Let's review this pack! Although I am dying to make comments on upcoming investigators, I'm going to confine myself to what we already have released, and not talk about Ursula, Finn, etc... All the cards in this final mythos pack cost at least 2 xp, and have some decently powerful effects, keeping this in the same vein as the Lost in Time and Space mythos pack. Seems like trend is that the final pack in the cycle is likely to have some strong XP cards. As always, these are initial impressions, and maybe I'll change my mind after playing with some of these for a while! Here we go!

Eat Lead** - We have an event that helps you ensure a hit with a firearm, but at the cost of 1 (or more) of that firearm's ammo. Hm... The thing is, it seems like this card would be best on a high damaging weapon that has a lot of ammo. However, we don't really have one of those. You could score some easy hits with a .38 Revolver, but is that worth it? On the other side of the spectrum, are you going to spend your precious shotgun or lightning gun ammo on this? Better chance of success is nice but, it seems easier to just do it the old fashioned way and increase your combat value via resource and card dump. I dont know about you guys, but I tend to think of my ammo tokens as extremely valuable, and I don't want to waste any. At the end of the day, is this really better than just having 2 separate attempts at hitting for the same ammo consumption? I don't think it is. 1.5/5.

Armor of Ardennes*****: Essentially a super-bulletproof vest. Let's be perfectly clear, once you have this down, it's going to be extremely hard to kill you by health damage. You can laugh off small hp hits, and big ones wont phase you nearly as much. The effect is plenty powerful, but the price is hefty. Do your guardians usually get killed by health damage? Mine don't either. 2/5

Eidetic Memory***: Well... obviously we're gonna need a complete list of things that have the Insight trait. Here you go. https://arkhamdb.com/find?q=k%3AInsight&decks=player Note that this can be from any players discard pile, so that's useful. A fairly large pool of cards to pick from (most of them, it turns out, are seeker). I often wouldnt mind having another I've Got a Plan, or Cryptic Research. Still, I'm not too impressed with most of these choices. But this card is sure to get stronger over time. 3/5

No Stone Unturned*****: For 5 xp and 2 resources you can get any card from your deck, or another players deck. A strong effect. Worth the cost? I dont know. I've played a bit with the 0 level version of No Stone Unturned with Jim Culver, and found it was often better to simply use the basic draw action. If you are really reliant on one particular card, then maybe? But for the XP cost, you may as well just include a second copy of that card. 2/5.

Charon's Obol *X : Well, before everybody loses their mind over this, let's think about how good it actually is. Supposing it was Carcosa campaign, there are 8 scenarios. Obviously you cant have this in play for the first scenario, and on the last scenario extra XP gain doesn't help you any, so assuming you pick this up as soon as you can, you get 6 uses out of it. It costs 2 xp (because it's exceptional) so it pays for itself after the first time you use it. All in all, you can have a net gain of 10 XP from this card across a full campaign, if you take this as soon as you possibly can. That's still pretty good. The risk is permanent death, of course. And it also means you're a little slow out of the gate for the second scenario because you will have spent 2 XP getting something that hasn't helped you yet. So who likes this? My main pick here is Wendy. Wendy's 4 Willpower, access to the Survivor pool of cards, and ability to redraw chaos tokens means she is extremely hard to knock out, avoiding the main risk of this card. Still, any rogue could probably make use of some extra XP. I like this just fine on Jenny and Sefina. On Skids we're getting into dangerous territory, but hey, no guts... no glory! I think this is great. Many Rogues might consider running I'm Outta Here! if they need to exit a scenario hastily! Side note: I don't know why FFG decided we needed 2 copies of a Unique, and Permanent and Exceptional card. I can't think of any situation where we could use them. But hey, mount one on your wall or something, it's nice artwork. 4.5/5

