Going Postal|RC+Starter|Always Current

Going Postal

In this mini-series I'm looking at balanced, somewhat flexy decks which are "always current". These use only the revised core (RC) and standalone starter packs. Here, Stella channels her postal worker rage to deal up to 15 damage with a Chainsaw...

Overview

• Quick on the Chainsaw: The key combo here is Chainsaw with Quick Learner and Live and Learn. Two Quick Learners make your first action test at +2 difficulty, meaning your Chainsaw is testing at only a 3. Against most bosses, this is going to miss. Once you miss, put another supply on Chainsaw per its ability and use both of your Live and Learns to test at a 5 (and now commit cards like normal to pass the tests, and/or use Lucky! •••). Because you failed a test you now get an extra action, allowing you to take 3 more Chainsaw fight actions (one at a 5, and two at an effective 7 with Quick Learner now reducing the difficulty). All told this is massive damage and, with boosts like Neither Rain nor Snow plus retcons like Lucky, you're likely to land these (and if you don't, you can still have the Chainsaw deal one auto-damage...).

• More Damage: Aquinnah ••• allows you to reflect damage back onto enemies (even attacks of opportunity and retaliation) while being good horror soak. Oops! is a gimmicky card but a fun one, again you can use this to kill off another enemy at your location when going for a Chainsaw miss or otherwise is a good boost to have. Baseball Bat is a backup weapon and an extra icon for boosting. To conserve Chainsaw supplies just evade or use basic fight actions.

• Clues: Clue-finding is mainly Quick Learner, with you finding clues through the -2 difficulty in actions 3 and 4 (with Stella being very likely to fail investigation turn 1 to give you an extra action). "Look what I found!" rewards investigate failure, with Granny Orne allowing for manipulation of the result. Lucky! ••• can get even abysmal failures by 5 into the range of "Look what I found!" (or even 6 with Granny Orne). You can also use Lucky to just pass tests, but that's less cool...

• Economy: Resource economy is just Emergency Cache and Take Heart, but realistically only a few assets which are expensive here. Card draw is good, with Rabbit's Foot, Lucky! •••, Overpower, Perception and the previously mentioned Take Heart. Because card draw is good, you can get away with only one copy each of your allies.

• Encounter Deck & Soak: A Test of Will can allow you to cancel treacheries for you or another investigator at your location (and if you fail the test then it's a guaranteed forth action in your turn). Soak is Leather Coat combined with the previously mentioned Aquinnah ••• and Granny Orne (and Stella's ability allows for the occasional heal). Granny Orne boosts to better tackle relevant treacheries.

Campaign starter and planned progression

0 XP deck is below (and link here). For side deck there's Manual Dexterity, but Stella has enough action going on that you can evade with those often (plus, there's no convenient Peter Sylvestre or Track Shoes in this card set to further support Agility).

I usually like to get all key upgrades before 19 XP, and while Charisma sits just outside of that here for me both Granny Orne and Aquinnah have overlapping purpose as horror soak (and it's best to get Aquinnah soonish to make your Chainsaw supplies go that little bit further). Even after one Quick Learner, Mysterious Raven becomes more redundant so you can start filtering it out of the deck. A recommended order of purchases/upgrades is therefore:

• Quick Learner

• 1 x Mysterious Raven → 1 x Chainsaw

• 1 x .18 Derringer → 1 x Chainsaw

• Quick Learner

• 1 x Mysterious Raven → 1 x Aquinnah ••• (19XP here for standalones)

• Charisma

• Lucky! → Lucky! •••

Final thoughts

Maybe a controversial take, but I find the juice isn't worth the squeeze to make an investigate-heavy Stella with this card set. Seekers and Mystics by comparison have clue compression, and also test at values where you also wouldn't typically fail (i.e. doing what Stella does with 0 difficulty investigate actions, but better). On higher difficulties where the bag is worse then it's more of a conversation, but I'd likely still err on the side of clue compression with low risk than no clue compression but no risk (excepting ).

Conversely, hitting 9+ damage is a hard thing to achieve, and the fail tech on a Chainsaw is lowkey very good. Its 1 point of auto-damage on failure maintains solid average damage per action, significantly easing the burden of how many successes you need to kill the bad guy - with redoes like Lucky! and skill boosts like Neither Rain nor Snow making successes that much easier. Quick Learner then enables clue-finding all the same, especially with so many icons.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, Chainsaws are fun! Will your gaming group remember the time a Guardian shot a Gug with a boring gun, or when your maniacal postal worker pulped it into red paste with whirring blades of death?? I think you know the answer...