It’s been almost a year since Fantasy Flight Games released the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA board game and its status as a modern classic is by now proven as the game continues to enthrall and excite gamers with its unique mix of player-driven intrigue, conceptual theme, and compelling gameplay mechanics that appeal to hardcore boardgamers, diehard fans of the show, and everyone in between. My groups still play the game fairly regularly, and I have yet to hear it turned down when suggested—a good barometer that the game has the stamina and legs of a bona fide classic. I gave BSG the Gameshark Board Game of the Year award last year, and if there were an award for best game of the last decade it would have been on the shortlist to win that one as well. Simply put, BSG is one of the best games ever published and it has also proven to be a well-deserved success for Fantasy Flight Games.
Of course, an expansion was inevitable. Even in my first game of BSG, I found myself wondering what an expansion would include. The base game roughly covers the events, characters, and narrative elements of the first season, but that left three other seasons’ worth of material ripe for translation. Ace designer Corey Koniesczka, along with Tim Uren and Daniel Clark, have risen to the challenge of expanding an already incredible game and the result is the recently released PEGASUS, the first expansion to BSG.
As the title suggests, the expansion carries the story of GALACTICA and its personalities into the Pegasus story arc while introducing many second-season elements and beyond, culminating in a new end game that takes place on New Caprica. BSG watchers who have not completed the series be warned—the expansion is a very spoiler-rich environment because of this, and I’ve heard quite a few “aw mans” around the table as the game divulged story details that some weren’t ready for. With that disclaimer out of the way, the short review is that the expansion does not disappoint, although I’m not sure I would call it essential for anyone other than very experienced players who are looking for what is essentially “advanced” BSG.
Like most good expansions, PEGASUS doesn’t tamper too much with the core systems and mechanics that made the base game the success that it was and the additions enhance and enrich without adding a lot of rules bulk or incongruous subsystems. Basic additions such as additional characters (including the delightfully draconian Admiral Cain, one of my favorites) and new cards across the component range are balanced with new game materials that directly interact with the Pegasus and New Caprica storylines such as corresponding boards featuring relevant locations (the Pegasus gets a small board of its own) and an entirely new set of crisis cards for the latter, which is essentially an expanded endgame since the game no longer ends at Kobol. The expansion isn’t really modular as some of FFG’s past expansions have been, but the good news is that it’s all so well done that I don’t think most veteran players will want to carve anything out of the offering.
There are some pretty drastic changes though, and they are changes that alter certain dynamics within the game. PEGASUS dramatically increases the potential for duplicity, deceit, and trickery, and I like that a lot as it enriches the player experience and adds several layers of suspicion, deduction, and subterfuge beyond what the basic game allowed.
The simple addition of a sixth skill, Treachery, is particularly interesting. Treachery cards always count negative toward skill checks and only a few characters (like Ellen Tigh, for example) have them in their skill sets. There are events and abilities that will put Treachery cards into other players’ hands, and there is always the possibility that the Destiny deck might slip one or two into a skill check. What’s more, there are new skill cards in every class that add a “reckless” keyword. If one is played into a skill check, it becomes a reckless skill check and triggers the negative effect of Treachery cards. Not only can a recklessly passed skill check result in Cylon hostiles appearing on Dradis, but hidden Cylon players can be even sneakier in their sabotage since the addition of “helpful” reckless cards backed with corresponding Treachery can confuse the humans and obfuscate motives more than ever before. It also adds a new layer of dilemma as well: is it worth adding a 5-value skill card if it could be potentially dangerous?
Even more dangerous than reckless skill checks, though, are the new Cylon leader cards. One of these three characters, including Caprica Six, can be chosen by a player at the beginning of the game. Games with a Cylon leader do not feature the somewhat clunky Cylon Sympathizer mechanic (the only shaky bit of the original BSG design). Instead, a player takes on an active role as one of the chief Cylon characters and plays as a revealed Cylon with some modified rules throughout the game.
The Cylon Leader can also choose to infiltrate Galactica and participate more directly in the fate of humanity. But of course, that makes them subject to the brig or execution (yes, the game now features execution via airlock). The kicker is that the Cylon Leader gets an agenda card at the beginning of the game that may or may not be sympathetic to either the humans or the Cylons, and all have an ambiguity that gives the Cylon Leader a lot to work with in terms of interacting with other players. The Cylon Leader is effectively a third horse in the race and wins independently if their agenda is met. One agenda, for example, gives the game to the Cylon Leader if the humans have traveled a distance of six, but lose the game. So the Cylon Leader has to win the trust of the humans, help them get almost to New Caprica, and then betray them at the very end. It’s hugely thematic, and fans of the show will love the depth that this addition adds to the social aspects of the game.
The New Caprica phase of the game is wholly new, and adds a kind of sub-game finale once Galactica has travelled a distance of seven or more, as opposed to the eight it took to reach Kobol. Once Galactica reaches New Caprica, gameplay shifts to a smaller board and changes slightly to reflect the human effort to prepare docked civilian ships for evacuation while fighting against the occupying Cylon troops that have taken control of the settlement.
At first, I felt like this piece was sort of tacked on and I didn’t really feel like it would capture the best parts of the New Caprica episodes, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t surprise me. While on New Caprica, the Cylon player gets to round up insurgent humans and lock them in detention. Occupation forces advance on civilian ships to destroy them, incurring potentially devastating losses to resource dials that are almost certainly all in the red in the late stages of the game. And there is a sense of drama waiting for the Galactica and the Pegasus (if she’s still space-worthy) to jump into orbit around New Caprica and begin the evacuation. There’s even a big space battle finale when Galactica returns as Cylon ships are spawned and the human players rally to get themselves and the civilian ships into space to end the game. It’s a pretty awesome, high stakes finish that’s more exciting than the simpler “jump to Kobol” objective.
