It's no secret that Jenny Barnes is sort of a fan favorite. I admit I count myself as one of her enthusiasts. I'm not sure what it is about Jenny, maybe for me it's the days of Arkham Horror 2E where Jenny was one of the core characters and could just spend the game throwing money at getting all the best equipment for the team. And then in AHLCG she was a lot of fun too when she came out via Dunwich. Back before Preston was a thing.

Nowadays when I look at Jenny and I feel a bit lost. I've looked around at Arkham DB and found the number of Jenny decks has fallen off. Nor does there seem to be any fresh air for her. The Jenny decks I see are pretty similar to what has been Jenny's mainstay since Dunwich. Most of the big expensive cards like the Services are better used by Preston. I suppose that's the problem. With Preston available, Jenny just doesn't seem quite so attractive. Tony and Finn also, are sort of the best at what they do (the best rogues at what they do, anyway). And Jenny is stuck in this jack-of-all-trades world which I tend to have a hard time with. I just never seem to know quite how to build Jenny, or even what to go for in terms of XP.

So I'm asking for help, ideas, etc. I want to have a fun deck to revive this classic character. I dont particularly care her role, so long as she seems good at something.

I do use the Taboo list, if that makes a difference. Let me know if you have any ideas.

-awp

So, nowadays, there's not much point in going for a heavy clue-gatherer Jenny (Finn has a better stat-line for it and an excellent ability), and Tony Morgan has more or less entirely taken the "combat rogue" niche from her (about all she has that he doesn't is a little flexibility with her off-class cards).

Having loads of money and spending it for big benefits is far stronger than ever before, but Preston Fairmont can do some excellent work in that area and his inheritance far outstrips Jenny's trust fund.

If you want to make a "generic" Jenny Barnes deck, your best bet is to use the money synergy and make good use of her better stat-line compared to Preston. At higher difficulties, Preston will be far better than her in this area, as he can afford more testless effects and boost for high single tests, as Jenny's 3-in-everything stat-line is not good enough by itself for tests on Hard or Expert.

But to actually have a good reason to use Jenny over any other option (aside from personal preference), you need to make good use of her off-class slots. The most interesting recent ideas along these lines that I've seen are Desperate Jenny with loads of skills and very few assets, and Dark Horse Jenny.

My problem with modern Jenny is that I’d rather play Lola. Same stat lines, but Lola is a deck building juggernaut while Jenny just gets a free resource. Jenny’s card pool is essentially a subset of Lola’s, too. Lola just has more undeserved hate while Jenny has some undeserved love.

I’m sure lots of people still like soloing Jenny through adventures, though probably not as many now that there are more Rogues available. I myself have played her Lara Croft style through FA, stealing everything not nailed down. I’ve also soloed expert vanilla Dunwich with Jenny. There are expert mode guides for Jenny on Arkhamdb, some updated as recently as September this year.

Most Jenny variations I’m familiar with revolve around Art Student to pick up clues, recycling the ally with Calling in Favors. This avoids the chaos bag, and that is a great strategy in general when upgrading your playgroup to the higher difficulties. The problem with these Jenny decks is that they don’t scale well with more players because, while more clues are required to advance, the clue gathering speed remains static. Also, adhering to the taboo list is difficult for Jenny since Streetwise was probably designed with her in mind. And while tabooing that particular card balances Preston, it strangles Jenny.

So I’d go for a Preston money style deck but with Jenny or I’d try and do a flexible Lola style deck but with more 4 or 5 exp Rogue cards. But yeah, it seems like Jenny’s niche is in our hearts and minds, not in her play style.

Have fun!

I really wish she could run dual protective incantations but they are lvl 1. There are some scenarios where eliminating a few tokens is incredibly useful and you would always have the cash to keep them out without crippling yourself overmuch and it’s a slot Jenny doesn’t really use... Alas!

I have experimented with a Dark Horse Jenny. The idea, for which I cannot take credit, was to use Treasure Hunter and Hired Muscle with Charisma to pay down to zero each turn and grant a very good generalist stat-line. It worked alright... The issues were that it takes seven experience just to get off the ground, and that there was a lack of action compression or action economy. I was left with the sense that I should have just been playing "Achcan", whose card pool is a much better fit for an investigator with a generalist stat-line and no resources.

I like the idea a "throw something else!" Jenny with Act of Desperation and various consumable, expensive hand-slot items like .45 Thompsons and Fingerprint Kits. And while I have played a Jenny with Act of Desperation in the pre-taboo times; it leaned heavily on since-taboo'd cards and usually wound up using Act for its icons.

So I also feel a bit lost when considering Ms Barnes.

Thinking out loud: we have recently had Gregory Gry, who seems to have potential, and Easy Mark, which I can pretty confidently describe as a good card. They could be strong options for a money Jenny which have no place in a Preston deck.

