The entire discussion about Repair cards make me think. While I can see the reward in withholding Repair cards from Galactica's human crew, I was thinking about extending this idea - or is it an exploit?

Let's take a look at the breakdown of the cards: There are 21 skill cards out there - 10/11 of each? I don't have the list handy, but let's work with this. For the moment, consider a game in which there are two revealed cylons and 2-3 human players.

Now, since there are only (roughly) 10 cards of each type in every skill set, a single Cylon player can spend his turns in stocking up on them and effectively hoarding a single skill card type.

This is - to me - a potentially very dangerous situation *IF* the humans are too stupid and allow it and time is on the Cylon's side. Remember - there are three human turns in between the Cylon's actions, and the Cylons limit themselves heavily in which skill checks they can influence, and which they can't.

So, now that that's out of the way - consider a situation in which Cylons take control of the "Evasive Maneuver" and the "Repair" card. Galactica would be left defenseless, pilots effectively emasculated.

That does sound like quite the bitter pill. Any suggestions?

Mike said:

War is hell.

Suddenly adama's power is less sh*tty

Melonball said:

I just spilled my drink.

I agree hoarding as Cylons is a way to go.
There are only 14 actual "Repair" cards, eight 1's and six 2's. It shouldn't be hard to capture all of them, as not too many crew draw Engineering cards, the Cylons can cherry pick one with the Human Fleet location, at the same time damaging Galactica so the Repair cards must be used by the Humans.

The only trouble I see with hoarding other cards is there is at least a small way to combat the hoarding. No evasive maneuvers? Then move the civilian ships away, or shoot the raiders one at a time with Weapons Control. With no Repair cards, the Humans have NO way to prevent losing to the 6 damage condition.

I could also see hoarding all the Leadership/Green cards as they are the most common in skill checks, plus Executive Order is a great double action for the Humans. The only downside with this strategy is you aren't really able to hurt skill checks at all as you need to hoard all 20 of 21 green cards. Once again, with the Repair card strategy, you're only hoarding 14, leaving you 6 Engineering cards (and those are pretty rare as good on skill checks and you'd be using the 3-5 ones!) to mess with skill checks.

I'm not quite sure what Melonball meant about Adama's power?
That the 1's count possitive? Or that he can grab all the cards from one skill check?
How is that helping if the Cylons are hoarding the cards, not actually using them in skill checks?

I think I'll play test the "Who's got a wrench?" strategy this weekend solo, only having the Cylons appear halfway, no sleeper for the Cylons, and each Cylon starting with one Repair card...

Actually, I was just thinking, Melonball. Bill still sucks pretty hard.

Consider using his special skill to get all of the repair cards from a single skill check in order to prepare the hoarding. Let's say you even net a lot of Repair cards - but what then? People will know you're a cylon. That's not too bad. But you cannot reveal yourself as you would have to discard down to three skill cards, effectively negating the advantage you had. So what then - continue unrevealed? Will not work well either, because Bill "Suckage" Adama cannot draw Engineering cards.

I still don't find use for the Old Man.

Sure Admiral Adama's once-per-game power isn't so great, although it definitely has use. His first power is more useful than Tigh's though, IMO. Repair cards, evasive maneuvers that are causing a pilot to get dangerously close to discarding, and any other time when you have lots of skill cards of the wrong type and you need to boost a skill check a bit, some of them can be used to help. It also can be used to force unrevealed cylons to help if need be.