The Black Book

The Black Book

Since nobody's said it yet, I'll be the first to say it:

Peter. Sylvestre.

The Big Man on Campus is now an economy card, netting you an entire resource every turn, that you play a card. Not to mention, the 2 (one from Peter(2), one from TBB) can make anyone resilient to treacheries.

I'm currently playing this combo in an Advanced Wendy deck, and it makes it extraordinarily easy to afford her constant slew of events. Now I just need to find a way to cash in on her whopping 6

cheezzywizz · 39

.25 Automatic

.25 Automatic

My problem with this weapon is no investigator makes great use of it because all rogues have low strength. 3 strength +2 only gets you to 5 (Wini, Skids, Jenny, Finn). That's not enough to hit anything above normal difficulty.

Even with +1 from something else you're really going to struggle with a mid level enemy still. Wasting those bullets is going to really hurt because while this is fast, it's still pretty expensive at 4.

I guess at best its used to hit a low strength, low threat enemy as a secondary fighter but then why would you evade it first (to make use of the free shot reaction ability)?

Tony doesn't need this either of course with his poor evade.

fates · 54
It's true that it's hard to use 25 automatic without any supporting card. Nevertheless, many supporting cards exist: Sharpshooter, commiting lots of cards (wini?), Well Connected with big money deck, Hard Knocks. — elkeinkrad · 498
Rogue as a class is all about finding ways to utilize their great payoffs on their cards despite their low consistency. This generally means either cycling skill commits fueled by lucky cig case or pump assets using their absurd economy. Rogues aren't like guardians or mystics where they expect to passively pass combat tests by using weapons with giant modifiers, they require more finesse! — dezzmont · 222
5 is pretty good, you know. Most Guardians with Machete only fight at 5. It's unfair to discount this weapon on the grounds that it "only" reaches 5 - there are plenty of ways to boost this further. Delilah O'Rourke exists and perfectly synergizes with this style of evade+fight Rogue. You can commit skills and then benefit from the oversuccess with your LCC. You can leverage the Rogue resource economy to pay for boosts. And even if the attack does whiff, it was a free action from an evasion you were probably going to do regardless. Being able to shoot without spending an action after evading is great action economy if you wanted to evade anyway for Delilah, Pickpocketing (2), etc. It's a solid Finn card if you want to build him in a more fighty or flex role; Lockpicks in one hand and .25 in the other with Delilah O'Rourke as backup. — Soul_Turtle · 495
Beside Finn Trishs ability can also trigger the reaction if you choose to evade an enemy. This also works with breaking and entering. And with this weapon the skill hatchet man becomes a rouges vicious blow. And in the end even payday gives you an additional resource. — Tharzax · 1
I don't think Pay Day gives an additional resource for this. It's just performing the Fight ability, but not spending an action to do so. — snacc · 1021
I would say it triggers because of the bolt action designator fight. According to the rulebook you perform a modified fight action. — Tharzax · 1
@Tharzax Pay day explicitly states "for each action you have performed this turn". 25 Automatic says "perform the above Fight ability without spending an action". Seems pretty clear to me. — snacc · 1021
Look up the card page for Eon Chart, because it has some good discussions on this topic. Fundamentally Actions are different to Abilities, although they are often and easily confused. — snacc · 1021
Better look in the discussions of shortcut and it's upgrade for the interaction with frozen in fear. And yes spending actions is not the same as taking them, but for me the ability tell me to perform a modified fight action. — Tharzax · 1
There is no mention of Frozen in Fear in either of the Shortcut pages, so I'm really not sure what you're referring to. — snacc · 1021
The ability does not tell you to "perform a modified fight action". It literally says right there on the card "perform the above fight *ability* without spending an action". Ultimately it's your game and you can play it as incorrectly as you want to. — snacc · 1021
Just look into the rule referencebook for the description of bolt action designators: https://arkhamdb.com/rules#Action_Designators — Tharzax · 1
@Soul_Turtle. 5 is an awful attack stat on hard+expert. Most worthwhile enemies have 3-5 strength. So you're at best 2 over. You'll get screwed over by the extremely common -3, -4, -5 tokens and probably get with a failure penalty on special tokens. You can't compare it to Machete which has unlimited uses and costs less resources. If the attack misses, you waste 1 ammo/resource. Guardians also frequently boost their strength, but Rogues don't often. You can commit more to a test or factor in some synergy but thats just more resources to make a mediocre card slightly better and you could say that about any card. You could instead take a great card and make it even better in that case. — fates · 54
@Tharzax A discussion here includes a quote directly from the game designer, MJ Newman: https://ffg-forum-archive.entropicdreams.com/topic/301629-what-counts-as-a-performed-action-and-what-doesnt/ — snacc · 1021
@Tharzax "... activating an ability with an action designator 'performs the designated action as described in the rules, but modified in the manner described by the ability.' In this case, the modification is the fact that it is no longer an action , but is a free triggered ability ...". This is MJ Newman's direct response to this question. If you do not spend an action, then it is not considered an action. Therefore no synergy with Pay Day or Haste etc. I hope that clears things up for you. — snacc · 1021

