I've read a bit of discussion about this here and in a couple other places, but it seems like nobody has come to a solid conclusion about how this card can be used effectively. It seems almost impossible to get a trite in the proper position since you can't move it before you blow him up. Im curious to see how the game designers were able to use this card during play testing.

Lets first say that I am normally the marine player. I can count the the times that someone played tickblast against me on 1 hand throughout all the games I have played, and that are quit a few. I think the problem is you have to be very very lucky that a trite next to a marine is still lives after the marine's turn. The only other way it could be usefull is in combination with earthquake, but let's be honest, there are better ways to use earthquake.

We house ruled recently that a trite may use tickblast and still move, but not in combination with it's scuttle ability.

You can use our playtested house rules if you want:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/540183/our-house-rules-playtested-for-at-least-3-years

If you only use SOME of the above home rules I cannot guarantee that the result will be a balanced game. If you do use ALL the rules then I can.

If you don't really care about other home rules and your concern is only Tick Blast then I'll just copy-paste from the above link the rule that we used almost immediately after seeing how worthless was Tick Blast two years ago.

5} Tick Blast allows Trites to move before detonation but they lose the Scuttle ability and their normal attack for that turn. {so that the Invader can actually plan something with his Trites instead of just waiting for it to happen. Also the Scuttle ability is removed for that turn so that the Invader cannot exploit it and use the Ducts to make easy Blast attacks to marines.}

Know that this change will increase the power level of the Invader giving no advantage to the marines to counterbalance it. That is why I advise you to use the full home rules if your group thinks that it's time that you change the game in order to be more enjoyable.

The rules are heavily playtested and are balanced for use with RanDOOM, a random scenario generator that you can download from DOOM's BGG page. That way you can have an endless supply of scenarios and a balanced ruleset to go with them.

I don't usually use house rules, but in this case I think we may have to in order to make tick blast useful. Thank you both for your suggestions, i'll be sure to give them a try and see how it goes.