Winifred Habbamock
The Aviatrix

Investigator

Criminal.

Rogue
  • 1
  • 3
  • 3
  • 5
Health: 8. Sanity: 7.

If 2 different non-weakness cards you control are committed to this skill test: Draw 1 card. (Limit once per test.)

effect: +1. After this test ends, for every 2 points you succeeded by, return a card you committed to this test to your hand.

"I can top that."
Aleksander Karcz
Winifred Habbamock #1.

Winifred Habbamock - Back

Investigator

Deck Size: 30.

Deckbuilding Options: Rogue cards () level 0-5, Neutral cards level 0-5.

Deckbuilding Requirements (do not count toward deck size): Anything You Can Do, Better; Arrogance; 1 random basic weakness.

Winifred - Weethao as her parents know her, Wini to her friends - was one of the smartest kids in her reservation school. However, her reckless attitude and lack of respect for authority meant she often got herself into trouble. The course of her life changed forever when she found an old biplane in a farmer's garage and decided to "take it out for a spin." The owner, a former pilot in the Great War, was awestruck by her natural talent and offered to teach her what he knew. Now Wini is known as the "woman without fear," showing off her skills in barnstormers all across the country. That nickname would be tested when, during one of her shows, she spotted a creature she could scarcely describe: a thing with leathery wings and a single, mutated, pus-filled eye.
Winifred Habbamock
Winifred Habbamock
Search for cards usable by this investigator

FAQs

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

FAQ removed - double-checking provenance.

Last updated

Reviews

You won’t get Winifred by accident, because she’s sold in her own individual pack. So why would you like her and what should you watch out for?

First, WH is a triumph of theming. Each of the individually sold investigators expand their color, and green is about risk. Some characters, like Nathaniel Cho, are campfires. A few things to get you started, and you can keep it burning all night. Every animal you punch with your boxing gloves will get you more cards to punch more people.

Winnie is an industrial coal boiler. For every two cards you give her, she’ll usually give you back one. Opportunist, most of the time, will cover for you, but if you don’t draw it or you lose it, you’re out of luck. Manual dexterity changes the ratio, and so do other cards like the lucky cigarette case, but most of the time you’re going to need a runway.

There’s another downside: one willpower. You will get screwed over by the encounter deck unless you and your teammates have mitigation. First watch, ward of protection 2, the usual players will need to be in full force to keep you from going insane.

But the rest is upside. Winnifred is one of the best evaders in the game, and unlike Rita or Stella, she can get massively rewarded for it. Pickpocketing is a way of life. Sneak By gives you money while doing what you were going to do anyway. Delilah damages your enemies or Cat Burglars let you strand non-hunters. Nimble will move you around the map, bringing your safeguarded guardians along with you. And once it’s running, your draw engine is one of the best in the game. No other rogue can mill their deck as fast, getting extra actions with quick thinking or dropping a “Watch this” for big cash.

You’re also incredibly flexible. “Anything you can do“ gives you viability in everything, even willpower tests, and with unexpected courage, it’s a success on anything but the autofail and a free card. Scenario cards that test books, fists and/or feet are much less of a challenge for you.

Just avoid failing! Unlike a survivor, you don’t get second chances at skill tests. Your engine can sputter out with a few bad pulls. When that happens, don’t be afraid to take a few actions to draw cards, knowing that when you’re on top again, you’ll have bonus everything.

The aviatrix has natural synergy with mystics who can help her predict the future. Jacqueline with premonition, scrying mirrors, or triple token pulls is great foil. So is Anyone who can fill the bag with bless tokens, turning even hard pulls into succeed by two opportunities.

