Alright, we have one scumflip, and scum have taken no more than two heads. I think that our smartest play at this point is to treat Alex, Bardiche, and Ciato as loose ends that ought to be cleaned up. Our best way of doing that is probably to have Alex and Ciato fight each other, have Bardiche kill the winner, and then probably have someone else kill Bardiche. The following is a rundown of how the power balance would look afterwards. For conciseness, I'll assume that Alex kills Ciato, though I'm going to do a reread before I decide where I'd put my vote. Switching Alex and Ciato's town/scum alignment and which of them kills the other will lead to an equivalent case:
1. Bardiche, Alex, and Ciato all scum: Four scumflips, two heads claimed by scum.
2. Bardiche, Alex scum, Ciato town: Three scumflips, three heads claimed by scum.
3. Bardiche, Ciato scum, Alex town: Three scumflips, three heads claimed by scum.
4. Bardiche scum, Alex and Ciato town: Two scumflips, two heads claimed by scum.
5. Bardiche town, Alex and Ciato scum: Three scumflips, one (two if Bardiche killed by scum) heads claimed by scum.
6. Bardiche town, Alex scum, Ciato town: Two scumflips, two (three if Bardiche killed by scum) heads claimed by scum.
7. Bardiche town, Alex town, Ciato scum: Two scumflips, one (two if Bardiche killed by scum) heads claimed by scum.
8. Bardiche, Alex, and Ciato all town: One scumflip, zero (one if Bardiche killed by scum) heads claimed by scum.
Case 3 makes me think that if the loser of Alex versus Ciato flips scum, then perhaps the winner should be the one to kill Bardiche before being killed, as it's unlikely that Tom would've picked two scumbuddies to go up against him, but that's up for discussion.
:words:, I know, but this chart shows that only in one of those cases can town possibly end up any worse off than it is now, and only then if we pick wrong both on Alex versus Ciato and on who should kill Bardiche. The chart doesn't take into account scum versus town voting strength, but even in a worst-case scenario where ABC are all town and scum were given five players to start, scum will need either to get Bardiche killed by one of them, or else to get another kill without losing anymore of their number in the two kills between then and having eight players left, or else they'll run out of heads to claim and lose by default.
FakeVote: Alex versus Ciato