Lola Hayes
The Actress

Investigator

Performer.

Neutral
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
Health: 6. Sanity: 6.

Forced - After you draw your opening hand: Choose a role (, , , , , or Neutral).

You can only play, commit, or trigger abilities on Neutral cards or cards of your role.

: Switch your role. (Limit once per round.)

effect: +2. You may switch roles.

Perhaps this would be her big comeback.
Magali Villeneuve
The Path to Carcosa #6.

Latest Taboo

This card's forced ability is moved to its reverse side, and it should now read: "Additional Setup: After you draw your opening hand, choose a role (, , , , , or Neutral)." This card's front side additionally gains: ": Switch roles. Does not provoke attacks of opportunity."

Lola Hayes - Back

Investigator

Deck Size: 35.

Deckbuilding Options: Survivor, Guardian, Seeker, Rogue, and Mystic cards (, , , , and ) level 0-3, Neutral cards level 0-5.

Deckbuilding Requirements (do not count toward deck size): 2 copies of Improvisation, 2 copies of Crisis of Identity, 1 random basic weakness.

Additional Requirements: Your deck must include at least 7 cards each from 3 different classes (, , , , or ).

Lola has performed to sold-out houses worldwide, but no play has been as haunting or as odd as The King in Yellow. Even during rehearsals, everything about it brought calamity and dread. When her co-star, Miriam, was found floating dead in the Seine, she decided she'd had enough, and penned a letter to the director explaining that her next performance would be her last. Now she heads home to Arkham for one final show, hoping she can finally be rid of this dreadful play.
Lola Hayes
Lola Hayes
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FAQs

(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)

  • Q: As Lola Hayes, what role do I switch to if I resolve Crisis of Identity and the discarded card is a multi-class card? What happens if my deck is empty and no card is discarded? A: If the discarded card is a multi-class card, you may choose which of those classes to switch your role to. If no card is discarded, your role stays the same and is not switched. - FAQ, v.2.0, August 2022

  • Q: As Lola Hayes, can I use Lola’s ability to switch roles in the middle of resolving another ability? A: As long as it is during a player window, yes. - FAQ, v.2.0, August 2022

  • Q: The rules reference and the FAQ both imply that abilities only work during setup if they specifically refer to the setup process. Does this also apply to constant abilities? In particular: Is Norman Withers’ “Play with the top card of your deck revealed.” ability active during setup (e.g. while he’s taking a mulligan)? Is Lola Hayes “You can only play, commit, or trigger abilities on Neutral cards or cards of your role.” ability active during setup (e.g. before drawing her opening hand, when she might trigger the abilities on Stick to the Plan or Ancestral Knowledge)? A: To answer your question(s):

    • Norman Withers would not have the top card of his deck revealed during Setup.
    • Lola Hayes would not be limited by her constant ability during Setup. She could resolve the abilities on Ancestral Knowledge and Stick to the Plan before drawing her opening hand.

  • Q: I was looking at the investigator Lola Hayes earlier, and noticed something odd with her weakness Crisis of Identity. When she draws it, among other things she discards the top card of her deck and changes her current Role to the Class of the discarded card. The oddity is - Neutral has since been confirmed to not be considered a Class. So... what happens when Lola discards a Neutral card with Crisis of Identity? Since Neutral is not a class, does her role not change? A: You are correct that Neutral cards are not considered part of a class. However, for the purposes of Crisis of Identity, we agree that if you discard a Neutral card, Lola should switch her role to Neutral, similar to if you discarded a Weakness. (Rules Form, December 2023)

Last updated

Reviews

Get Your Lola runnin’

Break her out of Broadway!

Looking for adventure

And a masked man from our play.

-

Yeah, Lola's gonna make it happen

Take all of Arkham in a love embrace

Play all the factions all at once

And, transcend time and space!

-

Whoa, those roles look frightening

They really make me wonder

What if theyre restrictive

That’s some pressure i`ll be under!

-

Lola, we’re gonna make it happen

Take bits of Arkham in a love embrace

Play those factions but sort of one at a time then

And, transcend time and space!

