I don't understand Ellen Tigh

By MrBody, in Battlestar Galactica

How is she supposed to be played? She seems built from the ground up to only benefit the Cylons. She gets treachery cards which is going to cast suspicion on her the entire time. She only gets 4 beneficial cards a turn as opposed to the standard 5. Getting a treachery card per turn is worse than if she just got 4 cards.

Her strengths to balance this out? Can give someone a card and draw 2 cards in return...which gives her a net gain of one card, which anyone could do just do on their turn by visiting the science lab, or the players as a whole could get the same net gain by just visiting the president's office. Yeah she can choose any color, but is that really balancing out her huge drawback?

Then there's taking the admiralty or presidency for one of her turns. What exactly are you supposed to do with this? The only beneficial situation I can see is if she's a cylon and snatches the admiralty at New Caprica for a premature jump. We have no clue how this action is supposed to benefit the humans. The remote chance you have to play a time sensitive quorum card before the president's next turn? Gambling your once a game ability on the next crises card bumping you to autojump and snatching the destination cards from a suspected cylon admiral?

So you have a once a game that's only beneficial to humans in extremely situational instances, an ability that anyone can do at the president's office, and treachery cards piling up.

I just don't see how she's anything but a magnet for someone hoping to be a cylon. Unlike Boomer and Balter, who are double edged swords who can majorly help or hurt the humans, I don't see any way for Ellen to go but cylon.

Side rule dispute: What happens if Ellen takes a title but during her turn something happens that causes the title to switch hands (crises, Saul's once a game)? Does Ellen lose it? Does the new owner get to keep or do they have to return it to the original owner at the end of Ellen's turn?

I can't tell you much about Ellen since in our games, we often avoid her (we hate her) (I do) (my woman too) (I make my friends avoid her too ! ahah)

Anyway, but what I can tell you, is that I'm sure you've seen the series ? If you haven't yet, well, you know what's left for you. But I'm sure you've seen it, so I'll just say that :

** SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER *

Remember her whole role in the series. Remember what Saul has to do with her. Remember everything, even with the stalker against Saul and her. She definitely IS what is written on her sheet : nothing but trouble ! And humans HAVE to be bothered with such a character, in order to balance with Boomer. That's the equivalent of "natural sympathiser" ahah. That's my opinion anyway :) Kill the queen ! Kill Ellen ! Every woman like that, like Bill's wife or Kara's mother are pure evil ! Booooh ! :D

** END OF SPOILER **

And for your rule question, it is precisely explained in the Faqs or in the rules, man. Something like "what happens if [your question]" and a big answer : if the president or admiral dies, the card she had "stolen" goes to the next one in the list, which could be even her. That's in the Faqs, now I think I do recall.

Ellen is my favorite character form the expansion (as a note I've never seen the show). I'll admit most of your points are correct, and in my first game most of the players did not like my choice to play her, but I have my reasons.

Her normal special ability actually allows you to have a six card hand WITHOUT using an action. Although "Research Lab," "Consolidate Power," and "Press Room," all give you cards, they take an action. So as long as you go to locations with others you are the only character who draws six cards a turn before your action.

Second, the giving part of her special ability is as important as the receiving. In my first game (same as the one previously mentioned), Kat and I made a Cavil-neutering duo as I kept handing her every high value card for her own "Hotshot" ability to abuse the new Pegasus locations. Also if she draws "Major Victory," she can give it to someone who can use it well. If that new "self XO" card is in Politics or Leadership, she can give that to people too.

This all being said, I am not into the whole ultimate human dream team selecting strategy so I like her for the same reason I like Tom Zarek: their special abilities are fun. We know Saul, Zarek, and Cain are not optimal, but their abilities define them much better than "you can have President Starbuck use 'Prez Office' twice with her ability." I'm still waiting for a game where Saul jails someone, but Zarek doesn't agree and helps free them.

Just my two cents.

Ellen can be a very powerful character, for either side. When she is human, she can help tremendously. She is able to give cards to other players that are outside their skill set. And she can do the same for herself. Then she can play Consolidate Power and draw an additional 2 cards. The treachery card she draws can make her suspicious, but I'm still generally more worried about Baltar or Boomer.

