I was just looking over what I believe to be the most recent FAQ (8-20-09). On page 3 ("Pegasus Errata and FAQ"), I saw this odd phrase in red (emphasis mine):

Q: Can Helena Cain use her “Blind Jump” once-per-game ability on New Caprica?
A: No. “Blind Jump” is no longer useable once Galactica has traveled 6 or more distance . Players who have selected Helena Cain are well advised to use her “Blind Jump” ability earlier in the game, rather than later.

Is this an official errata on Helena Cain, or is the FAQ worded incorrectly? Helena Cain can use "Blind Jump" at distance of 6, right?

I'd send this to FFG for an official answer. I've never noticed it before now, and it's not how we have been playing it.

It says no longer usable at 6 or greater distance. Meaning you can only use it if you have traveled 0 to 5 distance.

The issue here is not what the FAQ says, but whether it is correct. Cain's sheet reads "6 or less distance," and the Q/A says, essentially, 5 or less, but does not actually provide an errata for Cain. So the question is whether Cain's card is the misprint, of the FAQ has an error. Personally, after having played the game with the 6 or less rule, I think it should be 5 or less, and our group is starting to try it out at this change. But it would be nice to know for sure.

Good to hear everyone's feedback on this. I did forward the question to FFG, and I'll be sure and post to this thread when I hear back.

My thoughts: I consider Helena Cain's "Blind Jump" to be the most errata-worthy card or game component. It seems to me to be too reliable of an escape valve against the one greatest method of applying pressure that the cylons can produce. If reducing its distance from 6 to 5 is the errata I've been waiting for, well, I'm glad something's been done (although the wording of the FAQ obviously needs to be cleaned up to clarify this). Then again, I'm kind of hoping that's not the fix, because to me it's deserving of a stronger errata, and I doubt it'd be errata'd twice.

Anyway, I'm sure some groups have no problem with "Blind Jump" and maybe it's just me. I just know that in my home games, if she stays human and there were 1 or 0 cylons at Loyalty, the fleet stands an excellent chance of winning.

Holy Outlaw said:

It's not just you. I've yet to play in a group that didn't want to depower that ability somehow, and fixes to it are one of the more common variants suggested at the BGG boards.

Blind Jump is without a doubt the most powerful human once-per-game. I don't know how many games we've played where the humans were at 5 or 6 distance and used Cain to move it up to 8 (often combined with Critical Situation and Launch Scout). Sure, this can still happen with the rare 5 distance and draw a 3 distance pull, but when at 6 distance there is a huge chance chance than Cain moves the fleet to "one mor jump to win" territory. Great for humans, terrible for cylons.

Her ability is incredibly useful to escape from overwhelming cylon forces in the early game (like when there are 5 fleet attacks drawn and the fleet still hasn't hit the blue early jump). And I'm all for keeping the ability to deal with these situations. But I do think that she needs an errata or fix, and dropping the use to 5 or less is very workable without destroying the ability. Making it only useable on her turn would decrease her chances of getting an EO, allowing a cylon Cain to reveal instead of helping out. Changing to negative aspect (destroy two civilain ships ) to something like "Destroy 1 civilian ship for each distance traveled" could work, but it should still be dropped to 5 distance or less.

JerusalemJones said:

Given that you mention jumping to distance eight, I assume you're talking about playing Cain without also playing New Caprcia. Much like executions, I'm beginning to think that her ability is much more balanced if you're using the entirety of the Pegasus expansion rather than only parts of it. It's probably still overpowered then, too, but that's likely exacerbated if you're selective in what you do and don't use out of the Pegasus box.

Yeah, if you're playing with New Caprica it's not quite as broken. The problem is that our playgroup broke New Caprica so quickly that we don't play with it anymore.

JerusalemJones said:

Heh. Fair enough.

JerusalemJones said:

These are some interesting possible fixes--I hadn't heard of them before. I particularly like the idea of not allowing her to Blind Jump on an EO.

I would add that while the Blind Jump ability itself is "good for humans, bad for cylons," the presence of the ability often leads to her controller receiving an EO at the exactly right time for sabotage. So Blind Jump is effectively "great for humans, great for cylons" (as a defense / as a lure). Because of this, I'm a little wary of the fix where you'd destroy 1 ship per distance traveled; it seems to weaken the ability for one group while strengthening it for the other. I do like the other ideas mentioned here though.

Kushiel said:

Good to know, actually. I rarely get over to BGG and I have not heard of the house rule fixes, though I do like the ones Jerusalem posted above. While we await an official response on the ability, can I ask the community what to make of the second sentence from the same question in the FAQ (copied below, emphasis mine):

Q: Can Helena Cain use her “Blind Jump” once-per-game ability on New Caprica?
A: No. “Blind Jump” is no longer useable once Galactica has traveled 6 or more distance. Players who have selected Helena Cain are well advised to use her “Blind Jump” ability earlier in the game, rather than later.

Now obviously, it's not strategically sound to use Blind Jump early. If the fleet gets into a tight spot, the humans will want Blind Jump available. And if the game never presents a problem the fleet can't solve, then great, they'll just use the abililty at the last possible moment (whether that's 5 or 6 distance). This is the most sound way to play her ability, and I assume this is the way she is generally played--I know it's been true for my home games.

So I find myself scratching my head at the piece of advice from above. Is the writer suggesting that it's good strategy to use the ability early (which it isn't)? Is he suggesting that saving it in the way that's strategically sound should be avoided because it makes the game less intense and less fun (which is probably true)? Or could there be some other point behind this statement?

And while we're on the subject of befuddling things about this question, I have one more: This is really a frequently asked question? I'm wondering if the reason I and everyone else missed this implied errata for over a year is that it was buried in the answer to a question that no one was wondering about.

Anyway, I keep holding this paragraph up to the light looking for what it's trying to say (beside errataing Helena Cain) and it's not totally clear to me. I definitely think, whether there's an errata in there or not, the line is a candidate for rephrasing. I'll make sure and keep everyone posted if and when I hear the official answer from Corey et al. Thanks for the tips and fixes!

I'm willing to bet that during internal playtesting they found that using Cain's ability late in the game with New Caprica tended to weaken the distance traveled and the threats avoided. Think about it: if the humans are at 5 distance, there is a better than 50% chance they are jumping to NW, and at 6 distance theya re definitely only jumping to NC. Sure, you can avoid having to increase the Jump Track, but the risk/reward isn't all that great. Cain's ability works best when trying to get as much distance as possible, and doing that earlier in the game is better, strategy wise. Good use of Launch Scouts to "stack" the Destination Deck can help utilize her ability to its fullest.

What happens in practice, though, is the humans try to save her ability until after sleeper phase to possibly get the game to the next stage. In a game with NC, it's just to push it to the NC phase. In games without NC it's an attempt to jump directly to 8 distance, or to jump immediately from sleeper to the next possible distance, in either case just jumping as fast as possible for as far as possible and speeding up the game. There have been cases where her Blind Jump gets used earlier, most noteably was in a game where all the cylon raiders, vipers and civilian ships where on the board, the fleet had yet to jump, was still in the red AND the players had gone around twice! Sure, this doesn't happen very often, but in those occurences when it does being balt to Blind Jump sure is worth it.

On the topic of fixes, I'd be most inclined to use the "extra jump" needed when not playing with NC so it at least makes the game fun for the cylon players. When the humans win in less than an hour, there is a distinct lack of fun factor.