Ok so, I thought about this topic idea last night. I couldn’t sleep well because of it actually lol, if no one likes it no biggie but I think it might be fun. So here is the idea, post something that you think is either useless, you ignored, or you’ve never used. The idea is to have one person post what they think fits that category and then the next person(s) will try and show ways to use said player card or investigator or story asset. Heck even show off combos with it, give a story about how you used it to great effect one time, however the cards lead you . Anyone can post what they feel is useless or suboptimal, but please quote the post you are referring to so that way people can read it clearly and get new ideas for decks or investigators.

I’ll obviously go first, so here is something I’ve felt I have never wanted to use and it’s:

Marie Lambeau!

I feel this investigator just has the absolute worst of mechanics, because it works to rob you of the most important aspect in Arkham, time. When you place a doom on your card you effectively are forfeiting 3 turns for the conditional 1, and even if you do it at a time when the agenda was going to pop anyways it’s so situational.... I have never ever thought of a good way to use her that some other investigator wouldn’t immediately be better. So how do I use this card fellow Arkham horror acolytes? Lend me your wisdom

1 hour ago, Sooner535 said:

Marie Lambeau!

I feel this investigator just has the absolute worst of mechanics, because it works to rob you of the most important aspect in Arkham, time. When you place a doom on your card you effectively are forfeiting 3 turns for the conditional 1, and even if you do it at a time when the agenda was going to pop anyways it’s so situational.... I have never ever thought of a good way to use her that some other investigator wouldn’t immediately be better. So how do I use this card fellow Arkham horror acolytes? Lend me your wisdom

Easy, just use David Renfield and Arcane Initiate, then kill them before their doom becomes relevant. You can depend on the scenario to off them for you, or you can run some weird tech cards like sacrifice and moonlight ritual. On top of those options, her signature spell helps you stave off the extra doom you added, making her quite good at delaying agenda flips.

I think I've played her once, or maybe seen her played once, and she was extremely good. Having an extra action every turn is phenomenal, and spells can do pretty much anything you want. The doom drawback is something Mystics deal with anyways, and she can make it an advantage. Knowing which scenarios can add doom to the agenda is crucial.

On the other hand, I think she has the worst weakness in the game. Taking extra damage is no joke, especially for mystics, and you need to shorten the clock by three rounds (not turns, full rounds) to get rid of him. Also he takes the ally slot. In scenarios where the doom is unpredictable, he is a nightmare.

As for a card I've never felt compelled to use:

The Council's Coffer

A ridiculous amount of effort and xp for an effect basically no one needs. Instead of this card, why not just put in the card you're going to find? There's some out-of-faction / bonded shenanigans you can pull, but the effort is way over the line. I feel like I'd only slot this in to say I did it.

What @SGPrometheus said about Marie Lambeau's strengths. I'm actually having a pretty good run with her, Ursula, and Winifred going through Return to the Forgotten Age. I've built all three decks for speed and evasion trying for low vengeance (the downside is they are also not picking up much experience). For these three, they are usually out of the scenarios before the Baron contributes a significant amount of damage to anyone.

52 minutes ago, SGPrometheus said:

The Council's Coffer

A ridiculous amount of effort and xp for an effect basically no one needs. Instead of this card, why not just put in the card you're going to find? There's some out-of-faction / bonded shenanigans you can pull, but the effort is way over the line. I feel like I'd only slot this in to say I did it.

What out-of-faction/bonded shenanigans did you have in mind? When you unlock it don't you just search your deck and discard pile for a card and play it for free?

Best case scenario I can think of is either:

• Mandy to resolve the effect twice, bringing in say the new 1 of Necronomicon from Harvey's pack and some other card. She'd also get a Research card from the search assuming her weakness has already been drawn and could commit Quick Thinking so it only effectively costs one action. She also has intellect 5 so she should be able to crack the lock well enough, say committing Practice Makes Perfect and hopefully hitting Perception (2) or some such for even more card draw.
• Stella carrying it around with her and using her first action each turn to fail to open it using her Intellect while she has Rabbit's Foot (3), Quick Learner and a couple of Drawing Thins in play. Committing Take Heart wouldn't go amiss either.

I'm not saying either of them are great (or even good: seekers already have lots of card draw and search effects and with Stella it becomes a better draw action which you've spent xp and cards on) but it's the best I could think of!

