I have to agree (or is it dissent?) Quorum cards are very good. Card for card, they compare favorably to skill cards (after all, several of them generate a positive effect AND let you draw two skill cards). Plus, you can draw / play up to four of them on one XO if you've got someone in the office. Sounds okay to me!

XAos said:

Without discussing this with the others first, I will probably be pegged as a Cylon immediately. My group will assume I'm trying some sort of mind-games or trickery since I almost always wait until after sleeper phase to reveal and they know it... half the time I still have not revealed at 7 distance unless I have been brigged.

Skowza said:

You can't be pegged as a Cylon for picking Roslin because you choose characters before the loyalty card is distributed. And if you pick her after being executed, you're a known human anyway.

I meant not using Colonial One at all would imply that I'm a Cylon. Given how often the Quorum cards have saved our butts, not drawing them at all might suggest to the other players that I am trying to prevent them from being used and prevent the new president from having a Quorum hand after I reveal.

Kushiel said:

If the president doesn't waste actions drawing quorum cards, the humans don't need lucky quorum cards to win they never get close to loosing.

Pre the addition of Exodus I have seen the humans loose several games, and in all cases it's down to one of two things.

a) An undetected cylon admiral on New Caprica.

b) A President who wastes actions drawing quorum cards.

Followup on a game where we didn't use Quorum cards:
Fair warning, this is rambling and excessively long...
It wasn't really by choice, it seemed pretty clear that Pres Roslin was a Cylon from the beginning. She drew about 7 Quorum cards total and after Cain airlocked her, I became Pres Baltar. I spent most of my time XOing and running around repairing things since I was the only player who drew blue cards (Cain, Starbuck, Tigh, Baltar, Roslin). Lack of blue was poor planning on our part I think; I was the last to choose a character and the person before me insisted on being Cain even though we had virtually no blue and yellow draw. I chose Baltar since he gets both colors and green for XOs (not that we didn't have enough green already). Stabuck drew blue almost every turn but was not getting useful cards.
The Quorum cards that were handed to me were pretty useless - I think I got Presidential Pardon, 2 Authorization of Brutal Force, Resources for Galactica, Unsavory Connections, and Cylon Mugshot, and I have to admit that this craptastic hand supports the argument that Quorum cards don't help the humans much. I still think the chances of getting a hand this bad are pretty poor though, and I was glad to have some of these cards in my hand just in case they were needed. We reached the sleeper phase and Roslin handed me the "You are a Cylon" loyalty card for some reason, it seemed like a stupid idea given that she knew I didn't have a strong anti-human Quorum hand and given that Cain was still around to blind jump.
I didn't draw any more Quorum cards because I didn't want the good stuff being passed to the new President; the whole table was squinting at me with toaster-hatred in their eyes since I had 4 loyalty cards, and no one wanted to XO me to use the President's Office. I was trying to make myself look as human as possible, I checked Cain's loyalty cards and announced she was human (the action wasted a turn) which left Tigh and Starbuck as possible Cylons but Tigh gave my President title to Cain after a bit and I spent the remainder of the game looking for a good time to reveal. Cain didn't use the President's Office since a few attacks went off shortly after she got the title, Starbuck landed in the brig and Cain spent most of the game shooting at stuff from Pegasus. I think the only Quorum cards that actually got played were Presidential Pardon to spring Starbuck (who went back into the brig as soon as I revealed) and 1 Authorization of Brutal Force.
The humans won and this was one of the quickest games I have ever played, they got 8 distance from 3 Destinations (including the blind jump without scouting). Morale was at 1 when they finished, my turn was next, and I had Inbound Nukes in my hand with a 5-STR card that counted negatively. Pop was really low too, and if I hadn't insisted we get extra Pop earlier then it would have been a much worse situation. And that's the problem I have with the no Quorum Cards strategy - it worked, but it was an unusual game and a really, really close call. After the game ended I checked the next few Quorum cards and found 2 Speeches sitting on top; I feel like spending one or two turns XOing the President to get those Quorum cards is a good idea . The Authorization of Brutal Force that got played was really needed when it was used; humans were about to lose more civies and Pegasus guns were damaged at the time.
If the humans hadn't gone so far so quickly, they probably would have lost. If they hadn't drawn an empty ship on the blind jump, they probably would have lost. if Roslin had given the Cylon card to Cain instead of me, they almost certainly would have lost. If they had drawn some reasonable Crisis cards instead of "Current Player Chooses" with a die-roll choice over and over... you get the idea. On the other hand, I think if Tigh had picked a better character or Cain had picked someone with color variety that we needed at the time it would have been a better game for the humans; the constant XOs were nice, but the lack of blue and red cards could really have hurt if more blue and red Crisis cards came up.
So despite the fact that it worked for this game, I don't think I can support the idea that ignoring the Quorum deck is always a good idea. Maybe sometimes, but it seems very circumstantial.
Sometimes you just really need the Quorum deck if only as a plan B.

