Interrogate

An excellent Insight for [Joe Diamond] as the card saves tons of action economy and can clear extremely difficult areas. An important use of this card is in combination with signature weaknesses or campaign weaknesses that generate humanoid enemies, as it provides a consistent way to not only mine clues but mine clues at a distance from very unpleasant locations. [Scene of the Crime] is more consistent (and why not take both) but if you have the right tools, you can make this card better:

  1. Take this card as the lead in Path to Carcosa and you'll find yourself constantly talking to Strangers, who will spawn virtually every scenario on top of a wide array of other humanoids.

  2. Humanoids are a very common enemy type in most other campaigns, but it's really the signature weaknesses and occasional basic weaknesses that make this card consistent, making it a solid [Adaptable] choice if you happen to be a Rogue/Guardian hybrid who picks up [Mob Enforcer], [Silver Twilight Acolyte], or [Stubborn Detective] after finalizing your deck.

  3. [Nathaniel Cho] and [William Yorick] both have humanoid signatures and the ability to run this card, so keep it in mind while building them if you want to hold some Ghouls for questioning. [Rita Young], [Trish Scarborough] and [Father Mateo] all spawn extras as well ([Tony Morgan], too, although he spawns humans in an inconvenient location and on a timer). If you have more than one of these investigators in a party, this becomes a very clever pick, so keep an eye out for the right circumstances to reap a little extra power in a very fun way.

LocoPojo · 234
I wouldn't agree that this card is a good option for Joe, because as an off-class guardian his option for bonuses on strength is limited if you would not ignore your primary class. In most cases this means you have to beat a test difficulty of 4 with a value of 5. So in my experience this card needs further support (fine clothes or skill cards) in a Joe-Deck to start working — Tharzax · 1
And even then: "An excellent Insight for [Joe Diamond]" sounds like a recommendation for the hunch deck to me, where you definitely don't want this card in. It is much to situationally to be able to use before being reshuffled. You would need to be at least very close to a location with a humanoid enemy, when it comes to the top. — Susumu · 381
Shield of Faith

Ran this in a Mary deck during a 4P game and was pleasantly surprised at how useful it was. The real benefit from this was in enabling me to move to others' locations and pull an enemy off them fearlessly, even when I didn't have the actions to finish the enemy off that round. It was also incredibly useful for neutralizing hunters about to enter our location while we still had business there. Knowing their attack would fall flat gave us substantial latitude to focus on advancing the act rather than worrying about proactively engaging baddies.

This isn't a card for every build, but in the right one, it can be refreshingly liberating.

Sandmole · 46
Intrepid

Lily Chen with a pair of Butterfly Swords, particularly the level 5 version, should probably give this a look. Intrepid is quite strong if it can be leveraged for an extended period of time. That's normally a problem in guardian, because they don't have much action generation outside of Galvanize unless you're someone like Leo Anderson, and even then this is a niche card. But the problem isn't the lack of actions in a turn; it's the limited number of skill tests you can take. Enter Lily, master of the thousand palms, who can unleash a flurry of strikes, compressing an enormous number of tests into just three actions. And it's in the eye of that tempest of blows that this card finally begins to sing.

Let's break it down: Opting to go with Lily's agility signature, Balance of Body, grants her three fight or evade actions for the price of one, which translates to up to five tests in a single turn. Already this card has the potential to do work. If you add in Butterfly Swords (5), you can take two tests per fight action, effectively doubling the utility of this card even without action generation. Swords and Balance together combine to grant upwards of eight tests. That's suddenly a lot of value. Toss in Galvanize for an additional two tests from Swords. You get the picture.

As a bonus, the second test on Butterfly Swords adds your agility to your combat, effectively netting you +2 from Intrepid. The doubled bonus also applies to a number of other Lily-tailored combat tricks like Sweeping Kick and Fang of Tyr'thrha meaning you can really go beast mode during your turn. And you're Lily, so you should be going beast mode.

These synergies justify giving Intrepid a long, hard look.

The other obvious weakness of the card--that it requires a successful willpower test to trigger--is largely mitigated by Lily's deckbuilding and (at least this) playstyle. While most guardians, even those with high willpower, are dependent upon the whims of the encounter deck to utilize Intrepid, Lily, as a quasi-mystic, can run a number of useful cards that can prompt a willpower test on command. And while normally cutting into your turn by "wasting" an action on a willpower test to trigger this would hurt, Lily's enormous test-compression potential offsets this downside.

