Mysteries Remain

I feel like this card is significantly weaker than Roland's gun. However, the associated weakness seems easier to handle, so it might worth it.

Though this card is not bad, its existence could leads to problems.

The possibility of creating 1 clue out of nowhere means that the scenario no longer has a full control on the number of clues available. It could mess up with the timing of the scenario and leads to "bugs / unwanted shortcuts / ..." in fan scenarios, and force the official designers to take in account this card when creating scenarios.

The "remove from the game" save it, so as long as they do not print other cards with that effect, it should not be a problem. But still, when I read this card, I feel like this kind of effect should not exist.

MoiMagnus · 63
The gun's effect is far more replaceable than the 0-cost Working a Hunch this card provides. — Blackhaven · 9
Stubborn Detective

The following is a Question, not a review.

In our 2 player carcosa campaign, this card is part of Lola Hayes deck. If this guy is at Lola Hayess location, does this remove her restriction to only play cards from her current role? After reading related rules it seems yes, but i'd like some other opinions about that.

Django · 5154
The best combo in the game :) Yes, you're right. There is only one problem about that: as long as SD is on your location you are stuck in your role vulnerable to Crisis of Identity. — KptMarchewa · 1
Use Handcuffs on him, then re-engage so you can keep the “bonus” while you can safely drag him around the map. — Lemmingrad · 21
Mysteries Remain

Generally, I would rate this card a bit weaker than Roland's .38 Special (at least until you have enough XP to be toting a Lightning Gun with some Extra Ammunition). That said, this card has great synergy with Roland's ability as it's fairly common, even with careful planning, to end up needing to kill an enemy on a location with no clues. Since this is a fast action, it doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity and can simply be thrown down right before the finishing attack, and not waste a Roland ability trigger on a clue-less location.

It also is the only investigator card to date that allows a clue from the token bank to be added to the total - this can be significant if the investigators end up 1 clue away from success and would otherwise need to travel to another location to obtain the last clue. The flexibility of being able to alternatively simply discover a clue as an effectively upgraded version of Working a Hunch ensures it isn't a dead draw on scenarios where you need to remove clues from a location rather than accumulate total clues (a common occurrence in the Carcosa cycle).

As a cute bonus, as an Insight it can be copied by other investigators who are using Eidetic Memory, though because it removes itself from the game it will be very difficult to actually use it very many more times by this method.

When playing Roland in an 8-scenario campaign, I'd always choose this card paired with The Dirge of Reason over the standard cards. Alternatively, since both this card and The Dirge of Reason have synergy with Roland's .38 Special AND with Cover Up, playing all four at once is also probably viable if you can tolerate the slight increase in deck size. Cover up is much less threatening if you pair it with cards that place clues on your location, since the real issue with Cover up is not so much the actions required to gather the clues as it is the possible lack of clues to gather, or the fact that they might be in distant or inaccessible spots. See also Dr. William T. Maleson and Forewarned for other cards whose clue-dropping can help Roland get rid of Cover Up.

Low_Chance · 13
Eiditic memory also removes the target from the game, so won't help you to gain more than 1 clue. — Django · 5154
Oh, excellent point! I'd forgotten about that. — Low_Chance · 13
Heroic Rescue

Pretty weak card, still useful for a very specific purpose. And it's actually pretty flexible for that purpose!

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When you play a dedicated combat guardian, like a Mark Harrigan or William Yorick, you stick close to your clue specialists, you stick around picking up easy clues or beating down trouble that you or they find. This card helps you serve this role of tight-formation protector.

The trick to this card is that it works against voluntarily suffered attacks as well as enemy-round ones, this means, for example, that if you stick within one location of your buddy, if they draw an enemy, they can spend one action to move to your location, you intercept the attack of opportunity, and they carry on hoovering clues. If you're at the same location as an ally who's just drawn an enemy from the encounter deck that ally can just carry on as if nothing happened and keep digging for clues, you will intercept the attack anyway!

In other words, you need to not think of this card as a way for you to engage enemies and deal them damage, obviously this card does that job terribly! You need to think of this as a Fast auto-evade for your friends, who while you have this card in hand are able to do their jobs uninterrupted.

