Event

Gambit. Tactic.

Cost: 0.

Rogue

Search the top 9 cards of the encounter deck for a non-Elite enemy and spawn it engaged with you (instead of its normal spawn location). Then, discover 1 clue at your location and gain X resources, where X is that enemy's health value. Shuffle the encounter deck.

Aleksander Karcz
The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion #68.
Kicking the Hornet's Nest

FAQs

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

Q: If I play On the Hunt or Kicking the Hornet's Nest and draw an enemy with the concealed keyword, where does it spawn? A: Both events instruct you to spawn the searched enemy engaged with you instead of its normal spawn location. For enemies with the concealed keyword, their “normal spawn location” is in “the shadows.” So, playing either event allows you to circumvent the concealed keyword and instead spawn the searched enemy engaged with you. (Rules Q&A, August 2023)

Q: Can the Emissary from Yuggoth be chosen as a target for Kicking the Hornet's Nest despite being massive? If so, does the investigator playing it receive the clue and resources from Kicking the Hornet's Nest, given that the 'then' keyword in Kicking the Hornet's Nest indicates that the previous effect must have been fully resolved? A: Yes. Drawing Emissary from Yuggoth spawns it at your location, and it’s considered engaged with you automatically (though no engagement step occurs to trigger abilities). The investigator will receive the clue and resources. (September 2023)

Last updated

Reviews

Somehow the child of On the Hunt and Scene of the Crime ended up in the Rogue cardpool.

On the Hunt the encounter deck, then get a clue and a few bucks if you hit something non-Elite. You would still have to deal with the enemy you drew in whatever way you see fit so this essentially gives you 1 testless clue and usually 1-3 resources for a card and around two actions. The best case scenario is of course drawing an enemy you can one-shot in one or fewer actions, making this card a worthy competitor to Scene of the Crime (2 resources + 1 card + 1 action for 1-2 testless clues) as long as you can find a suitable enemy.

Emphasis on that last part, of course. This shares a problem with 0XP On the Hunt in that it can miss. It hurts less in that this card is 0-cost but also more in that it's now a wasted action. You'd probably want to consider Crystallizer of Dreams to ensure that you at least get a or icon out of this thing. Alternatively, it is also possible to only hit an exceptionally tough enemy in your search and waste your actions dealing with it. Access to testless and/or actionless damage or extra fight actions are welcome additions, and try not to play this when, for example, you know a certain Carcosa enemy that tests your intellect is in the deck. In other words, what's stopping this card from being a better Scene of the Crime is its inherent uncertainty - perhaps that's why it has found itself in the Rogue faction.

Investigators I can see taking this:

  • Trish Scarborough - a decent pick for 0XP that will probably get upgraded into something else. Play it first and decide whether you want the extra clue or the auto-evade after you see the enemy.
  • Tony Morgan - Tony loves fighting, and he has no lack of actions to kill whatever he kicked out of the encounter deck. Getting some clues in the meantime is just icing on the cake.
  • Leo Anderson - At least in my experience, Leo is often starving for deck space because he has to slot in quite a few allies to put his own and Mitch Brown's abilities to good use, not to mention support cards for said allies and the big guns if you're playing them. Having a card that both finds clues and gives him money to fund his Assets really helps with his versatility, and his Beat Cops and Guard Dogs are more than happy to deal with the enemy.
  • Zoey Samaras and Mark Harrigan - Both are powerful enemy handlers with poor , so testless clues are appreciated. They may not need that resource boost that much (even less so in the case of Zoey) depending on how you build their decks though.
  • Parallel Roland Banks - Play it fast with Red Tape and get another card from Seek the Truth. As far as I know playing it fast does not count as your first action, so you can also punch the enemy in the face or grab 2 more clues from under its nose, though this combo costs you your entire Red Tape quota for the round. Parallel Roland likes fast and testless clues and this card delivers - some of the time at least.

