The REAL Cylon Detector
It looks like a mere finger spinner.
Looks are deceiving.
I have seen Dennis unleash the might of this futuristic technology at the beginning of two Battlestar Galactica games. "To choose who goes first," he says. But clearly, it's no simple trinket but a technological marvel that always points to magnetic
Both times, he has brought it out and set it to work BEFORE the loyalty cards are dealt out, giving each of us our roles.
Saturday's Battlestar Galactica game: the finger spins and stops at Steve.
The cards are then dealt. Result? Steve is a Cylon.
Monday's Battlestar Galactica game: the finger spins and stops at Michael.
The cards are then dealt. Result? Michael is a Cylon (oh, and the Pope is Catholic).
DETECTION RATE: 100%
I recommend everyone to carry at least one of these things. You never know when you may have a Cylon in your midst. (Well, if Michael's around, you KNOW, but besides that...)
Monday night saw our attempt at a 7 player game (Scott, Dennis, Michael(cylon), Sean (playing his first game and, of course, being a Cylon), Jon, me and Brian) and it seems to work well. The dials increased by one also seems to be a good break point, as both times I've seen it played with dials at start position +1 at the beginning, it has been a narrow human victory (although I agree with Michael that Monday's game was not quite as close as the dials would indicate). I think I'm ready for some variant goodness.
Tiffany brought her friend Raquel to the group and played Tikal with her. Unfortunately, our BG game ran fairly long, and we didn't get to play games with Raquel or get to talk to her much. Hopefully, she makes a return appearance and we can find some fun stuff for her to play with the group.
Sean brought Wasabi! and taught Tiff and me how to play. Cute game with good production, easy rules and some player interaction in a short period of time. Short games always seem to go over pretty well in our group.
(On BGG, they say that you can pass without playing ingredients and instead discard as many recipes as you want as a legal move. This prevents the logjam of having recipes you can't legally complete, which just didn't seem to make much sense.)
Brian, Michael and Dennis Raced around the Galaxy several times, and Jon, Scott, Sean, and Brian got in a game of Dominion as well.
Dennis and I picked up our new WoW mini deluxe starter kits, and Tiff found a Harry Potter book. Just trying to keep DL in business.
In other news, I'm putting in my game order tomorrow night (shopping around for the best deal). Here's what I've got so far:
Me: Dominion and Neuroshima Hex
Michael the Cylon: Dominion
Jeff: possibly Race, possibly some other things
Tiff: possibly some games
Send me Geekmail or email or whatever before about 10pm tomorrow night and I'll add you in.
Labels: battlestar galactica, i'm not a cylon, session report
posted by Anonymous @ 11:37 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
Raquel and I played Fjords and Cartegena and Tikal to occupy ourselves while the BSG went on. Then she left, I bough Rowling's Tales of Beedle the Bard. (Much happiness there. I thought i wasn't out yet. So even more happiness. :) And then there was Wasabi!. And then work.
I do like Wasabi. Seems straightforward. Requires a bit more thought that one would think. And some mad telepathy skills to make certain that your opponents don't ruin your recipes.
All in all I am pleased.
The game shouldn't have been close, but the humans got three critical bad breaks:
- No 3-unit jumps *on three cards* for the third jump (which would have put us at 8)
- No 1-unit cards on the fourth, putting the fuel unnecessarily low
- Most importantly, Cylon ships on the *first* crisis card after the third *and* fourth jumps
Two turns before the end, we lost a civilian ship -- if Brian drew one with a fuel icon, we lose. If Scott doesn't scout on his last turn, we get more ships, can't jump, and lose. If I miss the pop roll on my last turn, the dials finish at 1-3-1-1. So it was pretty thin.
But yeah, I'm also up for variants.
I believe if Sean had been human we might have pipped you (this is not an indictment of your play Sean, more of my choice to railroad you which worked extremely poorly).
Any of the 4 humans had very sweet twist the knife plays. But because of my incompetence Sean never did :(.
Oh well, do I win an Oscar? I practiced my high pitch I'm not a cylon speech all day.
You still need to work on the arm swing. Channel those inflatable arm-wavy things in front of used car dealers.
By the way, the Detection Rate: 100% thing nearly killed me. I sent the link to Dave Arnott, who gave me the spinner nearly a decade ago.
One of the guys at BGG.con has a spinner, and it has been accurate six out of seven times at picking evil (not necessarily wolf) at the conference WW games. He used it once in an online game, but it was wrong - we thought - except after the game he confessed it had pointed to him and he was evil, so he changed the result.
I have to say that it was slightly overwhelming playing a cylon without knowing what were good plays and what were bad, with the conversation flying fast and furious around me. I tried to play sub-optimally, burning good cards on skill checks we already had nailed, and playing low or negative on stuff that was going to be close. It was fun, but I'm going to try to bone up on the rules some before another go at it.
By the way - Michael's "I'm not a Cylon" arm waving defense reminds me of a strange kid's show character... If any of you have ever experimented with acid, I don't recommend viewing this clip...
Brobee
I knew that clip would be from Yo Gabba Gabba.
Don't ask how.
So, Dominion is going to be the next game the SABG plays into the ground? I'll have to make more of an effort to be at Monday nights, then.
Amy and I played seven games Sunday afternoon, back-to-back-to-back. We couldn't stop.
Yo Gabba Gabba -- If I'm going to have acid-infused muppets preaching to my children (as God intended!) then they damn well be able to keep a beat. So I like it. 'Nuff said.
I realized last night that we only had one pilot + Helo, but 3 politicians. Once Baltar was picked we threw out Boomer, but we should have turned her face down ... Apollo should have benn in the game instead of Tyrol or Zarek.
And Dominion is already played into the ground, thanks to Sweet BSW. 200+ games. Although 500 card pickup could use a few more outings...
Human wants to join the party in my tummy?
Apparently you can't include images in the comments... So you'll have to click to see it...
Brobee Photo
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