Holy Silas Marsh: Blessed to Commit

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bjiri · 37

Silas is an interesting character.

Whilst powerful on fight and evade stats, he typically will have to compensate his weaker will (2) and investigate (2) stats using skills. Our ambition is to boost those base skills systematically using bless tokens and "dark horse", leveraging his weaker stats to add bless to the game.

His ability allows for special interaction with cards like

Signum Crucis (0 XP using Taboo rules): to fill the token bag with two blessed tokens per round Unrelenting: to add two cards to your hand per round

You can take these skill cards back to hand and still benefit from the effects (adding bless tokens / drawing cards)

The recurring addition of 2 bless tokens per round is really important for Silas. It will allow him to succeed difficult tests regularly without the help of his skill boosts, enabling almost systematically his special ability without losing time, failing tests.

We opted for a deck using the power of the card "Dark Horse" in combination with the resource consuming abilities of

Fire Axe: increase the power, hit for 2 damage Mariner's Compass: investigate successfully to discover 2 clues for 1 action

Cards like Emergency Cache and Schoffner's Catalogue allow for 'on tap' resources without switching off the Dark Horse midgame.

Next, we decided in favor of 'In the Thick of it' to enable extremely powerful skill cards (Desperate search, Say your Prayers) and also from the start use Brute Force (2x) and Unrelenting (1x) to push his power level up. Starting with 3 sanity implies the must use of Peter Sylvestre.


We started a 2-player campaign of Dream-Eaters netting 8xp after the first scenario. That XP was invested in Nature of the Beast (2x) to net clues in high shroud locations, Fickle Fortune (1x) to play around with the doom track and one more unrelenting (1x) to net more cards.

Cards that were cut from the initial build are Inquiring Mind (1x), Reckless Assault (1x), Take Heart (2x)

4 comments

Nov 07, 2022 SilverTwilightLodgeJanitor · 7

Very interesting deck! I myself ran a Blessed deck (in Innsmouth Conspiracy) for my first try with Silas. However, I'd strongly suggest adding Ancient Covenant to further skew the token odds in your favour.

What are your experiences with consistently running at three sanity? Seems rather risky... but if this is what you're going for, why not add Spirit of Humanity?

Nov 07, 2022 bjiri · 37

Indeed! Thanks for the tip. Ancient Covenant is on the upgrade path. I'm running the deck as we speak coming weeks in the Dream eater campaign. So plenty of XP to spend as you know :)

Today, I'm still writing up more details to the starting deck before upgrades. Remember that you can add cards up to 3 XP as you are starting at 2 less sanity (In the thick of it :)).

On how a disadvantage becomes an edge! As to sanity, I've got Peter, 2x Courage, 2x Say your Prayers, 1x Inquiring mind. We're in a 2-player campaign, with options to gain mental healing and/or soaks. I will let you know as the game progresses!

Nov 07, 2022 SilverTwilightLodgeJanitor · 7

Thanks for the response. I'd be curious to know especially what role Silas ends up playing in your campaign. As it is, he seems to be geared towards flex, no?

As for low sanity & healing, I guess one could also include Fearless or Fearless, just to be on the safer side. That's probably what I would do, dastardly coward that I am. This should also help with horror dealt by enemies (whereas the deck seems to be able to cope quite well with avoiding the horror dished out by treacheries). But then, being Silas, you could always avoid enemies' horror and damage by evading them, of course.

Anyway, enjoy the campaign!

Nov 07, 2022 bjiri · 37

Hi, Thanks for the tips. Fearless was also on the shortlist for the initial deck. It's never easy to make the exact calls when you start testing an investigator. I've actually adopted a slightly more balanced approach in the fine-tuned deck adding one Fearless, one Eureka, one Quick Thinking and leaving out Reckless Assault as Brute Force already covers that card better.

Once we're done with the campaign, I'll do a write up of all the experience gained on the deck and investigator. I'm joined by Daisy Walker (V2) who's handling most clue gathering.

Silas is never in trouble when it comes to enemy management. What he can't beat, he evades. The trick here is to switch him on in terms of clue gathering and successful will testing. During the first scenario he did really well. We'll see if it continues.

As a general rule, when playing a 2-player campaign, we both try to be relatively resilient. That means we don't fully specialize, but one is efficient at enemy management, the other at clue gathering. We always play hard (sometimes, it's that's even too easy it seems) and have run quite some successful campaigns :).

Thanks again for your kind feedback and tips. It's so much fun to brainstorm together indeed!

Take care, J