At first this card looked quite janky to me, but on closer inspection it seems to fit in quite a lot of decks. Certainly not an auto-include by any means, but at the very least primary enemy handlers with access to Rogue cards will want to give this a look.

koaexe · 29
I would rather compare it to "Drawn to the Flame" than "First Watch". It draws an additional encounter card to whatever you would normally draw in the mythos phase. For one clue and some cash, compared to 2 guaranteed clues from DttF. — Susumu · 366
Yeah Drawn to the Flame is also a fair comparison. Just off the top of my head I think three investigators (Sefina, Dexter and Rogue Gloria) can choose between Hornet's Nest or Flame, and I think they'd all gravitate towards the latter. Mystics can ward treacheries and have high WP so limiting themselves to drawing enemies for a clue isn' — koaexe · 29
(hit enter accidentally, sorry) isn't ideal. Gloria can also stack the encounter deck in her favor. Hence my opinion that Hornet's Nest ultimately serves a different niche as a similar card but for enemy handlers. — koaexe · 29
Oh Jim, Parallel Back Roland and Jenny can also pick between the two. Jim is a Mystic so basically the same situation as Sefina and Dexter, while Roland is pretty flexible so he might even consider taking both for a while - DttF seems to win out in the long run though. I have no experience with Jenny deckbuilding so I'm not sure if she'd want to take Hornet, let alone use her splash slots for Flame. — koaexe · 29
In theory I like this card for digging out VP enemies in solo, or digging out an enemy to Pickpocket. Finn, for example, can easily float one enemy pretty safely. Trish can combo with Existential Riddle to get bonus clues for the rest of the game (some enemies are better targets for this than others. Looking at you Hunting Nightgaunts). IDK, though. I haven't really tested it to any real extent, yet. Oh yeah, don't forget that Mark can take it. Probably a good choice for him, at least at lower player counts. — Zinjanthropus · 227
theorycrafting this with On The Hunt and handcuffs for the first couple scenarios to manage pulling off a "Let God Sort them Out" exp gain. Would the experienced version OTH and this be enough economy to make a mythos hunter build viable? — techoatmeal · 15
I like Zinjanthropus' Finn idea. Not only can Finn float an enemy fairly safely, but in the right circumstances he can largely negate all the opportunity cost presented by putting an enemy out in doing so. If there's no other foes, then he wasn't going to use his free Evade anyway, and if he's got Pickpocketing(2) out, he actually comes out ahead for having them there. He can even choose the chonkiest Conglomeration he can find since if you're evading, what do you care about HP? (Also all of this logic is very short-sighted for how it could bite him later, which is totally on-theme for a bootlegger.) — HanoverFist · 719
Does this work with barricade(3)? Since staying engaged is no restriction on this card, I think this card is a testless clue and ressources while spawning something nearby. — Scythe · 1
It doesn't synergize because of the "Then". The "spawn the enemy engaged with you" part has to be resolved in full before you get the "1 clue and resources" effect. — koaexe · 29
Are we forgetting the character who’s in the actual card? Kymani loves this card. — Mandelmassiv · 25

This is quite a strong Trish card. In my experience, the hardest thing about Trish is getting enemies into the locations you want them to be. Kicking the Hornet's nest lets you spawn an enemy (ignoring Spawn locations) in any location you are standing in. Not only does this greatly help with Trish's consistency, she even gets resources AND a testless clue for doing it!

For 1 action, you play Kicking Up the Hornet's Nest and find enemy of your choice. I've had it whiff once when there wasn't an enemy in the top 9 cards, but it's far more common to see 2-3 enemies and have a choice of what you want to spawn. You can choose an enemy with Victory Point if you want, but typically I look for enemies that will stay in play a bit. Most of the time you are hoping for a Hunter enemy that you can lead around the map to other locations that have clues on them. Not only do you now get to spawn an enemy at the most ideal location (possibly even your choice of enemy from a few options), you get paid resources and a free clue for this! Now that you've discovered a clue at a location with an enemy, you can trigger Trish's ability to get a second free clue or instantly evade the enemy. For one total action, you either get 2 testless clues plus some resources, or 1 testless clue plus resources and an evaded enemy. No matter which you choose, you are set up for future turns with an enemy at an ideal location. Presto! You just got paid money and a clue to greatly reduce the situational nature of Trish's ability! All of this for one action and a 0 xp, 0 cost event.

