Daniela Reyes
The Mechanic

Investigator

Entrepreneur.

Guardian
  • 4
  • 1
  • 5
  • 2
Health: 8. Sanity: 6.

After an enemy attacks you (except an attack of opportunity you provoked), even if that attack was canceled: Either deal 1 damage to that enemy, or automatically evade it.

effect: +1. If you were attacked by an enemy this round, you automatically succeed, instead.

"Relax, tough guy. I'll handle this. You stand over there and look pretty."
Cristi Balanescu
Edge of the Earth Investigator Expansion #1.

Daniela Reyes - Back

Investigator

Deck Size: 30.

Deckbuilding Options: Guardian cards () level 0, Survivor cards () level 1-5, Neutral cards level 0-5, up to 5 other Survivor cards () level 0.

Deckbuilding Requirements (do not count toward deck size): Mechanic's Wrench, Mob Goons, 1 random basic weakness.

Daniela always figured she had a good life. She had a loving, boisterous family. She had a steady job that used her brains and her hands. She had enough money to spend on fast cars, pretty girls, and her motorcycle, Gabriel. Then her brother, Ramon, got caught up in some trouble. Her mother warned her to be careful, that darkness lay ahead. Daniela set a glass of water behind the door for her mother's sake, to catch evil spirits - just as she'd been taught as a child. When Daniela awoke to find it shattered, she was determined to figure out what happened and fix it. Just like she always did.
Daniela Reyes
Daniela Reyes
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Reviews

Having seen her played a bit, she's so much better than the first reaction seems to indicate. Daniela is the champion of not doing terribly much but everything still dying, a style of play you really have to lean into.

For starters, run her with lots of soaks. Whether old classics like Cherished Keepsake and Leather Coat or fancy allies like Aquinnah, Peter Sylvestre, and/or Jessica Hyde, there's plenty of ways to stay alive and tank hits. When you get hit, you hit back harder. Someone mention Bandages + Guard Dog already? Because let me tell you, that hurts.

Cards like Toe to Toe and of course your wrench reward you for getting hit. Slam into big enemies and watch them crumble. Get yourself a Fire Extinguisher and watch the enemies tremble in fear. Slot in Brute Force and Stunning Blow and you've got yourself one nasty killing machine.

I would recommend Daniela for bigger groups. I think that if you want the classic combo in 2 , you'll be fine. In 3-4 she can easily be the primary fighter and just destroy enemies left and right.

Yes, I am sad I can't run Shield of Faith or Lesson Learned in her. But such is life.

10/10 would let this lesbian absolutely murder a bunch of babies in Innsmouth again.

Veronica212 · 294
This review reminds me of the Stone's Unyielding Defiance playstyle in Spirit Island. Let them do their worst and watch them suffer. — Yenreb · 15
'not doing terribly much but everything still dying' is pretty much the experience I've had! When there's no enemies around, I find myself mostly just drawing cards and twiddling my thumbs while everyone else runs around doing stuff. But when the baddies show up, she becomes the queen of no-test-needed damage and off-turn kills — Fenris49 · 1

We have a mechanic that is unable to Maintain equipment properly... Or who is too clumsy to screw a moderately different to handle ocular to a rifle. Not to mention that she is totally unable to show up well prepared to her job. She's unable to sticking to any plan... And her ability to improvise are quite limited...

Daniela seems to be the oil-riggy-kind of mechanic where screws come the size of swimming rings. She deserves the 1 intellect she has.

