Customer Reviews

Battlestar Galactica The Board Game: Pegasus Expansion

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The "Pegasus" expansion for the Battlestar Galactica board game changes many things about the gaming experience players of the core BSG set have come to know (and sometimes dread). The goal is to simulate, in game form, the latter half of season two of the Battlestar Galactica TV show--with the arrival of the Battlerstar Pegasus, the internecine strife with Pegasus, the settling of New Caprica and subsequent Cylon oppression there.
1) New Human Characters
Admiral Cain has the "blind jump" ability which, at the cost of some civilian ships, gets the fleet out of tricky situations that could cost the fleet even more ships. Anastasia "Dee" Dualla has the ability to move all civilian ships on the board, hopefully out of harm's way. Louanne "Kat" Katraine is a hotshot pilot with the ability to use the numbers on skill cards (+2) she discards instead of die rolls. And Ellen Tigh--the only Human who draws the new Treachery skill cards--can usurp the Admiral or President title for one turn at a key moment. Of all of them, Cain sees the most play in games I'm involved in.
2) Playable Cylon Leaders
Yes, now you can start the game as one of three Cylon leaders: Cavil, Leoben Conoy, or "Caprica" Six. You can only play as a Cylon leader with four or more players involved. Cavil can make a Cylon Basestar appear on his turn, hounding the fleet mercilessly. Leoben can trade Skill cards from his hand with the Destiny deck, influencing Skill Checks. Six can steal cards from a player, but gives them the option to replace that card from outside their normal skill set. The Cylon Leaders have a way to infiltrate the fleet to help or hinder the Humans' struggle for survival. When they are infiltrating, they can activate locations and use Skill cards as if they were Human players. Cavil seems to be the strongest Cylon Leader by a large margin.
3) Cylon Leader Agendas
Instead of drawing Loyalty cards, the Cylon Leaders have a hidden agenda that they must achieve in order to win. Depending on the number of players in the game, this agenda can be drawn from the hostile or friendly deck...though some of the hostile agendas are friendly and vice versa. I'd say about half of the new Cylon agendas are difficult and half are easy. And half of them (4 in the friendly deck, 2 in the hostile deck) require that the Humans win in order for the Cylon Leader to win.
4) Pegasus
The ship that this set is named after makes an (optional) appearance on a seperate small game board. Admiral Cain is the only character that starts the game on Pegasus. Pegasus has four new locations: Pegasus CIC, Airlock, Main Batteries and Engine Room. CIC lets you fire on Cylon Basestars and Main Batteries lets you fire at Cylon Raiders, however, using either location risks damaging friendly ships or Pegasus itself. The Airlock is part of the new Execution mechanic, where you can have a Skill Check and kill off another character. If they're a Cylon, they go to the Resurrection Ship. If they're Human, the fleet loses Morale and that player gets a new character. The Engine Room may be the strongest location, since it allows a player to discard skill cards to put a "jump" icon on any Crisis card, moving the fleet faster towards New Caprica.
5) New Caprica
This is the new "end game" for the BSG board game. It's easier to get to New Caprica than it was to get to Kobol in the original core game. But getting to New Caprica doesn't end the game, it starts a different one. New Caprica, like Pegasus, is a seperate smaller game board where all the players, both Human and Cylon, go when the fleet jumps far enough. The Humans need to unlock all the captured civilian ships and get them ready for evacuation when Galactica returns to rescue them. The Cylons, seeing the Humans will not comply with their plans, are trying to destroy all the civilian ships and detain all the Human players. There is a new New Caprica Crisis card deck that all the players switch to once they arrive on New Caprica. These Crisis cards are usually pretty brutal for the Humans and their dwindling resources.
Once Galactica arrives, a large space battle ensues. The Admiral can choose to leave New Caprica and end the game whenever they want--once Galactica arrives. But any ships left behind on New Caprica are destroyed (and their resources--mostly population--are subtracted from the fleet's total) and any Human players on New Caprica are executed, losing Morale for the fleet. So a Sleeper Agent Cylon Admiral could be even more of a dangerous foe than before.
6) Treachery Skill cards
Treachery is the newest Skill card. All Cylon Leaders (and Ellen Tigh) can draw Treachery cards. Treachery cards count as negatives in almost all skill checks. For the most part, their text punishes the Humans for playing "reckless" cards before Skill Checks (see below) and for discarding unwanted Treachery cards from their hands and for having Humans (or infiltrating Cylon Leaders) in the Brig or in Detention.
7) "Reckless" Skill cards
There are new "reckless" Skill cards for four of the five (all except Piloting) Skill decks from the original game. When you use a "reckless" card to affect a Skill check--giving a positive effect--you open up yourself to the Cylons playing Treachery Skill cards that could endanger the fleet.
8) New Cylon Basestars
Instead of the flat cardboard Cylon Basestars of the original game set, the new Cylon Basestars are very cool and plastic and three dimensional. The only problem is that the Cylon Basestar damage tokens can no longer be placed on the Basestars, unless you balance them carefully.
9) New Cylon Locations
Every Cylon location except the Cylon fleet has been changed in some way for the Pegasus expansion. The Resurrection Ship is no longer a legal destination unless you're a Cylon in the fleet revealing yourself. But you can now stay there and draw many Cylon Super Crisis cards. The Human Fleet location allows you to see the top card of the Crisis or Destination deck then, if you're a Cylon Leader, infiltrate the fleet. Crisis cards used to bedevil the Human fleet from the Caprica location now allow the "jump" icon to be used.
10) Other New Cards
There are non "reckless" Skill cards for all of the five Skill decks from the core game. Some of the new cards allow you to take an action in your Movement step. There are many new Crisis cards (depicting events from the latter half of season two of the TV show--including one that causes "Scar," the most feared Cylon Raider, to come into play) added to the regular Crisis deck. There are also a few new Destination cards with new game effects.
Final Thoughts...
Pegasus is a great expansion. Some people will like adding the Pegasus and New Caprica game boards, some won't. Population is the fleet resource most in danger in this expansion, followed closely by Morale--as opposed to Fuel in the core game set. Cavil's once per game ability (he can take three actions in one turn) can be devastating. Having the ability to execute players will make some players quite happy (and others not so much). My only quibble with Pegasus is that the new rulebook could be a bit more comprehensive. Lots of questions come up that aren't addressed in the rules or the online FAQ. But FFG and the game designer are fairly prompt in responding to rules questions.
All in all, I say that Pegasus is a great expansion for a great game and will keep people entertained long into 2010.