Edit: no idea why the formatting went funky. I cleaned it up as best as possible.

I'll probably repeat some of what Tepes said, but figured it'd best to be thorough than miss something on accident.

How is she supposed to be played? She seems built from the ground up to only benefit the Cylons. She gets treachery cards which is going to cast suspicion on her the entire time. She only gets 4 beneficial cards a turn as opposed to the standard 5. Getting a treachery card per turn is worse than if she just got 4 cards.

Treachery can also be useful to the humans.

  • "At All Costs," a green card so Ellen has access to it, will make treachery positive for a single skill check. This is great for letting her dump her treachery and still pass a critical check. It's especially good on New Caprica, where two of the reckless cards are not as devestating as they are in space (Broadcast Location and the one that activates everything).
  • Treachery + her ability is a good way to test loyalty. If you give treachery to someone and it shows up in a skill check, they're more likely to be a cylon (assuming of course there are no revealed cylons).
  • If you suspect someone is a cylon, treachery always counts positive for executing them.
Her strengths to balance this out? Can give someone a card and draw 2 cards in return...which gives her a net gain of one card, which anyone could do just do on their turn by visiting the science lab, or the players as a whole could get the same net gain by just visiting the president's office. Yeah she can choose any color, but is that really balancing out her huge drawback?

First, Eleen can't choose any color, only yellow, green, or brown. Her ability does not state that it can come from any skill set, so it must come from what's aviliable to her.

Second, it doesn't take her an action to do, meaning she can then consolidate power for more cards, activate the shared location, or executive order someone. If you Consolidate Power for purple, there are almost no skill checks you will be able to help or hinder.

Third, you can give someone a card they really need. Later on, when everyone knows who the humans are, it's easier to get a scary Executive Order cycle going when Ellen is giving spare XO's to people that don't draw green or don't draw a lot of it. Giving Kat a 5 lets her stomp the crap out of a basestar on Pegasus. Even just giving her a 2 will ensure she never hits a friendly.

Fourth, her drawback, combined with her ability, is far from "huge." Most turns she plays like a character with 5 cards chosen from yellow and green. Some turns she completely crushes a skill check made reckless or to execute someone. she's still getting 5 cards like everyone else, she just has to jump through a small hoop for one of them. On top of that she has to deal with a little suspicion in exchange for getting a rarely used but highly effective when needed skill type.

Then there's taking the admiralty or presidency for one of her turns. What exactly are you supposed to do with this? The only beneficial situation I can see is if she's a cylon and snatches the admiralty at New Caprica for a premature jump. We have no clue how this action is supposed to benefit the humans. The remote chance you have to play a time sensitive quorum card before the president's next turn? Gambling your once a game ability on the next crises card bumping you to autojump and snatching the destination cards from a suspected cylon admiral?

Taking the admirality lets you nuke a base star that appeared just after a jump, ensuring that it doesn't launch raiders or attack galactica. It also has a decent chance of giving you the choice on your crisis card. You can also use it just before jumping (possibly via FTL) to make sure you get the destination you want, not the one they want. That said, it's not that big of a deal to me. The real power comes from taking the presidency (assuming she didn't start as president).

In our games the president tends to sit on Colonial One filling their hand with quorum cards to use when emergencies pop up, or bumping random resources as a preemptive measure. The meatier cards like blowing up cylons, looking at loyalty cards, or tossing people in the brig, don't tend to get used right away. Ellen can take one that looks at loyalty and confirm or deny her suspicions. She can take one that tosses people in the brig if she's sure she knows what's up. If she's been consolidating power for purple she can play the "Movement: take an action" card to do both. Even if everyone is in love with each other and nobody distrusts anyone else, one more turn of killing raiders, adding resources, or drawing quorum cards can be incredibly helpful.

Side rule dispute: What happens if Ellen takes a title but during her turn something happens that causes the title to switch hands (crises, Saul's once a game)? Does Ellen lose it? Does the new owner get to keep or do they have to return it to the original owner at the end of Ellen's turn?

