Mandy Thompson

By Mimi61, in Arkham Horror: The Card Game

😴
Mandy! Mandy! Mandy! I can’t wait to start dreaming!!

Being the one who inevitably ends up a Seeker for most of our previously played scenarios and campaigns, I have been hoping for an exciting new addition to the seeker class. I guess the adage is true. Those who can’t fight, seek! There are times when other classes seem to have more glamorous investigators with flashy cards, weapons and amazing events. Sometimes the seekers seem a little one dimensional. As investigators, Daisy was meh. But I was also very new to the game with limited cards when I played her. Rex was efficient, but predictable. Minh really couldn’t shine if other investigators were at her location, (which doesn’t happen much in our play style) Ursula actually was pretty fun and became pretty powerful by the end of her campaign. I really wanted to love Joe Diamond, but his hunch deck rarely delivered and became a bit ponderous. Norman was surprisingly, a lot of fun. He was my Circle Undone investigator and pretty much nailed it. (Although he is now hanging out in the Arkham asylum constantly playing very annoying music) But now there is Mandy. So intriguing... so many options. So much flexibility.

So Fellow seekers; any thoughts? Would you build her for the dreamlands, or for the waking world? How would you use her strengths and mitigate her weakness? Do you think she will grow as she progresses, or become encumbered?

I'm curious to see the details of her deckbuilding requirements. If she isn't allowed to include Assets from her 2nd class (like Tony Morgan's deckbuilding) then I would be quite sad. There are a lot of interesting build options assuming she can include Assets, but without Assets the options don't really work out anymore.

  • Seeker tricks (any build)
    • Charisma + Calling in Favors + various one-time use Allies (Art Student, Lab Assistant, Research Librarian). You can keep recycling them for their one-time effects.
    • Dr. Elli Horowitz + lots of Relics. Dr. Elli can hold 2 cards for you if you can get enough Relics into the top 9 cards of your deck.
    • Ancient Stone + drawing lots of cards is always a good combo.
  • Mystic - Scrying, Arcane Initiate, Alyssa Graham (ironically, to avoid drawing your Signature card)
  • Survivor - Track Shoes, Pete Sylvestre, and Ornate Bow. Probably also Dr. Elli to hold the bow for you.
  • Rogue - Not totally sure on this one. Probably the usual Rogue tricks (Lockpicks, Double or Nothing, Lone Wolf). Perhaps some kind of big money build with Well Connected would also work.

Agreed. Not many rogue cards that can capitalize on her signature card either. I am very curious as to her deck building restrictions in her secondary class and how many extra cards for that class she would get per extra 10.

Council coffer might come in handy too for everyone concerned and Anna Kaslow could suddenly become more interesting.

38 minutes ago, Mimi61 said:

Agreed. Not many rogue cards that can capitalize on her signature card either. I am very curious as to her deck building restrictions in her secondary class and how many extra cards for that class she would get per extra 10.

Council coffer might come in handy too for everyone concerned and Anna Kaslow could suddenly become more interesting.

Mandy doesn't want to search her whole deck, because of her signature weakness.

Good point. Gotta balance the risk, but it can be discarded in the first search if there is only one in her deck, if I understand it correctly.

Edited by Mimi61

Yep. Burn it out with something like Research Librarian or Rook, then you're free to use all the doubled NSU-5s your greedy little heart desires.

Something along those lines!

I dont think Mandy's ability is that impressive, but her statline is to die for! And the deckbuilding.... Mmmmm. Seeker + Rogue!

Slip away, Decoy, Think on your feet. A bunch of Rogue cards are great for this combo of stats.

56 minutes ago, tsuruki said:

I dont think Mandy's ability is that impressive, but her statline is to die for! And the deckbuilding.... Mmmmm. Seeker + Rogue!

Slip away, Decoy, Think on your feet. A bunch of Rogue cards are great for this combo of stats.

Eavesdrop...