Long story short: Take this card in flurry of strikes Lily and play it during a mega turn to help you crush tests. Also, pro-tip: use Balance early to maximize the number of tests you take with it Broken side up. You never know when you might get lucky and draw an elder sign, meaning you can use Balance twice in a single turn. The only thing better than eights tests in a turn is ten.

Sandmole · 46
8 tests is poison for some chaos bags! Autoeffects, doom, damage, etc. Beware! — MrGoldbee · 1484
I think this is good for Lily, but one thing to note is that Lily can take up to three different fight/evade actions. I'm pretty sure that means butterfly swords can only be one of them, not all three. — Ildirin · 2
I meant Lily's Balance of Body actions. — Ildirin · 2
Yeah, definitely not sold that Butterfly Swords is a great weapon overall given the large number of tests required. Clearly, you should be running cards like Nkosi and Wish Eater or even bless tech to mitigate some of the BS tokens, but even then on higher difficulties that's probably a hard sell unless we see some additional cards that encourage taking more tests. — Sandmole · 46
And, yes, butterfly swords can only be used for one of the three fights, but you have two actions in your turn, which can be used for butterfly sword attacks. That's three Sword attacks and two other fight/evade actions, for a total of 8 tests. — Sandmole · 46
I suppose the greatest problem of this card in a Lily-Deck is the limited number of guardian level 0 cards in her deckbuilding — Tharzax · 1
Poisoned

One of the better cards in Forgotten Age. If you are going to be poisoned, this is the way to do it. Some good combos include:

Creeping Poison - Allowing you to deal testless damage to an investigator, then draw an additional encounter card. Snakescourge - Allows you to draw an additional encounter card.

You can also use this card to make autofails more likely, which is great for an Any% run.

This is not the best card if you are trying to win the campaign.

SorryLaurie · 608
Beautiful. We need more reviews like this — MiskatonicFrosh · 344
Is there a way to poison someone else? Cat burglar or stealth disengage a viper in their face? — Django · 5148
You handle this one to give your guardian Snake Bite — zrayak · 87
Seeking Answers

Important tech for Ursula Downs to help her get max value from her ability and defang her weakness. Sometimes Call of the Unknown will force Ursula to have a subpar turn in order to avoid taking horror, but Seeking Answers allows her to investigate a low-shroud location that's already been cleared while still discovering a clue from a location that is either high-shroud or too far away to reach. Especially late in a scenario, where the doom clock and/or Ursula's waning sanity pool oblige you to proceed with maximum efficiency, this card can be a life-saving ace up your sleeve.

ClownShoes · 160
You have to investingate location chosen by Call, not discover a clue there. — Pawiu14 · 196
I think the review is suggesting choosing a nearby, low-shroud location for Call, then using this to clear clues from the location you just left. This allows you to focus on a location while still obeying Call's requirement to move away. — SGPrometheus · 835
Yes, SGPrometheus is correct. Sometimes your back is up against the wall because of the doom clock or some other factor, and you simply don't have time to waste one of Ursula's actions investigating a location that doesn't advance the group toward its goal. Seeking Answers mitigates that problem. — ClownShoes · 160
But for that problem I would rather invest some xp and would buy after the first scenario in the know. Especially when I'm also planning to use the twin — Tharzax · 1
@Tharzax It's true that In the Know addresses Ursula's weakness as well. It's not to my taste, personally, for a few reasons. (1) The added XP and resource cost of ITK, plus the fact that it costs an action to play whereas Seeking Answers can be played as part of Ursula's free investigate action. (2) It's rare that Ursula will need this sort of effect more than once or twice in a scenario, which makes the extra expense for In the Know even harder to justify. (3) It's hard to justify taking ITK over Pathfinder in Ursula decks, even with taboo, since Pathfinder is more generally flexible and has greater synergy with Ursula's ability. — ClownShoes · 160
Since ITK is also an investigation it synergies in Ursula decks also with her ability and pathfinder. The costs per investigation are nearly the same. So this might be the sustainable solution (which I generally prever) for her. But where seeking answers has an advantage is when your starting position is the last or only location with clues, because you can't choose that location — Tharzax · 1