Per the FAQ, if she loses the title, she can't give it back at the end of the turn, and it stays with the new owner.

One benefit I left off for Ellen taking the admiralcy: it's about the only way she's going to reliably gain any morale from the leadership card that you play after you kill a basestar. It won't come up often, but when it does, it could be the difference between the humans winning and losing.

James McMurray said:

One benefit I left off for Ellen taking the admiralcy: it's about the only way she's going to reliably gain any morale from the leadership card that you play after you kill a basestar. It won't come up often, but when it does, it could be the difference between the humans winning and losing.

The odds of killing a basetar with a nuke AND rolling a high enough number to gain that +1 morale is about 28%. A 28% chance to benefit the humans with +1 morale once a game vs. the instant loss she can inflict at new caprica if she's a cylon? It's not even close.

Ellen is not the only character that can draw 6 cards before her action. She only gets 4 beneficial cards, has to give up one, then draws two, for a total of 5 beneficial cards plus one treachery card, which is worse than just the 5 beneficial cards everyone else gets.

As far as drawing cards outside her skillset, every other character is able to do that. Any marginal benefit of handing over a non-skillset color to another player is dwarfed by the detriment of the extra confusion and chaos that springs up when an obvious sabotage card comes up in a skill check since you can no longer immediately draw up a list of suspects: it could be anyone with those colors in their skillset OR anyone Ellen has ever given a card to.

These major deteriments to the humans wouldn't be so bad (heck it'd even be fun) if she had some major benefit to the humans to balance it out. Pretty much every other character is able to use their abilities to help or sabotage the humans an equal amount. Ellen gives questionably marginal benefits to the humans while her cylon saboteur potential is massive, potentially an instant game over.

You're right about her being nothing but trouble though. Hated her in the show (she turned it into a cheap soap opera), hate her in the game.

There is one unintentionally good thing about Ellen Tigh though. Thanks to her, we think we've finally solved our problem of even numbered player games. Sympathizers are boring and sympathetic cylon leaders really aren't playing the same game. Since Ellen is massively capable of helping the cylons a lot more than the humans, in addition to the confusion her card giving sows, we're seriously considering using her as a substitute for sympathizer/sympathetic leader in even player games.

Concerning the "Major Victory," I'm not saying she should take the title to use it, but that she should hand it off to either Kat, Helo, the admiral, or a president ready to use "Authorization of Brutal Force."

I am probably going to get a fierce rebuttal for this but I think this whole fear of Treachery cards is HIGHLY overrated. Maybe it's my group, but as Ellen I usually discard my Treachery to "Engine Room," crises that ask for discarding, etc. In my group, humans never lose to Galactica damage so "Sabotage" is a pretty pointless card especially with Pegasus now. If it didn't happen during a cylon turn we just choose the ship with less people aboard and repair it later (if we care enough). How I play, yes, Ellen draws six useful cards if she follows someone.

Handing 5-value cards to Kat is hardly marginal. Same with handing "Executive Orders" to others and drawing two Leadership to start human XO chains.

Finally at the risk of going off topic, I do agree she is a better cylon than human but she is not the only one who suffers from this. Her husband Saul, for example is a terrible human in the expansion. In our group we tend to brig through quorum cards, or execute so he never gets to use his regular ability. Since he is now third in line to be admiral, his OPG rarely makes him president meaning as a human he usually cannot guarantee a human president. However many players play as him because supposedly he's a badass in the show or something like that. Most of these comments can also be said for Tom Zarek, my favorite character.

Automatically stripping the president of their title can be much more beneficial to the humans than Ellen's once per game can ever hope to be.

GrooveChamp said:

Automatically stripping the president of their title can be much more beneficial to the humans than Ellen's once per game can ever hope to be.

For how long? Ellen's turn? It's not really 'stripping the president of their title', when it's for the shortest duration ever. I'll agree that looking through the Quorum hand for that Arrest Order is pretty good stuff.