First, I'm going to assume you've played the base game; I'm only going to talk about new things in this review.

Executions - The most hyped and anticipated part of the expansion was the ability to kill characters. By passing a skill check on a new location, a character will be executed. If she is human, she must reveal all of her loyalty cards, discard all of her skill cards, subtract a morale, and choose a new character. If she is a cylon, she must reveal a "You are a cylon" card, discard skill cards, and move to the resurrection ship; they do not receive a super crisis. The main problem with executions is the cost of confirming loyalty is too low - one morale can be regained via an inspirational speech, and from that point on you know that you can use as many executive orders as you want on that character with no worry of them taking advantage of the situation. The benefits of executing a Cylon are small as well - they don't receive a super crisis, but only one super crisis is very threatening. They also don't have to waste a turn revealing, so they're free to start causing havoc a lot sooner than they would if you had simply brigged them. This makes me think that execution is meant to be used to confirm loyalty rather than expose cylons, which cuts down on the tension people loved so much about the base game.

New characters - Helena Cain is a terrible addition to the game. She is ridiculously overpowering in all respects - first in line for admiralty, best skill draw in the game, ability that makes it easier for her to execute characters (since AQ requires cards from her set, while airlock only requires tactics), and a once per game that defies logic - it allows you to jump instantly, regardless of jump track, for a cost of two civilian ships (which aren't nearly as valuable in Pegasus - more on that later). This will allow you to skip at least 3 crises, but more likely 5+ crises. Compare this to other OPGs - Zarek's OPG lets you lose a population to gain another resources, resulting in a net gain of 0; Cain's OPG lets you skip 5 crises, and ignore any resources you would have lost on them. Overall, a terrible edition and undeniably overpowered beyond reason.

Dualla, in most respects, is not as good as Tyrol as a support character. She's usable, if a little underpowered. Her ability makes it so she can move any number of civilians with communications, and her OPG is great at helping her get out of the brig. Her weakness rarely comes into play - she is executed if morale is low... but generally isn't a big loss since the character who replaces her will probably be more helpful.