This is barely scratching the surface of Daniela's flavor weirdness: Why is she a guardian 0? What does it even mean thematically to 'develop' into a survivor, isn't that the 'unprepared' class? I know the flavor has been moving on from that but what gives with Daniela starting out with access to police resources and fancy handguns but slowly becoming someone who depends on getting Lucky! or smacking folks with improvised weapons? All of the other 'evolving' characters have a clear in universe hook: Norman is a scholar who discovers magic is real and begins to learn it, Jack has to develop from being a globe trotter into an actual archeologist to solve his dad's murder, Lily Chen was trained by a mystical order but becomes more practically focused once she enters 'the real world,' and Bob starts out as an unready survivor but realizes he is far more cunning and deadly than he first thought. One would think a Guardian into Survivor might represent a burned out cop, a sort of degradation, someone who is becoming unready and just is barely holding on, but that doesn't make a ton of sense for Daniela, who is mysteriously starting out as a pseudo-cop/soldier out of the gate. About the only thing that really fits is the fact that weird quirky rituals of protection fit survivor very well and she is a great candidate for using A Test of Will, but even then she is going to want to use the level 0 version because she can consistently pass the test! — dezzmont · 212
Consistantly pass the test (3)? With 4 base willpower? Maybe on easy, but you need to invest into it even on normal. I also thin, Daniela is a weird mechanic. She does not heal horror on mending leather jackets! — Susumu · 366
What are you talking about? She has a 5153 statline — dezzmont · 212
She has 4152, acording to ArkhamDB and also the (German) card, I own. Where did you see 5153? — Susumu · 366
dezzmont is implying that Peter Sylvester is always the ally that she'll run. I don't agree though; the default allies of my choice would have been Guard Dogs, Rita, and Aquinnah. — suika · 9391
Its a joke yes, because of how popular Pete is, and how you would be taking it in that deck. Same reason Wendy is REALLY 5 willpower base. Pete isn't a bad pick for one of your allies though just because of how much damage you take and his purpose as fantastic encounter protection. — dezzmont · 212
@Dezzmont, maybe she's an army veteran adjusting to civilian life? — OrionJA · 1
Well, 5 willpower after playing your statboosting ally is still not a comfortable level to be to relyably use ToW (0). But I agree, he is a popular choice, so depending on team composition, he might not even be available, if another investigator (Agnes, Carolyn, Finn...) profit far more from him. I also agree, that there are other, possible better allies for Daniela. — Susumu · 366
Intellect seems to be the stat needed to repair vehicles ( https://arkhamdb.com/card/07099 ) so Daniela is actually one of the least capable mechanics in the game. Maybe she's a factory engineer, and her unique skills at reparing factory sized herring canning machines are distracting when she tries to fix small and fiddly vehicles such as... boats? — olahren · 3393

Daniela may be more stronger when everybody possesses 0xp, but with the increasing of exp, Daniela's strength will indicate a downward trend rapidly. The only weapon could be thought "passing" is Sledgehammer, which is much weaker than Cyclopean Hammer. No matter the difficulty is standard, hard or expert (I think every investigor could behave well in the easy mode), the potential of Daniela is pretty limited at any time. Somebody may state that She could take Aquinnah, but this counterattack system lacks the most important component, which is Survival Knife of 2xp. All in all, this is not a relatively strong investigator. 4-1-5-2 could be strong, but this attribute advantage is little compared to the huge disadvantage of deck-building restrictions.

