Hi friends,

The latest, twelfth episode of Drawn to the Flame is out, right here: http://drawntotheflamepodcast.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/episode-12-story-so-far.html (there are links to iTunes and direct download and so on). We're trying a slightly different format for this episode, a discussion of the story so far in the Dunwich Legacy campaign, so we discuss the events of Blood on the Altar, as well as what's gone before. We hope you like it!

As ever, your thoughts and feedback welcome. There's definitely room for improvement, but we're just loving making these episodes for you!

Hey all,

Here's a new episode of Drawn to the Flame for your ears. This time, it's all about Jenny Barnes:

http://drawntotheflamepodcast.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/episode-13-jenny-barnes.html <- lots of links in here for your enjoyment. Let me know what you think and I hope you enjoy it!

I apologize for this wall of text that is going to be coming, but Jenny is definitely one of my favorite characters, so I have quite a lot to say!

I suppose the nature of doing a podcast about a living card game means that a lot of the time you're always just a hair behind the latest curve of the game, but in this case I think it's going to make quite a large difference, because a full three of my favorite cards to run in Jenny come from Blood on the Altar. But I do get ahead of myself a little.

Jenny makes a very capable combat character, and I think that this is my favorite role for her, though by no means the only way she can be built. Jenny's Twin .45s are a very strong weapon, which can easily last the whole game if you are willing to pay the price for it. You can also do all sorts of tricks like playing your .45s with 7 ammo, and then immediately throwing down Contraband for another 7 ammo. As good of a weapon as they are, you still probably want some help, and that probably comes in the form of Hard Knocks or the Beat Cop. Beat Cop is great to import and I do prefer him to the similar Hired Muscle. If you're willing to also spend XP on Charisma***, then you can have him and Leo de Luca out at the same time. If you can manage all that, you have a very powerful combat character indeed.

It's quite a lot to manage of course, even for Jenny, but you can give yourself some help. I would definitely recommend Lone Wolf -which is from Blood on the Altar-. I admit that when I first saw the card I thought that maybe Jenny wouldn't need it, but she is much stronger with the card in her deck. I am fully on board with the "throw resources at all of your problems" school of play for Jenny, and Lone Wolf helps out considerably. Another amazing card for Jenny is Prepared for the Worst -which is also from Blood on the Altar-. With 2 copies of this I might not even run other weapons in Jenny, though for security I probably would try to still include a Switchblade**. But you have access to one of the best weapons in the game, so with Prepared for the Worst you can easily go and get it.

The third card from Blood on the Altar which really makes a difference is Streetwise***. With Streetwise*** you probably have no need to import Arcane Studies, because you will have Lore covered already. And it allows Jenny to put her resources to work immediately, and there are several scenarios where this can be extremely helpful to have Jenny handle a difficult investigation check right away. Both Miscatonic Museum and Essex County Express come to mind. What's more, Streetwise*** turns even a combat focused Jenny into an impromptu clue-helper if the situation ever arises.

Lets talk about some older cards. I love Double-or-Nothing, as a way to save actions and maybe some of Jenny's resources so you can pump a check to very high levels once and get the effect twice. I had an excellent game with Jenny when we were short on actions and needed the Clover Club Pit Boss dealt with immediately, where Jenny just stepped up with her twin .45s, played Double-or-Nothing, dumped some resources into Hard Knocks, and one-shotted the pit boss into oblivion. One of my favorite moments in this game so far.

I also find a Dynamite to be very handy, but if you want to make Jenny into a more Seeker role a good pick is Deduction. If you can manage to play this at the same time as Double-or-Nothing, you can increase your Lore with Streetwise***, and quickly vacuum up 4 clues. A Jenny with (or without) Charisma***, can also take the route of throw-away seeker allies like Art Student to help with clue collection.

Lastly, a Jenny with Adaptable*, becomes really the best character to run Delve Too Deep on, and provide your team with some extra experience in those early scenarios, and once you are done you can quickly replace Delve too Deep with something that is more useful to your deck, maybe a Rabbit's Foot, since Jenny has really nothing that demands her Relic slot.

Well if you made it all the way to the end, I congratulate you! Go play Jenny because she's wildly fun!

