An afterthought about Boomer: I suppose you could, if you were a Cylon 'avoid' easy skill check with Recon, and no one would be the wiser. It's just a bit weak to peek at a Cylon attack card when the jump prep is at the start, and have to put it on the bottom, or be thrown in the brig when you reveal yourself.

The Prophetess without a doubt!!!

Mike said:

Last night, we were playing a 5 player and had two revealed Cylons sitting next to each other, each with a Super Crisis Card. One of them played his Super Crisis at a time when we were low on skill cards. It was that 24 difficulty one. Ouch.

So I told everyone to throw everything they had at it. We ended up passing by 3 or 4. I then took all 13 cards on the skill check into my (empty) hand, discarded 3, and we were all set for the next crisis.

If I hadn't, we would have been essentially at the mercy of the Cylons for whatever the next crisis was.

I find Tigh to be the least useful because all he does is make it easy to get into the brig, or change the president. Both Saul and William Adama seem to be better choices for games with more than three players.

I'm not sure who's best, but I will mention two things.

1) Laura Roslin is more powerful than people give her credit for. She chooses her crisis card. Awesome ability fo the humans, and interesting if she's a cylon. Better than Boomer's Recon, because no one else sees the "other" card, so you can make up anything. Sure, she discards to activate a location. Play her in larger player games, and have her camp out the President's Office like she's supposed to. once she has enough Executive orders and Quorum cards, forget about activating locations.

2) Lee "Apollo" Adama is the only character I know of who can combo himself. Not sure if this is 100% legal, but we play is as so. I activated his CAG once a game as his action, and launched 3 vipers (3 activates, 3 left). I had his jump on the third viper using his Alert ability. He then got one action, which I used to more. I then moved the remaining two vipers with him as wingmen (5 activates, 1 left). I used his last activate to launch another viper. If there'd been a cylon ship, I'd have used that last activate to fire one of the unmanned vipers. This combo allowed us to get three vipers (one piloted) behind galactica in one turn, and served as good protection for a group of civies.

Apollo's discard randomly was very bad when I got thrown in the brig. I was human, and I kept drawing cards, and having to discard down to 10 randomly. I had bad luck and always ended up scrapping the big numbers.

Jaegerpenguin said:

You're not using Lee in a legal way. Actions cannot substitute for moves (nothing in the rules says you can) and you don't get a free action when you use your Alert pilot ability, only when you use the Hangar do you get that free action.

So, in your case, you could have activated 6 unmanned vipers (be them launching, moving or firing on Cylons) and put yourself in one that launched (making it manned), and then gone the crisis step of your turn.

IIRC, Lee also gets a move action. So he could also move once before going to the Crisis step of his turn.

Sinis said:

Wrong, Jaegerpenguin is correct. Lee's alert viper pilot abillity says that he gets to take one action. When you pilot a viper one of your actions may be to activate that viper ( to move again or to attack) according to the rulebook (page 26).

So what Lee does is he uses his CAG abillity to lauch vipers, hops in one, immediately takes one action, and then finishes his CAG action.

F50 said:

Ooh, you're correct! I totally missed the "and take one action" on Lee's card, and I also missed the 'move again as an action' part on 26.

Sinis said:

Sinis , you are not only wrong, you are in fact wrong twice.

1. Lee's 'Alert Viper Pilot' ability says - "whenever a viper is placed in a space area from the reserves, you may crew that viper and take one action '.

2. Rulebook states (page 26, 'Moving and Actions when Piloting') - "In addition to the normal things that a player may do during his Action step (for example, play a Skill Card), he may also choose to activate his viper (to move again or attack).". So actions in a manned viper can substitute for movement.

Jaegerpenguin - you played this exactly right. The only thing I can say is that it seems a waste of Lee's ability, since there were no Cylon ships around - I like to hang on to it in case we're desperate.

Yup, I acknowledged that in the post above. F50 beat you to it by a day or two.

Roslin

Baltar

Helo

RE: Azuredarkness

I would have saved it, except that there were 6 cylon raiders on the next space over. I was anticipating drawing an activate raiders crisis card. Plus, at the same time I was trying to convince our admiral that I was not the cylon.

I've only played as Boomer, Roslyn, and Baltar, so I'll give my run-down on those three.

Boomer: I had the most fun playing as her, to be honest. I felt in control of the crisis cards, and could ultimately determine the outcome of the next crisis. I also thought it was nice to be able to pilot a viper when needed and help out (but essentially all pilots can do this!) We didn't get to the sleeper phase in this game, so I'm not sure how playing her as a cylon would take any affect (if I did indeed get dealt a You Are a Cylon card)...and being thrown into the brig automatically with the evident suspicion of her being a cylon, doesn't sound very fun either.

Roslyn: I was her the very first game I ever played, so it was one big learning experience! I thought it was fun to play as the President right off, and be in control of the Quarum cards (although I didn't find them extremely useful, I was still learning, so maybe I didn't use them correctly). I did find that her weakness, discard two cards to activate a location, hurt. I felt myself deprived of skill cards sometimes and, since I was a human, I couldn't help out during skill checks. But, keep in mind that it was my first time, so I basically had no clue what I was doing!