Swordace · 50
Ever hear of Chainsaw or Old Hunting Rifle? — MrGoldbee · 1447
Oh, I forgot that th — Swordace · 50
Oh, I forgot the chainsaw. It's not bad, but do you think it's better than cyclopean hammer? As for old hunting rifle, I think it's weak without will to survive. The prerequisite for attacking is stable. Old Hunting Rifle may have higher income, but not stable enough. — Swordace · 50
Swordace has a good point. Daniela has the stats and ability of a typical guardian, but she can only upgrade into Survivor cards. If she's supposed to fill the classic Guardian role in a group, that's going to be a challenge. Me, I think we shouldn't shoehorn Daniela into the archetypical guardian role and expect her to perform as well as Mark or Leo. Daniela is something else, but the card pool isn't quite there to support her. Maybe MJ will turn the proposed upgraded Guard Dog into a blue/red multiclass card instead, along with a lvl 3 blue/red multiclass Survival Knife that can attack with +1 damage as well. Just a few cards like that, and our dear mechanic would make much more sense (at least to me). — olahren · 3393
Oh, no, Daniella's only weapons are Sledgehammer, which her card pool lets her use very well, Fire Extinguisher, .18 Derringer, Old Hunting Rifle, and Chainsaw. Well, those are worse than Cyclopean Hammer so I guess she's bad. — SSW · 209
SSW I think you get wrong idea. Of course, the red cards have some weapons. However, these cards compared to the beating cards of Guardian are weak. We should know what make Survival outstanding. It's Take Heart, Drawing Thin, Will to Survive and Alter Fate. Compared to Yorick, the system of Daniela is not intact. Now that we are talking about the strength of investigators, we have to take its behavior in hard or expert mode into consider. I can play with these cards very happily while using Daniela, but you have to admit thatusing Fire Extinguisher or Old Hunting Rifle is not reliable enough. Cyclopean Hammer is the extreme example. What about other weapons of Guardian? LOL, I think we have no need to concentrate on my mistake while listing the beating cards of Survivor. I just give an example to illustrate that weapons of high experience of Guardian is stronger so that Daniela's deck restriction makes her weaker in the mid-late stage of the campaign. — Swordace · 50
I'm not against happy games, but when we discuss the intensity, I think we should be "utilitarian". Daniela — Swordace · 50
with Danielas high attack I think fire extinguisher is quite viable, even if she doesn't kill the enemy in that round because of the +1 attack, she wants to get attacked anyway. I had my doubts about daniela at first but she turned out to be one of the best main-fighter experiences i had in quite a while — niklas1meyer · 1
In direct comparison, the survivor pool is worse than most others at winning the game (no extra actions, hardly any int or attack bonuses,...). However most survivors make up with powerful or unique abilities that change the way you play. For daniela's ability you need cards that make enemies attack you, soak (peter, jessica,...) and ways to recur soak (keepsake and coat). Counters like aquinna, guard dog and survival knife 0 also help. It's also interesting that her ability is not limited to 1/ round like Rita. Note that it works on alert and retaliate. — Django · 5070
Just too bad that we have another survivor here with low int and virtually no chance to trigger scavenging 2. — Django · 5070
Yes, it seems the most suitable deckbuidling for Daniela. Most of the survivors change the game by its unique ability and its cards of other colors, like Wendy Adams. Its intensity is limited, not meaning it should have no advantages. I'm here to analyze her potential(*'へ'*) — Swordace · 50
What campaigns have you played her in? — MrGoldbee · 1447
Innsmouth conspiracy in expert mode. At first she behaves very well. After in too deep, I have felt much more difficult to deal with enemies. — Swordace · 50
The survivor cardpool gives her very good consistency and a lot of threat containment (Ex: Alter fate, test of will upgrades, lucky). In a huge way this is helping you win the game, because if you succeed on almost all of your actions even without 'efficiency boosts' (Besides weapon damage, which she can handle well enough), you are well above arkham par as long as you can be proactive for your team. But she does indeed sacrifice some upper end damage potential that locks her out of being a dedicated monster hunter unless she can make up for it somewhere. I think damage potential is a bit over-rated if you bring other things to the table that mitigate it (Ex: "Flex" Leo works so well because his allies allow him to run 2 damage guns super efficiently). The question is, what does Daniela do well to warrant her either being a low damage guardian, or allow her to flex? I think the real thing that hurts her as a character so badly, ignoring the existence of both Tommy and Yorick (and heck, lets throw Leo in too) and their supremacy as mega-tanks, is lore 1 locking her pretty hard out of spending any sort of spare time or survivor skill tools to cluever, and the fact that it is hard for survivors to really leverage willpower without also using speed making it hard for Daniella to utilize their 'pseudo-spells' as she has very little use for speed. Extra damage to guard dogs and Xavier, or evades and damage on dodge effects, don't seem like they make up for what she gives up. 2 damage Leo works cuz he can suddenly also be an insane cluever and ping for 2-3 bonus damage via ally instant effects, but Daniela isn't bringing similar capabilities and is locked out of a lot of good survivor support tools. The main thing that she brings to the table others don't is the ability to instant evade if she doesn't ever plan to kill enemies, and evasion is good in modern arkham, but it feels like a losing gameplan to just throw your hands up and say you can't handle the enemies and your just gunna evade them often enough to be it worth both your passive slot and your deck construction power compared to Tommy. — dezzmont · 212
Daniela doesn't need the survival knife because Daniela is the survival knife. — suika · 9391
Also being able to flex is highly overrated. — suika · 9391
Dezzmont has a good idea. In the later period of the campaign, low DPS means more actions for fighting and less actions for preparing. — Swordace · 50
2x quickleaner and flashlight or keys beat up to shroud 4 — Django · 5070
My point wasn't 'she is bad because she can't flex.' It is 'she does not seem to have any coherent strategy based on her card access. But trading access to the entire XP cardpool of a counter-stab deck in exchange for a counter-stab passive that happens on the wrong end of an attack makes you worse at primary combat strategies and she doesn't compensate for that. Counterstab is a deck based around being able to do some odd 5 testless damage to bypass the traditional limitations of endless fight prep (mainly, you only have so many combat actions per-turn and being extra prepared doesn't actually help save your team actions or make them safer long run) by letting you shove more damage actionless, but survival knife (0) doesn't scale and beat cop (2) is a keystone of the deck. So your taking damage to do less damage to the enemy in turn. — dezzmont · 212
Good thing there's more than one way to build a counterattack deck then. — suika · 9391
Ok, but are those decks able to execute on what they are trying to do, and is Daniella actually adding anything to those decks? Power isn't the only concern of course, exploring interesting deck spaces also adds value to characters, but does she even do that? You seem to see potential here others don't (I think it is telling the number one review is 'This character leads to goofy lore disconnects' rather than anything about her, it isn't a great sign), so maybe you should make a full review on the character, propose a deck archetype or combo that could create value for her, or even write a full decklist to showcase what you see in her! — dezzmont · 212
Sure, deck posted, I've been waiting for an excuse to post that anyway. — suika · 9391
I'll also publish a decklist for Daniela and make more specific explanation about it in a hour. — Swordace · 50
I've published my deck of Daniela and make more further explanation about it. — Swordace · 50
speaking of high level weapon, there is always Timeworn Brand... — liwl0115 · 41