Best case use is to use this to spawn a Hunter early, then keep moving on from locations while leaving clues behind. So long as you stay a step ahead of the Hunter, you can use cards like Pocket Telescope, In The Know, or Damning Testimony to safely pick up the clues you left behind (two at a time, with Trish's ability, or evading the hunter if needed). I was surprised how often I could use this rope-a-dope strategy to drag a Hunter across the map, activating Trish's ability reliably multiple turns in a row.

I don't think this card is OP or that Trish is now top tier or anything, but I think this single card is enough to make me seriously reevaluate her reliability. Getting paid (in both resources and testless clues) for doing exactly what Trish wants to be doing is very good. I'm not sure how often other Rogues will want to play this (I can see Tony liking it), but I will probably never play Trish without it again.

Pseudo Nymh · 54

This is one of the best bruiser cards in recent memory and is required in all bruiser builds that can take it.

The main role of the bruiser character is to keep enemies off of cluers. Most are able to do this with just a weapon up and don't need a whole lot of setup. There is nothing more annoying then, than having your bruiser spend three actions doing functionally nothing, and then the next turn you draw two enemies from mythos. You inevitably probably can't deal with both, and one of them gets to either take a free shot at you, or worse lock down your cluer.

This card does many things a typical bruiser wants to do. It thins the encounter deck of enemies by forcing a spawn now. Those three actions you would have essentially wasted, you get to now take two others doing what you're designed to do.

Honestly, the card would be great if it just did that. But it also has the potential for massive resource gain (if you pick a 3 HP enemy, you basically played an emergency cache) and you even get a clue out of it, which can help thin out particularly high shroud value locations.

It's also one of the only cards that can bypass concealment (concealment procs when you draw an enemy per wording in TSK manual, and this card specifically has you spawn the enemy, not draw it).

The only thing bad about this card is it can whiff the search. But if it does, your enemy frequency was pretty low anyway (or you just got really unlucky).

Tldr this card forces enemies on to your enemy handler, which is something they want anyway, and gives you a clue and a crap ton of resources for one action. Honestly a little too powerful and should be automatically included in any bruiser that can take it.

drjones87 · 190
Yeah. I'm very surprised that they made it a 0xp card. — fiatluxia · 65
It is somewhere in between "On the Hunt" (0) and "Dran to the Flame", and has disadvantages to both of them. Compared to OtH (0), it draws you an additional mythos card, not replaces your draw in the mythos phase. Compared to DttF it gives you an uncertain amount of resources instead of an additional clue, which might be great, if you draw a 3 health enemy, but a meh substitute, if you draw some rats, or worse, a Whippoorwill. I'm not saying this card is garbage, it looks fine in the right decks. But I wouldn't say it's too good to be level 0. — Susumu · 366
It's also in the rouges card pool which rather evade than killing enemies. — Tharzax · 1

A little known fact: the person on the art of this card is actually Mandy Thompson!

She can run the card, and it has amazing synergy with her ability.

Actually, now I'm curious, do you get twice the recources and clues this way???

Rushional · 95
I’m receiving this particular advice as comedy rather than strategy, and it’s a hit by that standard. But if the rules question is sincere, I believe the answer is “yes.” If there are two non-Elite enemies in the top 9 cards, Mandy can probably draw them both and gain the additional resources and clue. Because she’s Mandy Thompson, she also has more direct methods of getting resources and clues without drawing two enemies, but I suspect the “then” clause renders the final bit part of resolving the additional target of the search. — Holy Outlaw · 268