Jenny Barnes: Forty-Five is the New Thirty (Deck Guide)

"Forty-five is the new thirty, darling."

The Edge of the Earth expansion has given the Arkham community a gift in the form of new 0xp permanents to be taken at the start of a campaign, some of which open up new deck ideas. This is one of them. Forced Learning not only can give us additional deck space to try out interesting new cards, but it also helps a fluid, generalist playstyle that enjoys a steady flow of options for tackling the Mythos.

I'll note here that if you're looking to play Arkham Horror in a way where you find your key cards as quickly as possible for bludgeoning the Mythos with a square-peg-round-hole solution, this decklist is not for you. I will ridicule you in the comments if you obviously have not tried to understand this fact.

The main benefit of our 45-card deck here is that with each upkeep, Jenny can shore up what she's lacking in the moment and not worry about dead draws. She can discard her second copy of Lone Wolf or Well Connected, which would normally be a dead draw, and keep the skill card she also drew. Or, if she's holding a lot of intellect icons in her hand, she can discard the Perception she just drew and hold onto something more useful. She can keep a drawn Emergency Cache or Faustian Bargain if she is short on resources, or keep the other draw if she isn't. Thanks to Forced Learning, Jenny can hold onto what she needs and discard what she doesn't. The inclusion of all ten of the Core two-icon skill cards really pushes this concept, and with Jenny's 3/3/3/3 stats, a steady source of all four skill icons is very helpful. She also has "Hit me!" for a universal skill boost, the Rogue's version of the excellent Lucky!. With the additional draw in upkeep from Forced Learning, Jenny can really live in the moment.

Dressed for the Occasion: Alternatives and Variants

One of Jenny's many strengths is her flexibility. With the right combinations of cards available, we can build and upgrade a Jenny deck that fits the campaign, our group of fellow investigators, our personal tastes, and our built-up collection of Arkham player cards. Jenny is also able to take powerful 0xp cards from any class, especially ones which are balanced in power by their resource cost. The Side Deck shows off some suggested adjustments to the baseline generalist deck, which I'll elaborate on here.

The Desperada: Putting Monsters in the Ground

This playstyle foregos the investigation and clue-discovery side and uses those deck slots for more guns and more evasions. Swap Lockpicks for .45 Thompson, Intel Report for Cheap Shot, and Perception for Cunning. Consider swapping Hallowed Mirror for Track Shoes if your group is bringing sufficient damage and horror healing.

The Detective: Solving the Mysteries of the Mythos

This playstyle leans on Lockpicks and Jenny's Intellect of 3 to discover clues while evading enemies. Swap Lonnie Ritter for either Dario El-Amin or Leo De Luca, Enchanted Blade for Fingerprint Kit, and Manual Dexterity for Cunning. Consider swapping Trench Coat for Fine Clothes or Heavy Furs if you don't need to evade all that much or if you are going to cocktail parties.

Miss Moneybags: Dressed to the Nines

This playstyle makes an excellent 3rd or 4th investigator in a group that manages to cover bases pretty well already, and we have Jenny focus on achieving additional actions and passing a wide variety of tests. Swap Lonnie Ritter for Leo De Luca or Dario El-Amin, Hallowed Mirror for Track Shoes, and Trench Coat for Fine Clothes or Heavy Furs. Just imagine those Heavy Furs are a fur coat befitting of a lady of class.

What do you buy for the lady who has everything?

Next, I'll cover substitutions to the decklist based on which player cards you have your Arkham Horror collection. This list is organised by cycle rather than individual Mythos Pack just to keep things tidy.

"What if I don't have..."

The Dunwich Legacy: Lone Wolf, Quick Thinking, Fine Clothes, Jenny Barnes

I really can't help you here, because you don't have Jenny Barnes. Go get Jenny Barnes.

Edge of the Earth: Forced Learning, "Hit me!", Heavy Furs

Do not fret! You can still play this deck! I highly recommend just using a printer or a sticky note or your memory to mark down how Forced Learning works, because you never shuffle it into the deck anyways.

Meanwhile, "Hit me!" can be swapped out for something else that helps Jenny succeed on tests, like Cunning, or any other cheap event, like Sleight of Hand or "I'm outta here!"

The Path to Carcosa: Lockpicks, "Watch this!", Dario El-Amin, Cheap Shot

Fortunately, Lockpicks is in the Revised Core set now, so that's great. Since this card is so vital to the Rogue who intends to investigate, consider proxying this using your 0xp Lockpicks if you don't have any.

Meanwhile, "Watch this!" (how isn't this in the Winifred pack?) can be replaced by a skill card like Cunning or an efficient event like Swift Reflexes. Consider running Gregory Gry if you happen to have him for additional resource gain.

The Circle Undone: Hallowed Mirror, Enchanted Blade, Well Connected, Act of Desperation, Intel Report, .45 Thompson, Cunning, Fingerprint Kit, Track Shoes

Wow, that's a lot. The Circle Undone also happened to be the Preston Fairmont cycle, so a bunch of the Rogue cards supported the high-resource playstyle, a style Jenny can also use well. The box and first pack also included a large number of efficient 0xp cards from multiple classes, which Jenny also really likes. It's also a great cycle in general.

To replace them, look for cards from your collection that perform similar functions, like Machete (I suggest ignoring Taboo here) for Enchanted Blade, Streetwise or Dig Deep for Well Connected, Liquid Courage for Hallowed Mirror, and Working a Hunch for Intel Report. You'll probably be a bit confined on Jenny's flexibility, though, without that array of 0xp cards to build the deck according to your tastes.

