I've heard people call him useless a few times through here, and I was just curious as to why. I have a friend who plays as him and I never see anything wrong with him.

Although it could be that we not as hardcore about it as some of the people here.

He's only useless if your group avoids brigging suspected but unconfirmed cylons or if the player (as a cylon) is not good at "rooting out the real cylon" and accusing them. He's among my least favorite characters, but he's definitely not useless.

RWakefield said:

He's not useless, but his powers are both very situational, especially if your playgroup's Cylons are good at hiding. And his disadvantage is rough compared to, say, Admiral Adama's.

James McMurray wrote: "He's only useless if your group avoids brigging suspected but unconfirmed cylons or if the player (as a cylon) is not good at "rooting out the real cylon" and accusing them."

Human Tigh: Even if your group has a 100% success rate when determining who is and isn't a cylon, Tigh will only get a chance to his his regular ability once or twice per game. If he uses his regular ability more than twice per game, it actually hurts the human team, because now you've got a human in the brig that you have to spend an action and skill cards getting back out. Compared to characters who have abilities that can be leveraged every turn, like Helo or Starbuck, or those which activate automatcially, like Boomer or Roslin, that's pretty weak.

Cylon Tigh: If you use his regular ability more than twice in a game, the other players should be suspecting that you're a cylon. If you use it even more than that, they should know that you're a cylon. It may still be worthwhile to do so, but again, that's much weaker than most of the other characters' abilities, many of whom can use their abilities every turn without coming under suspicion.

EDIT: Wow, the quote capability on these forums is tough to work.

pretty weak != useless

James McMurray said:

Sure. None of the characters are technically useless. I assumed that the OP was using a bit of the ol' hyperbole there, as in, "Tigh is a useless choice when there are better characters to choose from (which there are)."

I agree completely, and have never chosen him (nor do I expect to).

In our group. Were all consistantly the same characters, and the guy who plays as Tigh has the most unbelievable odds ever for never being a cylon. He's been a Cylon ONCE in the 50+ games we've played. And while I agree there are better characters out there I've never considered him to be particularly weak, but I guess i'm missing that aspect or something.

RWakefield said:

How often have you seen him using his special abilities? How often have you seen him get hit by his disability? If the answers to those questions are "a lot" and "not much," respectively, then I can see why you don't think he's weak. In my experience, it's just the opposite - he doesn't get much chance to use his specials, and his disadvantage comes into play quite frequently.

Briging of Cylons may no come into play much but when he uses it its usually a life saver, though admitingly he never declares martial law because its viewed among us as a mistake to have the admiral be the president too.

and his negative barely comes into play at all because he either makes sure he has two skill cards or gets rid of them all in a skill check.

I don't mind Tigh, when I've picked him over Adama it was because I wanted to be Admiral and I wanted 3 tactics cards instead of 3 leadership. That said, I prefer Helo to both of them, and with Admiral Cain, I see little reason to pick Tigh at all.

My friend always uses Tigh. He wants to be Admiral, he doesn't want Adama since he can't brig people, he doesn't want Helo because he's stranded. So Tigh is the only option for him, and works really good if Baltar detects Starbuck is a cylon (1 difficulty, anyone?).

I haven't played Tigh all that much, but I do like him quite a bit. I play with just the base game, atm, and 3 tac/ 2 leadership is actually a very nice skill set. Since Cain isn't available, Tigh has the most tactics draws out of anyone in the fleet. Unfortunately, that lead to me losing all 4 of our raptors in 5 scout attempts. I wasn't a Cylon (at the time), I just can't roll dice. Or maybe my raging alcoholism was frakking up my planning or something.

