Most will agree that Anders is a pretty crappy character and rarely sees play. If you are interested in making him somewhat playable, I've come up with a way by changing 1 word on his character card.

Change

Star Player - Action:

to

Star Player - Movement:

Now he can drop his hand to dig for that card he really needs and actually play it that turn. Say you really need to XO the president or admiral, drop your hand (you should have at least 5 cards at this point from just drawing) and draw all leadership cards ... there should be at least 1 XO in the top 5+ cards. Or kain is going to blind jump next turn, so you really need to scout ... drop your hand for 5+ tactics cards. Or say you end up as CAG, you can drop your tactics and leadership cards for piloting cards and still take your CAG action.

I think this small change makes him go from total crap to very playable, but not overpowered.

Let me know what you think.

Can you please write out the rest of his card? I suspect that such a useful ability might make him, unfortunately, too useful. If he can do on his turn pretty much any action in the game, and/or flush his hand when the high cards are gone, I would expect it to happen nearly every turn. He would be reliant on others to XO him to move, but that doesn't seem like too much of a penalty given what power he would gain.

Here's a link to his card on boardgamegeek

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not sure why my link looks so frakked up, but it does to you to the right place

I think that definitely makes him overpowered. Turning it into a movement ability all but transforms his skill set from 2L 2T 1T/P to 5L/T/P. It's even more powerful in that, as you say, it lets him redraw any cards that he doesn't need (though granted, he does have to give up his movement to do it...but if he's digging for actions, he probably didn't need to move this turn anyways).

But take my opinion with a grain of salt, since I think Anders was decent enough to begin with. As pilots go, he's obviously no Apollo or Starbuck, but he works well as a quasi-military leader; basically a lot like Helo, except he downgrades his die roll ability in exchange for being able to mine the heck out of his skill decks in an pinch.

Anders is simply awful. It's like the development team decided they needed one whipping boy. Torry is broken beyond belief, Cally's opg is a serious beat stick, Gaeta is kinda midland not too good but not too bad. Anders is useless, a pilot that gets one piloting???...he can dump his hand to grab as many of any one colour but then has to wait for his next turn to use them,...unless he get's an xo. Somebody truely hated him on the show. I wish you were on the team cause I think by making that a movement action it would at least give me pause and want to try him. I don't see how we can honestly say that would make him overpowered when President "never out of cards" Torrie is on the loose....

I think fantasy flight should cover their butts and on their next FAQ put that in there, "Type-o, should say movement" to make it look as though they tried making him playable.

Napoleon.

I gotta agree. I'd never play him. His OPG is amazing, but his skillset and OPT are very lackluster. I think they way over-valued the ability to choose the result of any one die roll. Perhaps a playtest version had it as being once per game on anyone's turn so they nerfed the rest of him, but then changed it and didn't beef him up to make up for it?

The only time you can afford a pilot with 1 Piloting is in a large game, but if there's a lot of players his drawback is going to be huge. If there are only a few players you can't afford to have your space jockey be unable to pop out Maximum Firepower and Evasive Maneuvers repeatedly. If you draw him you want to be a cylon so you can put your uselessness to the greatest use. "Sorry guys, I can't MP this turn. Nope, sorry guys, I didn't get what I need. I'll use my action to try again." Then finally you pop out a Pegasus or Nuke for the cylon team and get ready for your inevitable brigging/execution.

edit: take all of that with a grain of salt, as our group doesn't have Exodus yet. I can only go by what I've seen of the rulebooks and the images at BGG.

First and foremost it need be said that Anders (given his original ability) is by no means a full time pilot - but he wasn't on the show, either. If you choose Anders as the only pilot during setup, you're bound to encounter major problems later - his drawing of one piloting card makes his ability necessary almost every turn so you are prepared for what lays ahead. Changing his ability from Action to Movement will, I believe, counter later problems significantly. However, I think the outcome of changing his ability depends largely on what expansions you use, if any.

In the core game Anders' ability is OK. There are several times after a jump when people are idle. Some launch vipers into space but most will look for ways to broaden their skill card spectrum by using the Research Lab, Press Room or "Consolidate power" politics skill cards. During that time Anders' ability is better than what most other players can do. Once Cylon ships arrive Anders becomes a superb "wingman"; he's not good enough a pilot to ward off Cylon raiders by himself, but having collected enough "Evasive maneuvers" he can throw them in whenever a viper is in peril. If his ability were changed to Movement, he could exchange useless skill cards with hopefully better ones and play a Consolidate power politics card to increase his hand. This would turn a "star player" into an MVP for every game.

With the Pegasus Expansion Anders' ability becomes nearly useless during the New Caprica phase. It's too slow (unless he's XO'ed) and he'll be behind schedule too often to make him a fun character to play. Changing his ability to Movement, however, may be a bit too strong. Again, Anders suddenly becomes the MVP of the game.

