Joey "The Rat" Vigil

Now that we have an investigator that is Items oriented and has access to The Rat, it is maybe time for another review of the #1.

The first ability is here icing on the cake, we can play another Item , but with Bob Jenkins' passive, we will not need it that much. The only 2 cases when I've found it useful was to play an Item when I was engaged with an enemy and I didn't want to trigger an AoO, or to play Leather Coat/Cherished Keepsake fast for 1 resource right after pulling a scary Encounter Card that involves a test ( for example) to absorb the potential failure.

However, the 2nd ability is a must-have for Bob. It is simple to understand: Empty your Flashlight, your .18 Derringer, your Eon Chart and sell them to Mr Vigil. Then go and Scavenge his hiding place to get them back, play them with your Passive and here you go for another round while having paid for the costs of replaying them. Bonus for Eon Chart that you can use, discard, scavenge and use again in the same round.

This can also work in case you do not have any Item to play with your Passive and you want to turn this un-used action into cash: Play Leather Coat/Cherished Keepsake using your Passive action an throw it immediately. Use Scavenging to get it back during a round when you don't need to scavenge anything else and you're ready to go again.

Finally, there is another series of cards that is worth looking at when considering Joey "The Rat" Vigil: the self-discarding type. We can split them into 2 categories, the ones that involve a test and the ones that do not. If a test is involved during the action that would self-discard the Item, then you have a window to use The Rat before the card self-discards. Other cards do not allow you to do so.

Here's a list of all the cards available to Bob:

Backpack/Schoffner's Catalogue: NO - no Player Window when playing an Item

Bandages: NO

Baseball Bat/Lockpicks: NO - no Player Window after ST.3 Reveal Chaos Token

Gravedigger's Shovel/Lantern/Knife/Tennessee Sour Mash: NO - discard is part of the cost

Old Keyring: YES

Talisman of Protection: NO

Colt Vest Pocket/Colt Vest Pocket (2): YES

That is not a lot of cards, but that means that Old Keyring is now as interesting as Flashlight and Bob Jenkins should most likely run both, the Old Keyring on 4+ shroud locations and the Flashlight on less than 3 shroud locations. Colt Vest Pocket is also amazing as you can play it in advance, and whenever you use it, you get your money back right after. This combo makes it the #1 defensive weapon for Bob.

So what about Bob Jenkins and Joey "The Rat" Vigil? They seem like the best buddies to travel to the Edge of the Earth. Bring Dario El-Amin and Leo De Luca in the loop and you have the best undercover criminal gang in the continent.

Valentin1331 · 77976
Always thought it was VIRGIL. Whoops. — MrGoldbee · 1484
Why do you think you can use The Rat after spending the 2nd charge from an Old Keyring? Are you sacing the keys in the player window between ST.2 and ST.3? Doesn't that seem kind of ... early? Do the keys have to be in play to successfully resolve way down in ST.7? — MrWeasely · 42
I agree. I believe the Old Keyring sacs itself upon having no keys on it before you're able to trigger Joey's fast action. — kphamtimmy · 1
Schoffner's works perfectly - just spend 1 less secret. Schoffner's is a free extra dollar with rizzo — Lailah · 1
Ad Old Keyring: You can trigger Joey's fast action in the player window before ST.3 during a skill test in which you reduce the shroud to 0 (i.e. knowing you will most likely succeed). They keys are only spent during ST.6. — AlderSign · 391
Cyclopean Hammer

I think I'm a little less hot on this card compared to some of the other reviews here, and I'm not seeing this as a new "king of weapons".

Yes, it has the potential to be a 3 damage attack with infinite uses, but I think "succeed by 3" is a bigger deal (especially on higher difficulties) than it seems. On most enemies, your token-modified skill value would have to hit 6+, which will pretty much always require stat boosts, even with the will+fight modifier.

On hard, I think this weapon will do 2 damage more often than one would hope for with a 5 resource, 5 xp weapon, and I think on that difficulty lightning gun, flamethrower, holy spear, and the lv 5 mystic spells still compete with, or even outperform (particularly in consistency) this weapon. On standard or easy, I can definitely see the appeal of picking up a big weapon that always does a minimum of 2 damage and often times 3, but it's still got more variance than comparable choices.

And yes, Reliable goes a long way to get you the consistency you want, but now you're looking at a 2-3 cards, and the other options have their own synergy cards too. None of this is to say that Cyclopean Hammer is bad by any means, I just don't think you should binder your other choices just yet.