-

She’s a true nature's child

She was born, born to be wild

She can climb so high

You’ve just got to try

-

Born to be wild

Born to be wild

-

Got my Lola runnin’

Broke her out of Broadway!

Was set up for adventure

Then she threw it all away!

-

Hey Lola, why`d make that happen?

What happened to our “love embrace”

We had loads of cool stuff in play at once,

Then, you threw it back in my face

-

Like a true nature's child

She was born, born way too wild

She could climb so high

But now im gonna cry.

-

Born a bit too wild

Born a bit too wild

StartWithTheName · 68860

As of the current state of the card pool, considering everything up to TSK (Edit 06/2024 - added the FHV cards), I thought it'd be interesting to make an inventory of cards that provide a benefit to Lola even when she is not in the card's role.

Hopefully, this will help some of you break down Lola's deckbuilding puzzle by spotting in this list some possible combos between multiple cards in it (The Red Clock (2) helps you to oversucceed your first test, which collects evidence on Empirical Hypothesis) or with other cards from another role (Celaeno Fragments will boost your to help you trigger Scavenging).

Guardian:

Level 0:

Level 1+:

Seeker:

Level 0:

Level 1+:

Rogue:

Level 0:

Level 1+:

Mystic:

Level 0:

Level 1+:

Survivor:

Level 0:

Level 1+:

Other honourable mentions:

  • All the Neutral assets that will work no matter which role
  • Lvl 1 Tarot cards that keep their static boost no matter what
  • Assets that provide a static boost that will remain
  • Events that attach to a location like Makeshift Trap
  • All the Masks from FHV work with replenishing.

PS: If I forgot anything worth mentioning, feel free to suggest it in the comments and I will edit my review.

Valentin1331 · 67657
The Lv.3 Talent from EotE might also deserve honourable mention? (Bruiser, Prophetic, etc.) The Fast boost requires a matching role, but the discount is always usable. If you are planning to mainly discount expensive test-less Event, Lola can cover many traits with her Lv. 3 access. — 5argon · 9631
I think you might have missed Tooth of Etzli giving the bonus for treacheries always? And I believe Dario always gives the stats when at 10+ resources — AppleSaws22 · 14

Lola is a 'sub-optimal' investigator, and you'll probably either love or hate her depending on what you're looking for. She's made for fun and goofy builds, not power combos.

Without playing her, it can be tough to see how limiting her role restriction is. It seems like it would be fun to build a 'rainbow' deck with cards from every color, but in practice, that's a recipe for disaster. Cards that aren't in your current role are almost blanks, since you can't use any , , or triggers, can't play them as events or assets, and can't commit them to skill tests. The more you spread out your colors, the more likely your cards are to be blanks. Your static boost abilities like the one on Magnifying Glass are always active, but you'd be surprised how much of the good stuff requires you to be in a specific role.

You can (usually) only switch roles once per turn, so most turns you're locked in to using only two colors. This is what prevents Lola from pulling off crazy stuff; you can't perform a combo that uses cards of more than 2 colors. For most cases, there's already another investigator who can play the two colors you're comboing, and they have an additional character bonus. Lola's blessing is also her curse: when she can build the deck of any other investigator, she's going to get compared to every other investigator, and I think there will always be someone else who can do the same thing you're doing, but 'better'.

So why do I still love Lola? Because her deckbuilding options give you so much freedom to do stupid stuff that makes you feel clever for trying it. Lola is absolutely not the best investigator for Key of Ys, but only she can play Dr. Elli Horowitz and No Stone Unturned to help you find the Key, Haste and Swift Reflexes for the free actions, and then finish it off with a Will to Survive for 5 token-less tests at 6, in the stat of your choosing!

Is that combo easy to pull off? Not at all. Is it super powerful? No, you spent a bunch of XP, resources, cards, and actions just for 5 autosuccesses. And heck, I didn't even point out how in order to even use it, you MUST start your turn in the role, then switch to , so you can't even do it in back-to-back turns!

But do you feel awesome when it happens? Hastur yeah.