Here's a card that I have used but continually leaves me bewildered how to use it effectively: Dark Horse . I'm definitely not saying it's a bad card, I definitely am saying that I am bad at utilising it!

Council coffers: weird that this pops up lol, we always carry it with us as a “just in case” pop, if things start going south playing it and popping it could help save our bacon. We usually play with uh... suboptimal decks to put it mildly (we all 3 have 2 copies of versatile lol) so having a bit of a insurance idea things go south can be helpful, it’s in my fiancee’s deck (she’s playing mandy) since she’s best at finding cards. Our last run through we used it in a scenario to pull out weapons that were sorely needed. I would say it’s a good card when it’s needed, but man is it dead weight when it isn’t.

dark horse: I used this with fire axe, obviously anything you can pump resources into is a great help, bonus if it’s fast to spend those resources so you can still have resources “just in case”. My main use of it was actually used as “insurance” basically a survivor “pump” deck and if I ran out of the resources? Dark horse would keep me a bit ahead. I have it in my Preston deck for that reason (after all his money on family inheritance isn’t considered in his resource pool) I feel it really shines on him, honestly there has been a lot of situations where I wish I could have 2 lol.

Next card for me:

Dr. Vermis Mysteriis

Man I cannot wrap my head around this card, any help?

side note: I cannot for the life of me figure out how to put a quote into a post I’ve already made -.- I’m breaking my own “rules” and it’s been less than a day lol. Hopefully the underlines help make it easy to see

Dark Horse with Patrice can be a great combo. If I go that route, I build a non asset heavy deck for her with 2 Cornered as the “Cornerstone” Stack it with cards like Winging It, Improvised Weapon, Impromptu Barrier, Moonstone, Glimmer of Hope, Resourceful, Scavenging, etc. making her discard pile pretty much her hand and her hand, pretty much skill fodder. I keep her deck cheap. Events are usually pretty situational, so I don’t put in many of them either, unless they have good skill bonuses. The trick is to get Dark Horse and Cornered out early. If she is saving for an asset, Dark Horse may have to go silent for a round or two, but she cycles through her deck so fast, stuff comes up pretty quick. Generally, she won’t use resources. The majority of cards she can play from her discard pile cost either 1 or nothing. So, say she plans to investigate next round and has Winging it in her discard pile, she’ll take her resource during upkeep to pay for it and makes the investigation her first action if possible. She discards a card to Cornered for +2 and Dark Horse makes it a +3. The shroud is -1 from Winging It (she can also commit cards if she needs more ) and Bam! 2 clues. If she needs to evade or fight, it’s the same scenario for Weapon or Barrier. She is the minimalist investigator. Wits over wallet! Preston really doesn’t get her, but then she doesn’t really get him either.

A card I have never used and can’t see myself using : Armor of Ardennes

4 hours ago, Sooner535 said:

side note: I cannot for the life of me figure out how to put a quote into a post I’ve already made -.- I’m breaking my own “rules” and it’s been less than a day lol. Hopefully the underlines help make it easy to see

Yeah. You can’t as far as I can tell. Of course, I’m using my phone, so I probably have limitations. What I hate is when I accidentally quote myself and then can’t delete it!

5 hours ago, Mimi61 said:

A card I have never used and can’t see myself using : Armor of Ardennes

Man, I love the armor it’s basically like Jessica Hyde in blue..... just way more expensive. Now that we have bandolier it is much harder to pull it into a deck, but I’m actually planning on running it in my Nathaniel deck (basically no weapons, so no need for bandolier).

Sister Mary I think will also absolutely love running the armor, her high sanity and low health makes for a good pick for it. Another mention I think is mark, he can use it to preserve his health for his weakness and triggers, could be very powerful on him. Also it and smoking pipe is technically interesting, just some odd extra flavor there lol. I think the armor is great on a nice “tank” style guardian, someone who is mainly focused on taking damage instead of dealing it. Funnily enough things that deal 1 physical damage could just be on you and they can’t do anything to hurt you, the idea of seeing a guardian running around with tons of things attacking them but not doing any damage is hysterical to me lol.

let’s try:

.35 Winchester

12 hours ago, Sooner535 said:

side note: I cannot for the life of me figure out how to put a quote into a post I’ve already made -.- I’m breaking my own “rules” and it’s been less than a day lol. Hopefully the underlines help make it easy to see

click "Quote" as if you're going to do another post, select all and copy or cut (the quote), then click "edit" back on your original post and paste. voila! : D

13 hours ago, Sooner535 said:

Dr. Vermis Mysteriis

Man I cannot wrap my head around this card, any help?

