Jenny Barnes - Rise of the Tomb Raider

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
JENNY ~ The Path to Carcosa 0 0 0 1.0

Croaker13 · 2652

Introduction

This is a companion piece to my 28-XP Jenny Barnes: Tomb Raider deck, found here: https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/5171/jenny-barnes-tomb-raider-1.0
For a suggested upgrade-path, look at the description there.

This deck is my recommended starting point, but since you'll eventually buy Adaptable you have relatively free hands to pick and choose your own favorite cards.

Playing

You want St. Hubert's Key and/or Dr. Milan Christopher on the table as soon as possible to help you investigate.
If you get both Sleight of Hand and .41 Derringer in your opening hand, you might consider not playing the gun right away, but otherwise you should get a Knife or .41 Derringer in play as well. Save Jenny's Twin .45s for later, as you probably also need a Flashlight to get the clues necessary to advance the scenario.

Another use for Sleight of Hand is to put a Flashlight down and empty a two or three clue location in one turn. Bonus points for getting even more clues by using Double or Nothing (especially viable on a one or two shroud location where the doubled difficulty doesn't matter after reducing it to 0 with Flashlight).

Really tough enemies can be taken down with Backstab (you have plenty of icons to boost it) and maybe a Dynamite Blast. Keep the two Unexpected Courage handy for or tests.

Don't be afraid to play "I'm outta here!". The penalties for failing a scenario aren't always that high, but an early trauma will hunt you for the rest of the campaign. This obviously matters even more once you get Charon's Obol.

2 comments

Apr 06, 2018 8BitTiger · 1

Lone wolf + Jenny's innate ability mean up to 3 resources per turn. Do you think that Dr. Milan is necessary? I generally run Leo in rogue decks, but I also primarily play true solo, so action economy is always uber-tight.

Apr 06, 2018 Croaker13 · 2652

I also usually play true solo so I absolutely recognize that time-crunch. Actually, the deck originally also ran Leo De Luca, but I realized that I always played Dr. Milan Christopher when I had the choice so I eventually cut Leo.

The way I see it, Dr. Milan Christopher is primarily there to boost . The added economy is "merely" a bonus. Four-shroud locations are relatively common, even early in the campaigns, and you really want to be at four when investigating those (even using Flashlight). It will also save Flashlight charges on one- and two-shroud locations.

If I had a reliable way to get St. Hubert's Key into play early I might consider Leo De Luca over Dr. Milan Christopher, even though it would mess a bit with the resourse-cost-to-resourse-generation ratio of the deck. As it stands, I'll stick with the doctor.

When I get into a situation where I'd really have liked the four actions per turn, I remind myself that most investigators don't even have that option, and then I feel better. YMMV.

In Dunwich, where you'll get access to a lot of other "free" high-quality allies, you might want a Charisma anyway. In that case a Leo De Luca becomes more tempting, but I'd personally replace a Narrow Escape or Double or Nothing and not Dr. Milan Christopher.

Another way to answer your question would be to ask if the deck really needs Lone Wolf? The answer is "not initially" since it actually runs fairly cheap for a rogue deck. However, if you follow the upgrade path suggested in the advanced deck (link at the beginning of the description), the average cost will rise quite a bit. Also, Streetwise is an early upgrade, which gives you a place to dump all that extra cash.

You could probably make a good case for switching Lone Wolf for "Watch this!", and then (maybe) switching back at some point using Adaptable.

Cheers