I was a little down on this card after Peter Sylvester came out because I think he is a far better ally for Agnes (or Jim for that matter!) than Arcane Initiate and I wouldn't want them to compete for the same ally slot. But then I considered the following- Would I play a 1-resource event that allowed me to search the top three cards of my deck for a spell and prevent the next damage or two horror? Yes. Yes I would, that is an insane amount of value for an action card. I no longer think about Arcane Initiate as competing for an ally slot. She gets one or two activations and then protects me from an attack or something. As long as you're planning on killing her off, the doom counter is manageable and free spell draws is (almost) always good.

Obviously, the above evaluation is a little short sighted. There will be times where playing her is restrictive due to doom or when you already have Peter Sylvester and can't afford to throw him away for one or two activations of Arcane Initiate. But I still think she is worth including in any spell deck. Hitting on it once pays for itself. I recommend you mulligan for her over your "better" ally in your opening hand, getting the value out of her and dumping her at your earliest convenience when you can than play out your Peter or what have you.

You start the game with 5 cards, 5 resources, and most scenarios are well over 6-7 rounds. This card will never take 4 actions to play and to suggest it would is absurd. The card has a pretty solid negative in my opinion: a single intellect icon isn't going to impress anyone. Losing a card for a single intellect point is pretty rough. But the benefits are quite nice.

First, she replaces herself and adds 1 card to your hand after she enters play, meaning you don't lose any skill test potential from committing. Second, she increases your hand size which, again, directly improves your potential skill test modifiers through committing cards. Finally, she provides an essential 2 Sanity for our mentally fragile investigator Roland Banks. Sure, Roland runs a little poor, so maybe spending money to draw cards isn't high on your to-do list.

Overall I think this card is a solid include for Roland. Keeping your hand size up and drawing cards is useful to make sure you have Vicious Blow, Evidence! and Shortcut in your hand for the exact moment that you need them. Sure, she is stealing the ally slot from Beat Cop and Guard Dog, but both of those allies have the potential to leave play when the situation calls for it. When your allies are more transient than someone like Leo De Luca (who you really don't want to die) then your deck has room for more allies. More allies with HP means you don't need to rely on evasion, and you can just take a hit once in a while. Who cares about your wimpy Assistant if you've got the police on speed dial?

This card is curious to me. It seems to fit a similar slot as Physical Training or the other talent cards. By itself it does nothing but spending a box gives a bonus to a skill for a resource. The down side is it uses a 'hand' slot and only applies to combat. Spending all your resources for a plus one combat bonus is nice but risky.

Machete is obviously the best hand to hand combat weapon. But let's compare Fire Axe to others readily available to survivors (as of Dunwich).

Baseball Bat the other survivor card is powerful, cheap and gives a massive plus 2. Unfortunately it is subject to breakage with and uses 2 hands.

At the same cost Knife gives a simple plus 1 or can be thrown for plus 2 fist and damage! Cheap and easy for a disposal weapon which along with baseball bat synergies with Scavenging.

Kukri saves two skill checks required to do two damage over two actions. Its nice but perhaps gimmicky.

All the weapons have a downside however Baseball bat is obviously superior. If you have that hand planned for something else, say Agnes Baker with Ritual Candles it isn't a bad call. However i would possibly be more keen on knife with scavenging or kukri as Fire Axe does nothing on it own.

4 credits for 5 credits initial investment. But remember it also costs a click so it only puts you +3 over the regular click for a credit. Basically a must have in any runner deck though- for the sheer tempo build up it gives you; not much else compares.

Oh... wait a second...

Combined with Leo De Luca, this card is even better. Or you can play Double or Nothing with it, if you can beat the increased difficutly.

Also don't forget, that you can reuse this card with Wendy's Amulet.