Heard they're hard to get, but that means a lot of us here have used their decks.

Fave has gotta be Harvey for me, a classic packaged in all his glory - although seems weird to release his Necronomicon then taboo it up right away.

Played with Stella and once I wrapped my head around her she's kind of fun - another "although" - Quick Learner is tailor-made for her but not sure who else. Rogues would like the extra action bonuses but they can't use it.

Playing Nate Cho right now and he's pretty one-note but fun in small doses. A whole campaign with him is a bit boring I find.

Tried Winnie once and find she's a Roguier version of Silas...

Jacquie Fine's cards look good but I can never understand Mystics so I haven't bothered:)

Stella also benefits madly from Try and Try Again(3) with Granny Orne. With her signature cards coming back into her hand and each of them possibly being available multiple times, she can be crazy good!

The Taboo happened for Harvey’s Necronomicon, because of the potential abuse of its power when it’s released into the general pool. Knowledge is Power alone, makes it crazy strong! They may have just been thinking about his deck, because if it stays in the confines of of his deck build, it is just fine how it is.

Been busy so can’t type much, but had a new player start Carcosa with me a few months back and she looooves Stella. Fail to win is so new player friendly but also offers a lot of experienced tricks as they begin to pick up strategy and finesse. We are having a blast.

1 hour ago, Soakman said:

Been busy so can’t type much, but had a new player start Carcosa with me a few months back and she looooves Stella. Fail to win is so new player friendly but also offers a lot of experienced tricks as they begin to pick up strategy and finesse. We are having a blast.

I’ve played with all the new investigators, but only taken Stella and Harvey through a campaign. Harvey was meh. It was just ponderous with the hand size thing. Although Knowledge is Power did save the day with the Necronomicon more than once. It was the only out of deck card I took with him.
Stella, on the other hand, was amazing fun! She became one of the most versatile investigators I have ever played. That Try and Try Again (3) with Granny and Quick Learner was a game changer. We got so many great uses out of her signature cards and other skill cards. She was a force! But then, I have always had a soft spot for Survivors.
The “Discard pile is really my hand” thing with Patrice, and the “lose to win, less is more” thing with Stella are so focused on Survivor attributes, that playing those investigators has really opened up how I build Survivor decks. Now I suggest that players who want to foray into playing Survivors, play those two Survivors first, because they teach the concept of their class so well. I don’t know of any other investigators in other classes that do that.
Maybe Sefina, with the myriad of events a Rogue can participate in, to learn to be “Roguish” and Zoey as a straight up Monster slayer.

That post made me think about this a bit deeper for each faction, and if I had to use investigators from each faction as a 'spotlight' for their mechanics, this is what I see.

Guardian: Mark is an excellent killing machine with access to lots of powerful weapon options and excels with them, Carolyn is excellent support and really gives the player a chance to explore the support-y side of guardian cards (teamwork/stand together, etc).

Mystic: Jaqueline emphasizes bag manipulation, Gloria emphasizes encounter manipulation, Diana emphasizes cancel cards

Seeker: Minh for support, Rex for cluing (though he really needs to be taboo'd in order to not feel OP)

Rogue: Winnie for risks/skills, Finn for evade/mobility, Preston for $$$

Survivor: You pretty much nailed it with Patrice and Stella, but Yorrick is good for recursion deck building and I would also say Rita for atypical enemy management, and even Wendy for a 'safety net' failing-isn't-that-bad touchstone.

Survivor really feels like the class where individual investigators have their own individual playstyles. They might emphasize one survivor motif over another, but nobody comes close to what Patrice does, for instance, or even the sheer volume of recursion that Yorrick provides, etc.

6 hours ago, Soakman said:

That post made me think about this a bit deeper for each faction, and if I had to use investigators from each faction as a 'spotlight' for their mechanics, this is what I see.

Guardian: Mark is an excellent killing machine with access to lots of powerful weapon options and excels with them, Carolyn is excellent support and really gives the player a chance to explore the support-y side of guardian cards (teamwork/stand together, etc).

Mystic: Jaqueline emphasizes bag manipulation, Gloria emphasizes encounter manipulation, Diana emphasizes cancel cards

Seeker: Minh for support, Rex for cluing (though he really needs to be taboo'd in order to not feel OP)

Rogue: Winnie for risks/skills, Finn for evade/mobility, Preston for $$$

Survivor: You pretty much nailed it with Patrice and Stella, but Yorrick is good for recursion deck building and I would also say Rita for atypical enemy management, and even Wendy for a 'safety net' failing-isn't-that-bad touchstone.

Survivor really feels like the class where individual investigators have their own individual playstyles. They might emphasize one survivor motif over another, but nobody comes close to what Patrice does, for instance, or even the sheer volume of recursion that Yorrick provides, etc.

Good thoughts. It would be an interesting tutorial for newer players to play investigators in a faction in a certain order. We had the investigators as they were released, so Patrice and Stella or some of the others you mentioned, came along fairly recently. Maybe I would have been a better deck builder earlier on.

