Having played Exodus twice now and not quite remembering when last Cylons actually won in our gaming group before that (and including the expansion) I've thought of the following (untested) House Rules that I'd like to implement in our next game:

Cylon Fleet

It's a great add-on, but we really miss the surprise/tension factor of ships jumping in unannounced, and sometimes it just feels like too much of a slow build, so how about these changes as options:

• Leave the Cylon attack cards in the deck. When they are drawn they move the Cylon Fleet preparation attack up twice and the jump track once. If this causes the Cylon Fleet to jump onto the main board, trigger the special rule,but not the fleet placements. If the special rule cannot be implemented without the exact fleet placement, then ignore the special rule. OPTIONAL: If there are no Cylon ships on the Fleet board, use the card as normal.
• When the Cylon Fleet jumps in, roll the dice again and place them on the main board according to the new dice roll.
• Once a Cylon player is revealed, conceal the Cylon Fleet Board behind a screen, though the Cylon player still needs to declare his actions on the board, but not where ships are placed. (If you can't trust your player to be honest why are you playing with him/her anyway?) This rule would replace the 2nd House Rule above once a Cylon is revealed.

Trauma Cards

We've found that they feel tacked-on and they haven't been a challenge so far, so how about you start with 4 trauma tokens each and 4 characters? That way you're forced to make it a bigger issue and have to engage the NPCs more.

Let me know what you think!

Our group does not enforce House Rules for balance reasons. We add some to add to the theme or fix rules that don't feel right. Here are some house rules we have tried recently and agreed to use in future:

Playing with Pegasus Expansion:

-Mix Galactica and Pegasus damage tokens together and draw at random whenever Galactica takes damage. Otherwise Pegasus often ends up "taking one for the team".

Revised Characters:

-When Ellen Tigh uses his Politically Androit ability, she may (or must?) draw the 2 cards from the skill set of the target player. We haven't playtested it, but the current way is quite boring as it allows Ellen to draw only Politics, Leadership and Treachery.

Conflicted Loyalties:

-When you take the Action to complete a Personal Goal, you may draw 2 Skill Cards (that may come outside your skill set) immediately afterwards. In effect, this gives the player free Consolidate Power action to make up for the action wasted to complete the Goal. An alternative house rule instead of this one is to allow Personal Goals to be completed (only?) at the start of turn and not require an action.

Cylon Fleet:

-If Activate Basestar and Launch Raiders icons have no effect because of damaged Basestar, add another Basestar to Cylon Fleet Board and advance the Pursuit Track. This is the opposite of what FAQ says, but removes the silly tactic to try damaging a basestar instead of destroying it.

-Shuffle certain Cylon Attack Crisis Cards into a separate pile and draw the top card when Pursuit Track reaches auto-jump. Use the special rule on the card (but nothing else).

Ionian Nebula:

-If you draw an Ally Card that matches character in play, do not discard that ally if the character is a revealed Cylon player. It has practically no effect on gameplay but adds to the theme.

-Sometimes we ignore Crossroad cards altogether, but play all other steps of Ionian Nebula setup as normal (including possible eliminations).

(I will comment on your house rules on a better time)

jullevi said:

I've heard this suggestion before, and I really don't care for it.
First, it's not thematic, the Admiral would obviously order Pegasus to manuever in the line of fire if it would be tactfully advantageous for any reason (Exodus, part 2), and Cylons would fire on whichever ship they wanted when given an option.
Second, both of the attack locations on Pegasus are far more useful than several locations on Galactica (Research Lab, Command, Weapons Control, Armory if there are no Centurions on board, Airlock is arguably more useful than Admiral's Quarters) and we will gladly take a hit or two on Galactica rather than Pegasus much of the time.

jullevi said:

We draw damage tokens randomly. If Pegasus is destroyed, it has no other negative effect on gameplay. If Galactica is destroyed, game over. Pegasus is an acceptable damge sink in those situations. Yes, this goes both ways when a cylon wants to damage Galactica to win, but has to pick randomly. It adds more tension. Thematically, both battlestars are in the fight, we just don't know which one was targeted by the cylons.

Lately we've stopped using the allies. Our group loves the allies, but hates the Crossroads phase. In every game we've played with the crossroads phase, the Admiral has been executed from the crossroads card (yes, it came up in every game). In one game, the Admiral was executed three times during the Crossroads phase. Since we haven't found a way to keep the allies around that doesn't make trauma useless, we just stopped using them.

Our group also dislikes that playing your Personal Goal takes up your action. It's almost insult to injury. First, you have to act contrary to the best interests of the fleet to pass your goal (usaully), then you have to give up your action to get rid of your goal. I prefer to wait until late in the game to reveal a PG if possible, but that can make things worse. That being said, we still use them, and they have only twice cost the humans the game.

Hello All,

This is my first post - I have been playing BSG every since last year with my group (ranges 4-6 players) and we are avid fans of both the show and the including the expansions. Regardig damage between Galactica and Pegasus - we add a little random into it (but stops Pegasus from being a complete meat shield).

We keep the damage tokens separate and when a ship is attacked (via basestar or raider) we roll twice. The first roll is the normal to-hit roll. The second roll detrmines which ship is hit 1-3 = Pegasus and 3-8 is BSG. We also have a house rule that is any charcter on ship that is destroyed is counted as executed and that must be resolved immediately after the ship is destroyed. This makes it trickier and dangerous to repair Pegasus if it is really damaged. Also creates fear when reveled cylon starts drawing super crisis cards (Bomb on Colonial One).

We have our house rules set-up so that it is quite difficult for the humans to win (we have played about 30 games in the past year - basic, Pegasus and Exodus) and we have humans winning about 20% of the time. The game is great when it is hard and forces you to work with a team you don't really trust!

Far

Hello All,

This is my first post - I have been playing BSG every week since last year with my group (ranges 4-7 players) and we are avid fans of both the show and the game including the expansions. Regarding damage between Galactica and Pegasus - we add a little random into it (but stops Pegasus from being a complete meat shield).

We keep the damage tokens separate and when a ship is attacked (via basestar or raider) we roll twice. The first roll is the normal to-hit roll. The second roll detrmines which ship is hit 1-3 = Pegasus and 3-8 is BSG. We also have a house rule that has any character on ship that is destroyed is counted as executed and that must be resolved immediately after the ship is destroyed. This makes it trickier and dangerous to repair Pegasus if it is really damaged. Also creates fear when reveled cylon starts drawing super crisis cards (Bomb on Colonial One).

We have our house rules set-up so that it is quite difficult for the humans to win (we have played about 30 games in the past year - basic, Pegasus and Exodus) and we have humans winning about 20% of the time. The game is great when it is hard and forces you to work with a team you don't really trust!

Far