Asset. Hand x2

Item. Weapon. Melee.

Cost: 4.

Guardian

: Fight. You get +2 for this test. If you succeed by exactly 2, you may exhaust Katana to deal +2 damage for this attack.

Exhaust Katana: Fight. Use instead of for this attack.

Carlos Palma Cruchaga
The Feast of Hemlock Vale Investigator Expansion #21.
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Reviews

The melee version of the .35 Winchester and Song of the Dead, with the significant advantage that, of the three, it doesn't use ammo. The others already come with a lot of ammo on account of their damage output being highly random, but infinite is still better.

Two kinds of investigators want this card, the first is hunters with high agility to use the fast action, which is to say Lily Chen and "Skids" O'Toole. Skids has the edge in that he can use Daring Maneuver to turn a flat success on the main attack into a +2, while Lily currently has no way to fix the result after the fact. Of course, skids will be missing the hand slots for investigative tools, while Lily is more comfortable with a 2-hander.

The second type is investigators with access to the level 1 Seeker pool, for the sole purpose of taking Steady-Handed. Steady-Handed lets you trigger it on a 1, 2 or 3 over target, every round. Being able to hit 3 damage 1/round will carry you through most of the game, and since it doesn't have to be ready to use the primary attack, you can follow up with +2 attacks to finish off 4 or 5hp enemies. As a bonus, hitting that +2 will heal a horror. That's amazing value. The only unfortunate thing is that between Roland, Joe, Vincent, Carolyn and Rex, two don't want a weapon and the other three don't have the agility to use the fast action.

Additional cards to consider:

Blasphemous Covenant has synergy with additional token fixing, if you're playing with curses.

Strong-Armed lets you re-roll at the cost of health.

• BTB Roland with the Due Diligence loves Hold Up, and Red Tape even makes it fast.

• Skids and Lily may like Grievous Wound, which lets you add a DoT with the fast attack for enemies you plan to evade.

• Skids theoretically likes False Surrender, which bundles action economy and a small skill bonus in one.

CombStranger · 263
What high agility hunters want to spend 4 resources and 2 hands for a 1 damage fight using agility? Skids can accomplish the same test totals with Knife and Switchblade, unless you're running a lot of +agility passive boosts. Lily has a higher fight than agility. — jaunt · 20
Nevermind. Turns out reading the card explains the card. That said, the fast action agility test is still kind of a sad consolation prize for missing your "by exactly 2" normal attacks. If you want to build around the Katana, I think you're much, much better off with an investigator who can control their success number, to the extent I wouldn't recommend it to any investigator planning on the "I have high agi" backup plan. — jaunt · 20

I think this is generally a bad card when things like Machete exist, especially as Machete only takes up one hand slot. You can assemble things like Steady-Handed or Knight of Swords on specific investigators to help you succeed by the right amount for its test, but even then Katana exhausts when using its +2 damage option, so what's the point in building an engine around it when you're going to get less damage than 3 actions on a Machete? The +2 if you're not bothered about the extra damage is okay, but if you're not bothered about the extra damage then the humble Knife becomes a cheaper and less resource intensive option.

The interesting bit therefore is the fight test. While people like "Skids" O'Toole can use this, there's better things which can go in his hands (e.g. if you want to do fighting, the new British Bull Dog is nice albeit ammo intensive). For this reason I'd recommend:

The last thing I'll say about this card is its resource cost stinks. 4 resources for two kinds of actions which are hard to get working properly? No thanks! Overall I'd say it has niche uses on some investigators around its action, but is otherwise outshone by easier to use fight assets which are cheaper and take up only one hand (e.g. Machete).

HungryColquhoun · 7312
"Worse than Machete" isn't much of a statement when that applies to all but maybe 2 weapons. I think you're overselling the problem of only getting 3 damage in one action once a turn though. How often are you really needing to do 6 or more damage a turn? — Spamamdorf · 4
Bonnie Walsh can only ready Ally assets, not weapons. — DrOGM · 25
@DrOGM - good catch, edited. I could have sworn I read her card before posting and still mentally skipped over 'Ally'. — HungryColquhoun · 7312
`@Spamamdorf` I think if the 3 damage was guaranteed you'd be right, but as you have to game getting a success of two it's too much of a hurdle to jump through (and two hands is a big issue as well, I guess they should have made it a wakizashi!). Personally if I'm going combat for enemy management then 6 damage in a turn is the minimum bar for me even in a level 0 deck (otherwise I find them poorly specialised and not supporting multiplayer effectively). Even on flex decks I would normally expect 6 damage. — HungryColquhoun · 7312
Yes, it's finicky, but you didn't answer the question which wasn't what do you shoot for but how often do you need that much damage? Unless you're the only goon in a four player game with three seekers you probably are just fine dealing 3-4 damage a turn most of the scenario. And then you simply pack a few events for the boss at the end. Are you regularly drawing 6 hp of enemies in two player or 12 in 4 player every turn? Not likely. — Spamamdorf · 4
`@Spamamdorf` Definitely some of the time, if two enemies spawn at once (or one spawned and then a hunter who caught up with you). I feel like the deck building mentality is to build for the 10% of situations that are bad and cause loss of a scenario, not the 90% of the time where dealing 3-4 damage is fine. Besides, I play two player - so I build decks that do things reliably in those tough situations, not with the mentality I've got 3 other investigators to cover me so I can get away with a lack of specialisation. Clearly we approach the game differently, and that's fine. Reviews are idiosyncratic and there will be other people who play like me and so appreciate this review, and people who play like you and so don't so much. I think both of our points of view here are well justified, personally. — HungryColquhoun · 7312