Lupara***: This is my favorite card in the pack. I don't think it's the most powerful, just my favorite. To me, this is exactly what we are looking for in a player card. Everything about this card punches you in the face with theme, it's cool, it's interesting, it has some synergies, and it makes you want to build decks in different ways. I just love it. This is just great with Sleight of Hand, and I can't wait to go up to a monster, pull the hidden sawed-off-shotgun out of my trenchcoat, and give 'em both barrels. This is so fun. Nice, high damage, high attack weapon, reasonable cost. And... who likes this? I mean Skids is usually a decent combat guy, and it's quite nice to have a strong one-handed weapon that he can take . He can definitely go crazy with Vicious Blow and/or double-or-nothing on this. But I like this just fine in Jenny too, who can use her copious amounts of cash to ensure hits. I even like it in Sefina, because she can replay Sleight of Hand, and hopefully can use her money and cards to increase combat enough to score hits. Sefina shotgun build, we're making this happen! 4/5.

Cheat Death*****: Honestly I don't like it much. While it seems like it might have some synergy with Charon's Obol, you're spending 5 xp on it, half of what you get from Charon's Obol over the whole campaign. This card does absolutely nothing for 5 xp, unless you are defeated with this card in hand. And even if you do manage to pull it off, you're still not out of the woods by any means. For 5 xp... I'm sorry, this isn't worth it. 1/5.

Time Warp**: This has already been heavily discussed. Go see the FAQ page on Arkham DB if you havent already because you're going to need to if you want to play with this card at all. This is a nightmare of game design and raises about 10 million questions. Sigh.. As for the effect.. it's okay I guess. It's pretty niche. It's pretty niche indeed. 2/5, not worth the headache.

Seal of the Elder Sign*****: For 5 xp, I win this skill check, in the most dramatic fashion possible. Pretty cool. Is this worth the 5 xp? I dunno. it better be a monster skill check. Nice on Akachi because she'll instantly get a bonus charge. Our other Mystics elder sign effects arent amazing. If Jim was so inclined he could put Double-Or-Nothing into his deck and use this to guarantee a hit on a DoN shriveling, that would be pretty fun. 3/5, interesting.

Newspaper**: Well, nobody really runs the newspaper level 0, and the main benefit here is that you gain an extra clue. Yeah, that's useful, I admit. I might run this. Maybe. 2.5/5.

Infighting***: This is okay if you can get past the fact that the monsters in the art seem to be fighting over the right to eat the dead corpse of your friend. That got dark fast. Otherwise it's much like Dodge, and Dodge is good. 3/5.

Key of Ys*****: Of all the cards in the pack, I feel least prepared to give an opinion here. I can't really guess how this is going to work out in practice. I'll point out that my initial impression was essentially that every time your investigator took a horror, one of it had to go on the key, leaving it as a kind of 3-use item. That seems to be not the case. You can continue to dump horror on other assets as long as you have them, in order to preserve the Key. This makes it really powerful with Peter Sylvestre, or if you're doing the whole relic-hunter/Elder Sign Amulet thing. 5 Xp is a hefty cost, fills the amulet slot, and unique, all of these are considerations. Still, I can't help feeling like this is going to be a highly used card. The question is.. by who? With space for only one on your team, you'll have to choose wisely. 4.5/5

Lupara is also my favorite card in the pack. A surprise monster has you cornered? Just whip out that shotgun and blow it to pieces. With this, Switchblade level 2, and Chicago Typewriter, Rogues have developed a set of very strong upgraded weapons, though their level 0 options are still pretty limited.

I think the level 2 newspaper is actually rather good. I could see including it in an Agnes or Yorick deck that was primarily focused on enemy management to grab a couple extra clues when the opportunity presents itself. After you spend them to advance the Act deck, you can do it all over again!

I think "Eat Lead!" is very much a Skids card. If you really go ham on the crit-dealing Ex-Con archetype, you do not want your Typewriter/Lupara+Vicious Blows+Double or Nothing boss-killer hit ruined by an untimely Tentacle or other BS token. Sure, at that point you committed a lot of Resources into this, but if you can deal 10+ damage with a single action that might be worth it. Bonus points if you brought it into play with Sleight of Hand so you do not even worry about the extra ammo you spent.

