Battlestar Galactica

Cooperative/traitor 3-6 Players120-180 minutes

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:

Set Up

Ship identification

crescent = Raiders, triangle = Vipers, H = Heavy Raiders, fly = Raptors

Board set up

Player setup

Create loyalty deck

Remove "you are a 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 a cylon" card for each Sharon Valerii and Gauis Baltar chosen.

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

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:

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.

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

Each raider takes the first action it is able to perform

  1. Attack viper
  2. Destroy civilian - choose a civilian and lose the resources indicated
  3. Move towards civilian, counter clockwise if same distances
  4. Attack Galactica

If no raiders on board when activated, launch 2 from basestar. If no basestar, nothing happens

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

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

Basestar Damage token

Basestar is destroyed when 3 or more damage tokens are present. Remove basestar from board

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.