Don't expect anybody to ever add a review here with a "Gamebreaking Combo for Lola!!!", even as more cards get printed, because that's not what she is about. Instead, I'd recommend picking an off-beat concept you really like (Relics! Tokens! The Encounter Deck!), and then using Lola to put all your favorite cards in one deck.

Hylianpuffball · 27
If you just want 5 token-less tests at 6 in the stat of your choosing, Will to Survive + Red Gloved Man and any extra action cards - such as Haste, Swift Reflexes, Leo. I disagree with the assessment that Lola Hayes is bad. She's complicated and harder to play than many characters that can coast through on a 5-stat or an efficient combo engine. But even then there are pretty simple ways to build her. I'll probably have to write my own review rather than try to squish a full defense in here. But no, she's not a janky cross-class combo character. She can however do plenty of in-class combos, such as Higher Education + Archaic Glyphs Guiding Stones and run almost every permanent (although she can't use Stick to the Plan). Heck, if you want to run her dual class, you can meet the 7 card minimum easily for rogue with Charon's Obul, 2x Adaptable, 2x Leo de Luca, and 2x Another Day Another Dollar so you get to run Leo but never otherwise sit in rogue. Then you can split the other two classes between fighting cards and investigating cards. Okay, this ended up longer than I intended. — Death by Chocolate · 1440
I guess instead of writing 'bad', I should have written 'non-optimal'. She's certainly viable and fun, and that's all an investigator needs to be good. If you've been around the block, you can tell which cards are good with Lola and which are bad, but newer players might think you're supposed to just jam all the best cards in one deck, and that could lead to some frustrating games. — Hylianpuffball · 27
The reason she's labeled as "bad" is because she brings nothing to the table. There aren't things that Lola can do that other investigators couldn't do better. Saying she can do Will to Survive + Red Gloved Man doesn't prove Lola has any value as there are other investigators who get more out of even that combo. Lola only brings restrictions and an odd deck building set that lets you think she can do amazing things but actually can't... There are a lot of simple combos that are off the table because of her restrictions. Even after many new cards have been released since she has come out she is still the 2nd rate imitation of whatever a different investigator can do better. — yuuko · 1
Alright, I agree with you in almost all cases. There is one option however that makes her go from terrible, to playable. The multi color class cards, along with the "for each class card you control" cards. https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/1817192 — AussieKSU · 1062

Lola is not bad.

Rather, Lola is really freaking good.

If people are afraid of her weakness then frankly they're just not playing her well. Her stat line 3/3/3/3 is just one bump away from greatness. And she can bump it a whole whole lot. In a game this week I was running her and with 25xp she had the stat line of 5/6/6/4. With the Timeworn Brand so swinging at 8 Fight. And that wasn't that particularly hard to do. Or even in a way which runs chances of exposure: I think over the course of the scenario there were maybe 2 turns where I was exposing more than 1 asset to be lost to her weakness. Which I drew once, and lost 0 assets because of it.

The formula isn't complex. Load up on cards which provide passive bonuses. Go asset light on a couple of colors and use those for Events or Skills. Harvest the best of them from every color. Profit.

puert · 48
Even discounting her weakness, Lola has no real ability. Her appeal is her card access, but it’s not a great trade. Lola is fine in the sense that no investigator in this game is truly bad, but there always has to be a worst. Lola arguably is the worst but that doesn’t mean she can’t be fun. — StyxTBeuford · 12985
...and at 19xp, a post-Taboo Key of Ys + Dark Horse Silas has an effective stat line of 7/8/6/9, fighting with a Fire Axe at 10/8 Fight while holding a hand full of cantrip skills. And he sets up faster and more reliabily than Lola does. Lola is far from unusable, but she's pretty much outclassed at everything she does. — suika · 9389
Fine, I updated my review. I never meant to say Lola was bad, unfun, or unplayable... but I think that too many people were reading 'bad' as _bad_ instead of 'sub-optimal'. — Hylianpuffball · 27
Yea Lola is solid because she can get all those stat bump cards and go to town. But remember that takes set up, and more importantly, XP. And I mean a LOT of XP so she doesn't shine until mid campaign and that's if you somehow managed to perform well with pitiful health and sanity this whole time. — LaRoix · 1643
I agree that Lola, if properly built, may feel powerful with 25 XP, but this is faint praise. Show me an investigator who doesn't. Yes, it's true that the incredible power of certain player cards, especially XP cards, can make her effective. But she's still relatively weak compared to other investigators. Access to a broad pool of player cards (which is not nearly as flexible as it might seem, given her strict deckbuilding requirements, the need to play around Crisis of Identity, and the need to deal with the roles drawback) is a poor tradeoff for a bad statline and a missing investigator ability. — CaiusDrewart · 3125