In our previous game, I played 17 Quorum Cards as President Tom Zarek, thus giving 34 free Skill Cards to Tory Foster who was also Human. Needless to say, the synergy had a major effect towards Human Victory. I played Quorum mostly when I was XO'd or had Critical Situation, otherwise I'd rather XO another character to do something even more useful (such as to activate FTL).

Skowza said:

If the humans won with this strategy inspite of a cylon president, surely that justifies testing the strategy a 2nd time?

When I developed this startegy, I played it once as a test. When the humans won. I tried it again. In several dozen plays using this I have only seen the humans loose in extreem circumstances. Good thing Exodus came out, I was finding the base game + Pegasus boring, i.e. the humans kept wining

jullevi said:

I'd expect the humans would have had an easier time without the Tom & Tory combination. if you had played Elena Tigh (and say Kat) instead. Elana gains 2 extra skill cards per turn (as Tory does) and can additionally pass the best of those to Kat, to produce "7" or "8" dice rolls.

XAos said:

I am not very convinced that Ellen Tigh + Kat is as strong as you suggest, but then again, we haven't really used it. The major problem, as far as I can see it is that both Ellen's and Kat's once per turn ability work only during their own turn. Neither ability benefits from XO, although Kat is probably in good place to use two normal Actions (or to move away and take and Action to be able to use the original location next turn without having to visit Sickbay). If Kat decides to use her ability, that is another XO not played. I strongly feel that Ellen + Kat is combo too slow to work effectively, in addition to Ellen having to run after Kat to give her cards and Kat having to not play XO in order to benefit from her ability.

And Ellen is no match for Tory for card generation. Ellen gets two free cards per full game round, and that is after drawing one useless card to begin with. Tory has the potential to get four free cards on any player's turn, in addition to effects from two Quorum cards . However, that still does not mean that the President should be XO'd at every opportunity - there are often better (FTL) or more critical (Command, Armory) uses for XO. Note that after the Sleeper phase you should never XO the President (especially Zarek!) unless you know his loyalty for sure.

You mentioned "7" and "8" rolls, which are mostly needed for FTL jumps and Heavy Destroyers. Guaranteed FTL jump on Kat's turn should be used whenever possible, but it is something that cannot be usually planned in advance. In case of Heavy Destroyers, you'd usually have a shot at them before they hop in rather than wait for Kat's turn (unless there are two Heavy Raiders at the door, in which case Kat should take them out with her OPG). In our Quorum heavy game, we dealt with Heavy Destroyers by Authorization of Brutal Force and Civilian Ship Self Defence more often than shooting them.

I like discussing about Battlestar Galactica because different gaming groups have different experiences. If my numbers are correct, I have played (only?) 17 games of BSG. Last six games have been using both expansions and humans have made the final jump in 4 of them (and won 3).

Ellen's card draw is relaible, 2 extra per round.

The problem with Tory's card draw is that it's dependant on drawing quorum cards that are worth the action to play. Many of them just arn't. And enoungh are activly bad that it's a net liability to draw them. Remember when the president draws quorum cards, that you don't actually know if the president will be human or cylon when they play them. And since you don't know that, drawing quorum cards becomes very much like loading a pistol, just before playing russian roulette

It works fine. if the cylons end up being the target. But the humans are better off if they never load any ammunition.

I am not very convinced that Ellen Tigh + Kat is as strong as you suggest...

I didn't say Ellen + Kat were strong, I said they were better than Tory.