Not sure if I agree with most of your conclusions. But that's a good thing about this game in that you play it the way you like.

Jenny is my favorite investigator in the Arkham Files, and is my go to in every game that she is abailable in and I've probably logged over 100 games with her through various iterations of testing.

I also agree that one style of Jenny is to leverage money as power. Jenny's biggest issue, I find, is her set up time. It takes time to find all her pieces, play them, and then contribute to the mission. She's the reverse of Pete in that she tends to be very weak early game but is almost unstoppable late game if she gets all her pieces out. Of course finding and those pieces before the clock ticks down is the trouble.

I tend to find contraband is fairly useless outside of a large multi-player game. It's neat and tricky to go pay 7 for the guns, then double the ammo for 4, but if you consider it, all you net gained for that combo was 3 extra ammo above what you would have gotten if you had just spent the contraband money on ammo directly. Plus you had to draw the card, plus you had to use an action to play the card . And honestly I rarely ever go through all my ammo even if it's only 6 through 8, so I've never found the tradeoff worthwhile.

I'm sort of iffy on Prepared for the worst. I don't like it early in her build because I've multiple times picked up the 9 cards and never found my guns. And if your trying to fight I find just having Machete in the deck is a better replacement. I do think that once the Chicago Typewriter comes out that 2 of them, 2 level 2 switchblades, and her fund will complete a nice weapons package and then prepared for the worst will come in more handy.

I do agree that both streetwise and Lone Wolf were a giant boost for Jenny. I think given the path that Streetwise gives Fighting Jenny decks might become more rare, but since I mostly play solo or duo with my wife, being able to do a little of everything tend to be how we play.

Early game I like Dr. Milan more than any other as he helps feed her resources. I do think if you go the charisma route he and the beat cop are some of your best options.

I haven't found room for Charisma yet, and with my build I'm probably skipping it. I find Hot Streak more invaluable if you are going the resources as money route, so most of my experience went there, pulse double adaptable, switchblades, and streetwise.

That's probably Jenny's best trait, in that she really can be build in multiple ways that are more unique to the player than many other investigators.

Enjoy the show, very good work.

I dunno, I burn through Jenny's ammo all the time (2 player). Contraband also lets you equip more ammo later, similarly to Extra Ammunition* for Guardians. If you need the weapon down now and can't afford to build more resources to pay a large cost for X, you can Contraband later and refresh your stock. It's not as efficient as playing it right away, but sometimes it is necessary.

Of course it's possible to Prepared for the worst and never find your guns, but in that case at least you shuffle your deck and get another chance to put the weapons somewhere you can draw them more easily. Maybe relying entirely on the .45s isnt a perfect idea, but it tends to work out for me (though as I said in the earlier post, I usually also run a Switchblade** for good measure).

Dr. Milan is great! He tends to be a hot button item though, and Jenny isn't usually the person who ends up with him in her deck in my experience. But definitely, a good include if he's not already taken. I suppose it's also worth noting that you don't have to import Beat Cop if you use Dr. Francis Morgan (story asset) instead. As was noted in the podcast, many of the story allies in the Dunwich campaign are very good on Jenny, so Charisma is very attractive.

Here's episode 14, on the player cards of Undimensioned & Unseen for your ears: http://drawntotheflamepodcast.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/episode-14-franks-first-look-at.html

My overall thought about the Jenny Barnes discussion is that she's a brilliant investigator exactly for the discussion @awp832 and @Whipporwill have had - she can be built in so many ways and provides such a range of possibilities. As with everything we do on the podcast, we're not out to be utterly exhaustive but to get the conversation going - seems like that episode brought out some great opinions from people! As for particular cards: boy oh boy. Such range and choice! As you say, Whip, the versatility is key. Awp, I hope you heard the end of the episode when we did in fact talk Blood on the Altar cards? Worried you missed that bit!

Anyway, enjoy episode 14 and catch you all soon!

you know, i think i may have missed that. I'll have to go back and listen to the end of ep13 again when I have a moment. Looking forward to ep14 as well.

On 5/12/2017 at 1:28 PM, awp832 said:

you know, i think i may have missed that. I'll have to go back and listen to the end of ep13 again when I have a moment. Looking forward to ep14 as well.

