Friday, October 17, 2008

BSG Session Report - 6 Player

We played BSG again last night with 6 players and it was a totally different game then last time. It also played a hell of a lot quicker, I would like to try and 4 player game next time to test somethign out.

Players
Dan - Helo
John - President
Chris - Sharon
Mark - Admiral Adama
Todd - Starbuck
Tony - Chief

The loyalty deck was seeded and passed out, as we would find out later the 2 Cylon cards came out in the initial deal. I started as not a Cyclon but of course stranded. The early game went pretty well since 3 of us had played before and everyone picked it up pretty fast. Our challenges were not very difficult and we made our first jump pretty quickly and moved 2 on the destination deck.

The second run was going fine, we again moved up the jump track quickly without incident although some questionable skill cards were kicked in, more then the destiny deck could screw us with. Then we got back to back Cyclon ship cards. Next thing we know we've got 2 base stars, something along the lines of 8 raiders and 4 civilian ships just sitting targets. I can't recall who did it but I'm pretty sure we FTL jumped out of there since we were one away from auto jump and escaped any combat.

The destination deck afforded us another 2 which meant we we're at the halfway point and the loyalty deck made another run. I got the sympathizer card and since all system were in the Blue I became the lame sympathizer Cylon. I call it lame because you get no Super Crisis card but you can still deal some damage.

The third leg got a little hairy part way through as I was able to bring in ships from the crisis cards, but the players managed to jump again this time getting a 3. I was wondering how long it would be before my 2 cylon brothers revealed, as it turns out not much longer. Not far into the 4th leg the two other cyclons revealed (John and Chris) and while all that was happening two of the 3 players we're in the Brig only the chief was roaming free. We got a base start on the board and ships we're every where.

It looked grim for the humans as they weren't in a position to FTL jump, their fuel was at 1 and actually one of them wanted to just end the game, to which we all said no. The humans managed to get out of the brig, nuke the base start and get to the ftl jump. But the destination cards weren't in their favor as both of them called for a loss of fuel and it was game over.

Again the humans failed to win a six player game and like last game their situation ramped up the later in the game we got. This is definitely in line with the theme of the show, the question arose if the humans could actually win. I think a 4 player game would give them a better shot, but i still think it is achievable.

While I still love the game, I think reactions we're a bit mixed afterwards. Some liked it and wanted to play again and others were on the fence. I'll say this if you don't enjoy cooperative games then you won't like this game, there is some downtime when it is not your turn even though you're always involved.

What tends to happen during a 6 player co-op game is side conversation start up, not only between players but onlookers who want to see a game that's technically not released yet. These conversations can extend the play time, I think we could of finished 30 minutes earlier if we didn't have to deal with distractions. You''ll also need to be able to get into a game like this, some game players just aren't into the theme of a game, they just play it an evaluate it like a text book instead of getting into the theme / setting.

All in all I think BSG is a fine game and I would play it whenever someone asked me to, I just think you need to know what the game is before you site down for a 2-3 hours game that may not be your cup of tea.

1 comments:

Yeager said...

Great review and since I love BSG and coop board games, this sounds like an absolute home run.

Follow Us

iconlogo_youtube iconlogo_twitter

Blog Information

Recently Played

Powered by Blogger.