepare for jump

Receive skill

Player draw skill cards listed on character sheet. Skill cards are played during skill checks or used as an action

• 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 if the player moves back into a ship.

Action step

Players may perform ONE action. All actions are identified by the word "action:" followed by its ability. Possible actions are:

• Activate Location

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 and FTL Control for details

• Skill Card action

Play Skill Card with action text

• Character action

Perform action indicated on Character sheet. Only some characters have actions listed

• Activate viper

If player starts the turn in a viper, they may activate it to move again or attack a cylon ship

• Play title or quorum card

Play one of these card as an action as indicated

• Loyalty Card

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 cylon attack. Crisis Cards drive the main story of the game.

• Skill Check

The crisis card will indicate the required strength and allowed skill card types to pass the crisis. Resolve the skill check as follows

1. Read the card, make the required decision if any
2. Draw 2 cards from the Destiny Deck
3. Starting with the player to the left of current player, play any number of skill cards
4. Shuffle the cards including the 2 from destiny deck
5. Add together the strength of cards that match the required skill, and subtract the strength of cards that do not match
6. If the total strength from cards is equal to or greater than the required strength, the crisis is resolved
7. Follow text on card for reward or penalty
• Event Crisis

Follow the instructions on card and resolve immediately

• Cylon Attack Crisis

Follow these steps

1. Activate any existing ships as indicated
2. Place new ships as illustrated. Vipers are placed from reserve
3. 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.

Activate Raiders

Launch Raiders

Each base star Launches 3 raiders. Nothing happens if no basestar

Activate Heavy Raider

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

Activate Basestar

The basestar attacks Galactica. See combat

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

1. Remove all ships from game board, vipers placed in reserve
2. Admiral draws 2 destination cards and choses 1
3. Follow instructions on card
4. 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 the dice is 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

Use the attack table to determine outcome

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 Damage token

• Damage location - Place on location, character in location is sent to sick bay. Location may be moved to but not activated until repaired. When repaired, shuffle token back into draw pile. Galactica is destroyed when 6 damage tokens are present
• Lost resource - Lose listed resource, remove token from game

Basestar Damage token

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 the human team and is sent to brig. Otherwise, the player becomes a revealed cylon and performs the revealed cylon action.

Revealed cylon

Revealing yourself as cylon is an action. When that action is taken, perform these steps

1. Discard down to 3 skill cards
2. Lose title to next character in line of succession if any
3. Move to resurrection ship
4. Receive one Super Crisis card
5. End current turn (do not draw crisis card)

On the revealed cylon's future turn, perform these steps. There are no crisis or activate ship steps.

1. Draw any 2 skills
2. Move to any cylon location
3. Perform location action

The Cylon player can play one skill into each skill check. They cannot use any skill abilities.