I did wonder! But I wasn't sure. Enjoy 14!

on to 14! and I've not played with any of these cards yet.

hm... I am curious about Alyssa Ghraham. Yes, she's probably not as strong as Milan Christopher, on the other hand, she is in-house for Mystics, who at the moment, don't have a lot of allies to choose from. +1 intellect would have been very helpful to me the last campaign I played with Jim. And the effect seems like it could at least occasionally be very helpful. if it Bleeds.. is another odd one, ultimately I am not too sure I'm putting this in a deck, but maybe. I guess it depends on how often your investigator really gets killed on Sanity loss, and my answer so far is... not a lot. Maybe I'd pick it for Roland, especially if he had some mental trauma, perhaps due to an earlier failure of Cover Up, but on Zoe, either I figure I don't need it (so I don't take it) or if I really feel that I do I'd prefer a Liquid Courage instead, although it is out-of-faction. Smoking Pipe can also handle the role.

Dark Horse is really interesting and I love the art. I don't know on the effect yet. I would have to play it a little. I like your idea of just packing your deck with a few key assets and a lot of free skill cards to try to make the most out of it. On the other hand, turning off the Survivor events is in my opinion, denying yourself the best part of the faction.

I was excited about Expose Weakness initially, but the more I think about it, the less I like it. There's no good reason to use this on low fight enemies, and on higher fight enemies you have to beat the enemy's fight value in order to reduce it. Ties are not enough for this card, you must win by at least +1 to have any effect, and probably by more if you want it to make it worth it. I can see this working out pretty well if you were to try to take out "Boss" enemies with it, like Umordroth, Silas Bishop, or the Experiment, by pairing with a Guardian investigator with the Shotgun***** (maybe using Higher Education*** to boost your lore to a very high level), but as a card to use on an everyday basis.. I don't really think so. It requires too much coordination both in terms of deckbuilding and in play to really use effectively. Both Mind over Matter and I've Got a Plan generally cover the same sorts of situations you might use Expose Weakness in, and do it better.

Inquiring Mind: Seems great to me, I don't know why some people have been down on it. I love it and I'll definitely use it.
Lucky Dice**X: I definitely didn't notice it wasnt limited to once/test until you brought it up. Strong card but... hm. going to have to have a massive resource engine in place to get this rolling (pun intended). Jenny maybe likes this, probably not Skids.
Opportunist**: I want to like this, but I'm with you. I'm not paying 2xp for a slightly better variant of what is probably the worst card in the game. The only saving grace is there are a lot of times you want to be winning by 2 or more anyway. If we get even more cards like that (and at this point that seems a fairly reasonable assumption) I can see this going into a "win by 2" deck.
Quick Thinking: Seems good.
Rite of Seeking*: such a powerful effect! But man, I already have problems paying for the 4 cost version of the card. This is cripplingly expensive for Mystics, but I will probably run it anyway.
Springfield M 1903****: This is probably my favorite card in the pack, although a lot of that excitement comes from the hope that they will explore this design space more, rather than from what we have already. Still, the feel is right, and the effect of a hit is very powerful. I want to see more effects that target enemies not engaged with you.
Survival Instinct**: I'm not that impressed.

And here's another cast, this time with us returning to a specific trait. On the chopping block: talents!

http://drawntotheflamepodcast.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/episode-15-talents.html

I think maybe Blood Pact could have been lumped in with Talents. I understand your reasoning that it doesnt have the word "talent" printed on the card, however it definitely fills the same role and has that feel of being something that is indicative or defining of the Mystic faction. That's all right, I'm certain you'll talk about it in your upcoming podcast dedicated entirely to the "Pact" trait =D.

I guess I tend to be a talent focused sort of a player, I run talents all the time, even in Roland or others who are cash-strapped and I tend to use them. Naturally this leads to me trying to deckbuild in a certain fashion as well, if I'm playing Zoey, Wendy, Skids, or Pete, a Lone Wolf in the deck can help out a lot with paying for these talents. Sometimes I just have to get a resource the hard way and spend an action for it, and I'm not shy of doing that.

