Caught Red-Handed

Treachery. Weakness

Blunder.

Neutral

Revelation - Ready each enemy at your location or a connecting location. Each hunter enemy at a connecting location moves 1 location toward you. If no enemies move as a result of this effect, shuffle Caught Red-Handed back into your deck.

Tiziano Baracchi
The Forgotten Age #12.
Caught Red-Handed

FAQs

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

  • Q: Regarding Caught Red-Handed, Finn Edwards' signature weakness: "Ready each enemy at your location or a connecting location." Is there any choice involved? If yes, can I choose a connecting location without a monster at all even though I have an exhausted monster in my location? Since the wording doesn't have "must" I can choose an option that doesn't change a game state, right? Or conjunction "or" in this sentence actually means "and", and I need to ready all exhauster monster in my location AND all connecting? A: When you draw Caught Red-Handed, you check your location and each connecting location for enemies, choose a location from among them with at least one enemy, and ready each enemy in the chosen location (not every location). The only way you get around this is if there’s no enemies at your location or any connecting locations. OVERRULED (see below) (Rules Form, January 2024)

  • Q: I'd like to push back on this ruling. [EDITOR NOTE: "This" refers to the ruling listed above.] I think it's a perfectly valid reading of the text, but since the text is inherently ambiguous to some extent, I think in this case the ruling goes the wrong way and if extrapolated to other examples clearly causes issues. For example, the enemy Royal Emissary from the scenario Curtain Call has the ability: "Forced - At the end of the enemy phase: Each investigator at Royal Emissary's location or a connecting location takes 1 horror." In terms of strict grammar, "at Royal Emissary's Location" and "a connecting location" are each predicates that specify a location for "each investigator". While it is technically ambiguous, the most common reading for this construction is for "or" to operate on the predicates. The predicates modify the word "investigator", so this sentence is telling us to look at each investigator, and see if they satisfy the condition "Royal Emissary's location" or the condition "a connecting location [to Royal Emissary's location]"; if one of the conditions is satisfied, then the logical OR evaluates to "true", and that investigator takes 1 horror. In terms of game balance, clearly, it would absolutely neuter this Elite enemy if we were to say that this ability has us choose a location with at least 1 investigator and have only the investigators at that specific location take 1 horror. Thematically, Royal Emissary's Forced ability represents an "AOE" attack that should affect investigators close enough to hear its sanity-eroding cries; it doesn't make sense for it to affect only one investigator. Hopefully, it is clear that from a grammatical, mechanical, and thematic perspective, Royal Emissary's forced ability must affect multiple investigators, not investigators at a specific chosen location. Likewise, Finn's weakness is grammatically identical, so it should work the same way. A: The ruling on Caught Red-Handed was made independently of considerations for other cards, following rules-as-written as closely as possible. We agree with you that Royal Emissary should deal 1 horror to investigators at both its location and each connecting location, and that Caught-Red Handed should be treated the same way. This means that Caught Red-Handed readies each enemy at both Finn’s location and all connecting locations, then moves each hunter enemy 1 location closer toward him. (Rules Form, June 2025)

Last updated

Reviews

I love how this card interacts with one of Finn Edwards best assets: Pickpocketing. You evaded an enemy and now you get a draw? Yaaay! Oh no, you got Caught Red-Handed. Not only do you lose the draw, your evade was wasted too. And since 90% there won't be another enemy near, Caught Red-Handed gets shuffled back into the deck. Awch!

Of course, the more people you play with, the more chance there is that there will be a hunter enemy at a connecting location. But even though I play most my games with 3, I've found that hunter enemies appear at connecting locations quite infrequently (since you want to kill those ASAP). And then you need to draw Caught Red-Handed at that exact moment to get rid of it.

I like (and hate) this weakness because it really makes you think whether it's truly worth risking that draw from Pickpocketing, especially if multiple enemies are exhausted. An easy way to get rid of this weakness is good old Mr. "Rook", being able to move away from the hunter enemy and exactly time drawing your weakness. However, it does take one of Finn's valuable Seeker/Survivor slots, and competes as an ally slot with the very important Peter Sylvestre (as Finn takes more horror than most with his low Willpower).

Nenananas · 273
For me Mr Rook is disposable, i wouldn't count him as occupying your ally slot. At the latest when his secrets are used i either replace him or i assign the final damage/ horror. — Django · 5171
Because Caught Red Handed actually moves an enemy toward you it can actually save you an action to move and/or engage an enemy if you're intentionally drawing it with Rook — Zinjanthropus · 231
It's a pretty gentle weakness as these things go, I think. If you draw in it in upkeep it doesn't do anything by definition because the enemies have just readied, and even if you draw it in your turn it typically wastes an action at most. It's only really dangerous in situations where there are more enemies at your location than you can safely re-evade or there's a hunter boss you're trying to do something clever with. And even in those situations it maybe just means you get attacked by an enemy or two. There are much worse worst-case-scenario results from signature weaknesses , lol. Even Tony's Quarry, which I think is also pretty tame, can cost you a whole round's worth time, if you draw it in the upkeep where the agenda is And it can even be helpful from time to time. If you've evaded a hunter enemy and moved away, (Vengeance enemies in TFA , for instance) it can attract it to you so you can evade it again w/o doubling back or getting attacked. And it's always funny when the hunter enemy it attracts is another weakness enemy with Prey : Someone else only and it can't do anything to Finn xD — bee123 · 31
I agree with your review. I have intentionally decided not to trigger Pickpocketing at times because I could not risk drawing this weakness (and didn't have time to do additional evades during my turn). — iceysnowman · 164

