The Red-Gloved Man
He Was Never There

Asset. Ally

Ally. Conspirator.

Cost: 2. XP: 5.

Neutral
Health: 4. Sanity: 4.

Fast.

After The Red-Gloved Man enters play: Choose two of your skills. While The Red-Gloved Man is in play, raise the base value of each of those skills to 6.

Forced - At the end of the mythos phase: Discard The Red-Gloved Man.

Ryan Barger
Lost in Time and Space #310.
The Red-Gloved Man

FAQs

No faqs yet for this card.

Reviews

This card is awesome! And the best thing about him isn't the stats increase - which are brilliant - but rather the freedom he gives. You want to accept 3 attacks of opportunity while you investigate (probably at 6 ) - no problem. Move while under attack - fine. It's one turn where you can more or less ignore any enemies.

Disadvantages?

  • Expensive in XP (but worth it!)
  • Uses the ally slot.
  • Not worth using for combat without having a weapon that increases damage.
  • Small cost to play
  • Unique - so only 1 in play at a time. Not such a problem as he only lasts until the next Mythos phase.

Advantages?

  • Capability. Do what you want for a turn.
  • Fast. Don't waste an action using this, and don't suffer an attack of opportunity.
  • Works with A Chance Encounter, which is also awesome (though he lasts even less time if brought into play this way)
  • Use it with Police Badge or Ace in the Hole for even more over-powered actions in one turn!

Simply brilliant. Game winning.

AndyB · 936
He's also a great damage soak with 4/4 and he dies anyway. Use smoking pipe or pain killers, to move some of your damage to him. — Django · 5070
Pair this guy with a gold pocket watch and smile..... (bit heavy on xp though) Or with the unique ability on the soon to be released William Yorick — Heyenzzz · 7020
Great upgrade for Trial by fire or alongside it, especially in an INT challenged character. — Tsuruki23 · 2519

I think if you're a survivor you can get The Red-Gloved Man to appear five times, if in your hand you have at least one of him, 2 copies of A Chance Encounter and 2 copies of Resourceful.

Like so:

Play The Red-Gloved Man.

Discard him at the end of the Mythos Phase.

Next turn: Play A Chance Encounter and put The Red-Gloved Man into play.

Commit Resourceful to a skill test, and win. Retrieve A Chance Encounter from your discard pile.

End of round: Discard The Red-Gloved Man

Next turn:

Play A Chance Encounter and put The Red-Gloved Man into play.

Commit Resourceful to a skill test, and win. Retrieve A Chance Encounter from your discard pile.

End of round: Discard The Red-Gloved Man

Next turn:

Play A Chance Encounter and put The Red-Gloved Man into play.

End of round: Discard The Red-Gloved Man

Next turn:

Play A Chance Encounter and put The Red-Gloved Man into play.

End of round: Discard The Red-Gloved Man


I'm sure some other deck techers have stumbled onto this awesome combo. That said, I don't see why it wouldn't work with other allies.

AbsolutZer0 · 19
Okay, but the RGM is a lot less powerful when he takes an action to play and doesn’t buffer your stats during the next Mythos phase. He also doesn’t protect very well against AoO because playing ACE provokes an AoO while he isn’t there to soak. If your goal is just to have multiple turns at a high base stat, Trial by Fire (recursed with Resourceful) may be more effective in many situations and 0xp. — Death by Chocolate · 1434
Agreed, just use Resourceful and Trial by Fire. Using Ace on RGM is a pretty big waste. — StyxTBeuford · 12985
Just play William, talk your seeker friend into giving you the No Stone Unturned LV5 search so you always get this guy, and recur him every time you kill something. — TheNameWasTaken · 3
Yorick + RGM is always a solid way to go. The question these days is whether there's enough XP to go around. Yorick really loves Timeworn Brand. — StyxTBeuford · 12985
Ah see, I don't have The Circle Undone cycle yet, so I didn't know of Trial By Fire's existence. Anyway, I thought it was a neat combo. — AbsolutZer0 · 19
Calling in favors to return RGM to you hand after you had A Chance Encounter with him? — Django · 5070
No AOE on Fast. — MrGoldbee · 1443

Conspiracy theories about Nyarlathotep notwithstanding, this ally is a powerful bomb. There are two main barriers to entry: obviously its whopping 5 experience cost per copy, and it being an ally it bumps off your Leo De Luca or similar unless you invest in Charisma which further increases the effective XP cost.