It's sort of hard to talk about particular talent decks because by their very nature talents just sort of boost up what you're likely already doing. For example, I don't think a "Keen Eye" Zoey or "Keen Eye" Roland is doing anything dramatically different than a Zoey or Roland is doing without it. The gameplay of these characters is not dramatically changed. There are two notable exceptions, so those are the ones I will talk about.

First, there is Higher Education Daisy. Higher Education is a strong card on Rex as well, but it falls into the above category, nothing about Rex really changes, he just does what he already does well... better. But on Daisy I think there is a dramatic difference between a Daisy who picked up Higher Education and a Daisy who didn't. Daisy who doesn't take Higher Education might be relying on Hyperawareness to evade while she hunts down clues to solve the mystery. Daisy who takes Higher Education is suddenly very capable of defeating even difficult monsters, and guarding herself against the many of the other dangers of the Mythos deck. She's clearly playing a different sort of game once she picks up this talent.

Secondly is Scapper Pete. Before Pete sort of had a problem with not being able to boost his fight very easily. Duke's increase to 4 fight is good but... not enough for difficult or even moderate enemies, since it can not be combined with boosts from Weapon cards. So Pete had to maybe import a Physical Training or a Hard Knocks to be able to boost Duke's attack, or rely on cards like Overpower to get Duke's attacks to land, both options of which relied on you drawing those cards, making them unreliable. Scrapper pete lets you rely on Duke to do most of your fighting, freeing up some space in your deck you don't need to use on Weapon cards, or out-of-faction talents. Before Scrapper I felt like I was sneaking around with Pete, hoping to pick up some clues and use my mobility to keep me out of trouble, maybe falling back on Duke's combat to handle a weaker enemy. With Scrapper Pete can go sic his dog on some eldrich horror and clean up the mess afterwards.

Here's episode 16, on approaches to deckbuilding. It's not just a deckbuilding guide, but a discussion of how you can think about deckbuilding and what things are worth considering: http://drawntotheflamepodcast.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/episode-16-approaches-to-deckbuilding.html

On 5/28/2017 at 6:52 AM, awp832 said:

I think maybe Blood Pact could have been lumped in with Talents. I understand your reasoning that it doesnt have the word "talent" printed on the card, however it definitely fills the same role and has that feel of being something that is indicative or defining of the Mystic faction. That's all right, I'm certain you'll talk about it in your upcoming podcast dedicated entirely to the "Pact" trait =D.

I guess I tend to be a talent focused sort of a player, I run talents all the time, even in Roland or others who are cash-strapped and I tend to use them. Naturally this leads to me trying to deckbuild in a certain fashion as well, if I'm playing Zoey, Wendy, Skids, or Pete, a Lone Wolf in the deck can help out a lot with paying for these talents. Sometimes I just have to get a resource the hard way and spend an action for it, and I'm not shy of doing that.

It's sort of hard to talk about particular talent decks because by their very nature talents just sort of boost up what you're likely already doing. For example, I don't think a "Keen Eye" Zoey or "Keen Eye" Roland is doing anything dramatically different than a Zoey or Roland is doing without it. The gameplay of these characters is not dramatically changed. There are two notable exceptions, so those are the ones I will talk about.

First, there is Higher Education Daisy. Higher Education is a strong card on Rex as well, but it falls into the above category, nothing about Rex really changes, he just does what he already does well... better. But on Daisy I think there is a dramatic difference between a Daisy who picked up Higher Education and a Daisy who didn't. Daisy who doesn't take Higher Education might be relying on Hyperawareness to evade while she hunts down clues to solve the mystery. Daisy who takes Higher Education is suddenly very capable of defeating even difficult monsters, and guarding herself against the many of the other dangers of the Mythos deck. She's clearly playing a different sort of game once she picks up this talent.

Secondly is Scapper Pete. Before Pete sort of had a problem with not being able to boost his fight very easily. Duke's increase to 4 fight is good but... not enough for difficult or even moderate enemies, since it can not be combined with boosts from Weapon cards. So Pete had to maybe import a Physical Training or a Hard Knocks to be able to boost Duke's attack, or rely on cards like Overpower to get Duke's attacks to land, both options of which relied on you drawing those cards, making them unreliable. Scrapper pete lets you rely on Duke to do most of your fighting, freeing up some space in your deck you don't need to use on Weapon cards, or out-of-faction talents. Before Scrapper I felt like I was sneaking around with Pete, hoping to pick up some clues and use my mobility to keep me out of trouble, maybe falling back on Duke's combat to handle a weaker enemy. With Scrapper Pete can go sic his dog on some eldrich horror and clean up the mess afterwards.