Even when you do not use it for the dream combo, making a Typewriter/Lupara shot safe might be worth it on its own for Skids.

Of course, if you have a Mystic in the team then you could now pull off the above even easier with the Seal of the Elder Sign instead of "Eat Lead!" but that will not always be an option.

My thoughts. The theme here is insurance.

My favorite art is Eidetic Memory followed by Time Warp.

Eat Lead** - Yeah definitely not the best, would need to run some odds here to be sure what you can pull off with this and I am not in the mood. I feel like I would mostly use it to avoid a tentacle on that last attack you need to make. Its close to useless with the level 4 or 5 guardian cards as their success level is already very high. I think it also may have some utility if you decide to forgo the shotgun/lightning gun route and rely on weaker weapons but there are other cards I would choose first.

Armor of Ardennes*****: I agree its not so great atm. I suspect it will get better as we get more Guardians. There is some argument for using it on Mark since Mark uses health as a skill booster and card draw ability, so he needs to manage health more than others. Everything else being equal, Mark would prefer to only take health damage when activating his skill boost ability and have other assets eat up other damage.

Eidetic Memory***: I think this has a place. Nice, solid effect. I am thinking Norman may like this as he tends to go event heavy in my experience.

No Stone Unturned*****: Yeah this is a great effect, but 5xp is a lot. On one hand, if you have it in hand it can literally save the game for your team. On the other hand if I spent 5xp on other cards and had those in hand, I may not need to save the game. I can imagine eventually building a deck that needs a specific card to be out (like Leo Anderson and wanting his ally, but I doubt he will be able to take this). The value of this card is much higher in those situations.

Charon's Obol *X : I agree on the investigators you think it works best on. I would be hard pressed not to take it on those folks.

Lupara***: This is a great card, light on ammo but frankly you want to play and then unload it on one turn anyhow. This creates a weird effect in that you really only want to play it when you want to 4-6 damage in a single turn.

Cheat Death*****: I think that you are downplaying the fact that it allows you to take risks that you normally wouldn't (which is a theme of the rogue class). Sometimes those risks will pay off, other times they won't. It gives insurance against high risk, high reward situations. Plus +2 health and sanity is always nice. That being said, again 5xp, if you spent it elsewhere would you need to over extend?

Time Warp**: More insurance, seems like a theme.

Seal of the Elder Sign*****: Mostly agree and it would depend on what your elder sign ability is. Note, you can play it on your teammates and trigger their elder sign ability as well. Did we say insurance?

Newspaper**: Yeah, I am not seeing this make it into my deck anytime soon, but part of me really wants to. My biggest issue with Newspaper in general is that I can take a flashlight instead and arguably that is more useful in more situations.

Infighting***: Its kind of nice and has excellent skills on it so there is that. I just feel there are options out there in Survivor which will get you the same benefit for less overall xp cost.

Key of Ys*****: Its a good, solid card and I like it. That being said, cards like this require you to build your deck around them in advance. I can see Skids and Lola liking this card a lot. The bonus skills are nice and will help you, but I think its only worth it if you need horror mitigation in addition to wanting to boost skills. I know I tend not to take horror every turn and 5 turns of +1-+3 seems like its worth it. I don't think you need to work too hard to ensure the card remains in play to get enough of a benefit out of it. A lot of people seem to want to build their deck around protecting it, but using it to sop up horror and give you some bonus in the interim seems like it is worth it. That being said, Agnes hates this card.

Is there any reason not to take the Obol if you play solo?

8 minutes ago, Eldan985 said:

Is there any reason not to take the Obol if you play solo?

The same reasons not to take it in multiplayer. Starting a new investigators in the middle of a campaign can be painful.

2 hours ago, Saibot said:

The same reasons not to take it in multiplayer. Starting a new investigators in the middle of a campaign can be painful.

In other words, even in solo, if you are killed, you are supposed to pick up another lvl 0 investigator deck and head to the next scenario. Thematically, you're just a little late to the party and may have been clued in by the prior investigator in the interim.