MrGoldbee · 1443
Compared to her other low will counterparts- Finn and Preston namely- she’s actually pretty resilient, as committing double to a will test, especially with her signature, makes them very passable. — StyxTBeuford · 12985
Preston can pay to win tho. — MrGoldbee · 1443
Only if you're doing rich man Preston. Poorston Fairmont doesn't usually have more than a single resource during the Mythos phase, as Family Inheritance refills at the beginning of your turn, not the round. — StyxTBeuford · 12985
Winifred fails will tests less often than you'd think, it's true. Rich Preston, on the other hand, I'd say is even more resilient -- he's not any worse at will than any other stats, and once you get past the rough initial setup drawing a will test treachery often just means you exhaust Well Connected and don't even pay any resources. — Thatwasademo · 57
Playing her through "Forgotten Age" blind run right now. We paid a visit to the Rougarou. I draw "Ripples on the Surface" fist and second mythos phase. Game over for me. Currently (after "Heart of the Elders 1") I'm at 3 body and 4 mental trauma. (I curse myself for playing "Leatherjacket" last game, otherwise it would be vice versa and I would start next game with 4 remaining of both, rather than 5 and 3.) "Cheat Death" is now my most priority upgrade, probably 2 of. I don't get these low-brain Rogues. I never had similar issues with Mystics and foot tests. — Susumu · 361
TFA is not the place to run a low will investigator at low counts- TFA has a lot of impactful will tests, and if you ever want to explore with an investigator, it should be done when you know they have a good chance of passing a potential will test. TCU gets a lot of flack for its will tests, but TFA is worse imo. — StyxTBeuford · 12985
I think, Winifred's vulnerability is caused as well by her being restricted to ONLY green cards (and neutrals). I played recently Preston, who worked much better, although I played him Dark Horse. But Peter Sylvestre shaves off a lot of fear from these treacheries. And later parallel Skids, who is just a Lucky! bastard. Preston I played in "Web of Dreams", but Skids was also TFA. — Susumu · 361
1- Isn't a problem, if you are taking this you have a gun centric deck. 2 - is just wrong, it gives a lot of investigator +2-4 on their attack, it's especially good with long guns where you often only need one hit to kill the opponent (hence why it’s called Sharpshooter) 3 - What ? None of the cards you cited fit the archetype this one does. Don't listen to this guy, play the card it works quite well, and it's been tabooed to cost 2 XP, it was OK but expensive at 3, at 2 its quite good. — DakonBlackblade · 4
Is there a way to delete a comment, I posted the above comment by accident on the wrong card page. — DakonBlackblade · 4

FHV-Era Winifred Update/Retrospective:

When the investigator decks came out, I saw a lot of buzz for Winifred, but it died down almost immediately when Edge of the Earth released with a pile of interesting new investigators and a very powerful card set that offered Wini almost nothing she wanted. Edge of the Earth. EoTE was an asset-heavy set chock full of multiclass synergies, bonus action sources (Eon Chart, The Red Clock, etc.), big money tech, and trait-based boosters (Crafty) that rewarded playing items and assets instead of skills. So did the best rogue card in the set (Black Market). Apart from offering Savant and Blur to let Wini pass will tests and waste less time evading, it offered very little support to skill-based, gun-based, foot-based, or oversuccess-based green archetypes. It was the meta of building a big board and then taking lots of tests at high static numbers.

Fortunately, The Scarlet Keys and Hemlock Vale have been much kinder to Wini, delivering plenty of support in all the areas she needed.

Deck Manipulation & Consistency:

Underworld Market is an amazing boon to Winifred, especially for long scenarios. By sticking her weapons and tools in a side deck she can achieve a much higher density of skill cards in her main deck, allowing her self-replenishing skill card engine to run much more smoothly than before. If you end up cycling your deck the option to leave spare weapons and backup soak options in the market until needed unclogs your reshuffles beautifully. Being able to hide your key assets elsewhere also makes level 0 Daredevil feel a lot more reasonable to use.

I'm not sure whether Friends in Low Places is useful or overkill and whether you use it to tutor for assets or refill on skills, but I think you definitely run it. "Bolstering" seems like kind of a trap; I think you only need prompt, want versatile, and maybe stretch to experienced. Innate and Practiced are the obvious choices for vacuuming up skills, but there are a few skills with gambit, fortune, trick, and cursed which can help you double-dip into other card types if you wish.

New Foot Payoffs

British Bull Dog and Thieves' Kit came in as simple reliable foot-based combat and investigation options, each with lots of support cards available, making it much faster for a low level Wini to get rolling. Disguise, Lightfooted, and Dirty Fighting massively increased the reward for taking normal evades, too.

Oversuccess Support

Grift and "I'll take that!" each in their way give a resource per point of success up to some cap, and Grift also gives you a diff 0 test to style on with other effects. Breaking and Entering joined the roster of reusable oversucceed events and Chuck Fergus level 2 appear to make trick builds easier to scale up.