Hehe - point taken on Blood Pact, @awp832, which we acknowledged in the episode. I think a 'pact' episode would be great. There are some real doozies: https://arkhamdb.com/find?q=k%3APact (only half kidding - I love the weird traits!)

And as for HE Daisy and Scrapper Pete - I agree, these are both great, great talented cards. As Peter said, HE Daisy unlocks her spell-casting potential and gives her a new way to evade (through Blinding Light and, in theory, Bind Monster - though I'm not sure anyone's running that much) with willpower. Very potent indeed. Scrapper Pete was in fact the first permanent talent build I tried. Dropping in one or two resources when you don't have a leather coat or fire axe or overpower to commit to a Duke fight action is really powerful. And there are times when you'd rather evade and being able to go 2 up on a test, again through Scrapper, can be delightful. It just rounds out Duke's flexibility and gives Pete so many options: definitely approve of it.

Ep 16 thoughts, regarding deckbuilding!

Finally had a chance to listen to this, and I think it would be quite handy for new players getting started on deckbuilding. In Arkham it's sort of becoming that you really ought to be thinking sort of a game ahead when you're thinking of deckbuilding, because you are not only deckbuilding for now, you're also deckbuilding for the scenarios to come. For example I built a shotgun Zoey deck (Peter cringes, I have a bone to pick with you on that one! I'll mention it at the end -be sort of a fun way to close out the post) and thought that I might pick Contraband as one of her 5 cards to put in her deck from out-of-color even though I knew that in the very first scenario... I probably wasn't going to get really almost any use out of the card whatsoever. But as I got more XP and put more firearms in my deck, I knew that card was going to be quite handy.

Newer players might want to stick with Core investigators (or maybe not) because for good or for ill, they have far fewer options. Dunwich investigators really have a lot of ways they can go because as long as the card doesnt cost XP, they can get it if they really want it. Ultimately though, once a player has a basic handle on deckbuilding, I think we find Dunwich investigators very rewarding, very fun to build decks with.

One of the interesting choices in deckbuilding I think is that you can approach a card either as a means to help you excel at what you do best, or as a way to shore up a weakness. For example, if you're building a Roland deck, do you include Guts? His 3 willpower is relatively weak and his small amount of sanity can get him in trouble with the Mythos deck, so Guts can be handy, but it's also card slots that you're not using elsewhere, perhaps you'd rather just make sure you are handling combat and investigation as well as you can be.

I ran into a similar problem (an enjoyable problem) with Pete, I knew I wanted to include Scrapper*** as my first xp pickup so my initial deckbuild was colored by that, and I was trying to decide if I wanted to include 2x Lone wolf. Pete is often by himself thanks to Duke's mobility, and I thought Lone Wolf might help me get the resources I needed to boost Scrapper*** whenever I wanted. And then my other option was to do the complete opposite of that, and go all in on Dark Horse and try to spend the majority of the game with no resources at all.

There are certain cards that I always tend to at least think about with Dunwich investigators for their out-of-color picks. Lone wolf is one of those cards, along with Delve too Deep, Ward of Protection, and Rabbit's Foot.

Cards that let you draw cards: Yeah, this is a tough one. My background is in Lord of the Rings, and in that game aside from a few specific scenarios, drawing cards is always something you want to be doing. In Arkham I think it's quite different. Maybe FFG was concerned about some of the power decks that came out of LOTR, almost all of which involved massive card draw, and in Arkham they curbed the effectiveness of card draw in a lot of ways. A hand limit is one, there is no hand limit in LotR, so in AH you can't really just card draw to your heart's content. There is also a 30 card deck limit (no deck limit in LotR) so any card draw card you put in is necessarily taking the slot of another card that you could have had. Right from the beginning there are also some cards that penalize you for drawing aggressively, Amnesia being one that comes immediately to mind. There's also Beyond the Veil, which starts to turn card draw cards into a liability rather than a boon. One final key difference between AH and LotR is that in AH, anybody can just spend an action to draw a card. In LotR, card draw cards are they only way that you can get more than a single card per turn, so card draw cards are hugely important. In AH, it's easy to get along without any card draw cards if you are simply willing to commit a few basic actions to refilling your hand from time to time. All in all, card draw in AH is much like anything else, it's helpful -but in moderation.

