This issue came up during our game last night:

Only military leader chosen was Helo (first time that happened to us but with exodus there are sooo many chars now). And according to admiral line of succesion he was to be admiral. However as Helo starts the game "off board" is he even eligible for the title? I do know it doesn´t explicitly says so in the rules but it did strike us a little bit like the humans would find another admiral and assuming Helo for dead (according to season 1 of the series). It also seemed to us as being comparatively to him being in the brig (only in regards to the admiral title)

In the end we agreed that he would be admiral and we would try and find a more definitive answer for next game session.

Any and all thoughts appreciated

I have no rules in particular to reference for this opinion, but I would go with starting him as Admiral if he has highest priority.

EDIT: To add some sort of logic and reasoning to my opinion, I would say that his disadvantage only states that:

"While not on the game board, you may not move, be moved, or take actions."

He does still start with skill cards that it does not restrict him from playing into any checks that come up (as far as I can tell from his card). In addition, his player can certainly talk with his fellows and influence decisions made by the rest of the crew, which is definitely part of the Admiral's job in our games. Everybody contributes to decisions, but there is a certain respect and authority that comes with even just being titled Admiral. And a dire fear that said Admiral might also be a cylon.

Those are my reasons, then, for letting him start as admiral.

I agree with HooblaDGN. There is nothing preventing Helo from assuming the Admiral title at the start of the game. If he is the only military leader selected, he begins with the title.

Nothing at all. In fact, I've been President/Admiral Helo before even hitting the board before....

I think the FAQ adresses this - While you are not on the board physically and cannot take a movement or action, you are still a full player. You get your cards, you get to play into skill checks, and you get to decide the destination if you are Admiral.

We play it different. It happened twice that Helo should have been admiral on the start of the game but since he has to skip the first turn and he's not part of the colonist fleet we choose to ignore him the first turn.

So, next player in line becomes admiral untill Helo is rescued.

Also he's not allowed to play any cards the first turn-nobody knows he's alive anyway.

When Helo starts his turn-second turn for other players- he arrives on galactica, becomes admiral and starts playing. and hopefully he's a colonist.

Making someone not part of the fleet admiral or playing cards seems silly to our playergroup.

@Pinnimon

In that case, I hope you beefed up his positive abilities as well - Helo is IMO one of the interesting characters, neither as overpowered as Cain nor as weak as Anders. Essentially removing him from play the entire first turn (or rather one and a half turn) will cost the humans dearly.

As for his actions in the series... he was pretty instrumental in securing the humans their perhaps most valuable ally, getting the Arrow of Apollo, discovering the Farm,... he may not have been on Galactica, but his actions on Caprica did have consequences for the rest of humanity.

Pinnimon said:

Wow, this is stupid. If you change a rule in a game every time you think it is "silly", how do you ever play any game at all?

Just dumb...

Mr. Suplex,

I admit that if this thread is any indication, Pinnimon's group probably does house rule things more freely than my group does, but I'd say you're overstating things quite a bit to call that "stupid" and "dumb." If all the players in the group want to change the rule, they can change the rule. Who are they playing for, anyway? Not me and not you, right? And not the good people at FFG, either. Whatever works for them, I'd say.

MR Suplex said:

Are you a ten year old? Come on, be honest.

Sometimes rules need to be re-written because there is a typo or they don't seem to take into account a very specific situation. The fact that the standard rule book does not address Helo being Admiral from the start already shows you that even the designers didn't think of this. Therefore, it's not stupid or dumb. You are for saying so.

I would have to agree with Outlaw and the crew; I don't see where the rules (or lack thereof) would warrant withholding the Admiral's title from Helo even at the beginning of the game. Sure, one can argue several different ideas based on the TV series -- but at the end of the day this is a board game that may or may not do what you would expect from having seen the TV series. Game mechanics in a board game work very differently from narrative rules in a TV drama.

We use a bunch of house rules too, and in most cases I would say they spice up the game and address issues that the designers may not have come across -- not because they didn't playtest enough but because my game group is rather...unique, for lack of a better word.