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William Yorick likes this card because he has a test-less card package that can deal respectable damage without risking the luck of the bag. This involves the use of cards like Guard Dog, Lantern, Mano a Mano and/or Beat Cop.

Mark Harrigan specializes in killing threats and mitigating damage, it's easier to heal oneself than others and this card lets your friends drop off a target to spend all that Ammo on along with a bit of damage to heal.

I can't see other characters having the sheer staying power to support this card, Zoey Samaras can bear with it since she's one of the toughest characters in the game thanks to her resistance to horror via her great but she may find it hard to find space for this card in-between her tech cards.

Tsuruki23 · 2570
Great review, only issue with the first example is that attacks of opportunities occur after costs are paid but before application of the action. When your friend moves to your space, the attack occurs in the first space. Once they've soaked it and moved to you, you can intercept the next AoO when they start hoovering. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
The cards "Let me handle this!" and "On the hunt" serve a similar purpose but don't require you to take damage, so i prefer them over this one. — Django · 5154
@Django: pretty much. If Guardians were better at soaking up the horror monsters deal, cards like this (and Guard Dog) that encourage them to take attacks might be more appealing. As is, not so much. — CaiusDrewart · 3183
Side note, carolyn has a lot of sanity and access to guardian damage healing/soaks so it might be more useful for her to kill 1 HP targets and gain ressources when healing her own horror. — Django · 5154
this card has some synergy with 'survival knife' allowing you to deal 3 damage to an enemy out of your turn (during the enemy phase or another player's turn). — 11zxcvb11 · 3
@11zxcvb11 Nope, Survival Knife can only counter attack during the enemy phase. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Daisy's Tote Bag

Having played Daisy quite a bit now, I can say that I don't care much for this card. Usually as Daisy, you only need one useful tome out (Typically Old Book of Lore or Encyclopedia). Once you have the book, your other hand slot should generally stay free in anticipation of drawing The Necronomicon.

The action and resources spent playing this out do nothing to directly help the investigators win, and often won't do anything even as the game drags on when either you don't need or can't play the other books, such as Medical Texts or even Book of Shadows, both of which are situational to begin with.

If your build really relies on having this many tomes out at once, then you'll be stuck waiting for this card to appear. Unlike your Tomes, this can't be tutored for by Research Librarian.

My take: if you play Daisy, assume you have only one hand slot. This isn't a big deal as your best killing tools, such as the acidic Strange Solution or "I've got a plan!", or even evasion tools such as Archaic Glyphs don't require a hand slot. You don't really need Magnifying Glass or Flashlight, nice as they are, when you can use Old Book of Lore to draw stat boosters or Encyclopedia to get a flat +2 for the entire turn.

Daisy's Tote Bag is best saved to commit to a skill test. Seekers simply don't have the time to durdle around with a potentially-meaningful hand slot increase when you can just deckbuild around it from the start.

Low_Chance · 13
Agree. This is one to keep an eye out in the future, though, because we may eventually get a tome that is really incredible but takes up two hand slots. Then the tote bag will start looking much better. — CaiusDrewart · 3183
Dude, you say keep a hand slot free for Necronomicon. Isn't that EXACTLY what you need this card for? Why should I choose which Tome I should have when I can have 2 or maybe 3 of them??? I personally love this item. The only disadvantage is, as you said, if you build ur deck around it, u have to wait until u draw it, but hey what do we have the Old Book of Lore for??? — matt88 · 3210
-matt88: The problem is that there's a really big difference between having 0 useful tomes and having 1, but there's barely any difference between having 1 useful tome and having 2. You only get one free Tome action a turn, and you need your other actions to hunt down clues. Having more books just means having more options, which is usually not worth spending a card, an action, and 2 resources, when you could be using that same effort to get clues and win the game. — Low_Chance · 13
Low_Chance: Clues just by themselves do not win you the game. Having more than one Tome is extra useful for your team. An strong enemy with high combat value spawned. I can boost my comrade's state to help him defeat that enemy. Me, or my comrade need cards. Done. And I can also have non-Tome items equipped, like Magnifying Glasses. — matt88 · 3210