As promised, I'll close with Shotgun Zoey =D. I don't see it as unthematic at all. In fact, I think it's really hard to even make an unthematic deck in AH. In LotR you can you know, have Treebeard adventuring with Grima Wormtongue and Bard the Bowman if that suits your fancy. In AH, I think it's really hard to get off theme. Now, that's not to say that I don't appreciate the thematic gem that is the Zoey Cuts Everything deck, but I definitely don't think that firearms are off brand for her. My wife does a lot of Medieval period archery (she has a longbow and a mongolian style horse bow) and is quite good with them. Nevertheless, if we were to put her in Arkham as "The Re-enactor" or something.... No matter how good she is with her bow, no matter how thematic it is for her to use it, she says that if she has an option between that or a Shotgun when facing down Erdrich horrors, she's taking a shotgun. Besides, I think that when Zoey realizes what she's gotten herself in to, she goes into work one night after hours and grabs the shotgun hidden behind the bar counter.

As always keep up the good work, I really enjoy listening to these
-awp

Hey hey,

Little post from me: my first impressions of Where Doom Awaits are up - http://drawntotheflamepodcast.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/episode-17-franks-first-look-at-where.html enjoy!

17 minutes ago, zooeyglass said:

Hey hey,

Little post from me: my first impressions of Where Doom Awaits are up - http://drawntotheflamepodcast.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/episode-17-franks-first-look-at-where.html enjoy!

Hooray!

Thanks @StormyWaters!

And here's episode 18, in which we talk about broader game topics! http://drawntotheflamepodcast.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/episode-18-guidance-from-research.html

Do you guys think you'll do another story so far episode? I've enjoyed them all but it's fun to hear how others are faring in their campaigns.

17 hours ago, StormyWaters said:

Do you guys think you'll do another story so far episode? I've enjoyed them all but it's fun to hear how others are faring in their campaigns.

It's on the cards as a future episode! So yes, definitely. Maybe one or two more for Dunwich!

Aaaaaaand we're back with another episode in which Peter and Frank (me) talk about scenarios, the story so far, and how dreadful things are getting. http://drawntotheflamepodcast.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/episode-19-story-so-far-ii-storier-farer.html

And we're back (again) for the last time for the Dunwich Legacy. That's right: it's Lost in Time & Space player cards first look: http://drawntotheflamepodcast.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/episode-20-first-look-at-lost-in-time.html (featuring guest host)

This is a really interesting pack, we've just not seen cards with such high xp values before, and I'm not quite sure I know exactly their place in the game just yet. I haven't had a chance to play with these cards yet, so this is mostly still conjecture, but still...

High xp cards are in a very weird place, a place that I don't particularly fancy, if we're being honest. I mean, there is nothing worse than paying 8 xp for the Gold Pocket Watch, maybe blowing your first 2 scenarios worth of XP on it, and then having the card be buried at the bottom of your deck and never seeing it. Except, of course, if you have paid the 8 xp and you have to run through an Arcane Barrier and end up discarding it, or if it gets stolen/ discarded from you from being Pushed into the Beyond, or Visions of Futures Past.... there are so many effects rolling right now that discard cards off the top of your deck, and if you are to lose your high XP card that you have pumped 2 scenarios worth of XP into.... that is a tough blow indeed. The GPW exemplifies the problem, but the same can be said for other high XP cards as well.

Right now we have very little ability to search our decks for a specific card and get it into play, except for Flare and Prepared for the Worst. So you have a little more wiggle room when it comes to weapons or allies if you are also including these cards... enough, I think, to make them worth it. But right now, it's hard for me to justify a GPW without a "search for an accessory" card, or something like it -no matter how good the effect is.

