Wendy Thinks on Her Feet - True Solo 19XP

Alone At Last, Doing Just Fine Thanks

If you've tried true solo then you know that very few scenarios feel balanced with only investigator in mind. There's too much ground to cover, no one to aid you with skill test commits, and no chance to specialize your role. Solo play tends to struggle for awhile and ultimately founder. But certain Rogues and Survivors manage, and Wendy is in that club.

Like most Survivor investigators, Wendy is tricky to play. She has some obviously strong defense with her 4 willpower, 4 agility, and ability to re-draw tokens from the Chaos Bag.

But Arkham isn't just about staying alive, you have to accomplish clue-finding and cope with enemies somehow. And to that point, it's impossible to ignore Wendy's glaring deficiencies: her 1 combat stat and her game-crushing weakness.

This deck aims to show how Wendy can thrive unsupported. work around her weak combat stat, and cleverly accomplish a lot on her own.

For the campaign starter, keep Charisma and swap out the other XP cards for the 11 cards in the side deck.

Play Cautious Before Your Signature Weakness

Wendy's weakness is something you have to contend with in your play style. Play in a very conservative way until that card is in the discard pile. Avoid playing events outside of emergencies. If you do play an event or two, consider pulling them back with Scrounge for Supplies.

If you have your amulet down then you can get away with playing an event from hand then playing it again from your discard pile, knowing that it's safely back on the bottom your draw pile.

Try to Get Rid of Your Signature Weakness

@chirubime inspired me to use a copy of Friends in Low Places keyed to Madness to help flush out Wendy's signature weakness. A good time to play this is after you've resolved your Random Basic Weakness or if your hand is full.

If your campaign infilcts more Madness weaknesses all the better! You can resolve them ahead of Abandoned and Alone and know that they're removed from the game...

After Your Signature Weakness

You're free! Your discard pile is probably safe. Make sure to put your signature card into play and try to recur your events. This is especially important with versatile events (e.g. Lucky! so they're not "trapped" under special case events. If this is the case it's another opportunity for Scrounge for Supplies to fix problems with your discard pile.

Barring exotic treacheries you should never need to reshuffle your deck again!

For Clues, Just Wing It

It's tempting to leverage Wendy's high agility to run Lockpicks, but the fact they exhaust is a real drawback.

Instead look to her respectable Knowledge stat to clear clues at a faster pace. Newspaper is cheap and stacks with Winging It. Boost with Plucky as needed.

Note how Winging It finds free clues when played from the discard, and Wendy's innate power is a convenient way to get it there.

Evasion, Evasion, Evasion

A great thing about solo Wendy is how well Evade works. For minions without the hunter trait, simply evade them, grab any clues, and move away. Just leave them in the dust and go about your business of winning the scenario. This lets you conserve your powerful combat events like Backstab for dealing with hunter enemies and bosses.

Wendy starts with an Agility of 4, eventually supplemented by Peter Sylvestre, Track Shoes, and Geas. Only the most agile enemies will block your escape.

[Side note for campaign starter deck: this deck starts with three evasion tricks. A near-misses enable Dumb Luck, which negates one turn of encounter card draws! A successful evasion enables Sneak Attack or Waylay. Later on we shed these and use the faster setup to rely on our raw agility stat to evade]

The best "evasion" of all is Think on Your Feet. When you draw an enemy use this to get fast, free movement and then rely on the Pocket Telescope to scoop up any clues that were left behind. This obviates the need to even test agility, spend a move action, and spend an evade action. Note that you can't Wing It remotely, but if you have no clues Newspaper works.

New Perspective on Combat

Imagine you're a focused guardian-fighter, and your goal is to make lots of attack actions. Each attack generally relies on the details of an asset in your hand slot. You have to concern yourself with charges and extra damage and making combos work. You often resort to early weapon searches, stress over your mulligan, and start off by equipping expensive key items .

Here, our goal aims to avoid attack actions. So all of that effort above is wasteful nonsense. Instead of all of those actions, resources, and deck space Wendy simply plays a Backstab, then plays it again from her discard pile. Two actions, up to 6 damage, the card goes back to the bottom your draw pile. This is great for tempo, since you never had to pay the costs in advance.

Less Mouths to Feed = Big Money

Another point for Wendy in solo is her economy. When she doesn't have to deal with any clumsy Guardians getting in her way she can run Lone Wolf to double her passive income.

Solo play also means that Faustian Bargain won't foul up someone else's day. She has little to fear from curse tokens given her own re-draw power on top of Luck.

Cheat the System early is 2 resources for 0 actions. After your Amulet and a couple of synergy assets are on the table, each time you draw Cheat the System it pays 8 resources and safely bounces to the bottom of your draw pile for zero actions. It's a real standout.

Once in awhile you might need to test combat or something unexpected, so Money Talks is there as a one-of to save your neck. Or for any tough test! If it's not seeing use then it can be dumped as a re-draw from the Chaos Bag.

Sock away excess cash to improve your start on the next scenario. If you're strapped for cash then dump the Treasure as discard-fodder for Wendy's innate power. Remember that every card in her deck has utility as a re-draw.

Card Draw Engine

Early versions of this deck used Lucky Cigarette Case with Relic Hunter, but that was scrapped because of the slow tempo. Instead we lean on events like At a Crossroads and Black Market to burst draw.

At a Crossroads is just there because it's super efficient to turn 1 action into 3 card draws. Great to find this in your opening hand!

Black Market is fascinating here because it shows you 5 cards and gives you the option to play them. You ignore weaknesses which might cripple you if drawn at a bad time. You also ignore At a Crossroads, for better or worse. Save this for when you're deep on cash to afford the cards.

Bells and Whistles

Geas and Plucky, on top of Peter Sylvestre and Track Shoes, potentially bring your stat line up to 6 5 2 7

Leo is needed because the scenarios aren't balanced for solo. His extra actions will give you a better chance at surviving and/or reaching a better resolution.

Peter Sylvestre and the Talisman of Protection are there for soak. Late in a campaign consider upgrading the talisman to Earthly Serenity for actual healing while retaining synergy.

The encounter deck is sure to throw something at you that's hard to cope with. To defend yourself you have Test of Will early on, and later you can rely on Counterespionage as an improvement.