The thing is...the more I play Arkham, the less class identity seems like a good way to think about investigators! I think that's partly a function of having a mature card pool, too - with so many cards available, a given 30 card deck can't include most of the cards it has access to. And with more cards and interesting mechanics and synergies comes a whole host of possibilities. Mark Harrigan can definitely be the ultimate monster hunter with all the biggest guns and tricks - or he can be one of the most flexible investigators out there, taking advantage of his high Combat to avoid having to invest much deck space to fighting at all; give him the .32 Colt (2) and Vicious Blow and he has enough killing power to get through a campaign, leaving him 26 other cards and on-tap boosts to every stat to do weird stuff with...

So looping back to the recent starter Investigator Decks, they definitely each have a strong central theme or two that they play into, but I think it's important to emphasise that they don't just introduce you to their class.

Nathaniel is a monster-killing Guardian, which is a good place to start if you want to fight, but he also introduces players to the possibility of event-focused decks...which leads to such diverse places as Sefina, Preston, Marie, Joe, Luke and Agnes, and synergies based around specific cards; he also helps introduce the importance of card traits which has synergies across all classes and specific investigator deckbuilding options.

Winifred is a Rogue focused on succeed-by-x synergies, which are a cornerstone of many Rogue decks, but she also lets players know that a skill-based investigator is a viable playstyle, leading to Silas, Amanda, Minh, Grisly Totem and Practice Makes Perfect decks, and so on, and introduces the idea that relying on temporary boosts rather than static boosts is perfectly viable.

Harvey is a Seeker focused on getting clues with intellect and the seeker themes of high hand size and drawing cards, and honestly might be the most straightforward of the lot, but even that introduces the idea that the economy of the game is malleable, and the value of cards (and by extension resources) can differ massively - leading to Survivor Discard decks, Patrice, Preston, Big Money/Dark Horse, and so on.

Stella introduces and epitomises the Survivor fail-to-win archetype, sure, but also shows how investigators don't need high stats to win - being an effective fighter and decent investigator with a combat and intellect of 3 and 2 respectively, she leads into many other investigators that don't need high numbers to win, like Preston, Jenny, Patrice, Amanda, "Ashcan" Pete, Diana, even Calvin.

And Jacqueline is a Mystic with high Willpower who introduces the basic Mystic playstyle as well as chaos bag manipulation - which may be a rather Mystic theme but also encompasses cards and decks from every class and helps lead to Bless/Curse, Seal mechanics, Wendy, Jim, Mateo, etc., and introduces the idea that the fundamental "rules" of the game can be manipulated.

Stella is definitely great fun to play and probably my favourite of the five, though I feel like Winifred and Jacqueline have a greater range than the other three in how they can be built outside of their base niche (for example, I had a blast with Big Money Winifred, and Jacqueline will be well-placed to take advantage of Bless/Curse synergies).

5 hours ago, Allonym said:

The thing is...the more I play Arkham, the less class identity seems like a good way to think about investigators! I think that's partly a function of having a mature card pool, too - with so many cards available, a given 30 card deck can't include most of the cards it has access to. And with more cards and interesting mechanics and synergies comes a whole host of possibilities. Mark Harrigan can definitely be the ultimate monster hunter with all the biggest guns and tricks - or he can be one of the most flexible investigators out there, taking advantage of his high Combat to avoid having to invest much deck space to fighting at all; give him the .32 Colt (2) and Vicious Blow and he has enough killing power to get through a campaign, leaving him 26 other cards and on-tap boosts to every stat to do weird stuff with...

So looping back to the recent starter Investigator Decks, they definitely each have a strong central theme or two that they play into, but I think it's important to emphasise that they don't just introduce you to their class.

Nathaniel is a monster-killing Guardian, which is a good place to start if you want to fight, but he also introduces players to the possibility of event-focused decks...which leads to such diverse places as Sefina, Preston, Marie, Joe, Luke and Agnes, and synergies based around specific cards; he also helps introduce the importance of card traits which has synergies across all classes and specific investigator deckbuilding options.

Winifred is a Rogue focused on succeed-by-x synergies, which are a cornerstone of many Rogue decks, but she also lets players know that a skill-based investigator is a viable playstyle, leading to Silas, Amanda, Minh, Grisly Totem and Practice Makes Perfect decks, and so on, and introduces the idea that relying on temporary boosts rather than static boosts is perfectly viable.

Harvey is a Seeker focused on getting clues with intellect and the seeker themes of high hand size and drawing cards, and honestly might be the most straightforward of the lot, but even that introduces the idea that the economy of the game is malleable, and the value of cards (and by extension resources) can differ massively - leading to Survivor Discard decks, Patrice, Preston, Big Money/Dark Horse, and so on.