Frankly though, you get what you pay for, because the effect is game-swinging. As Duke has been doing for ages, increasing an investigator's base skill stacks with other boosts thus making key checks much easier especially on higher difficulties. For example it lets Wendy Adams swing her Baseball Bat on her combo turn with 8. It makes all those +2 effects from the 2 XP versions of Deduction and friends succeed more predictably. It even lets investigators with their low values evade if they need to get away after losing a key weapon... and as a action doesn't cause attacks of opportunity. And it can do two of these in a single turn.

It is also worth pointing out that, unlike most other fast cards, you do not need to play him on your turn, so you can drop him in a pinch to boost your stats for a crucial check or nasty revelation. It can even save you from a poorly-timed Pushed into the Beyond or similar.

On top of all that he usually sticks around long enough to soak up a massive turn of hits with his 4 health 4 sanity.

If an investigator has The Gold Pocket Watch (probably another investigator than you given the extravagant XP cost) then they can skip the mythos phase so you get two turns of the power of crawling chaos. This is exactly the kind of end-game synergy between characters that will win campaigns.

The_Wall · 286
"It is also worth pointing out that, unlike most other fast cards, you do not need to play him on your turn" : rules : "A fast asset may be played by an investigator during any player window on his or her turn." — jd9000 · 73
@jd90: As you quoted yourselfe: you can play a fast asset during any player window *on your turn*, so you definitely cannot play this card during another player's turn. The fast keyword just avoids an action and attack of opportunity. — Scheckel · 107
I know, I was merely quoting his review. — jd9000 · 73
The gentlemen from the Drawn to the Flame podcast suggested using A Chance Encounter with this fellow. — cheddargoblin · 87

Playing as William Yorick. I was so flush with experience points that I sunk 10 into two copies of The Red Gloved Man right before Shattered Aeons just to spend the experience. Was not a fan of him before then.

But a few turns in I wondered why I hadn't made him one of my first purchases. With Yorick... he just kept coming back! And when he did he was always helpful! We're still not through the scenario but he's so cheap and good at what he does that he is basically a natural fit with Yorick.

I still don't know if I would want to play with him in a deck that did not have some way to get cards out of the discard pile, but this is a card that I've underrated, especially when coupled with Yorick. My partner also was watching and he (who recommended I play Yorick) also discovered that this was a natural fit.

NTGuardian · 24
Survivors can revive RGM up to 4 times with chance encounter and Ressourceful, though you'd spend an action on that each time. THis could be compensated with Leo de Luca. Oh and you could return him to your hand before the end of your turn with Calling in Favors, but thats another action. — Django · 5070

The Red-Gloved Man with Tommy Muldoon is an incredible pairing. Basically if you can forsee any circumstance where Tommy takes 4 health and/or horror damage in a single go, then the red gloved man will be recycled and shuffled back into Tommy's deck before the Forced event triggers, but will have allowed Tommy to have a whole go of either not getting distracted by enemies; or taking damage and horror to reload Becky. also importantly, given you are using him for a single super-go, you aren't at all worried about the impact of Rookie Mistake), because if you play it well, it will all be sorted before you draw any cards in the upkeep phase.

Examples below are just from Night of the Zealot enemies, so there are a couple of spoilers if you read the text here and haven't yet played Night of the zealot scenario 1 - the gathering. (and if you haven't done that, why are you reading about 5xp cards anyway? ;-)

e.g. 1) Tommy just has a single simple enemy but has things to do; not many resources; or has Becky deployed but on zero ammo. (say you are facing a Swarm of Rats or if you are lucky one that does 1 damage and 1 horror, such as Ghoul Minion). If Tommy needs to progress the scenario quickly and get ammo back on Becky: Play The Red-Gloved Man to enable Tommy to just investigate three times (at skill level 6) or move through a few locations. He takes a total of 3 attacks of opportunity and another attack during the enemy phase, so the The Red-Gloved Man is defeated and shuffled back into Tommy's deck; (to quickly fight another day) and Tommy gets either 4 or 8 resources / ammo as well as a good chance of getting three clues or moving or otherwise maintaining tempo.

