BALTARFEST 2019 – 600 games of BSG [Picture Heavy]

Posted on by Tim Porter

This coming Saturday, 20th of April 2019, I will hopefully reach the milestone of my 600th play of the Battlestar Galactica board game. This figure has been a long time coming. It also is a reflection on how a board game group evolves over time.

My copy of Battlestar Galactica (aka BSG) was first played on the 28th November 2008 at LosCon #35, a annual science fiction contention, in Los Angeles. Over the next 4 years I played the game regularly, but not excessively. By 2012, I began to play it more often with my local Tuesday night Ventura County Strategy Boardgamers Meetup group. I was getting close to my 100th game played.

BALTARFEST 2012 was held on the 11th of November 2012. That day we played BSG a total of 9 times. I got to play BSG a total of three times that day. Three times in one day, that seems excessive. Hold that thought!

Baltarfest 2012 comment

The game plays accumulate fast when you are playing two, three, or even four games of BSG a week. We had a regular group that played BSG a lot. BSG became a go-to game for Tuesday nights. We knew how to play and we could play fast. By FATDOG 2015 I had reached a total of 400 game plays. BSG was a familiar game on Tuesday nights and other gaming events.

400th BSG cake
The cake for FATDOG 2015

The first 100 game plays took 6 years. The next 300 games took a mere 3 years to accumulate. I have played BSG 5 times in a single day on several occasions. I have even played 4 times in one evening. To be honest, playing 4-5 times in one day is quite mentally exhausting. The games just merge together into one.

The last 200 games have taken 3.5 years. The rate of games played has noticeably dropped. It seems that BSG had peaked as a board game in my playlist. Why is that? Had I begun to tire of being a cylon? Not at all. The game is still fun to play. The game is still a challenge. The player interaction is still thrilling. The truth was it was just harder to find others who were able or wanted to play. For some their lives have moved on and folks have moved away. The game is hard to learn too. We play with a mix of the base game and the three expansions. We play fast. It is hard for a newcomer to keep up with us at times. It has become harder to get the 5 experienced players together that is the optimum number for a game. The BSG base game and the three expansion modules are now long out-of-print and so there are less new people discovering the game. I have played BSG only 5 times this year, so far. Our regular group is meeting, just not as often. BSG is a still a great game but I do like to play other games too.

How do I have all these stats and information of how, where, and with who I have played BSG? Simple, I log my game plays on the BoardGameGeek website. See here for my article on why this logging of game plays is a good thing.

On a side note: I have to make a shout out to Ryan for arranging our venue for so many events. Many thanks for being a good sport. Btw, that certificate that exempts you from playing BSG has long expired at the end of 2017. See the pic below for proof.

IMG_7686
Ryan was happy to win his exemption certificate

Looking back at these photos I see a lot of great people that I have come to know solely because of board games. A wide range of ages, races, and professions, where the only thing we have in common is sharing a fun time over a table playing a game or two. I would not have missed these moments for anything. I hope to see my many cylon mates again soon. To share the challenge of being all sneaky and devious together.

So say we all.

Tim
18th April 2019

P.S. We will be playing lots of different board and card games at BALTARFEST 2019, not just Battlestar Galactica. You can RSVP for free on Meetup at the this link.

10×10 Challenge and 10 Day Of Gaming…So Far

Posted on by Tim Porter

My Twisted 10×10 Challenge is making good progress. My Battlestar Galactica count is up to 53 games so far this year. My target is to play BSG at least 70 times. It will be tight to complete the required number. I am confidant as my local gaming group can often finish 2-3 games of BSG in one evening. So say we all.

October the 4th 10x10 Challenge
October the 4th 10×10 Challenge
October the 4th 10x10 Challenge
October the 4th 10×10 Challenge
oct 4 2017 - 2 Capture
October the 4th 10×10 Challenge

I am spoiled with local gaming opportunities. It has not always been the case. It is now possible to game, for no cost other than fuel, at least 4 times a week. A Monday evening meetup has been added to the weekly calendar of my local gaming Meetup group. With the semi-regular weekend events it has been possible to game 5 days in a row. Taking advantage of this I decided how long I could go where I play games on consecutive days.

So far I have gamed every day from Saturday, the 23rd of September, until today. There is no end in sight to this run of gaming. Only one day have I gamed in a non-public location. To keep the streak going I did play a (board) game with the girlfriend to bridge a game between events. I will do so tonight too. She is a good sport putting up with my shenanigans.

10×10 Challenge And More McGregors

Posted on by Tim Porter
12-July-2017 10x10
12-July-2017 10×10

My twisted 10×10 Challenge has been making progress in the more difficult “non-GMT aka the Other Wargame” category. This is great as I have been playing some interesting wargames. Many of these games are new to me too.

A wargame that I have been long wanting to play is The Big Push. I posted an After Action Report (AAR) for this game in a recent post here. Continuing with the WW1 theme I played In Flanders Fields with Ken Tee. This game is on the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. This battle was the first use of poison gas in warfare, and is a key part of the game for the German side. We had to end the game early, but we hope to revisit the game soon.

Thee games especially helped to increase the list of the “other wargames” category. A category that I was concerned that I was falling behind on. The 10×10 Challenge has helped to add visibility to what games I am playing, and to add more variety to the types of games that I play. Job Done!