Anyway, Ellen's uses are pretty good. Being able to feed Consolidate power or Executive order to players (read: Pilots) ordinarily incapable of drawing them (without effort) is a great way to use her ability. Just ignore the treachery part, and discard them for moving between ships, Food Shortage, or whatever. It only becomes an issue when there is a revealed cylon to take advantage with Sabotage.

GrooveChamp said:

Ellen is not the only character that can draw 6 cards before her action. She only gets 4 beneficial cards, has to give up one, then draws two, for a total of 5 beneficial cards plus one treachery card, which is worse than just the 5 beneficial cards everyone else gets.

How is it worse? Treachery is a positive card sometimes, a negative card others. Yes, it means people are going to be looking her way. But people should be looking all ways, or they're not playing well. you never have to use treachery. Saying it's a bad thing for her to draw is completely misleading,as it assumes that 1) she is forced to play it or 2) the other humans will be so blinded by her skill set that they forget to think when lookng for the cylon(s).

I guess it must be a playstyle thing. What you see as "major detriments" and "marginal benefits" I see as incredibly useful. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Sinis said:

GrooveChamp said:

Automatically stripping the president of their title can be much more beneficial to the humans than Ellen's once per game can ever hope to be.

For how long? Ellen's turn? It's not really 'stripping the president of their title', when it's for the shortest duration ever. I'll agree that looking through the Quorum hand for that Arrest Order is pretty good stuff.

Anyway, Ellen's uses are pretty good. Being able to feed Consolidate power or Executive order to players (read: Pilots) ordinarily incapable of drawing them (without effort) is a great way to use her ability. Just ignore the treachery part, and discard them for moving between ships, Food Shortage, or whatever. It only becomes an issue when there is a revealed cylon to take advantage with Sabotage.

He's talking about Saul's ability, not Ellen's.

Though really, we've only seen anyone use Saul's ability once (mostly because people avoid him for the lure of Starbuck, Adama, and the other sexy beasts). If you need the presidency to go to someone else, it's only a difficulty 5 skill check, and usually it's the pres and the caller voting, because nobody else wants to lose cards if they're unsure.

James McMurray wrote: He's talking about Saul Tigh's ability.

I write: Man, I hate it when these boards do that. Also, Saul Tigh's ability is pretty obviously useful ;) It comes up fairly frequently when he gets picked, but our players tend to like Helo for a military leader, and sometimes Cain. Saul Tigh is formerly a favourite; Bill Adama is something of a pariah in our group, people see his drawback as crippling without a seriously powerful OPG (though his "1s count" ability is underrated among those I play with, IMO). That leaves Saul Tigh and Cain, and neither have the popularity Helo has (in our group).

Some players have a hard time getting the out of color cards they need. Starbuck gets two actions in space, it would be sure nice to be able to consolidate power as one of those actions each turn. Ellen can give Starbuck a consolidate power card so Starbuck doesn't have to waste time in the press room. Boomer is going to be spending some time in the brig, Ellen can give her an Executive Order card so her time in the brig will potentially be more useful to the humans.

Gaius Frakkin Baltar said:

Some players have a hard time getting the out of color cards they need. Starbuck gets two actions in space, it would be sure nice to be able to consolidate power as one of those actions each turn. Ellen can give Starbuck a consolidate power card so Starbuck doesn't have to waste time in the press room. Boomer is going to be spending some time in the brig, Ellen can give her an Executive Order card so her time in the brig will potentially be more useful to the humans.

Ellen can give cards to players in the same location. If Ellen is sharing a cell with Boomer, it's all good. Unless you handed the Executive Orders before the sleeper phase.

Since you know Boomer is headed to the brig, and you know when the sleeper phase will occur, that's probably a good idea (depending of course on who's a known cylon already).

Sinis said:

Ellen can give cards to players in the same location. If Ellen is sharing a cell with Boomer, it's all good. Unless you handed the Executive Orders before the sleeper phase.

Yes, of course. It's not like you don't know that Boomer is going to end up in the Brig at some point. As Ellen, you should be finding opporutunities to give Boomer an Executive Order before the sleeper phase. It's unlikely that Boomer will be able to use that card against the humans.

It's harder to give Starbuck a Consolidate Power before she gets into space, but it's still doable.