Slot Support

Hidden Pocket can go in the market, and open up the chance for Wini to combine the Beretta M1918 with an investigation tool or Eye of the Djinn, or run Lockpicks, Thieves' Kit, and .25 Automatic all at once. Or to combine her obligatory Lucky Cigarette Case with more fun toys like the clock or garotte wire.

Considering that recent campaigns have also introduced more reasons to evade and a fair number of scenario-based foot checks, I think it's a great time to dust off Wini and put her through her paces.

Underworld Market Wini is like a new character. — MrGoldbee · 1443

Insane. It’s very easy to trigger her reaction 2 times in a turn, and to succeed by a lot besides.

Winifred’s biggest drawback is that it can be difficult to find tests to over-succeed with. In a group setting she therefore excels in a similar role to Finn, by engaging that one most problematic enemy and keeping them occupied Wini can turn a poorly located enemy into a repeatable source of cards such that evasion isn’t as big a sink of actions as it might be for other characters. In a solo setting Wini needs Lockpicks up right away so that she can reasonably commit her Opportunists to a number of tests without losing them. The end result of this is a draw machine that rivals even Minh.

Of the Mono-color investigators she is quite easily the best, with access to a card pool which complements her strengths, but she does struggle with Willpower tests. For this you will probably want to hold onto a couple guts and maintain a healthy respect for which tests you can fail without major problem.

Take her for a spin, you won’t regret it.

Difrakt · 1286
No joke about her card draw. I had 2xOpportunist in my hand, 2xPickpocketing out, and Lucky Cigarette case. Ended up drawing through my deck like 4 times in the second half of the game and ended with 20 resources. It was bonkers. — Zinjanthropus · 227
Just as an addition: I was mostly milking one enemy and investigating mostly, as there was only one enemy out. I didn't have any boosts for investigating, so it was just committing a ton of skills. Minh also helped out with analytical mind, though. — Zinjanthropus · 227
Just hope that you don't get amnesia as a weekness. That would really shut the engine down... — Zinjanthropus · 227
How we deal with the low willpower? Same stat as Finn and same problem: a 1 is too low to try to pass the will tests and it's better just to recover sanity aftewards. But unlike Finn we have no acces to acces to Logical Reasoning or Peter Sylvestre. Liquid courage seems not optimal. After checking, neither we have dump allies with high sanity to soak horror and die. Pobably our best bet is the old Elder Sign Amulet. — Matamagos · 4
There are basically three avenues available to (solo) Wini to succeed at an important wp test IME: Either you save up Anything You Can Do Better (which, even on its own brings that number up to 7--You could probably safely add Watch This! (with a bet) to that in a lot of cases--or you run Say Your Prayers, so that once it gets bad enough that you'll die to Rotting Remains, you might be able to not die--probably also want to commit another card or two to this, just in case-- or you commit an entire hand's worth of wild icons to the test (well, maybe not literally your whole hand, but you get the point). I think you probably want to combine all three strategies, really. I don't think you necessarily need to _only_ use AYCDB for that, though. In multiplayer you have "You Handle This One!" which is surprisingly effective considering you'll probably cycle your deck 3-4 times, drawing these cards each time, You can also intentionally pair up with a mystic (who can Ward (2) your tests, potentially, and is probably a good target for YHTO). If not that, consider partnering with somebody who can take Hallowed Mirror or Logical Reasoning. Elder Sign Amulet is probably not a bad idea, either. I actually think taking Versatile for Hallowed Mirror might not be bad either, as Wini probably isn't going to have too much of an issue with the extra 5 cards. — Zinjanthropus · 227
Oh, there's also Money Talks. That's pretty effective if you're running a deck with a lot of resource gain. You _can_ get a ton of resources with nothing more than Watch This and Lone Wolf, but it can take a pretty long time, so if you aren't specifically taking other econ cards, Money Talks might end up being a dead draw for a good chunk of the game. Then again, Say Your Prayers is inherently a dead draw for much of the game, so it's arguable that it's actually any better than Money Talks. Well Connected is probably quite similar. — Zinjanthropus · 227
Does her ability trigger while you are committing cards (basically: can you commit the card she draws in the same test)? — Gandalph · 34
Just listened to the Drawn To The Flame episode for her card reveals. Does 2x Opportunist in a test trigger her ability, or would you need a third card in there? I’m assuming it’s the latter because of the word “different” in her ability. — Hilgendwarf · 1
@Gandalph no you cannot - if you look at the timing window you commit cards and then there is a player window. @Hilgendwarf, yes you need a different named card. — xccam · 1
Of the Mono-color investigators she is quite easily the best. good joke. — Rentgen · 1