There are a lot of things to like about Daniela. First, she lets you play tank guardian in a way no one else but Tommy can really master. But I don’t think she’s the second coming of Tommy, I think she’s the blue/red answer to Trish.

Previously, the number one way to lock down bosses was to have Trish Scarborough use quick clue gathering to automatically evade them. And she’s still super effective at that! But her ability is limited to once per turn, and Daniela's is not. Plus, as a cluever, you might have Trish elsewhere while big enemies spawn.

And Ms Reyes has the same stumbling block that Agnes does: if you spam their powers, you will get burned by the encounter deck. Neither is particularly great at agility checks, and damage can come from locations as well as foes. Often, punching enemies first is a better option than reflexively letting them clobber you, especially without access to money-makers like "I’ve had worse".

Her 4 base will is solid, even on hard.

Daniela is an excellent partner to Aquinnah. And if you’re willing to exile cherished keepsakes and old leather coats, the sky is the limit for soak with solemn vow. But when it comes to damage, observe the Christmas rule: it’s better to give than to receive.

Edit: Having played with her a little more, her ideal events are super cheap. That cost curve, and waiting for enemies to spawn, means it’s possible to put out a guard dog (or two!), flesh ward, and a survival knife before enemies cover the board. It’s refreshing in a guardian to be able to engage enemies as a final action, knowing you’re going to do 2-4 damage during the enemy phase! Annoyingly, there’s little lvl 1-5 survivor tech that does what dogs, “Get behind me” or the hallowed mirror do. And there’s not a ton you can do about enemies that do something besides damage/ horror on a hit: if you want to assign damage to your Trusted hounds, you can’t use dodge.