So the rest of that game went something like this. Helo revealed as a Cylon as soon as he could (2 attack crises in the first 2 draws and only 1 jump prep by Helo's turn, we were frakked up pretty good at that point). Lots of fighting until the sleeper phase. Centurions board Galactica and with some Cylon help and some more of my raging alcoholism frakking up the dice rolls (even with strategic plannings I was spamming out) they manage to become quite a threat. Helo gets dealt the Cylon card and passes it to me with the Res ship. Since I was to Helo's left, I went next and promptly brigged starbuck. Next player was Tom Zarek, who couldn't brig me since I was sitting on the Admiral's quarters. Starbuck was already in the brig, so it was up to Gauis Baltar to choose whether to try to brig me or attempt to get rid of the final centurion on that track that was getting desperately close to the mark with the Cylon turn coming up. He fought the centurion and killed it.

So I had another turn of freedom. So I accused Baltar of being a Frakking toaster. If the humans lost this check it was pretty much all over for them, with Zarek being unable to brig me, I would eventually send him to the slammer too and have free reign of Galactica. They gave it everything them had, including taking it to Committee so they could see Destiny. They dumped over 20 into the check, which wasted a whole bunch of cards, though I was ultimately unable to suceed in the accusation. If they had spent 3-4 points less, I would have been able to brig him anyway (incidentally, all of Tigh's draws count positive for sending someone to the brig, a trait shared only by Adama w/o the expansion, and Adama can't activate the Admiral's quarters).

Turned out my attempt didn't make much difference, the humans soon ran out of food and lost the game before they had a chance to get revenge on me. Point is, sure, I only used Tigh's ability twice during the game, but it was pretty effective when I did. It's an ability that you use less than most, it's true, but it's probably better than most abilities when you *do* use it.

Disadvantage wise, it came up once, I was Admiral and when I was holding on to 3 cards we drew a crisis that made the Admiral discard 2, but it wasn't too big of a deal.

Overall I think he's a solid character, his card draws alone make him pretty good, and he has very little in the way of drawbacks.

I love the character in the show. I think this is part of the draw of the character.

Here is what I saw as advantageous for Tigh after playing him last night:

1. He's second in command.

2. 3 tactics cards means he can scout relatively well as he'll be getting Recon and the Strategic Planning +2 to die roll cards; purple seems to be the most common in skill checks and is useful for brigging (and unbrigging mistakes)!

3. 2 leadership cards means there is a good chance he'll have an XO card so if there is nothing useful for him to do that round he can make someone else useful.

4. 2 leadership cards means that if he doesn't have an XO he'll have a Declare Emergency and thus can still contribute to non leadership/tactic skill checks as a final backup

5. If he is Admiral, he's one Action away from being President as well.

I ended up only losing my last card once (a crisis called for me to discard 2 of my hand of 3), so careful play can keep that last precious card for you.

Here is how I used him last night (as final player in a 5 player game):

1. There was no W Adama so I was Admiral. I think I made some poor choices for jumps as a human Admiral. I picked Tylium Planet and Ice Moon early in order to boost supplies, but they are both 1's. The two 3's that showed up for me were Barren Planet (loose 3 fuel) and Asteroid Field. These were midway through the game and I had unsuccessfully located more fuel, so we were a bit down. Second was a remote planet (2 spaces) and we lost our first Raptor (we ended up losing all 4 by the 5th space to Kobol) so my drunken @$$ was less than optimal at the fleet jumping. In a more experienced game I would have been called on as being a cylon (even though at the time I was human, just a disfunctional chooser)

2. Started in Command and stayed there for a little bit, XO'ing someone my first round, do some scouting second round. Was able to be XO'd in command to take out a Heavy Raider with one of the unmanned vipers already in space. This works well for Tigh because he will hopefully have a Strategic Planning card in his hand to help with the roll (I didn't but rolled an 8 on my second attack)

3. As I said, I parked myself in Command for the first few rounds, and used an XO on someone who would be more useful than taking an action myself. I think XO'ing early in the game is pretty important, as cylons are less likely to abuse it, so position yourself well (ie: get in a place where taking a double action would be much more useful than someone taking a single action) and XO someone else and hopefully be XO'd yourself later if necessary. At one point we had a HUGE cylon fleet (2 basestars, 3 heavy raiders, 9 raiders) outside, full population, and the jump track was at the -3 spot. I used a Strategic Planning card and the FTL to jump out of the crisis early without loss of population.

