Marky Mark and The Ladies

I recently played through a full Carcosa campaign on Normal with a Mark/Norman team. Here are my thoughts on your build:

1. You have too many weapons. I'd cut the .32 Colts.

2. You probably don't need the Guard Dogs, especially if Daisy can help you search for what you need using Old Book of Lore.

3. First Aid is garbage. Way too slow. Use True Grit instead, it has great synergy with Mark's abilities.

4. Elusive is a great card, I'd run two.

5. Get some skills cards into the deck. At least two Guts and two Unexpected Courage.

I'm not a huge fan of Taunt, but I can see the use with 4 investigators.

Thanks for the feedback @trlongwell. Let me respond:

1. I've found that having only 4 weapon cards significantly increases the risk that you won't draw one when you need one. I'm prioritizing increasing the damage I do for each attack, thus having to use less actions to kill a monster. Also, resources go fast in a Defender deck, so if you don't get a weapon out early you might have a hard time doing so in the late game.

2. In a 4 player game, you generally can't rely on 1 investigator having a specific card in play and being in the same location as you. As a Defender, I eventually want to get Charisma to help protect against damage/horror, hence the 2 allies.

3. First Aid saved my life last night, and True Grit can't be used in combination with Mark's triggered ability. Mark needs ways to heal, not prevent, direct damage.

4. Elusive doesn't exhaust an enemy, so it's a very short term solution to a monster

5. I avoided skill cards because Mark can boost his own stats as long as he can heal himself.

2x Dynamite blast is probably too many, The three ladies all have low hp, so unless you find a way to crowd a lot of monsters into one area AND not have people be in the room with the monsters, those 5 resources are better off being used somewhere else.

Smoking pipe is a better way to remove horror damage than if it bleeds imo, as it triggers your ability if you have something else that can take damage for you out.

True Grit still allows you to draw, and more importantly, allows you to indirectly tank damage for your friends (who all have low hp).

Elusive allows you to disengage with enemies that you might not want/need to kill, and is useful in missions that you want to resign from at the end. Because it is fast, it is at worst a 2 cost teleport (you don't need to be engaged to play it), and will often save you at least 2-3 move actions when you play it.

I am also of the opinion that the ,45 automatic can be cut. You generally want to be hard Mulligan for Machete anyways I'd imagine (even in a 4 player game), and the low ammo also makes it inefficient for dealing with all the enemies that will pop up in a 4 player campaign. It's also expensive and doesn't provide a good skill icon to pitch. Even with just 4 weapons + prepared, you're looking at a 80%+ chance of finding a weapon in the top 10 cards of your deck hard mulliganing for it.

@EdgeSeeker I guess we play the game pretty differently. I never have time for First Aid.

At the very least, I'd swap a gun for a second Prepared for the Worst. And Ellusive isn't so much for dealing with enemies, it's for teleporting around on big maps. Carcosa has several of those. I agree with @siroma that one Dynamite Blast is enough, so that would be an easy swap if you want to try it out.

Off topic, how is Sefina working out for your group? I personally HATE Rogues, but I think Carcosa might be the best fitting campaign for a Rogue so far.

@trlongwell Ah, I get why you would include Elusive now. I might spend some experience point later to swap it in. And I also agree with @siromaabout reducing copies of Dynamite Blast. I'm still a bit partial to First Aid, but if it ends up being terrible I'll let you know.

Sefina Rousseau was pretty good during our first scenario. We ended up getting 4 Delve Too Deep cards in the Victory Display, netting us 10 VP. Mark Harrigan kept getting the Hidden encounter cards and was having a terrible time by the end.

@trlongwell and @siroma. We're two scenarios into the campaign, so I thought I'd give you an update on how my deck is doing.

1. First Aid has been working out great. With Mark Harrigan, you really need to keep his damage below 5, and healing him lets you boost him again for the next skill test. It also can be a huge help to other investigators who are having a hard run. Smoking Pipe might still work in the deck, but I hesitate to put damage on Mark or any of his allies because you're already taking so much damage to boost yourself. Plus, it can't be used to heal other investigators.

2. Shortcut has been more useful than Elusive would be. I'm usually trying to get to locations where there are monsters, and I don't want to leave any behind.

3. As for weapons, having 6 in the deck has been beneficial. I could go down to 5, but I feel that 4 would be too low. When playing an Arkham Horror games, I consider an 80% chance too low to count on. In addition, when playing with 4 investigators, you don't want to rely on Machete alone. Also, and I know this isn't released yet, but "Eat lead!" will be great with a lot of guns, especially the .32 Colt.

4. True Grit doesn't help me heal or deal damage, so I'm still okay with leaving that one out. And Dynamite Blast is just too much fun.