Stella introduces and epitomises the Survivor fail-to-win archetype, sure, but also shows how investigators don't need high stats to win - being an effective fighter and decent investigator with a combat and intellect of 3 and 2 respectively, she leads into many other investigators that don't need high numbers to win, like Preston, Jenny, Patrice, Amanda, "Ashcan" Pete, Diana, even Calvin.

And Jacqueline is a Mystic with high Willpower who introduces the basic Mystic playstyle as well as chaos bag manipulation - which may be a rather Mystic theme but also encompasses cards and decks from every class and helps lead to Bless/Curse, Seal mechanics, Wendy, Jim, Mateo, etc., and introduces the idea that the fundamental "rules" of the game can be manipulated.

Stella is definitely great fun to play and probably my favourite of the five, though I feel like Winifred and Jacqueline have a greater range than the other three in how they can be built outside of their base niche (for example, I had a blast with Big Money Winifred, and Jacqueline will be well-placed to take advantage of Bless/Curse synergies).

Ach Allonym, wie ich dich vermissen werde!
As usual, those are great insights.
I think the whole experience I have been having with building these aforementioned investigators, is the result of their focusing on one element. I believe it’s made me a better deck builder. Since this is my first real commitment to a deck building game, (except for a very brief effort with LTOR, which we didn’t really like. It just somehow fell flat) I’ve had little experience with the process.

I am not naturally a great strategist (as you well know) and in the beginning with such a limited pool of cards, I was always focused on distributing my decks with the perfect ratio of card types, because it was the suggested archetype. I wasn’t thinking much at the outset of creating a deck, about how cards interacted with each other, or if they were really maximizing an Investigators ability, as opposed to just supporting it. Even as the card pool really started increasing, I stayed stuck in that rut. It was actually this forum and a lot of great tips from you (your “hot takes” were invaluable) and a few others, that made me start thinking outside of that box and trying things with deck builds, which I never would have thought of. They’ve yielded some great success and sometimes great di stress.

I have much still to learn, but I wonder what it would be like to go back and limit myself to just the Core Set player cards and see how different my starter decks would look now.

I just this week picked up all five packs on Amazon for normal retail price. Keep an eye out!

6 hours ago, Sir_Blacksoutalot said:

I just this week picked up all five packs on Amazon for normal retail price. Keep an eye out!

Yes. I noticed on their website while they were doing inventory, they either got more in stock, or found some. They were gone pretty fast though, so I suspected retailers snapped them up to sell.

Hopefully I’ll get some as soon as the online shop I placed a back order with gets them in.

I just received my five Investigator Start Decks and have a couple questions about how to put these investigators in play.

First, is it okay use these started decks for any of the released campaigns? Like I'm think of using Jacqueline Fine for the Path to Carcosa campaign. Is that perfectly acceptable?

Second, should I go ahead and mix these new investigator cards in with my master collection? Or is it best to keep these cards isolated to each of their own respective decks?

The FFG announce page for these starter decks makes it seem like the answer is "Yes" to both of the above questions. In the community's experience, does that ring true?

45 minutes ago, Sir_Blacksoutalot said:

First, is it okay use these started decks for any of the released campaigns? Like I'm think of using Jacqueline Fine for the Path to Carcosa campaign. Is that perfectly acceptable?

Yes, absolutely.

45 minutes ago, Sir_Blacksoutalot said:

Second, should I go ahead and mix these new investigator cards in with my master collection? Or is it best to keep these cards isolated to each of their own respective decks?

The short answer is to go ahead and mix the new cards into your collection.

The longer answer is that the decks as they come as designed to be playable straight out of the box, although I think they were designed with multiplayer in mind - Nathaniel and Harvey’s decks in particular aren’t well suited to solo investigator play, while Jacqueline and Stella’s both hold up pretty well. I think a lot of the older players also preferred to play with the decks straight out of the box the first time. When the five starter decks released it was the biggest influx of new player cards at once and therefore using the pre-built decks was a good way to get to grips with all the new options.

Speaking as one of the "older players", when I first got the starter investigator packs I took the time to use each of them ask is, either in a campaign or a set of standalones. In each case I paired them with another investigator since some of them seemed they would be weak in solo. Nothing said that I had to do this other than my desire to see how they worked "out of the box", as well as a desire to try out the new cards and not have them get lost in my collection (I have everything released to date).

As far as it being okay to use them in any campaign: yes, feel free to do so. Having a deck ready to go (for anything) is precisely what there packs were created for. This even includes building up a deck with some XP for a side scenario.

I can definitely recommend trying to play with just the base deck and included upgrades, at least once or twice (pick a couple of them you really like the look of, maybe?). It's a very refreshing experience if you're an old hand at the game, kind of like playing back in Core/Dunwich days when there were more limited options, and it does really help you improve your understanding of what cards work for you. For example, I was skeptical of Grimm's Fairy Tales but having been forced to play with it by using Stella's starting deck, I found it surprisingly powerful.

I can't speak to whether that approach is good for helping newer players get to grip with game concepts but (as I outlined upthread) I feel like the decks have a lot to teach.