For those asking "what core investigator role is Winifred best suited for: Fighter or Cluever?", it appears that she is capable of being built as either one. Similar to Jenny Barnes and Finn Edwards, the Rogue card pool can make Wini into a Cluever (Lockpicks, Lola Santiago) or into a Fighter.

As a Fighter, she can be built in two different ways:

Option 1 - Agility. Built similarly to Finn's fighting style, trying to leverage her Agility (Ornate Bow, Sneak Attack, Backstab).

Option 1 - Strength. Now with Lonnie Ritter and Delilah O'Rourke as part of the card pool, Wini could be a gun-wielding Fighter as well due to these allies bringing Wini's Strength to 5.

Sharpshooter is an interesting card that helps either of these two combat options. Wini now gets to attack using her Agility score instead (which would be 5, instead of attacking at 3 Strength).
Added to Option 1, any Agility boosters would make this even better (The Moon • XVIII, Lola Santiago, Cat Burglar).

If added to Option 2, with Lonnie and Delilah, then Wini would be at a base of 6 Agility, and attacking using that rather than her base Strength of 5. Sharpshooter would also give a +2 bonus from the two Strength boosts that each ally provides. So Wini would be shooting a gun with a combat skill of 8, plus the bonus from the weapon she is using. Pretty good! Checkout my review of Sharpshooter if you'd like to unpack the topic more.


So, what role is Winifred best suited for? I'm going to vote Fighter.
Fighting usually requires high skill tests, and you are rewarded more for over-committing to these tests than compared to clue gathering. Also, a lot of the Rogue weapons reward you for over-succeeding, so you might as well play Wini this way. Otherwise, why are you playing an over-succeed investigator? What's the payoff?

What do you think? Is Wini's "optimal" build to be a Fighter, or a Cluever?
Feel free to share details about strategies and cards that help bolster her "optimal" role.

VanyelAshke · 178
She's flex! — MrGoldbee · 1443
I think she is a cluegetter that packs a big punch with the Mauser (and then an upgrade), Lonnie/Delilah and Sharpshooter. She can still have one Lockpicks in the other hand and then some of the clue event cards. — The Lynx · 972
I used her in a 3p game as a cluever. She and Chuck scooped up clues with ease using Pilfer (3). Sometimes she helps out in support by doing a Sneak Attack (2) at the breakneck (haha) speed with her pal Chuck. — toastsushi · 74
She's a great flex gator, meaning she does fighting and clue getting well. She draws fast enough and has such great economy, and she's able to overcommit with significantly less opportunity cost, that her stats actually go much further than you'd think. Those 3's ast more like 4's or 5's in a normal gator since you're always committing 2 cards instead of 1. — StyxTBeuford · 12985
Wini is absolutely a generalist. Note that Lockpicks and Mauser both exhaust (though Mauser can ready itself on an oversuccess), which points her, like many Rogues, toward trying to use both each turn whenever possible. Sharpshooter, in her set, amplifies this by making both her investigates (with lockpicks) and her attacks add Agility, so load up her deck with the powerful Agility and Wild Rogue skills. — Thatwasademo · 57
(er, to clarify, you can't use Agility skills on Lockpick investigations, though you can on Sharpshooter attacks -- the Lockpicks give you the typical Lockpick-Rogue base of 8 though, so that's fine) — Thatwasademo · 57
Good catch, on the Mauser + Lockpicks single-use making her an Agility-oriented flex character. She could kill a 4 health enemy by over succeeding on the first Mauser shot, shooting again, then getting a clue on the third action. — VanyelAshke · 178
after all boosts you have how much attack? 5? and this is "good"? most part of fighters have 4-5 on start. If you play with bow, u shoot 1 time and after that what? AOO from enemy? Winny is bad fighter. — Rentgen · 1