I'll take a crack at this one. With Knowledge is Power and De Vermis Mysteriis in hand you can bypass that doom, skip the opportunity attack you might otherwise take, still play a discounted event, and discard DVM for another card from your deck. KiP is very strong card for Mystics that you may want to run anyway, and the cycle of Read the Signs , Spectral Razor , and Ethereal From make good spell events to recur.

Is KiP doing all the heavy lifting in that combo? Not really. Using it to play Spectral Razor rather than to cast Shriveling for example, is to gain +1 damage (usually), +2 or 3 skill value, a free engage, and no risk of melting your own brain, which is pretty good for 2 experience and 1 resource.

What do you do if De Vermis Mysteriis is sitting in your hand and both copies of Knowledge is Power are at the bottom of your deck? Ummmm...

How about that .35 Winchester ?

I guess no one knows how to use the Winchester? Lol

7 hours ago, Sooner535 said:

I guess no one knows how to use the Winchester? Lol

Yeah, it's just bad. There are several weapons available at level 0 that are objectively better, or just as good. It's like the Springfield, but not as bad because it's level 0.

On 9/25/2020 at 10:13 AM, Sooner535 said:

.35 Winchester

Sealing tokens and drawing extra tokens looks to be the way to go. So a monster hunting mystic? Jim with Olive McBride, Protective Incantation and Lone Wolf (to pay for Protective Incantation), perhaps. Throw in Shrivelling as a weapon to deal with 2 health enemies and finish off 3 health enemies when you don’t manage to head shot them. Ask Jacqueline nicely if she’ll accompany you on your adventure and bring her Chthonian Stone?

Or swap out Lone Wolf and throw in Eat Lead and Venturer on Diana or Sister Mary. I think it could be quite fun to try on Easy, but consistently dealing 2 damage makes turns a lot easier to plan compared to maybe dealing 3 but maybe dealing only 1.

Ya I feel that’s the problem, inconsistency. Really hurts to see that 1-3 when I could just get straight 1 or 2, never much cared for luck lol. I guess like you said a token manipulation deck might run it since it’s already something they do. So do we feel Winchester might be the first “bad” card we’ve looked at so far? One with very little redeeming qualities and combos? Or is it still useful?

Anyone feel free to add a card lol, here is my next one (I’m scrapping the barrel here personally lol, I feel most cards I see are useful):

Kukri

Tell me how to use this card lol

On 9/25/2020 at 9:38 AM, Spritz Tea said:

How about that .35 Winchester ?

Quote

Played through forgotten age last year with a guy that punched or stabbed (one scenario no weapons, the others a machete) the Harbinger to death by himself as Leo, with no other buffs, without having it retaliate. When the Winchester came out we decided the card was his signature card. He got more deck searching off Leo's elder sign ability than the guy playing Mandy did off of his deck build + elder sign.

1 hour ago, Sooner535 said:

Kukri

Back when it came out it was better than the knife because it gave a testless second damage in exchange for an action, now it's on the scrap heap of history as each faction has better options.

6 hours ago, Sooner535 said:

Kukri

Tell me how to use this card lol

since i am still early in the game and don't have as many fancy options yet, this card has been great for Father Mat so i don't have to waste spells on silly things like rats or other low-level critters that i just want to get rid of rather than evading. but i can definitely see that it will probably fall out of my deck as i progress to other, better things.

Hmm I guess I’ve always viewed kukri and knife in the same vein, well why not take:

machete Or fire axe

but I guess if you can’t splash into those, it’s a good card? Also idk if I’ve ever had the mystic/survivor/rogue be the damage dealer or tank, so I guess I would like it more if I didn’t always have a guardian in my group? I guess also free restless damage will be useful if I can ever convince my group to play hardest difficulty lol. Hmmm, what about:

Carolyn Fern

i don’t think she’s bad but I’ve never ever played her, and have always viewed her as a “lesser guardian” any examples of why she’s not?

