Not much beats this weapon for dominating as a combat character. The steady +2 damage and a modifier that all but guarantees successes makes this expensive killing tool unusually flexible.

Here's a comparison: You're Roland, with your .45 Automatic you aim to kill a Ravenous Ghoul, you're 2 above the required skill check, you lay down a Vicious Blow to net you a clean kill and spend 1 on Physical Training to hit that sweet spot of +4 over the skill check, and even then on higher difficulties you might throw on another just in case you get that -5. And boom, the Ghoul is gone. That there cost you: 4 for the gun, 2 for Physical Training, 2 and an action to play Physical Training in the first place, and a Vicious Blow as well, end cost: 3 cards, 8 resources and the extra action. You will be able to fire the gun 3 more times, but you wont kill any 3 hp enemies in one shot.

Now the lightning gun. One shot, aaaaand DONE. That set you back 6 resources but you're geared to do this two more times without having to pay for any boosts or playing extra cards!

Of course it wont be that simple, with a gun that big in your deck you will want to bring Prepared for the Worst to search for it and Extra Ammunition to keep it firing. You still want to draw into Vicious Blow to deal with those 4 HP enemies and the initial cost will inevitably slow you down in the earlygame.

This card does exactly what it should do and has all the drawbacks that it looks like it's got, it's a big unwieldy boomstick that will never disappoint you, but setting this up mean's you wont be doing much else.

Other cards that aren't immediately obviously good with this card: In class: 1) Dodge and Prepared for the Worst are a big help against bosses, they essentially let you set a trap for a hunting enemy where you get a full round of emptying this gun at the foe, useful in some specific missions. 2) Stand Together, this is effectively a second set of Emergency Cache, the key benefit here is that you usually only go for Lightning Gun when you have someone else doing the clue gathering, in which case you can give them a big buff while you set yourself up. A perfect first turn would be playing this into the lightning gun and immediately playing it. 3) Beat Cop, Lightning Gun is wasted on 1 and 2 HP enemies, Beat Cop helps you mitigate these enemies.

Out of class: 1) Quick Thinking is often all but a guaranteed action. Good if you need to wade into a big fight or need to accomplish something after it. 2) Drawn to the Flame and Scrying. You don't do much when you're totally focused on fighting and there are no enemies to zap, these cards let you guide encounters onto yourself. 3) Pathfinder and Shortcut. Entering a fight quickly can be key, perhaps you need to spend an action engaging a foe or perhaps you need to fire all three shots to down a foe in one round.

This card has 3 main advantages: (1) The encounter has a harder time playing around it because it's fast. (2) it can be used to get resources from damage. (3) it doesn't cost anything to use as protection.

All of these combine to make it better than Plascrete.

One full expansion in, Evidence! remains one of the strongest level 0 Guardian cards. One card and one resource for one clue is a very strong trade that will speed up your progress considerably. The event is pretty easy to trigger, as most locations in Arkham Horror have clues on them, and it is a rare scenario indeed in which the Guardian isn't killing a few monsters. It is sometimes worth it to take an attack of opportunity to move with a monster to the right location (or, better yet, use Shortcut), but most of the time you can trigger Evidence! without any such hassle. If for some reason the monsters aren't showing up, the two Intellect icons on this card are also useful.

I usually include this card as all three Guardians. Zoey and Skids, otherwise desperately short of clue-gathering options, are very grateful to have an efficient one like this in-class. I think Evidence! is particularly strong for Roland; his plan of attack was already to kill monsters on spaces with clues, and Evidence! rewards this further. Clearing a high-shroud, two-clue location merely by killing a monster (something you probably would have had to do regardless of the clues) is excellent.

This may seem obvious, but as someone that doesn't play standalone mode often and prefers campaign play instead this fact had escaped my notice: Cover Up really has no effect in standalone mode. And perhaps I'm being petty, but it feels pretty good to draw it and not have to pay any sort of attention to its presence. I think the word I'm looking for is empowered. It is is a wasted draw, but other than that its harmless. Heck, The Necronomicon is worse to pull in standalone. So spread the Good News! There are times when Roland just doesn't care about his weakness. (If only he had more Sanity...)

Defiance seems a low value card but it shows its strength in two independent conditions:

• Defiance is obviously useful when the issue of a chaos token may be dramatic. For instance if you’re playing The Miskatonic Museum and Harold Walsted is your one and only asset, you really don’t want to endure an effect (which would add a token for the remainder of the campaign). It is very situational, but you may encounter many of those specific situations during the campaign.
• In Easy mode, we can demonstrate (see below) that Defiance is equivalent to Unexpected Courage in most scenarios when you play to maximize the odd of success of skill tests so, if you play this way, you can safely put it in your deck instead of Unexpected Courage and benefit from its situational value when it appears. Or include both to have the best of both worlds!

Demonstration (for readably purpose, I ignore token):

Say you’re playing The Midnight Masks and you’re about to make a skill test with a skill value of 4 for a difficulty of 3. If you play Unexpected Courage, you will pass the test in all cases. If you play Defiance and choose , you will also pass the test in all cases. It’s the same for The Miskatonic Museum (if you have in Chaos bag OR there is an Hunting Horror at your location), Essex County Express (before agenda #3), Blood on the Altar and Carnevale of Horrors.

With The Devourer Below, Defiance is even better than Unexpected Courage as you need a skill value of 2 above difficulty before playing Defiance (then you play Defiance on and you pass the test in all cases), where you need a skill value of 3 above difficulty before playing Unexpected Courage (then you play Unexpected Courage and pass the test in all cases… if there isn't any Ancient One in play!). Curse of the Rougarou offers a similar analysis (unless you’re in Bayou location).

With Extracurricular Activity with , Defiance is better on all difficulties, as it’s really complicated to ensure success without it. Without , Defiance is equivalent to Unexpected Courage as soon as you have 10 cards in your discard pile.

With Undimensioned and Unseen, Defiance is slightly better, as Unexpected Courage can’t protect you from the additional effect.

On the contrary, Defiance is worse or slightly worse than Unexpected Courage for The Gathering and The House Always Wins (because of the positive effect of that you won’t want to cancel). Only 2 scenarios in a total of 13 published scenarios.

For Where Doom Awaits and Lost in Time and Space, it depends on the exact situation.

In conclusion, not a terrific card, but it can make sense including it in a deck, especially if you play in easy mode. You also may want to include it in hard or expert mode because the situational effect can become very strong.

Note that if you use player cards that take advantage of success margin as .41 Derringer, Unexpected Courage will be preferred.