Ellen is a strong political leader who has the ability to help the humans by gaining a lot of cards. This great strength is offset by the fact that she is last in line for presidency of the political leaders.

Kat's weakness makes her a terrible pilot, but her ability makes her a great gunner and late game president. She has the ability to use a card rather than roll a die to determine the result of an action. Her weakness puts her in sickbay if she ends the turn on the same space where she started, meaning that if used as a pilot she will be seeing sickbay a lot. Her cards-instead-of-die ability makes her a great president late game after the quorum deck has been built. A very unique character, who seems fairly well balanced (though I would say Apollo and Starbuck are still the best pilots).

Cylon leaders - Another aspect of the expansion people were excited about that ended up falling flat. When choosing characters, one person may choose to play as a Cylon leader. Cylon leaders are dealt a secret agenda card and in order to win, they must fulfill the conditions on the card. Cylon leaders are terrible, and serve only to unbalance the game. There is very little intrigue into the agenda, and it can become quickly obvious which side the cylon leader favors. In most games I've played, the side favored by the Cylon leader is the side that tends to win.

Treachery Cards - Treachery cards are cards that almost always act negative toward skill checks, and have negative aspects that Cylons can take advantage of. A nice idea, but I find that cylons rarely use them since they have low strength compared to engineering or piloting skill cards, which are also not used in many checks.

New Caprica - The new objective in Pegasus is New Caprica. Briefly, New Caprica acts as a "climax" and involves evacuating civilian ships before Galactica is destroyed. Any ships not evacuated are destroyed, and the resources are lost. The first time you play, New Caprica will be exciting. In subsequent times, it'll be uneventful - it quickly becomes obvious that the best strategy on New Caprica is to first execute the admiral to confirm loyalty, and then XO him until 3 ships are evacuated... this makes the drawback from Cain's OPG not so threatening, since only three ships need to be saved.

Two plastic base stars - It's funny. These little components seem to be most people's favorite part of the set. I have to agree; the plastic base stars in the base game were terrible, these plastic components are much more fun to play with.

Overall, I enjoyed my first game of Pegasus. In subsequent games, I got bored. I felt the base game was fairly well balanced - there were no characters who really stood out as being overpowered, and cylons and humans seemed to win equally. In Pegasus, it seems like humans are heavily favored unless a cylon leader sides with the cylon players. If you must get a BSG expansion, Exodus is the much better choice.

This lengthens the Battlestar Galactica board game considerably but it's well worth it.
The game artwork is beautiful, the pieces durable, unless you plan to chew on them.
The rules are well written and you can easily find errata and FAQs online as well as forums for fans of the game.
Overall it's a high quality product.

This is a fantastic expansion. There additional characters and game dynamics really enhance the original game. The BSG board game to this day still gets a lot of play. I would add one house rule to make the expansion more enjoyable. Do not play with New Caprica (aka "Hoth"). I think of New Caprica like a mini-game. It's kind of interesting, but overall, it doesn't add a lot to the game play.

Frankly, the addition of the Airlock (to toss people out of) itself should be enough to make you buy this expansion. I would also highly recommend playing this with Battlestar Galactica: Exodus Expansion.

This is a great expansion for the game! It makes the game a lot more fun!!! It's a lot harder too...but way more rewarding. :)

Delivered directly to my nephew as a gift and he loves it - I will visit this T-Day and play it with him.

We loved the original Battlestar Galactica Game, and so when I saw this expansion, I had to get it for my hubby. It definitely takes time to learn the extra rules and additions, but it's so worth it. And it's fun that someone can start off as a known cylon. (see previous reviewers for a crazy amount of details!)

We've always been really skeptical on games based off of movies and tv shows (who isn't?) but this game is amazing. Just make sure you plan to have at least 3-4 hours to play- it's a long game. We also really like Settlers of Catan, Agricola, Pandemic, and Dominion. If you are a gamer, you'll love Battlestar! Even if you've never watched the show, it's a fun game. But I'd recommend watching the show first- it will give you a deeper understanding of the characters and why they have the abilities and disabilities that are on their card. So fun! Great role-playing game.