Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game

Setup: begin with 8 food, 8 fuel, 10 morale and 12 population, with jump preparation at Start. Build Loyalty according to player count and characters; deal one card each, then add the Sympathizer in four- or six-player games. Choose a random first player, select characters under the type restrictions, assign titles and place starting ships.

Turn: draw the character’s skills, optionally move and take one legal location, Skill card, character, title or other action. Moving between Galactica and Colonial One costs a Skill card. Resolve a Crisis, activate Cylon ships and advance jump preparation as its icons direct. At every player’s turn end, everyone discards Skill cards down to ten.

Checks: add two Destiny cards, then players secretly contribute any number of Skill cards clockwise from the current player’s left, current player last. Shuffle; add matching colors and subtract other colors. Meet the difficulty to pass, otherwise apply a qualifying partial pass or failure. Ignore contributed card text; exact hand strengths and identification of your contributions are secret.

Offices and confinement: the President controls the secret Quorum hand; the Admiral controls nukes and destination selection. The Brig restricts suspects without proving loyalty. A prisoner normally contributes at most one Skill card per check and cannot leave by ordinary movement; the location check or a specific effect is needed.

Jumps: reaching Auto Jump triggers a jump. On a blue preparation space, FTL Control can force a jump, losing the indicated population on a roll of 6 or less. Normally remove space ships, let the Admiral choose one of two destinations and resolve it immediately, check Kobol distance and reset preparation. Boarding Centurions remain.

Loyalty: any You Are a Cylon card makes its holder a Cylon. First reaching at least four distance deals another Loyalty card to everyone, including revealed Cylons. Reveal the Sympathizer immediately: red-zone resources determine confinement or a restricted revealed-Cylon role. Revealing Cylon loyalty takes an action; revealing in the Brig does not use the card’s attack effect.

Revelation and combat: a revealing Cylon discards to three Skill cards, loses titles, moves to the Resurrection Ship, gains a Super Crisis and ends that turn. Later turns draw two Skill cards of any types, move and activate a Cylon location; there is no normal Crisis draw, ship activation or jump preparation, and each check allows at most one contribution. Humans launch or pilot vipers to protect civilians; heavy raiders can deliver Centurions.

Victory: after at least eight distance, humans must jump once more with every resource above zero; the final jump draws no destination. Cylons win if a resource is zero or lower at turn end, six Galactica locations are simultaneously damaged, or a Centurion reaches the boarding track’s end. A final FTL Control jump still risks population first.