And that's the other thing: is GPW worth 8 xp, even if you do draw it and get it into play? The higher the player count the more value it seems to have. I usually play 2 player and I am sort of leaning towards... probably not? If I think about what else I can get for 8 xp, even taking a free turn with 2 players doesnt seem to cut it.

For similar reasons I sort of balk at monster slayer and decrypt reality. They could be powerful, IF, IF, IF.... But they're too situational, cost too much xp, and who knows if they might just be discarded -and you've spent 5 xp for nothing...

Ward of Protection-5 is good, but the cards I want cancelled are mostly treacheries anyway... so again.. I just don't know if I want to spend 5...

The stars of the pack for me are the Chicago Typewriter, Vicious Blow, and the Red Gloved Man.

Vicious blow-2 is a good effect and 2 xp isn't too much to ask.

Chicago Typewriter is a very strong weapon, and at 4 xp it is still reasonable to include. It has 4 ammo, which is a lot, especially because of it's built in ability you can have an excellent chance that those shots are going to hit and deal significant damage. It's an absolutely fantastic weapon.

Finally, the Red Gloved Man shines IMO just because of the shenanigans that are around, especially from Survivors. I think Wendy in particular can feel free to go crazy. Flare can summon the RGM and Chance Encounter can play him again and again. Wendy's access to Rogue cards also means that she can get additional actions with the Red Gloved Man through Leo (if she has Charisma) or Quick Thinking, turning the RGM into a really incredibly good deal. I think that a wendy deck that revolves entirely around playing the Red Gloved Man and getting the most of him could really be interesting. Wendy's amulet can play A Chance Encounter from the discard pile, allowing even more RGM recursion.

Honorable mention to Aquinnah-3, who is finally what everyone wanted her to be, and to Shriveling-5, which is so powerful, although I do find it hard to play this card over the similar Shriveling-3 version, which costs less xp.

Well, as ever I'm delighted by your response, @awp832, always good to read your thoughts. I think your conjecture is pretty apt - the buy-in for some cards can be tricky. You probably heard me on the cast saying 'expensive, expensive', and part of my calculation there is exactly that: 2 or 3 scenarios' worth of experience, then trying to see the card in future scenarios, paying its resource cost, hoping to get reasonable use out of it. All of that can be challenging, especially with big ticket items like the two guns (despite them being powerful and quasi-tutorable) and the pocket watch. I love the idea of A Chance Encounter interacting with the Red Gloved Man - he turned up in Rex's attempt at Lost in Time and Space to incredible effect, so I'd definitely like to see more of him. But broadly speaking, I think we're at a point now where at the start of a campaign, one can plan which investigators will be stockpiling experience to go for the high-cost items, and which will be looking for smaller upgrades, or upgrading cards already in their deck. Survivors, naturally, seem best placed for this latter route.

Monster Slayer and Deciphered Reality both have brilliant flexible utility, which in my mind offsets them against their situationality - I'm probably more positive about them than you are. Again, buying one copy early in a campaign gives you the most opportunities to see the card. Particularly for DR, as its in Seeker, there are plenty of chances for it to appear. If it nets the seeker 4 clues, that's a result, I'd say.

Vicious Blow and Shrivelling V fall into a similar category for me, strangely: both are nice 'upgrades' of current cards. If you've gone for Shrivelling III and decide you want to be even more gung-ho, it's only 4xp for a brace of Shriv V. If you're the dedicated fighter and wind up with 4xp (and don't want, say, to save for a lightning gun), then VB II seems a very potent use of 4xp. I like them, definitely.

Thanks again, as ever, for your super useful comments and reactions. Always grateful to receive them!

Looks like I missed your july 19 cast. I know I'm a bit late now, but it was such a good review and wrap-up of the cycle, I had to give my thoughts, plus this thread deserves a kick to the top of the forum in case anybody else who tracks you primarily through this forum missed your July 19 cast like I did.