2 minutes ago, Sooner535 said:

Hmm I guess I’ve always viewed kukri and knife in the same vein, well why not take:

machete Or fire axe

but I guess if you can’t splash into those, it’s a good card? Also idk if I’ve ever had the mystic/survivor/rogue be the damage dealer or tank, so I guess I would like it more if I didn’t always have a guardian in my group? I guess also free restless damage will be useful if I can ever convince my group to play hardest difficulty lol. Hmmm, what about:

Carolyn Fern

i don’t think she’s bad but I’ve never ever played her, and have always viewed her as a “lesser guardian” any examples of why she’s not?

Kukri is a neutral card. so low-combat mystics, seekers, rogues and survivors can have it, whereas fire axe is just for survivors and machete is for guardians.

i'm looking forward to playing Carolyn, though i don't know where to start with her. her inability to carry weapons sounds like a rule i might ignore ~ hahahaha

>.< well I’m thinking spells with her maybe? I am also excited about it lol, I just don’t know exactly where to start. I thought about maybe building her entirely support? So any heal spells and things like stand together maybe? Also she can things like blood rite, maybe it’ll be a good time to use it?

42 minutes ago, Sooner535 said:

>.< well I’m thinking spells with her maybe? I am also excited about it lol, I just don’t know exactly where to start. I thought about maybe building her entirely support? So any heal spells and things like stand together maybe? Also she can things like blood rite, maybe it’ll be a good time to use it?

she would definitely be a great support character if only to keep your other characters alive with her ability to heal!

i still want to give her the shotgun. it's expensive and it would take both her hands so that seems fair ~ and c'mon: it would be awesome ~ hahaha

Carolyn is great. Especially in a 2-3 player game. I don't have time to do a full analysis, but this is how a deck near the end of TCU looked for her and I felt wildly powerful. https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/398547

5 hours ago, happy_ythogtha said:

since i am still early in the game and don't have as many fancy options yet, this card has been great for Father Mat so i don't have to waste spells on silly things like rats or other low-level critters that i just want to get rid of rather than evading. but i can definitely see that it will probably fall out of my deck as i progress to other, better things.

I used to use Kubri very early on, when there weren’t many options for no guardians. But haven’t used it in ages. There are just better things available now.

5 hours ago, happy_ythogtha said:

i'm looking forward to playing Carolyn, though i don't know where to start with her. her inability to carry weapons sounds like a rule i might ignore ~ hahahaha

She is not a typical guardian. Soakman and Allonym both have great deck builds for her on Arkhamdb. She wouldn’t be a great solo investigator, but man O man, she can be good in a group. Especially a horror heavy campaign like Carcosa. And since she is not hunting down lots of enemies, she can be a great tactician and help pull off some awesome stunts.
I love Stick to the Plan and Dynamite with her.

I have used Carolyn in an all-Guardian team. Depending on deck, more than half of the time she has the team set for resources. In Carcosa, several times I have to scrounge for pennies to keep up with the resources everyone had from her counseling sessions.

As said, I would not solo her, but as team support she is excellent.

Aquinnah . Aquinnah level 3 is a functional effect, but I've certainly never used her. Aquinnah level 0 feels like some sort of misprint. Every time she came up when I did slot her in (Early in the game's history) I would think to myself there is never a good time to spend that much on her effect. It's a shame because she sounds like an interesting character so I do feel compelled now to put her in a functional deck, but it still feels like that's too much xp for that effect. In many cases she basically does the job of a Guard Dog level 0.

My other one is Trench Knife . I'm sure there is some janky way to use Tench Knife , but I honestly can't figure it out. Also having trouble figuring out why I'd want to play that way for Trench Knife 's pretty modest effect. I guess it's nice that engage actions don't trigger an AAO, but rarely is that the issue I'm trying to fix in my decks.

Also I love playing Carolyn. I have to force myself not to pick Carolyn when I'm making a new deck now. Even in solo I feel she plays just fine. You just gotta find ways to lean into her ability in your deck build. I love playing Keen Eye in Carolyn since she can easily afford the otherwise very pricey effect. Especially if you are running something like Forbidden Knowledge to ramp up her resource curve. You get a Forbidden Knowledge up while you have Keen Eye and all of a sudden Meat Cleaver doesn't seem that bad in her deck. You should be packing a ton of Heals Horror anyway because it's Carolyn so you should be able to offset the Sanity spending.