I imagine that with either just the core game or the Pegasus Expansion (basically any game that uses the regular Cylon fleet deployment crisis cards) and given that Anders is not the only pilot in the game, one will find that Anders' original ability will be used in some turns but not all. You simply don't need it. With his ability changed to Movement...well, let's just say you suddenly have a character on your hand who has an ability that is simply too strong to be played every turn. Think about it this way: either you run around and do stuff to help your cause or you filter your skill cards to be able to dominate skill checks during other players' turns. Being able to do both makes Anders too strong. Unless you encounter one of those rare situations where the Cylon fleet deployment crisis cards are all bunched up and you keep getting hit by wave after wave of Cylon ships, Anders' ability will rarely be needed during movement every single turn.

The Exodus Expansion is the most interesting when it comes to Anders' ability. If you include the Cylon fleet option, the usual idle times for pilots after a jump vanish almost completely. Pilots will race to secure civillian ships. Given that Anders is not the only pilot in the game, he may not even have to leave Galactica. In which case a change of his ability would be too strong. If the humans have to rely on him securing civillian ships, however, he won't be able to use his changed ability all that often. He'll be busy using his movement to get to the hangar deck and then lauch into space. Depending on how often Anders would have to repeat this excercise (because he'll remain in the hangar deck after an escort) he'll be able to use his ability and secure civillian ships if his ability were changed to Movement. Again, too strong. Also, keep in mind that the skill decks are "enhanced". There are cards in there that are too powerful if you have too many of them. They really rock the boat. And with Anders' ability altered he'd be able to pick out the cards he wants every turn.

I have to disagree, i really don't think making the ability movement will make him overpowered.

You compared his ability to actions like the press room or consolidate power. unlike these, his ability does not gain you any additional cards, if he only has 5 cards, he will end up with still only 5 cards. And they have to be of his skill type, so it's not like he can his hand for anything at any time. He can still only get leadership, tactics or piloting AND they have to be of all the same type. If someone XOs him and he has no cards in his hand its not like he can gain cards from his ability.

As was stated previously, making his ability movement instead of action still doesn't make him anywhere near as powerful as Tory.

Say Anders goes first ... he can't even use his ability on his first turn since he'll have no cards. And if you're playing a large enough game that he's not the only pilot, then he'll have no cards for a long time. Even if he's not first, he's still stuck with 3 cards for a long time.

Now lets go to the flip side, and say he has a full hand of 10 cards, or even more, say he saved up and now he has a hand of 15 cards after drawing. now he drops ALL 15 cards to is ability. He can't get political or engineering, so building nukes, repairing, consolidating power, and political prowess are out.

He could get 15 leadership cards and be guaranteed an XO ... as powerful as XO is, there are a lot of them in the deck and you can almost as easily get them with Adama or Kain. Not overpowered

He could take 15 piloting and get a bunch of evasive maneuvers and maximum firepowers ... sounds pretty powerful, but when you consider that it would take him at LEAST 4 turns to get that many cards to finally be a good pilot, it's not good. And by this time you have probably been thrown in the brig for never playing a card into a skill check, Cylon.

He could take take 15 tactics cards and be guaranteed a scout ... and a strategic planning to go with it! Same as XO, scouting is nice and all, but there are a lot of scouts in the deck, and Dee or Kain can get them just as easily.

Now finally, redemption, you are about to draw a crisis card and have 14 skill cards (assuming you used one as your action) to dominate it with ... "president chooses?!?" Well, there goes 4 more cards since you are over the hand limit.

Don't get me wrong, there are times when his ability as a movement would be awsome ... but you can say that about EVERY character. Even Saul Tigh's ability can be awsome. Say you are Saul and you determine that Starbuck is the Cylon (or if you just don't like the person playing her), you can throw her in the brig with a skill check of only ONE! OMG! That is way to overpowered, how can you not pass a skill check of one. I'm not trying to be an @ss about it, I'm just saying that every character in the right situation will be extremely powerful, and that making Ander's ability to movement would, at times, make him really awesome, but no more awesome than any other character ... and certainly not as awesome as Tory who is awesome about 99.99999% of the time.

Turning his OPT into a movement ability? Really?

Just because Anders isn't as hilariously broken as Tory or Cain doesn't mean his weak.

At his most basic, you can play Anders like any other military character, focusing on Leadership and Tactics. Then, when the Cylons show up, he hops into a viper, and exchanges his hand for Piloting for the bonus action. Once the fleet jumps, he can switch back to green/purple. Changing his OPT to a movement ability doesn't make him stronger, it makes him weaker. His "OPT" works on an XO. Movement abilities don't.

And with an XO, there's another nice trick he can do: Scout on the first action, then exchange his hand for whichever cards will be positive on the upcoming skill check. There aren't a whole lot yellow/blue-only crises out there, you know. Or, he uses it twice on an XO, and goes through a deck like a hot knife through butter, keeping only the 3+ strength cards in his hand.

His OPG can be powerful, but that it only works on his own turn hurts a bit.

Yeah, his weakness means he'll take a while to get going, and he's dependent on XOs to reach his full potential. But at least he's well-balanced, which is more than can be said of certain others...