e.g. 2) Tommy has Becky in his hand, but not in his actual hands yet. He's got a lot of resources. He's surrounded by three enemies (Swarm of Rats; Ghoul Priest; Ghoul Minion, which would be doing him 4 damage and 3 horror every turn. )

Action 0(fast) Play The Red-Gloved Man, give the base 6 stat boost to Evade and to Fight;

Action 1 Fight (with fists, helped by Red) the Swarm of Rats (total strength 6 against difficulty 1). hopefully kill it

Action 2 Play Becky (which attack of opportunity from the two ghouls puts 3 damage and horror to Red)

Action 3 Evade the ghoul priest (skill 6 against difficulty 4)

Enemy phase sees the Ghoul Minion attacking Red, defeating him, and shuffling him back into your deck. you then get 8 resources back, some of which you are likely to want to put on Becky, to help the next round's combat against the ghouls.

Next round, instead of facing three enemies with no weapons and no chance, you now have Becky with anything up to 10 ammo on, just ready to start unloading merry hell on Ghoul Minion and Ghoul Priest.

If you are really lucky, you'll have a seeker with No Stone Unturned at your location to get The Red-Gloved Man straight back into your hand before your next turn!!

e.g. 3) Much more simple but similar to example 2: you have a single big enemy (one that does at least 2 damage and/or horror) again from the Gathering example, lets just go with Ghoul Priest and don't yet have Becky out! Action 0 fast: play Red Action 1 Play Becky. (Red takes 2 damage and 2 horror) Action 2 Fight Ghoul Priest using Becky (1 ammo now left). strength 8 vs 4. Action 3 Fight Ghoul Priest using Becky (all ammo used up). Strength 8 vs 4. Enemy phase defeats The Red-Gloved Man, putting 8 ammo back onto becky.

For round 2, you have masses of ammo on becky, you have 0 damage against you, and you are ready to fight three times against Ghoul Priest before you even begin to worry about taking attacks. In both turns you have a pretty good chance of dealing 10 damage to the ghoul priest in 2 goes, without worrying about receiving any damage.

Basically The Red-Gloved Man gives you something that all good higher level cards give: Tempo. But with Tommy Muldoon you get the Triple-whammy of Tempo, recursion and resources/ammo.

Phoenixbadger · 197
Red Gloved Man in Tommy also becomes basically broken when playing Carcosa and not saying a certain name. ^^ — Soemann · 1
Another easy combo is Solemn Vow. Since RGM doesn’t leave until the end of the Mythos phase, you will have an opportunity to use each Solemn Vow again during the Mythos phase for a potential 2x damage/horror per Solemn Vow in play. — Death by Chocolate · 1434
Although, keeping him around for the Mythos phase does expose him to a potential Mistake. — Death by Chocolate · 1434

A reminder...

This card cannot be selected if you're doing TSK. He's integral to the story and can't show up as an asset.

That being said, other than that consistency rule there is actually no gameplay reason why he can't be selected, so feel free to house rules it up.

drjones87 · 188
"The game rules can explicitly be ignored if you wish" is what this post boiled down to... was it really necessary to make? — fiatluxia · 65
He is a unique character, with an asterix. So let's say, he makes an appearence as an enemy in a scenario, you could not play him, should he be in your deck, because this enemy likely will also have an asterix. — Susumu · 361
Of course, if you go that far, you could easily just get rid of the unique rule as well. Two Dr. Milan Christopher on the table, why not? — Susumu · 361
And after that we can just keep revealing chaos tokens until we get the one we want. — Tinkorn · 1

How does The Red-Gloved Man (RGM) interact with Monstrous Transformation? Both set base skill values to a specific value but which one takes priority? The one that entered play last (which will almost always be RGM)?

Django · 5070
The Red-Gloved man *raises* the base value. Whereas Monstrous Transformation *sets* it. AFAIK, *set* takes precedence over pretty much everything. Thus a location with Obscuring Fog and The Skeleton Key still has a shroud value of one. — YorickPlays · 1