Battlestar Galactica Session: "Tigh's TOTALLY a Cylon...oh wait"

Alright, so I played a five player game of Battlestar Galactica last Saturday, and it was full of thrills and intrigue. Here are our players:
Owen: Lee "Apollo" Adama
Kevin: Gaius Baltar
Tristan: Saul Tigh
Mike: Chief Tyrol
Me: Kara "Starbuck" Threis
Everyone is new to playing the game except me, but I think I explained it well and we get off to a good start.

Loyalty cards are handed out, and of course Baltar gets two. Baltar also informs me (on my loyalty card), that I am most definitely NOT a cylon. But he also informs me these tests are never 100% accurate, so we'll have to see. I immediately suspect Kevin's Baltar, but I'll withhold my judgement. I remind myself that right now, nobody could be a cylon.

Baltar gets the presidency, and Tigh gets the Admiralty. And we're off!

We pass the first few skill checks, and everything is going along swimmingly. No negative cards the destiny deck couldn't've thrown in. But I'm watching, oh yes. With narrowed eyes I survey my fellow "humans". The cylons haven't shown their big ol' basestars yet, so we're left a little free time to do as we will. President Baltar starts stocking up on loyalty cards, I launch some vipers in preparation for the coming onslaught (I am a pilot after all), and everyone else starts drawing extra cards with various locations and the "consolidate resources" card. I try to pay close attention to who draws what, but it's too difficult.

But soon, more and more negative cards begin to creep into our skill checks. On one check three red piloting cards show up. There are only two pilots, me and Lee. I narrow my eyes at Lee, and point out to everybody the red cards. But of course, since I am a pilot too, this brings attention to me. I am convinced: there is definitely a cylon in the fleet. But who? I mean, its most likely Apollo, but with so many cards being drawn, someone could've gotten some extra to throw the blame around. I decide to hold back on the brig talk and watch.

We jump once with a destination of '2', then get close again. Still no Basestars! We jump again, this time with a '1'. Hmm, our Admiral hasn't been choosing that great on locations. Interesting. So now I have two suspects: Tigh and Apollo. Both Tyrol and Baltar have thrown in some "add 2 to pass a skill check" cards that really saved us, so I think they're cool.

Finally we reach the sleeper phase. I get my second loyalty card and...still human! Dang, I mean...whew! But now there are definitely two cylons in the fleet. Tigh has a rules question, and instead of asking for the rule book, he blurts it out: "So if you have a human card and a cylon card, you're still a human, right?" Uh oh. We all look nervously around. Balar immediately uses his "look at another players loyalty cards" ability, and chooses Tigh. He takes a peeks...and declares the Tigh is a frakkin toaster. So Tigh gets thrown in the brig, the Admiralty passes to Apollo, and finally we draw a crisis card that sets a cylon fleet. Alright! I've got a fistful of piloting cards and the expert pilot ability. Lets rumble!

But it would seem the humans have some infighting. Accusations are thrown around, and now Apollo gets thrown into the brig. Passing the Admiralty onto...me! However, it is short lived, because the next crisis card sends me to the brig, giving the Admiralty to Tyrol. We jump, and the cylons go away. Wow, we're almost there, and we still don't have any revealed cylons. At this point, I'm pretty sure the two cylon players are in the brig with me, so I focus on my escape. I try to bust out and...someone keeps thwarting my attempts! There is a free cylon somewhere! No sooner do I voice my concerns than does Baltar say "See you suckas later", offs himself, and lands on the resurection ship. Freaking Baltar! He also shoots Tyrol along the way, landing him in sickbay.

Next turn: Apollo bids adieu to the humans and joins his cylon brother. Well crap. Hey, but we're still good. Sure, morale's at three, but the rest of our resources are good. We all kick Tigh for acting so suspiciously, but then appologize for putting him in the brig.

We survive one super crisis by forcing a jump, putting population at 6. We sacrifice for the good of the many! That put us at a distance of 8. One more jump and humans win! Our next few crises get us two up the jump track. But then we get to a kicker: a choice crisis card. Either take a hit on -1 morale, or perform the check and risk loosing 2. My choice. I'm about to choose the -1 when our good buddy Tyrol says that he has a lot of good cards that would help us pas the check. I reluctanly agree. And of course we fail. I should've reminded him that with expecting a -5 from the destiny deck and a -5 from our resident skinjobs, we would've needed 17 to pass.

Our morale is at 1, and humanity is about ready to throw in the towel we're so depressed. But we just have to survive two straight cylon turns, and humans win!

Apollo comes up, and tries to activate the human fleet location in an attempt to damage our FTL drive. No luck, our armory is blown up. Meh. But then Baltar's turn comes up, and I remember that he still has his super crisis card. And play it he does. Skill check of 24...fail and we loose 1 morale.

Frak!

I look dismally on as Tigh says he can't add any cards, and Tyrol adds 2. My whole hand counts toward the check...I add it up to 16. I hold my breath as I plop my entire hand on the table, and the cylons add their two.

We turn them over one by one, totalling up as we go...and reach a 20.

Morale drops to 0, humanity declares 'all is lost', and we all start flushing each other out of airlocks. Cylons win, humans loose.

Frakkin Baltar!