Malafar · 12
I agree. It's a very strong weapon, but I'm not sure it's even the best weapon of the set. With a lot of support - allies, reliable, etc. - you can make it reasonably reliable to hit for three, but you can say exactly the same about ammo cards with flamethrower, or bless support with the Holy Spear, or Recharge with mystic spells. Plus, out of all these options, this Hammer is the most expensive, so cuts hugely into the resources you need to set up its support, and of course just has much less support in mystic in general. — SSW · 216
I think the value of this being able to swing multiple times (no ammo) is a big deal. Even on 3 health enemies it doesn't feel as bad as having to swing twice as you aren't using up ammo/charges. You have less action efficiency, but you're MUCH happier to have this against 1-2hp enemies. — Therebrae · 39
Having unlimited uses is absolutely a big deal. There's a very intentional line between higher action efficiency with limited uses, and unlimited uses with lower action efficiency. Now, we have a weapon that can *potentially* provide the same efficiency of a firearm with unlimited uses: but in the end, it isn't that simple because "succeed by 3" isn't a trivial ask. Since I usually play on Hard, I look at this and think "Holy Spear can do the same or better for 1 resource less, and Timeworn Brand for 1 slot less". That said, I'm not going to sneer when my playgroup decides they want to take this out for a spin, it's still a very solid weapon. Since you mentioned the 1-2hp enemies: Ironically, one of the strategies to get cyclopean hammer's consistency up (Increasing your base fight stat) also works for firearm users to punch low health enemies to death without spending bullets. All roads lead to the same place? — Malafar · 12
It's worth noting that the hammer itself does a lot to help you reach that succeed by 3 target on the right investigator, just like Lockpicks helps you hit its own succeed by 2 target. With a 4+4 or 3+5 base stat line, even with no other static boosts, you probably don't want to count on hitting for 3 but you also generally won't miss and you'll get pleasantly surprised often enough. — Thatwasademo · 58
It also really, really doesn't hurt that if you hit for 2 and don't have the time to swing again you can push the enemy away. This doesn't particularly help against hunter enemies that weren't going to make an AOO against you or your seeker, but FFG does occasionally print enemies without hunter and sometimes your seeker is the one to draw the enemy. — Thatwasademo · 58
Hammer's ability to one-shot 2 hp enemies is a big advantage over saving ammo by punching enemies as the latter takes 2 actions (and 2 dips into the Chaos bag; not a small deal for Hard/Expert). 2 hp enemies are the most common "cannon fodder"; there are relatively few "true" 1 hp enemies. In campaigns that throw a lot of enemies at you, I'd rather dispose of multiple 2-hp enemies with one action each than spending twice as many actions (and another Mythos phase) getting rid of them; in the latter case, I'd probably need to use my gun anyways. Yes you can use Vicious Blow or similar, but with Hammer you save that card for an Elite/boss instead so Hammer still comes out ahead. — MindControlMouse · 45
I do not agree, even taboo it is a king weapon. reliable give this card +2 but only +1 for other card. so it is still king. — plfires · 1
Sledgehammer

This card is not a niche card, rather, one of the best, if not the best, level 0 weapon. Its main strength in my opinion is actually the second ability, as I explain below. The first ability is just icing on the cake that adds some flexibility for enemies with low fight and high health. You can choose to attempt 1 (basic attack), 2 or 3 damage to handle a given enemy situation. My only hesitation about saying it is the number 1 weapon at level zero is that it is two-handed, which is unacceptable for some decks.

Why is the second ability so good? The answer is: the +2 combat with unlimited uses plus increased damage. Many people miss this important point when they look at/review weapons: the net damage you deal per action is affected by not only the damage modifier but also how often you hit. It is a mistake to look at .32 colt and sledgehammer and say that the colt deals 2 damage per action and the sledgehammer’s second ability only 1.5. People tend to act as if a given weapon will either never hit or always hit, which is obviously incorrect.

In fact, the +2 combat action often has a big effect on the average damage dealt. For example, using the standard night of the zealot chaos token pool, going from a net even fight test to a +2 increases odds to hit from 4/16 to 13/16, which translates to a more than 3-fold increase in damage! This is why the second ability on sledgehammer is usually better than the first on a per action basis, because you have to be at a huge skill advantage to have the 0.5 damage boost be more important than the 3 point difference in combat.