The Innsmouth Conspiracy: .25 Automatic, Breaking and Entering, Faustian Bargain

Fortunately, the Innsmouth cards aren't key to Jenny's strategy here. Replace these with similar cards from the Side Deck, though perhaps consider Gregory Gry or 21 or Bust in place of Faustian Bargain.

The Forgotten Age: Lucky Cigarette Case, Trench Coat, Lola Santiago

There aren't many needed cards from The Forgotten Age, but Lucky Cigarette case is pretty much a staple for all Rogues, because they do not have much in the way of card draw. Fortunately, the Winifred Habbamock Starter Deck has you covered. She has Leather Jacket, too, if you want a coat replacement that is way more stylish than Heavy Furs. Meanwhile, going without Lola S will lock you out of a really solid piece of the clue discovery package.

Winifred Habbamock: Lockpicks, Lucky Cigarette Case, Lonnie Ritter, Cheap Shot, (how does she not have "Watch this!"???)

The Cigarette Case and the Lockpicks are the staples from Wini's deck. Lonnie can be replaced by a different Ally, and I actually recommend using 1XP Lockpicks from Carcosa or the Revised Core as placeholders for 0XP Lockpicks.

The Dream-Eaters: Nothing.

This cycle was not very friendly to 0XP Rogues, and this deck can function entirely without the cycle. That being said, Gregory Gry can make a good substitute for a different resource-generating card if you own it. Not having Delilah O'Rourke could lock you out of a solid combat ally down the road, though.

A little bit of everything: Upgrades

Fortunately, since we are looking at a flexible generalist here, the upgrade possibilities are all over the place. Based on how your campaign is going and what your group is leaning on you for, choose upgrades to improve what the group needs, and feel free to mix them to taste, as thanks to Forced Learning you aren't locked in to your choices!

The Essentials:

• Savant (Edge of the Earth): This is a staple Rogue card, especially for Jenny, where it'll provide at least four wild icons for any test.

• Easy Mark (The Dream-Eaters): This is also a staple Rogue card, as it's essentially a more effective set of Emergency Caches!

• Adaptable (Dunwich): This allows Jenny to shape her deck over a campaign to fit what the team is needing, or allows her to swap into more expensive 0XP cards as she improves her resource generation.

• Charisma (Revised Core, Dunwich): This lets Jenny run multiple Allies at once, such as Dario El-Amin and Delilah O'Rourke for +1 to all four stats, or Lola Santiago and Delilah for lots of ways to spend her resources, Dario and Gregory Gry for plenty of resources. There are plenty of good two-Ally combinations to work with, and doubling up on a very meaningful asset slot is a smart idea.

The Desperada: enemy management upgrades:

• .41 Derringer (Revised Core, Carcosa): More reliable two-damage shots and some potential extra actions when Jenny draws a 0 or -1!

• .25 Automatic (Innsmouth): The 0XP version can be very slow in practice, especially against low-health enemies, so this upgrade buys Jenny extra effective actions.

• Delilah O'Rourke (Dream-Eaters): Delilah is the premier Rogue ally for taking down enemies by spending excess resources for actionless damage.

• Chicago Typewriter (Dunwich): This is the ideal upgrade to the .45 Thompson for 3-damage attacks.

• Cheap Shot (Carcosa, Winifred): very useful for achieving big action compression and helping out your teammates as the Desperada, and it makes for some great synergy with the 2xp version of .25 Automatic.

The Detective: investigation upgrades:

• Lockpicks (Revised Core, Carcosa): This upgrades allows Jenny's Lockpicks to survive multiple bad token draws, as opposed to the party stopping with a single -4.

• Lola Santiago (Forgotten Age): Lola S is the premier Rogue ally for discovering clues by spending excess resources on low-shroud locations for actionless clue discoveries.

Miss Moneybags: generalist upgrades:

• The Black Fan (Edge of the Earth): This is a top-end card to let Jenny improve all four of her stats and give her an additional action every round! She'll need a lot of resources to really take advantage, though...

• Unscrupulous Loan (Edge of the Earth): Ten resources for a single action is unparalleled. Since Jenny will be hanging onto her resources, it's unlikely she'll run into any trouble with the Exile effect. Note that the Loan is limited to 1/investigator, so avoid including two copies of this, especially since we can take...

• Hot Streak (Revised Core): Seven resources for a single action is not as much as Unscrupulous Loan, but you can play more than one of these.

• Well Connected (Return to The Circle Undone): This upgrade mainly improves on Well Connected by letting Jenny use it twice in one round.

• High Roller (The Forgotten Age): An alternative to The Black Fan, Unscrupulous Loan, and Well Connected, two copies of this will let Jenny be able to boost any stat she wants without concerning herself with saving resources. Running 1x Well Connected and 2x High Roller is a good strategy.

Non-essential but nice upgrades:

• Backpack (Return to The Forgotten Age): At a cost of 1, a very efficient card for searching for key Item assets.

• Lucky Cigarette Case (Winifred): This upgrade will help Jenny avoid weaknesses while making deeper dives into her deck to look for useful cards for the moment.

• Sure Gamble (Revised Core): This upgrade slots right in over the two copies of "Hit me!" to provide even stronger coverage for nasty token draws.

• Liquid Courage (Dunwich): If the emergency-use Hallowed Mirror isn't providing enough horror healing, Liquid Courage can work as well, especially if Jenny has suffered some trauma from Searching for Izzie. Jenny's high-ish Willpower lets her pass that test pretty reliably and get multiple points of healing.

And that about covers it! Enjoy the Generalist Jenny playstyle!