Flarchcon 2017

Last week was the annual Flarchcon week of gaming hosted by Rob March. As is normal we played a bunch of games, played with his awesome dog Denali, and consumed lots of nice food and drink. The revelation for me was playing Quartermaster General 1914 for the first time. I had read the rules a while ago, but the game had not gelled in my brain. The original Quartermaster General game is very simple, hence it pays fast and frantic. The new game in the series adds a number of mechanics that seem to muddy the clean and simple gameplay. Or so I thought it did. I was wrong. Quartermaster General 1914 is a great little 5 player wargame. It still plays fast, and has a good amount of bluff and strategy. The players have more options, which in this case works well.This game is worthy addition to the multi-player wargame category.

The disappointment of Flarchcon for me, was after a full day of playing Virgin Queen we only got to the start of turn 5. It was a tight game, with all the players trying hard, and the game ebbing and flowing. The longer game suits the side that I played, the English. The longer game has more events that swing the game into new areas. We rarely get to explore those aspects as the game often ends in turn 4. We had some serious gameplay queries that caused the game to pause. The thing to remember with such a game is to keep it flowing. Saving a few minutes here and there would have allowed us to play that extra turn. This could have resulted in an actual winner being determined. Instead we had France with 22 points, and myself as England with 19 points. The game was just getting fun when we ended the game, out of time.

Battlestar Galactica

Unexpectedly, I am falling slightly behind the curve with my Battlestar Galactica plays. The Tuesday night group has been having a problem getting a quorum for BSG. It has been a problem all year. We have managed to recruit a new guy into the regular pool of players. New Chris is shaping up well. I am looking forward to being airlocked by him in a sneaky cylon treacherous move.

On July the 23rd there will be another Sunday event at McGregors Craft Beer and Wine, in Moorpark. The first event there attracted 17 people, a good crowd for a first event. I am hoping for more next time. It would be great if we get some beginners or newcomers too.

Board games and Beer at McGregors in Moorpark

Here are links to the Ventura County Strategy Boardgamers Meetup event, and my Facebook event.

Tim

12th July 2017

A Staggered Start, and Dice Still Hate Me

Posted on by Tim Porter

It is frustrating when people show up late, and people are already firmly set into long games. It’s frustrating for me as a group organizer, and I know it’s annoying for those who rushed to get there, and then find it is hurry up and wait. Wait until a game finishes, or hope someone else turns up late too. Even worse than that is when people stop showing up if they think that arriving late will not allow them to get into a game.

The staggered/delayed start was implemented for the first time on Tuesday night. To understand the problem, see a previous blog post. Basically, some people were having a problem getting to the meetup for an earlier start time of 6:00pm. With 28 in attendance this Tuesday, compared to 21 last week, I regard that as a promising increase in numbers. At least 4 people said they could benefit by having the option to start a little later. The key to making it work is communication, it’s people letting the rest of us know that they will be arriving later than the 6:00pm normal start time.

16th May 2017
16th May 2017
16th May 2017
16th May 2017

Games played of Tuesday included: Loco, World Monuments, Ticket To Ride, Circus Flohcati, Eclipse, Terra Mystica, Terraforming Mars, Archer Love Letter, Speicherstadt, Legendary Encounters (Alien) x2, Crimson Creek, Hawaii, Boss Monster, Steam, Castles of Burgundy, Clank!, and Battlestar Galactica x2.

The expected side effect of delaying our start of Battlestar Galactica was that we had a full quorum. We had an option to play 5 or 6 player. We went with the 5 experienced players.  BSG is a tough, and time consuming, game to teach. So we were happy to crack on, and simply start playing with the experienced players. BSG is one of the go-to games on a Tuesday night, a familiar friend that allows people to simply play the game without fuss, or delay.

Both myself and Dodgy John, were cylons in both games. We won both games too. In the first game it was obvious that Morale was the Resource to target. That allows you to focus on lowering that Resource. In the second game, however, there were multiple paths to victory. There were multiple Centurions on the boarding track, Galactica was suffering from damage, the Resources were getting hit, and there were plenty of cylon Raiders milling around Galactica itself. This is one of the reasons why BSG is such an engaging game. Whether you are a human, or a cylon, each player must decide what is the priority, both in the short term, and the log term. Ignore the wrong thing and it could be disaster for your side. Sometimes, discussing the threats, and openly co-operating is a good idea. In other times you do not want to reveal your options to the other side. This is especially so when you do not know the allegiance of the other players. Paranoia over who you can trust is a key part of the game.

With multiple threats to the humans, each of them had a possibility to bring victory to the cylons. What does a cylon do ? You have to weigh up the choices to see what strategy, or strategies, are most likely to work. This is where you have to use your experience of the game, coupled with the current game state, and analyze the characters around the table to make your choice. Then you do all you can to make it work for your side.

Five damaged location on Galactica
Five damaged locations on Galactica.

With lot’s of cylon Raiders around Galactica, 18 to be precise, we went for causing damage on Galactica: I rolled the d8 (the game uses only eight sided dice) the required 18 times. Each 8 rolled would cause Damage on Galactica. I rolled zero (0) 8’s on 18 dice. I laughed, the other players laughed. John, my fellow cylon, exclaimed about how useless I was. He then rolled the same number of dice, and got four 8’s. Human Mike, playing the Chief character negated two of the four 8’s by playing Calculations cards from his hand. Galactica was still alive, but only just.

The cylons still won the game, we advanced the Centurions and vented the atmosphere of Galactica. The humans needed air, they had none.

The cylons won!

Dice still hate me!

I am ok with that.

A new board game Meetup group has started in nearby Agoura Hills. It is called Conejo Valley Boardgames. They are meeting for the first time this coming Saturday at a cafe in Agoura Hills. The organizer, Patrick, has also signed up for next Tuesday night.