4. I didn't actually have to use a Declare Emergency card the whole game (someone else did on a "get out of the brig check"), but I did have one in my initial hand and was ready to use it to pass one of the early skill checks if it were close.

5. After being given a third loyalty card (we were 2 steps away from Kobol) by our beloved cylon and finding out she had both, my first action as a Cyclon was going to be taking the presidency with Martial Law. Oddly, the Martial Law crisis card showed up on Baltar's turn (he was the player directly to my right) so I didn't even have to use the action. I scooped the presidency up and on my turn jumped over to my new luxury quarters and threw him in the brig with the Quarom card.

At this point I now had the Admiralcy, Presidency, two humans in the brig (Tyrol and Baltar), FTL damaged, one revealed cylon (who was directly to my left) and Helo hiding in the small arms locker. It wasn't long before Moral ended up plummeting (thanks to a few good "President" and "Admiral" Chooses crisis cards )and my last action was to jump the fleet into deep space, completely destroying moral and having the humans tear themselves apart.

Tigh is a very situational character. His two actions may not seem as readily relevant as many of the other characters, but applied correctly they can save or destroy the fleet. As the human character I was confident we were going to win. Fuel was becoming an issue, but we had LOTS of population and food was the only other item in the high reds, we would have hopefully hit Kobol next jump (which was imminent) so I was confident we could slide by there. I knew I could brig anyone suspicious and that I could take the presidency from Baltar if he got wonky (even though he played two cards which attempted to protect his presidency through normal electoral methods), or that I could brig someone who got extra wonky. As Saul I spent the majority of the game in the front half of Galactica, which is where I think Saul belongs.

You guys are forgetting the greatest benefit of all about being Tigh! You get to talk in a stern, gruff voice the entire game! And you can even don an eye patch once you reach New Caprica and get sent to the Detention!

Seriously though, Tigh is a badass on the show, and has his uses in the game.

Tigh may not be as flashy as some of the other characters, but when your Preisdent is acting very cylon-ish, his ability to take the PResident title (And more often than not give it to himself) can be a life saver! If you pick him and draw a Cylon card, his daily is very useful. Cain's skill set has supplanted Tigh's, but he is not as useless as some people believe. I rarely use him, but there was one game where I was playing Cain and had to use her ability on my second turn to jump the fleet, as we had all the cylon ships on the board and only one jump track space. My crisis for that turn was A Verdict of Guilty the Admiral could execute the current player (me). I seriously though about doing it, and switching to Tigh, as we had strong suspicions of our cylon players, but I didn't for the loss of Morale. In retrospect, had I done it the game would have gone the way of the human players, as we missed every Brig check by the 3 point margin.

James McMurray said:

And that's what kills the game :/ - "technical" play.

Try to forget about the technical issues - act/play and have fun - don't cut the game into pieces!

Well said! The game is a light RPG. Play your character, not the game!

YoshiPL said:

I agree that it's bad to be too technical, but "a light RPG?"

Heavy RPG then?

It's not an RPG at all. It's a board game. You can roleplay if you want, but that doesn't make it an RPG any more than making "vroom" sounds as you round free parking makes Monopoly one.

YoshiPL said:

Do we have to do this again?

Some people have fun roleplaying. Others have fun finding the most optimal way to play. Neither is right nor wrong.

James McMurray said:

HAHA!!! Well said. VROOM!!!

Mattr0polis said:

Thank you for making my night. Haha

I think Tigh is more powerful in smaller games. With two or three players, Tigh's abilities can swing the game one way or the other. I agree that his disadvantage is always a relevant factor, much more than it is for other characters. I often choose Tigh over Adama in smaller games because Adama can't Brig people unless he's President as well. If I'm Human (or Cylon) and I know it for sure, Tigh is great for being the Admiral-esident. Cain is more versatile in her card draws and her once per game ability is very useful, but Tigh is still a good character. All play groups are different. In mine, people shun Helo and Boomer and Tyrol and Dee and Ellen Tigh.