Seeker/Rogue and Rogue/Seeker is one of my favorites along with Survivor/Mystic or Mystic/Survivor

17 hours ago, Soakman said:

Seeker/Rogue and Rogue/Seeker is one of my favorites along with Survivor/Mystic or Mystic/Survivor

Would you play her as a Seeker/Rogue in the Dreamlands or the waking world?

2 hours ago, Mimi61 said:

Would you play her as a Seeker/Rogue in the Dreamlands or the waking world?

I don't know! I'm still waiting to see if we get a more concrete explanation about how that dynamic works. I would say dreamlands right now, because it will be really funny eavesdropping on Zoogs.

But I haven't really discussed the idea of having two sets of investigators with my playgroup. There are 3 of us, it will probably depend a bit on who they want to be. I may take Luke for Dreamlands side if someone else wants to play seeker... because how can you NOT play Luke in the Dreamlands?

23 minutes ago, Soakman said:

I don't know! I'm still waiting to see if we get a more concrete explanation about how that dynamic works. I would say dreamlands right now, because it will be really funny eavesdropping on Zoogs.

But I haven't really discussed the idea of having two sets of investigators with my playgroup. There are 3 of us, it will probably depend a bit on who they want to be. I may take Luke for Dreamlands side if someone else wants to play seeker... because how can you NOT play Luke in the Dreamlands?

😁I hadn’t considered a Mandy Rogue, but I am now. There are usually only two of us playing, (although this one could be 4) and so have 2 investigators each. Luke has to be Dreamlands... although he has the gate box. I wonder if it would even allowed for him to play in every scenario and go back and forth, meeting investigators on both sides. The flexible deck builds will make the investigators shine in either place. Mandy seems so logical, that it makes sense for her to be in the waking world, but then, it is exactly for that reason it would be fun to play her in the Dreamlands and shake her up!!

The idea of having Luke playable in both campaigns simultaneously is kind of awesome, but also feels impossible to balance. He would kind of end up with twice as many XPs as everyone else.

Though they could do a kind of Carcosa-like story nod, where you gain an item in the real world and then there's a reference to having that item in the dream world, leading to an impossible story resolution.

Getting away from Mandy discussion a bit, but I suggested to my group that if the rules allow, we use the same 4 investigators for both sides, but different players and decks are built independently to differentiate between the real and dream worlds.

17 hours ago, Soakman said:

I don't know! I'm still waiting to see if we get a more concrete explanation about how that dynamic works. I would say dreamlands right now, because it will be really funny eavesdropping on Zoogs.

I ran Eavesdrop on Finn in TFA, and eavesdropping on snakes is certainly fun enough.

11 hours ago, Redclock said:

Getting away from Mandy discussion a bit, but I suggested to my group that if the rules allow, we use the same 4 investigators for both sides, but different players and decks are built independently to differentiate between the real and dream worlds.

Maybe if Luke could be the only one to go back and forth, he would only earn experience in one of the realms?

But I wondered at the beginning if we could layer our investigators. Maybe that’s why we got these flexible deck builds? So they can have different powers depending on wether they are asleep or awake.

I mean, I don't see why it wouldn't work, provided you kept separate decks with separate XP totals. I suppose it's conceivable that it could cause problems down the line (maybe an effect like "Check the campaign log. If the investigators dissolved into the collective unconscious, choose an investigator in the Dreamlands. You gain their signature cards and text box for this scenario, in addition to your own"), but you can deal with that as it comes up.

I assume that the idea is something like, 4 investigators go missing in the dreamlands, another 4 investigators look into their disappearance. Or something.

Regardless, given that the mini-campaigns are interlinked, I see only potential downsides from using the same set of investigators for both halves...

They did mention that combining both mini campaigns into a linked normal campaign would be an option. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to figuring out how the campaign interaction works in that regard. I don't really fancy building two different investigator decks for a single campaign.

The linked campaigns will almost certainly be separate investigator decks with campaign effects that play into each other. Otherwise, the XP curve would be unmanageable.