Allies: Hm.... yes, I have taken to Brother Xavier a bit as well. I think at the beginning of the campaign you just didn't take a whole lot of damage and so Xavier's enormous hp/sanity reserve was a bit less important. These last several missions my characters have taken tons of damage, and so his chunk of hp/sanity is very useful. My trouble with him is that if I don't pick up Charisma, than he competes with Francis Morgan, who is also outrageously good. But he might just be kicking off his usefulness now, if Carsosa is unlike dunwich, -for example, if we don't get strong story allies early in the campaign. I'm keen to try Maleson, I havent played him yet -but yes, 2/2 for 1 resource definitely caught my eye, even if I never use his ability at all. I think he might be nice though because there are so many times when you are swamped with enemies and your Guardian is already fighting off a difficult battle against 2 or more enemies and then your Seeker draws another enemy and the Guardian just can not reasonably go over and help them. Maleson could really be clutch in that situation.

Weapons: I could really just talk about the Chicago Typewriter for hours on end. I think I love this weapon in the way that Peter loves the Fire Axe. This is in my opinion the best weapon in the game right now. It's so good. It has made Skids an absolute wrecking ball. I just completed the game with a Skids/Daisy pair where I was playing Skids. I was playing him very much as a Guardian type character where his primary role was combat and he was just excellent at it. My first few missions of XP went to getting x2 of this weapon, and I never looked back. The amount of damage you can do with this weapon is absolutely incredible, and Skids is in a somewhat unique position to take maximum advantage. He's got Prepared for the Worst which can help him search for this gun, and I was also running 2x Contraband and eventually Extra Ammunition as well. The Chicago Typewriter itself is very ammo efficient because you are doing large amounts of damage with using only small amounts of ammo, and you have a built-in bonus that helps you to ensure that you connect with your shots. Many times I would face down a big monster and have Skids use his ability to gain an extra action, and attack a monster twice at +4 combat, dealing 3 damage per hit. Later on he is throwing Vicious Blow-L2 or a double-or-nothing into the mix (or both) and can shred even the most powerful monsters in one or two attacks. It was really a joy to see him shine throughout the campaign, and the Typewriter is what made it possible.

What areas of the game need developing? : Jim I would have to agree. I have had much the same experience. I actually really enjoy Jim and I think he seems quite cool and he's very fun to play, but he often feels like a somewhat less good version of Agnes. I find him quite good if he has his Trumpet, but there is no way for him to search for it or reliably draw it. If he could do that, I think maybe he would be revitalized a bit.

My pick would be for the Springfield M1903. I have actually used this weapon a bit, and it feels quite cool. It's got a nice solid +3 attack boost and a very high damage output. I've used this to kill enemies engaged with other players and it feels so right. It comes with a strong attack bonus, and you really don't want to hit a friend so you may be throwing an Overpower in there or something else to increase your attack, giving you this incredibly accurate, powerful shot. The m1903 turns your character into a sniper, that's just so cool. .... But as much as I love it -it still needs some help to be a viable strategy. The disadvantage is too crippling, and being unusable against Massive enemies kills it for me.

Card that exceeded my expectations? I've had Worse and for an unusual reason. When I first saw this card I recognized it was pretty good, but how often do you take the full advantage of it? Well, it turns out that many missions feature the Beyond the Veil card, which deals your investigator 10 damage if they run out of deck, and it always pops up with other cards that are going to mill your deck as well. I've had several times where I have saved I've had Worse and brazenly drawn through my deck, undeterred by Beyond the Veil, knowing that I had an I've had Worse or two in hand to save me from the damage, put a few points on an ally an come out of the situation only a little worse for wear and 5 resources the richer!

Something I overlooked/ didn't recognize the value of: Alyssa Ghram. She's amazing. Her obvious comparison is with the similarly costed Milan Christopher who also gives you +1 lore. Alyssa's ability to look at the top of the encounter deck is clutch. I hardly ever actually spend the doom to put the card on the bottom, but knowing what you are in for is a huge advantage. Am I drawing Pushed into the Beyond next turn? I will put out a Painkillers or something to absorb that for me. An Obscuring Fog? I will move to a location with no clues. A monster? I will get in a position where a Guardian can support me. Something I can deal with on my own? Great, I will push out and get clues on this turn, knowing I wont get in trouble. I love this card in Daisy and I am happy to run Alyssa over Milan Christopher. That's how good I think she is.


As always, keep up the excellent casts! Onward to Carcosa!

@awp832 I know it's normally Frank who posts over here, but just wanted to say we always look forward to your 'podcast reflection' posts and read every last word! Thank you for your support, it's very much appreciated