Lola seems well geared for solo play, being able to change modes as the phases of the game call for different skill sets. Switching from seeker to Mystic and then your personal choice for “spice”. Survivor have good skill check events and the Rogue disengage options can be a lifesaver.

Pete Sylvestre and Darío El Amin with Charisma seem like great choices for buffing the stats that matter most. Agility and Willpower are save stats so being able to double down on willpower for spells and saves is efficient. Also, passive buffs are huge for Lola. And board state that doesn’t require switching to activate is best. I’d recommend taking Rogue as class number three for Lone Wolf too.

JohnnyMilton · 2
Did you try solo? I tried it and it was very disappointing. The switching mechanism is a huge drawback and forces neutral cards, with one core set, you don't have enough high value cards to make the larger cardpool advantage worthwhile, Lola has no special ability, worst Health/Sanity, worst weakness, weak signature cards and the deck is larger and less consistent. All this makes the game much more swingy which is really bad in Solo which is already inherently more swingy. — Nils · 1

Adding a relevant note about Lola's limitations, from Fantasy Flight rules enquiries: "The player window between steps 1.4 and 1.5 does not occur until all investigators have completed resolving 1.4 (aka drawing the top card of the encounter deck.) If Lola wanted to play a Mystic card (like Ward of Protection) in response to drawing an encounter card, she would have to already be in the Mystic role before the Mythos phase began. Matthew Newman."

Cluny · 51
This is not entirely true, as if someone draws an encounter card with a skill test then it has a player window. Altough it doesn't let Lola use a Ward of protection for that encounter card but can commit cards from her new role and can ward of cards drawn after te skill test. — vidinufi · 67
Does anyone know if Lola’s restriction to playing cards would prevent from using Joey the rats ability to put an asset into play? For example if I’m Rogue Lola and I activate Joey the rat, could I use him to play a .45? — Kodab · 7
Using Joey still plays the card (just read the wording) same for ever vigilant. You would have to use something like Archaic Glyphs - Markings of Isis which put assets into play. — vidinufi · 67

Whoops. Placed this as a response to someone else. Sorry for the double post.

Does anyone know if Lola’s restriction to playing cards would prevent from using Joey the rats ability to put an asset into play? For example if I’m Rogue Lola and I activate Joey the rat, could I use him to play a .45?

Kodab · 7
Yes, because Joey’s card text says ‘and play it’ (not ‘and put it into play’ which would be different). Lola can’t play cards of a different role. She can still ‘put a card into play’ such as from Sleight of Hand. — Death by Chocolate · 1440
Using Joey still plays the card (just read the wording) same for ever vigilant. You would have to use something like Archaic Glyphs - Markings of Isis which put assets into play. — vidinufi · 67

Just a quick question regarding her ability: Can someone tell me, whether one can switch roles while using geared up? I'm not quite sure, whether there is a player window between each card played. Right now I would like to try her big cardpool for geared up.

Scythe · 1
Geared Up activates at 2.2 in Phase Sequence timing chart. Perhaps you want the the recurring window right under that step? That window is only granted (again) after player take an action in 2.2.1. Since we are currently in 2.2 still, it is not relevant. (You do have 1 window to switch role in between 2.1 and 2.2, before the first investigator take the turn.) Only if Asset / scenario effect that initiate a skill test immediately after playing exist, then you would get some windows inside the skill test sequence. (no such thing currently?) — 5argon · 9631
No.There is no player window during which you resolve geared up abilities. — Jacksonsu · 1
Many thanks for the quick answers. Sword Cane would initiate a skill test immediately but needs an enemy at your location. — Scythe · 1