Synopsis: The intent of this variant is to try to balance the power of the Pegasus expansion in a thematic way.

The interaction of the (modified) Thirty Three and Sleep Deprivation crisis cards at the beginning of the game really kicks the game off with a bang. Basestars will be launching raiders and pounding away at Galactica. Vipers will be landing and launching like crazy. The fleet will be able to jump quickly, but they have to pass the The Olympic Carrier crisis to eliminate the cylon threat.

Helena Cain is still powerful, but her benefits won't be felt until she's removed from power. If the humans can get rid of her after the sleeper phase, but before they reach New Caprica, they can determine the Admiral's loyalty before the New Caprica phase starts.

I recommend refining the game balance by tweaking the starting resources if you find these rules make the game too hard or too easy for one side or the other.

Setup: Follow the normal procedures for setting up the game except:

SETUP STEP 4: No player may select Helena Cain.

SETUP STEP 7: Search the crisis deck for the following cards and set them aside: Thirty Three, Sleep Deprivation, The Olympic Carrier and Reunite the Fleet. Shuffle the crisis deck then, without looking at them, set aside (3 x the number of players) crisis cards. Add the Reunite the Fleet crisis card to the stack of (3 x the number of players) crisis cards, shuffle them, then place them on top of the crisis card deck.

SET UP STEP 10: Instead of setting up ships, resolve the Thirty Three crisis card as if it had just been drawn from the crisis deck. Note the changes to this crisis card detailed below:

Rules changes:

The Pegasus game board is not in play until the Reunite the Fleet crisis card is drawn.

Thirty Three: The Relentless Pursuit Special Rule is changed to the following: At the beginning of each players turn, play this card again, following each step on the card as if it had just been drawn from the crisis deck. During the Crisis Step of each players turn, instead of drawing a card from the crisis deck, resolve the Sleep Deprivation crisis card as if it had just been drawn from the crisis deck. Immediately after the fleet jumps, resolve The Olympic Carrier crisis card as if it had just been drawn from the crisis deck.

The Olympic Carrier:

• PASS: Remove the Thirty Three crisis card from the game.
• 8+: -1 population. Remove The Thirty Three crisis card from the game.
• Fail: -1 morale, -1 population, the Thirty Three crisis card remains in play. (This crisis card will be played again the next time the fleet jumps).

Immediately after the Reunite the Fleet crisis card is resolved, the Pegasus game board enters play and the player who currently holds the Admiral title immediately switches to the Helena Cain character. (Helena Cain is now the admiral). The character they were playing is set aside and the character token is removed from the game board.

While Helena Cain is the Admiral, the following rules are in effect:

The player playing Helena Cain can use her once per game ability even if they have already used the once per game ability of the character they were originally playing.

While Helena Cain is the Admiral, all destination cards are treated as if they had a distance of 1 on them for purposes of determining the distance the fleet has traveled. When Helena Cain is no longer the Admiral, the actual distance on all destination cards is used to determine the distance the fleet has traveled.

Example: The fleet jumps twice, drawing Tylium Planet and Remote Planet destination cards for a total of 3 distance traveled. Helena Cain becomes Admiral. All destination cards are treated as if they had a distance of 1 on them while Helena Cain is Admiral. Therefore, the total distance traveled is now 2. The fleet jumps again while Helena Cain is the admiral and Desolate Moon is drawn (3 distance). The total distance traveled becomes 3. During the next player's turn, Helena Cain loses the Admiral title. She is immediately executed and the player playing her reverts to the character they were originally playing and is moved to the Admiral Quarters. Helena Cain is no longer Admiral, so the total distance the fleet has traveled becomes 6.

Admiral Cain insists on taking the fight to the Cylons, no matter the cost. While Helena Cain is the Admiral, each time the fleet jumps, clear the board as normal then set up one basestar directly in front of Galactica and three civilian ships directly behind Galactica.

If Helena Cain loses the Admiral title, she is immediately executed and the player playing her reverts back to their original character, who is placed in the Admiral Quarters. The player's loyalty cards are then revealed according to the normal execution rules. If the original character's once per game ability has not been used yet, the player may use it regardless of whether or not Helena Cain's once per game ability was used.

We play with a pegasus variant, but not as detailed as yours.

We agreed that "Thirty-Three" was inaccurate and that, if it was not defeated (as per the description on the crisis card), it would be better to draw the top five cards of the Crisis deck (without looking at them) and shuffle "Thirty-Three" among those five cards and put them back on top of the Crisis deck.

As far as New Caprica goes, we thought it would make for a more interesting dynamic if we gave the President the decision for whether or not to go to New Caprica. So for us, as soon as humans jump to 7, the president makes a decision:

A) Go to New Caprica

or

B) -1 Morale, and continue to jump to 8 (like before the expansion, the Kobol card)

Sometimes, under really fortunate circumstances, the humans will end up jumping to 8 right away instead of 7, and so the President has a potentially easier decision to make at that point (as it would simply require one more jump to win, then), though that presumes that morale is safe enough to allow that loss of one more. We have been playing this way exclusively for the past few months and have really come to enjoy it.

Our other more recent variant is what we've been calling Grab-Bag Characters.

Players are dealt 3 characters facedown. The first character revealed is your custom character's general-game ability; then choose one of the card-sets of that character's skill-set to contribute to your custom character's end-skill-set (the total skill set will be capped at 5 cards total, with a possibility of screwing yourself into having only 4 cards like Baltar). The second character revealed is your custom character's once-per-game ability and starting location; then choose one of the card-sets of that character's skill-set to contribute to your custom character's end-skill-set (if you took 3 Leadership from the first character, for example, you could now NOT take any set of 3 you could either choose any listings of 2 or 1, and you can't take a skill that you already took unless it's a double-set, like Lee's 2 Politics/Leadership, or Starbuck's 1 Leadership/Engineering). The final character drawn is your custom character's flaw, which also determines your custom character's rank for determining Admiralty or Presidency; then pick any remaining skill that you might be able to add to your custom character, making sure your net card total is not more than 5.

We have also found this to be really balanced, with terrible combinations (Tigh's general ability and Bill Adama's flaw, for example) to be highly unlikely. It adds a little extra fun and creativity!