The ArkhamDB copy of this card's reverse side story effect is incorrect. The actual story effect here is: "Test willpower(1). For each point you succeed by, each investigator heals 1 horror." (Wound up being the key to my table's recently succeeding in this scenario, when the resident Mystic flipped this and wiped the board clean of horror tokens.)

That last sentence is interesting. "If this test is successful while Last Chance is committed to it, draw 2 cards."

My first thought was that it is an unnecessary clarification, but on reflection I think it exists so it cannot be abused by Silas Marsh in the same way as Unrelenting. If Last Chance is returned to his hand using his , then at the timing point where the skill test is passed, the condition is no longer met, so he cannot draw the 2 cards. This is promising and shows the devs are carefully considering possible interactions and abuses.

Most of survivor card draw has historically been a bit janky, like Drawing Thin, Unrelenting, Take Heart and At a Crossroads. This card is a welcome addition to the pool as it provides some straightforward draw.

Patrice Hathaway and George Barnaby will love this card to keep their small hands going.

I cannot recommend enough playing Midwinter Gala near the start of a campaign to go hunting for incredibly fun story assets like this one. You know how Zoey is a really powerful investigator because she solves Guardian's resource struggles just by doing the thing that a Guardian needs to do? With Archibald, anyone can be Zoey, with the ability to gain resources for engaging and turn those resources into bonus damage.

This deck lets you solve multiple problems that Guardians face, single-handedly fixing your economy and smoothing out the curve of when you face enemies. Sometimes as a dedicated monster-hunter you have a turn where there just isn't much of value to do, and Archibald lets you face an enemy now, when you're ready for it, rather than later when you might have more on your plate. It's also fantastic when you're on the hunt for that victory point enemy that you're hoping to take out before the game ends.

In the right deck, Archibald Hudson can be absurdly powerful and fun. He's particularly powerful when combined with the Runic Axe's Inscriptions of Fury, which can make it worth searching for bonus enemies even if you're already engaged.

The best part is it's relatively low risk since the enemy starts out exhausted!

The arrow action should be used sparingly, but it can let you heal an ally and save an ammunition on those pesky 3-health enemies.

Consider the following scenario from the game I just played: Zoey has a Runic Axe and Archibald Hudson out. During the mythos phase, both she and her partner draw enemies. On Zoey's turn, as a free action before she starts fighting she goes searching for another enemy and finds a swarm of spiders, earning 3 resources from Archibald and another three from her own ability. Now, with three enemies engaged on her, she swings the axe with inscription of fury (and an inscription of the hunt to engage her partner's enemy) and with a single blow knocks out nine spiders within a single turn, at no extra action cost over what it would have taken me to get the first enemy.

I wonder why anyone would not take this card in pure standalone decks. Although the card's effects only refer to campaign mechanics it does not prohibit you from taking it, granting you 6(!!!) extra health and sanity. Yes, the stat dump is suboptimal in some decks, but everything is better than dying, right? And since you are only playing a standalone you are not stuck with this crappy investigator for the rest of the campaign.

I guess I have my answer after reading the last part of the card: "for the remainder of the campaign."

So sadly (or luckily, balance-wise?) no abusing it in standalone games. Also, I only just realized that flipping the card is not a replacement effect for being defeated, so also no bonus health/sanity.

Always fun talking to myself...

I'm very late to this, but I wanted to add my 2c.

On a blind playthrough, this card can easily be a full bottleneck. If your clue getting strategy is event based, or commit based, you just can't get past this.

Our blind run was particularly nasty. We had an event based mystic cluever (who was surprisingly good at recycling read the signs 1-2 times every single round) and Nathaniel Cho as our fighter. Without events or committing, neither could get their score above 3, so we were literally digging for 2 tokens while sitting on a place that let us play no events to deal with the mythos deck.

We had to sit on this single location for 6 rounds, ducking in and out of it to play events just to not die to the build up of mythos cards and carefully managing health/sanity. Eventually, we managed to pull a +1 with Agnes (no rite of seeking) while Nathaniel managed to kill an enemy with basic attack actions and trigger Grete Wagner for the other clue.

I'm personally not a massive fan of cards that turn off your deck with no way to counter them. Sometimes the game will turn off committing cards 'or' playing events 'or' assets, but usually not for more than 1 round (or 2 actions to discard the problem). This card is particularly nasty for the fact that it turns off 2 of your potential 3 options and gives you no way to get access to those options again. Really, the way to deal with it is 'play an investigator with 4 or 5 lore'.