Alyssa Graham

Alyssa Graham

I was playing mythos draw like investigator phase, letting the team choose draw order differently each time. But in reality you must abide to the In Player Order rule, starting from the lead investigator then going clockwise always. Therefore an ability that reveal just 1 top card like this basically means seeing what's destined for the lead investigator. (What I was playing is supposed to be Gloria's special ability.)

At the same time to play with this card it is important to realize that the lead investigator could be changed each scenario, not fixed for an entire campaign. (my another wrong impression) It may matter when replaying a scenario when you know the density bias of encounter set, so you can choose the right person that could see the future through Alyssa. Or you can make the person with the most risk (e.g. full of trauma) to be the lead and continue protecting that investigator with Alyssa.

Just knowing the treachery is powerful as you can exploit its condition. For example something along the line of "attach to your location, nearest location with.." : You reposition and force it to have favorable choice you want, "lose resources" : You spend all the resources ahead of time.

Adding doom is expensive, but generally imo just having never out of charge way of looking at it is enough to improve the chance of dealing with the encounter massively (e.g. just group up to prepare commit icons), as opposed to Scrying and "miss" because you don't see anything interesting. Doom bury is just an extra icing to cheat a certain defeat that you see revealed, like an Elite enemy coming up when no one is equipped to fight.

Lastly doom is placed on Alyssa and not the agenda. It is not hard to put 1-2 horrors on her early so she can die swiftly with the doom if you are forced to use it.

5argon · 11346
yea fast speed scry 1 card is great, 1 int is great, shame few people who care about the +1 int can take her. — Zerogrim · 296

Cyclopean Hammer

Cyclopean Hammer

Probably my most hated card so far. (just started new with eotd and tdl) Seen it before but just had first hand experience with Zoey Samaras an that is a moment of shameful when I upgraded this card (Its just my self judgement tho) here are my opinions.

  • it is too good. Hard to not take this hammer when you build logically. Could say this single card kill other builds indirectly.
  • personally, multi faction card should be a bit weaker than main faction card.design wise, most are fine but this hammer definitely outlaw.
  • it is off designed. Mystic card should have some chance of negativity . Look at the art again and tell me this weapon does not looks evil. Literally untranslateable runes particle falling of it. Yet still such a constantly boring and safe weapon.
  • Suggestion : Should be taboo version which add some Mystic style negativity. Maybe something like

"If you reveal (well ,you see the runes on and hammer) you take 2 direct damage and autofail" (yes,damage since it is half card and it grew evily heavier so you hurt yourself in the process)

Pawley · 33
Lots of people seem eager to suggest a taboo that adds multiple lines of text to a card that's already very cramped. Personally I think it's fine, and very hard to rework in a way that's more complex than chaining it up an exp or two. — SSW · 217
I do like the added flare of gaining negative effects! — Therealestize · 76
Yeah, just an idea. I do realised about the text and I'm not a fan of wall of ant text either. I have already edit several time to make it as short as possible. — Pawley · 33
If I wanted to add a spooky mystic tax to this card, with a simple, short effect, I would add "remove a random card in your hand from the game" or "take 1 damage or horror" to the ability cost. — Death by Chocolate · 1484
Eh, I dunno. It's expensive in XP, resources, and slots. If you are playing 4-player with a dedicated monster hunter, maybe you'll always want it, but there are a lot of great pricy weapons out there. *shrug* I'm gearing up for a campaign where Lily is probably going to upgrade into this, but, after that, it will likely sit in the box for a long while, because there are a lot of other investigators I want to play, and only a small number of them would even consider this card. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1091
Perhaps the taboo should be "when you attack you can use yor willpower instead of your strenght" — LordWolfen · 1
One idea I've heard is changing it from "may move it" to "move it", basically preventing you from spamming it on big non-Elites. — NightgauntTaxiService · 463

Taunt

Taunt

Pretty obvious choice for Zoey Samaras along with ["Get behind me!"] (/card/08021) Very similiar card which work a bit differntly in multiplayer. I think Taunt will comes into play when you want to play as first investigator.

A question please just to make sure. The already engaged enemy does not count into this ,right?

Pawley · 33
To my understanding, no, because you're not reengaging it, it is already engaged with you. — DjMiniboss · 44