And it doesn’t run out of ammo. This should not be taken lightly. Those of you that remember how much better machete was at level zero than the firearms at the time will understand. So while the .45 Thompson deals more damage per action, this is not a fair comparison with its limited uses. Direct competitors with sledgehammer at level 0 that increase damage and have unlimited uses are fire axe, knuckleduster, meat cleaver, switchblade, dragon pole (any others I’m forgetting?). Gravedigger’s shovel gives +2 combat but no damage bonus. It’s easy to see that sledgehammer is arguably the most useful among these, its main limitation again that it takes up two hand slots.

What about the first ability? This is obviously best when you are at a large combat advantage, such as enemies with 1 or 2 fight. It is hard to use when your base combat is less than 4, but will still usually be better than a basic fight action, since it deals double damage with hits. It’s not so common that -1 combat reduces your chances of hitting by 50%.

One trick to use with the sledgehammer is gaining an extra action to get two of the double action hits in; for example, the original Skids loves this as he can always swing twice per round by paying for an extra action. Otherwise, you can use the odd extra action for something else, such as a basic attack, an evade, or a fight action on an event or arcane asset.

In summary, for survivors and guardians willing to use both hand slots for a weapon, this card is right at the top of the competition. Please consider odds to hit when comparing weapons.

jmmeye3 · 630
I think for the first ability, there are to few enemies with low fight and high health. "Conglomeration of Spheres" is the first one to come to me, but it is also one of the worst ones to tackle with this card for obviouse reasons. The second ability (on it's own, without support from "Viciouse Blow" or fight events) is great, when you are facing one enemy with exactly 3 health. But it get's problematic with multiple enemies or ones with more health. It's also a waste of actions on 2 health enemies. (Or a waste of comitted cards or resources to get the test high enough despite using the first ability). There are very few options to consistently get two activations. You mentioned Skids, who has a rather expensive option. There could also be Zoe with Leo as splash card. But that's exactly, what makes this card niche. It takes up two handslots, yet is realistically only usable once per round. — Susumu · 381
If the enemy has 4 health, use your last action for a basic attack. If 5 or more health, use the first ability. If you have ways of getting an extra action, even better! All level 0 weapons have limitations. — jmmeye3 · 630
I think the value of unlimited extra-damage attacks is pretty hard to overstate; this seems more like a balanced machete than anything (read: a great level 0 weapon). — SGPrometheus · 841
Against All Odds

I think this card is valuable and the comments don't do it justice because it is not being interpreted right (or maybe I am wrong). The key phrasing here is "X is the difference between the test's difficulty and your base skill value." The base value is the value printed on your investigators card. Because it uses that value before any modifications, you can technically have a higher skill value for the test and still draw extra tokens. You would then just pick the token that allows you to pass. Still kind of niche, but can be a life saver for Calvin or Preston. I plan on trying it out in Preston's deck. Really, this card is meant to be used for skill tests you need to succeed and used alongside other card abilities to boost your stats on those really difficult tests (like an elite boss enemy), it can be very useful and you'll be glad you have it in your hand.

You're not wrong on the difference between printed value, the problem is that even then it isn't that great. Its "best case" is often to avoid the auto-fail, which Eucatastrophe often does better, and retroactively so you don't 'waste' Eucatastrophe. Preston may be the one odd exception, but even he has enough ways to get away with testless clues, damage and the like. — Therebrae · 39
Thanks for the comment. Yeah, Eucatastrophe is often better for this, but that is also a level 3 card and sometimes you just can't spare another experience. Again, another fringe situation and I agree with you that there are better options for those situations regarding damage and clues, etc. But, this is one card that can boost your chances for success and fits all of those situations. Its more versatile and in my opinion, more valuable. — PrecariousSleuth · 19
On the Hunt

As the other review mentioned, but I'd like to highlight this card goes from 1 cost to 0 cost + gain 3 resources. One of the cardinal rules of Arkham is that you put cards in your deck to play them and you need money for that, so don't cut your econ. This can replace cards like Emergency Cache without diluting the number of econ cards in your deck (as long as you can kill whatever you find). It's also tactic so it can go under Stick to the Plan the same way Emergency Cache can as an early game econ option (grab an easy enemy) with the flexibility of being able to hunt down a strong victory point enemy to keep them off your seekers.

Therebrae · 39
Can I search the deck for ANY enemy, or does it have to be the first enemy I find? — rainman1646 · 2
@rainman1646 The former; it will let you search through the encounter deck for any enemy. "Search [a deck] for [a card type]" means you can pick any eligible card out of the searched cards. For reference, in contrast, certain cards have text that instruct you to "discard cards until you draw a [card type], and then shuffle the deck afterward." — Cyke · 1