Baltar: Tonight was the first game that we officially finished! I liked Baltar's ability to draw an extra skill card after he drew a crisis card. His weakness, technically, could be both a boon and a curse. Obviously, the first thought comes to mind that since he gets dealt two loyalty cards, he has a greater chance of being a cylon. I was a part of a three player game, and I got dealt two You Are Not a Cylon cards at the beginning, which surprised me and only heightened my suspicions for the other two players. Ultimately, if you can get the blame off of you and onto another player that you think is a cylon, the weakness doesn't hurt as much (or at all!). I used his action ability to look at the suspected cylon's loyalty cards (after the Sleeper Phase), then blatantly accused him of being a cylon (which he was). Sadly, the other player had thrown me into the bring because she thought I was a cylon!

Anyways, it all comes down to the mix of characters in a game, and how you mingle their skills together to effectively save (or destroy) the human race. Any combination of any number of characters can be good or bad...moreso bad if your two "dream team" characters turn out to be cylons!

Bohemond said:

Hehe. I love Saul Tigh with a Starbuck in the game.

Magique said:

I've found Baltar's ability to be a bit weird. Generally speaking, it's difficult to look at a person's loyalty card and then say exactly what it is without arousing some sort of suspicion. If you say a suspect is not a Cylon, you might be suspected of being a Cylon yourself. It very much throws your lot in with theirs, if you 'confirm' them to be innocent. If you accuse them of being a Cylon, you run the risk of exonerating an actual Cylon while making yourself suspicious.

I find the ability to be more useful when Baltar is a Cylon, because the confusion it causes is more valuable than any informational benefit there is.

Boomer is the best in my book.

Easy . .hands down.

Best Pilot - Boomer

Boomer has an ability to look at that top crisis card. KEY if you are human or cylon. The game is ALL about the crisis deck. If you're human and you can ditch a cylon attack card to the bottom .. that is major plus for the humans (since there are only 10 cards in the deck). If you're a cylon and you can ditch the "mediocre" crisis cards (ones where the humans probably won't care if it fails. ... (people just get thrown in brig ..or losing a resource that is high). She can make a crisis check pass or fail once per game .. awesome. She gets thrown in the brig during sleeper agent? Rough . yes . .but postiives far outweigh that.

Best Poltiical Leader - Roslin

Same as boomer .. but better. Get to choose the best of two crisis cards? Awesome. Who cares if she has to discard two cards to activate a location . her ability to control the crisis deck far outweighs that .. usually she'll be getting quorum cards anyway and she doesn't have to use the one on Colonial one.

Best Military Leader - Adama (though Helo's reroll ability is nice).

Better as a human (obviously) making 1's count positive on his crisis .. and his OPG (once per game) to draw all cards into his hand? Awesome. Ditch everything to make a check pass (or fail) and have a full hand to be ready for next few crisises.

And he can't throw people in the brig? Not really that big of a negative .. just executive order someone else to do it.

Whoever says Lee is one of the top? Disagree. Apollo is ONLY good IF there are raiders on the board .. and even then .. you don't "need" him to deal with them He goes out there . maybe kills a few, but then is vulnerable to getting put in the sickbay. If you need to deal with cylon ships .. just activate vipers from the inside or move the colonial ships .. or just FTL to clear the board. His OPG to activate 6 vipers . . again .. only if raiders are on the board .. and even then isn't really game changing like other OPG's are. Every time I've seen Apollo played .. we've had opportunities to use that ability, but no one has ever taken it ..

I'd rather have Starbuck or Boomer as a Pilot .. hands down.

One of the best things about Lee is his anytime a viper is moved from reserves ability.

We have used this to great effect even when Attack cards come up.

He gets an immediate action.

In one scenerio We had a Cylon Attack card put 2 vipers on the board.

I put Lee into one and immediately used it to Maximum firepower the new Raiders. The attack card had those raiders which I killed off activate.

Ive also used Lee's action to EO the character in the control room who launches vipers I get to pilot 1 then max fire power.

Lee can be a very effective pilot.

Even using his once per game ability to lauch an unmanned vipers one of which he can then pilot and use it.

The best character also depends on the number of players. Lee is amazing in a 6 player game. For simplicity, if you assume 1 cylon attack card and 1 jump every 6 turns, then in a 6 player game Lee gets 100% more actions every round. He'd only get 50% more in a 3 player game.

He gets better though. He gets one action when he placed in space- this could be to play a consolidate power or executive order card (both of which he can draw on his turn). So if he executive orders and the person after him does also, thats 4 actions to deal with the cylons before their fleet even has a chance to activate.

If that wasn't enough, Lee never needs to use the hanger space. If he somehow finds himself on Galactica when he wants to be in space, he can use the command space to launch/ move/ attack 1 unmanned viper and then launch a viper that he will pilot, giving himself an immediate second action. He can get into space even with a damaged hanger, a large advantage over the other pilots. In fact, anyone can launch him using the command space. So if he gets in sickbay, any other character can get him out, get him into space, and give him an action, the exact same abilities that would normally require an executive order.

His ultimate power is not top tier, but it by no means weak. He can use his bonus launch action to use CAG. So he can counter the cylon fleet megacrisis (or any cylon fleet) by launching / moving 6 vipers the turn the fleet comes out.

His cylon potential is strong as well. Any time a viper is launched(such as a cylon fleet card), he can launch and then use his action to reveal himself. Or he can use his action to CAG and move the starting vipers far away from the colony ships. Both those options could be devastating, depending on the turn order.

That's my reasoning behind Lee as the best of the pilots, at least in larger games.

I also have another minor advantage of Roslin. She may have to discard 2 cards to use an action space, but she can always get rid of 1's. Losing two 1 cards is not that bad. If she doens't have them, she should have an executive order to play. Those things are always good.