What Nebula? PGWJ BSG session report!

Finally, a game of BSG with Ionian Nebula!

Last night, at our PGWJ gathering, we had 5 players for BSG. Everyone had played the game before, and so we dug out the Trauma Tokens and Allies and got started with that.

Here are some brief highlights:

Players were:
Matt (Roslin - post-sleeper-phase Cylon)
Me (Chief)
Shaun (Cally - pre-sleeper-phase Cylon)
Jesse (Apollo)
Kevin (Tigh)* (Cain)

Very early on in the game, Admiral Tigh got a chance to check out somebody's loyalty. Wisely, he chose Cally. Pegged her as a Cylon, which, as we all know, means that there's a 50/50 shot of either one of them having a shiny red spinal column.

We were not left in suspense for long, because Cally has a fairly straightforward way of resolving that uncertainty.
On her next turn, she tapped Tigh on the shoulder, and he departed from this world, showing that he had been Human.
Admiral Cain came in to replace Tigh, and soon returned the favor, using her uber-brig ability to flush Cally out of the airlock and into the Resurrection Ship.

That set the tone for the rest of the game.

A lot of location-damaging happened in this game, which led to Pegasus's destruction and the humans' eventual demise, but also it allowed the Cylon players to cycle their Trauma tokens, which was a mechanical (no pun intended) concern from the beginning. No worries at all for them.

As for the rest of the Ally Mechanic, it worked out pretty well.

Two notable moments:
We were running low on fuel, and after encountering Boomer in the Armory, Cain drew Seelix (beneficial effect: +1 fuel). So, seeding Seelix with "positive trauma", Cain was able to pick it up later and help us out.

Notable moment #2:
Pre-sleeper-phase, President Roslin had to place Aaron Doral on the board, seeding him with negative trauma (Damage Galactica), and strongly advising that we do not go visit him.
After the sleeper phase showed Roslin her true Cylon colors, which happened to be the "Reveal and Damage Galactica" card (with Doral's picture on it, of course), she conspired with Doral to blow up Galactica in a really bad way.

The ship was so hurting, the Basestars were firing well, and we were dealing with Centurions at the same time.. we made it to Distance 5 and didn't even have the chance to Blind Jump, before Galactica disintegrated into tiny bits.

Even without seeing the Crossroads Phase happen, I enjoyed the spice and intrigue that the allies added to the game.
I'd love to try it again.
Maybe next time!