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Battlestar Galactica Pegasus Expansion
This big box expansion comes filled to the brim with new ways to save humanity and new tools to drive them to extinction. Highlighting events from the second and third series of the show, Pegasus adds an array of new characters, new boards and additional cards.
The new characters add a lot more variety and now there is another Support Character to go with lonely old Chief Tyrol, in the shape of ‘Dee’ Duala, with a handy abilty to manage the civilian fleet. Admiral Cain, the vicious commander of the Pegasus, also makes an appearance, outranking Adama for the Admiralty. The New Pilot is ‘Cat’ Katraine and the new Political leader is Tigh’s wife Ellen.
The Battlestar Pegasus herself is represented by a new board. This sleek looking ship is more powerful than the Galactica, but also more fragile as it can only take four hits before it is destroyed. Two of its locations are just for blowing stuff up, but all that extra firepower comes at a cost. To represent Admirals Cain’s will to win at all costs, firing the Pegasus’ weapons can also damage or destroy Vipers and Civilain ships in the target area. In the Pegasus’ Engine Room two Skill Cards can be discarded to give the next Crisis card revealed a Jump Icon, this can be handy for getting the Fleet out of trouble. Finally, when all else fails, there is the Airlock location. Similar to the Brig, but with no chance of early parole, the Airlock allows the Humans to dispose of suspected Cylons permanently. After a successful skill check anyone in the Airlock is executed. For a Cylon player this means and instant reveal, loss of Super Crisis and one way trip to the Resurrection Ship. If a Human is executed by mistake, Morale is lowered by one and a new character is drawn. If at any time there are no more Human Characters left to draw after a Human is executed, the Humans lose the game.
The Pegasus board also introduces a new card Type-Treachery. The Treachery Deck consists of cards that only contribute negatively to Skill Checks. Cylons can use the abilities printed on the cards to ill effect, if the Skill Check is declared to be Reckless using one of the new cards, or if a Human player discards a Treachery card, then the Cylon can play a Sabotage Treachery card from their hand to damage Galatica or Pegasus.
In addition to the Human characters a new Cylon Leader class can be chosen in 4-6 player games. The Three leaders are Caprica Six, Loeben Conroy and Cavil. These are recommended for advanced players as some of their win conditions are very difficult to achieve. One player may choose a Cylon leader, they then draw an Agenda Card at the start of the game. The Agenda Card gives the Cylon leader specific conditions which they have to achieve to win the game, they no longer win or lose with the humans or the Cylons.
The Agendas can be either benevolent towards the Humans in a four or six player game, or hostile in a five player game. Using the new board overlay that goes over the original Cylon locations, they can infiltrate the Human fleet in person, to help or hinder the Galactica in the pursuit of their Agenda. Naturally, if the Human players object to their meddling, they can always stick them in the Brig or stuff them out of the Airlock.
At the start of the game New Caprica can be chosen as the Destination, replacing Kobol. This plays in the same ways as Kobol, with the Sleeper Phase activating after distance four is reached. Once the Human Fleet reaches distance seven, however, next time it jumps the humans reach New Caprica. When this happens all the Human and Cylon players are moved to New Caprica. The Two Battlestars are out of play for the time being and all the remaining Civilian Ships are stacked on the New Caprica Shipyard.
The objective for the human players is now to unlock as many or the remaining Civilian Ships as possible, before Galactica returns so they can escape into space. The Cylons can attempt to stop them by advancing the Centurion Occupation forces towards the shipyard, to destroy the ships. Crisis cards are drawn from the New Caprica deck, representing the threats that await the new colony. In addition these cards may have Icons at the bottom, the Jump icon works just like a regular jump, only this time the Galactica will return to orbit when it reaches the end of the track. The Centurion Icon advances the Occupation Forces towards the shipyard, the Humans must eliminate them before they get there or the top most Civilian Ship is destroyed, with the resulting loss of resources. Finally the Evacuation Icon is used when the Galatica has returned, to take the topmost unlocked Civilian Ship and return it to orbit, for the final desperate battle to survive.
With the return of the Battlestars, human players can move freely between them and New Caprica by discarding a skill card. The Admiral now gets the ability to automatically jump the fleet as an action. Any remaining ships on new Caprica are destroyed and Human players are executed, with their subsequent penalties. If the Humans managed to survive these final losses without a Resource Dial dropping to zero, then they have earned themselves victory over the toasters.
Even without the new boards the Characters, sexy-looking new plastic Basestars and additional cards are worth including in the game on their own.
The addition of the Pegasus board gives the Humans a big advantage, almost doubling the amount of hits they can take and giving them tremendous firepower. The Treachery cards don’t really offset this, unless too-many reckless Skill Checks are tried.
The addition of the Cylon Leaders is a novel way of getting veterans interested in the game again, as achieving an Agenda is a real challenge. The new Sympathiser rule improves the original by making the Sympathiser reveal as Cylon and take a Sympathetic Agenda, while this is more balanced then the original rule, it can be a bit unfair on new players that have to complete a tough Agenda.
New Caprica adds a lot of frenetic action to the endgame. Pulling off daring escape is a lot more satisfying that just jumping to Kobol, though it does increase the play time considerably.
The Pegasus Expansion is a must for owners of the original game. Even without New Caprica or Pegasus Boards, the new Character, Crisis and Skill Cards help keep the game fresh, though why the frak they left Kendra Shaw out of the expansion only God knows.
Rating: 8.5
Reviewed by:
Dangervacuum
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