I know what you mean about struggling with Jenny - she seems too dull to me these days. You said in your post about ArkhamDB decks falling off for Jenny: turns out that's not true. She's still one of the most popular investigators (#2 at start of Dec). This chart shows a 3-month moving average for decks by investigator. Jenny is a perennial top 3 deck! Chart

That's certainly interesting information. Maybe it is that there are now more decks from other investigators, so it seems as if she's dropped off. Put another way, the proportion of Jenny decks to other decks has fallen -but that's expected as more investigators are released.

Regardless, it seems that most are in agreement with the larger point: Jenny is in a tough spot right now.

Easy Mark is pretty good. I don't think Gregory Gry is the right choice though -for anyone, but especially not for Jenny. With her average base stats, Jenny is probably not the one to be trying to pull off "succeed by X". Fast Reload has some options with Jenny's Twin .45s. But that's probably not enough.

I built a Jenny deck for a 4 investigator run through carcosa. She was meant to be a multi-purpose character that jumps in whenever on of the other investigators found themselves short of actions, resources or just generally out of position. She was able to do this by using trial by fire (and resourceful to get it back) in combination with borrowed time. Borrowed time was hands-down the best card for me. In many scenarios it was also considered the best card overall across all 4 investigator decks. With red gloved man and payday (which basically guarantees you 6 resources for 1 XP) this deck got totally out of hand strength wise.
Most of the XP was spent on:
borrowed time
Red-gloved man
Ace in the hole
Sure Gamble
All-In

It was a very unusual approach to a deck for me because when i was looking at the first Lvl 0-iteration of the deck i asked myself:"what does it actually do?" but i surprised myself how fun it was and how well it worked

21 minutes ago, Raahk said:

I built a Jenny deck for a 4 investigator run through carcosa. She was meant to be a multi-purpose character that jumps in whenever on of the other investigators found themselves short of actions, resources or just generally out of position. She was able to do this by using trial by fire (and resourceful to get it back) in combination with borrowed time.

That’s a really nice idea for a deck. I suppose the question would be whether Preston could do this better than Jenny, since all the off-class cards you mentioned are Survivor.

For me Jenny’s strength is her versatility, which particularly suits solo (one-handed) play. With one or two copies of Adaptable, her off-class cards can be switched around to deal with the up-coming scenario: need lots of clues then put Working a Hunch and Art Student into the deck; fighting a lot of monsters then swap them for Vicious Blow and Dynamite Blast; going into Undimensioned and Unseen - add a couple of Holy Rosaries and David Renfield to boost willpower. Don’t know what you need, take a couple of copies of Delve Too Deep.

If things are going well then she can also build up a sizeable pool of resources between her ability and Lone Wolf, which could then be sunk into a skill booster to kill a juicy Elite enemy later in a scenario for its xp.

I’m certainly not saying she’s better than the other Rogues for solo play, but if you know what is coming and like to tinker with your deck to prepare for it then, fittingly for a Dilettante, Jenny offers a lot of options.

Easy Mark is one of my favorite rogue cards right now. Get all 3 and replace 2 of your emergency caches. With lone wolf or other tricks, I never regretted it, and the card draw was nice.

1 hour ago, Assussanni said:

That’s a really nice idea for a deck. I suppose the question would be whether Preston could do this better than Jenny, since all the off-class cards you mentioned are Survivor.

For me Jenny’s strength is her versatility [...]

I considered that as well but in my mind Jenny is better than Preston for a few reasons (at least in this case). Jennys 45s came in very handy more often than not, 10+ ammo is nothing to laugh at. The skill icons are also really great for evading an enemy. Also she takes less actions to hoard resources because she gets them directly into her pool. Also her stats also allowed her some tasks that preston wouldnt be able to perform without some help (like investigating at a shroud 1 or trampling some rats, or even performing a harder test with one of the many skill cards). She is also more resilient against the encounter deck with her higher willpower (Shoutout to Tennessee Sour Mash by the way. This card is awesome).

1 hour ago, Assussanni said:

If things are going well then she can also build up a sizeable pool of resources between her ability and Lone Wolf, which could then be sunk into a skill booster

exactly, like hard knocks which i had as a one off as Plan B

1 hour ago, Soakman said:

Easy Mark is one of my favorite rogue cards right now

It sure does sound like a great card on paper. Can't wait to try it out in my upcoming preston deck

One other thing that Jenny has over Preston is that she can take Illicit cards, meaning that Preston's only combat options are events and Survivor/Neutral cards. While a Poorston fire axe build can do respectably in combat, a Preston build focusing on big money basically has no real combat assets, whereas Jenny can use the Thompson/Typewriter, Lupara and Lockpicks. So a generalist Jenny build leaning more into combat has something that Preston does not. She also has a far easier time managing actions, as Preston needs to take actions to collect his inheritance which can make resource-gain cards a lot less efficient for him.

It's still a pretty narrow niche, as she's only useful if you want enough combat to be useful, not so much combat as to make Tony a better choice, and to not be better off with Finn. So a generalist, high-income, not evade-focused build (or one that wants a solid Willpower).