MrGoldbee · 1447
On the topic of locking down bosses: if Daniela is the first-in-sequence gator to be attacked by a Massive enemy, can she use her reaction to evade the enemy before the other gators are attacked, thereby preventing those further attacks that round? — HanoverFist · 718
@hanoverFist a good question and a good point. From the rules: "hen an enemy with the massive keyword attacks during the enemy phase, resolve its (full) attack against each investigator it is engaged with, one investigator at a time. The lead investigator chooses the order in which these attacks resolve. The massive enemy does not exhaust until its final attack of the phase resolves." So since tha attack is not simultaneous, the lead investigator may pick Daniela first. The last sentence means general exhaust which happens after an enemy's attack, I believe, and doesn't prevent from being exhausted via specific abilities. So, I would say, Daniela can save everyone from a massive monster's attack, you are right. — chrome · 57
@chrome This would be a marvelous tanking-ability for Daniela if it works out this way, and it certainly feels on-brand for her... especially since, unlike so many auto-evade effects, Daniela's is not limited to non-elites. Thanks for the rules & timing breakdown! — HanoverFist · 718
Huh. A burned out soldier who's degrading because of his bad experiences. Thematically, that's Mark. Pity about that. — Lailah · 1

Daniela is the queen of making enemies murder themselves. With TSK cards, a lot of her weakpoints go away (namely Motivating speech). Keep in mind her investigator ability has no cap per turn, at all. Guard Dog, Flesh Ward, Survival Knife, Second Wind, Toe to Toe, Motivating Speech and Improvised Shield are mandatory imo in her decks.

Early upgrades should be charisma to get two guard dogs up, and spirit of humanity x2.

With those cards alone, Daniela is now absolutely murderous, tanky and will make short work of most enemies.

But it can get even more ridiculous.

"Stand Behind Me" redirects and converts all of the attacks a friend takes over to her. Keep in mind the wording of her investigator ability: attacks you provoke. This essentially means with Stand Behind Me, your friend who previously had a very annoying enemy on them can do whatever they want as you will be shredding the enemy if it hits them (a bonus if the enemy does physical damage, as your faithful guard dog can take the hit as well, dealing a whopping two total damage to an enemy completely passively, three if the enemy hits for at least two damage).

Toe to toe does a guaranteed three damage to any enemy Daniela uses it on at the cost of getting attacked (2 from the card plus 1 from her ability), and that's before guard dogs. It is hence possible to do five damage with this one card alone with her standard set up, guaranteed.

Spirit of Humanity gives a pretty reliable two horror and two damage heal every turn at the cost of adding curse tokens. This cost can actually be yet another benefit if you partner her with an investigator using curses spells, specifically Eye of Chaos and Favor of the Moon, as you will be able to more than easily keep their curse engine full.

The best part of all of this is it plays the same regardless of what difficulty you're on. Enemy abilities rarely get enhanced at higher difficulties (only thing that really changes is the bag and the penalties for drawing bs tokens). So, Daniela plays the same on easy as she does on hard.

Shes an extremely powerful investigator with a bit of a learning curve. She's not that great at punching enemies to death with weapons, she cant discover clues outside of Evidence! and she cannot ever pass an intelligence check. But she is a very strong bruiser character when built correctly, frequently making enemies take uncapped (primarily, two from guard dogs and one crom her), 3+ damage from her passives with a ridiculous amount of healing and soak and with minimal to no set up.

drjones87 · 190
Great review! I disagree with Second Wind, though, in my opinion Emergency Aid makes much more sense since you can use it to heal Guard Dog. Another key card I miss here is Bandages, for the same reason. With her card pool, you can also get them back via Resourceful (or resupply them with Emergency Cache (3)). Toe to Toe is not only a great with her because it triggers the retaliation, but also also lets you commit cards like Vicious Blow or Resourceful safely, i.e. without a chance to lose them. — AlderSign · 267
Queen? Really? Leo/mark can damaged 12 damages at turn without troubles — Rentgen · 1

I love the deckbuilding restrictions of this cycle of investigators, but I have to say I am saddened beyond words that you can't squeeze a Survival Knife in her list. It's a real shame too; it's been a long time since I got as excited about a new investigator as I did when I read this card. Who knows, I'm not terribly familiar with the Survivor card pool. There's probably some busted stuff in there for her

she can take and works fine with survival knife level 0 :) — isuscbrmid · 44