A flavorful signature weakness. Looking at the two elements, the effect and the discard condition, we get:

The effect: Ready enemies at Finn's location or a connecting location. Hunters within one location move towards Finn. Note that they do not engage or attack at this time, so, if it gets drawn in upkeep, Finn has a whole turn to deal with the fallout. Mostly, this gets reshuffled, which is annoying, but hardly scenario-ending. Once in a while, it can trigger in-turn and leave Finn vulnerable to a lot of attacks in the Enemy Phase, but it mostly sets him up to do more evading, which is Finn's bread and butter. Heck, if he has Pickpocketing (2), Finn might welcome this.

The discard condition: One and done, unless it has no effect, in which case it goes back into the deck to try again.

All in all, this is a below average signature weakness, mostly because it keeps getting reshuffled until it hurts you. It might even be way below, in scenarios without many hunters. Edit: This weakness probably gets upgraded in 4-player, as more enemies mean more trouble for Finn.

LivefromBenefitSt · 1092
Disagree on this one. CRH is actually a weakness that tends to hurt substantially somehow. It punishes Finn for draw pretty hard since it usually gets reshuffled (the weakness comes back and denies several draws). In the instance it isn't reshuffled, you might actually be put into a horrible situation (one of those weaknesses that can catch someone off guard in solo especially). This isn't the worst Rogue weakness, but it's not the tamest either. — StyxTBeuford · 13053
In fact the more common scenario is you Pickpocketing into this, not the other way around. If it hits beginning of round, it's easier to deal with, but often it hits mid round which is usually much worse. — StyxTBeuford · 13053
Wouldn't hunters who move to Finn's location as a result of this card engage at that time, since they are readied and now at Finn's location? — Signum · 14
I feel that shuffling the cards again is a bad thing, because it will come back and lose 1 draw action. — h2ovn · 1

I think Caught Red-Handed is wrongly designed weakness. The effect commonly make the player angry. Why? This has two main effect:

  1. Ready each enemy at your location or a connecting location.
  2. Each hunter enemy at a connecting location moves 1 location toward you.

However, the discard condition only refers "second" condition. Even if the first condition met, Caught Red-Handed is returned to the deck after making all enemy ready. Notice that it's very easy to meet first condition; whereas it's rare to meet second condition.

Finn has free evade action. Thus, it's very common that he has Pickpocketing. After he evade an enemy, he trigger the Pickpocketing, and draw card. What if that card is Caught Red-Handed? Just evaded enemy is ready! In general, no hunter enemy moves so that Caught Red-Handed is returned into his deck. Now, Finn wasted evade, card. However, the weakness is still in deck.

elkeinkrad · 505
You’re right if you ignore the existence of this card. A smart player should consider enemy positions and draw effects before starting his turn. Either position an enemy so this card is discarded or don’t draw during your turn — Django · 5171
Whenever we start to manage this weakness, it's obvious that Caught Red-Handed is one of the most powerful signature weakness. I write this review because I has feel that many of user overlook that. — elkeinkrad · 505
Agree, it' — CHA · 10
Agree, it's a horrible weakness and a bit of bad design. Really brings down an investigator that should be fun but has weak deckbuilding and a bad weakness. — CHA · 10
Correct me if I'm wrong - and I probably am wrong. — Snjuer · 1
But the way I read this weakness it means "choose your location or a connected location", then ready all enemies at the chosen location. So let's say I'm at location A with an disengaged exhausted enemy. At a connected location B there are no enemies at all. I choose location B, since it's connected to my location and then ready all enemies at that location (none). Then I can choose the same or another connected location and move all hunter enemies there. Again I could just choose a location without a hunter enemy. — Snjuer · 1
@Snjuer When an effect presents you with a choice you always need to make the choice which changes the game state. Since choosing an empty location doesn't change the game state its not a valid choice. — nikee40 · 4
@nikee40 "In the absence of the word "must" while choosing among multiple options, any option may be chosen upon the resolution of the effect – even an option that does not change the game state." This is from the rules reference book (page 16, "must"). I still somehow feel that I'm wrong or misinterpreting something... — Snjuer · 1
As I understand it, here we have just a bad wording. Word "or" implies there is a choice involved, but in fact it means that you need to ready all enemies that are situated in your or a connecting locations and "or" here means "and" actually. — chrome · 68