Summoned Servitor's niche. While the resource cost isn't bad, its asset discard cost means it's unlikely to be one of the first cards out of the gate, and its dual slot cost is another barrier. In practice, Summoned Servitor is going to cost at least 3 XP. Without at least 1 XP, all Summoned Servitor can do is hover around the map. And while 1 XP is enough to start taking some actions, it's hard to find someone who wouldn't want Dominance to free up a slot, one way or another.

From there, there are a few directions for the summon. The first and most apparent through the test actions. A 4-base test is okay, if not particularly impressive - you'll occasionally stumble onto a success, as long as you're willing to fail along the way. Of course, If someone runs Rabbit's Foot, Drawing Thin, "Look what I found!", or the like, even a failure can be good. And characters with easy boost access, like Charlie Kane or someone with Cornered like Patrice Hathaway, can turn those awkward checks into something that resembles a bonus action. Daemonic Influence can technically give even more 'actions', but it's one of the most expensive customizations around, and quite possibly one of the most difficult to build around.

The second option is to use Wings of Night as the equivalent to Pathfinder or Safeguard. While Summoned Servitor's movement isn't particularly mobile, it can still move one space a turn - and that means that if you don't need to move more than one space a turn, the summon can save that move action for you.

The third option is to use Armored Carapace to treat this as a source of soak. While a few scenarios may make you regret this decision, it's often a cheap plus. Armored Carapace allows you to share the soak, but it's worth remembering that investigators can assign damage to any asset under their control with health, and the Servitor is always under the investigator's control, no matter where its location is. It can tank for others sometimes, but it can always tank for its player.

And, of course, there are always a few incidental benefits to this. As one of the options, it's worth remembering that investigators who access this can boost it using Down the Rabbit Hole. And some people just want to squeeze a bit more XP through Refine.

On the whole, I don't think any of these single options is worth the total card, resource, slot, and XP cost. However, if you're looking at a couple of these, you might be breaking even or earning a bit more. Some classes may have better options, but for some or off-, you might just be looking for the combination of a bit of health, or an extra action, one way or another.

Absolute garbage, can't believe they even put this in the box as is.

At level 0 does literally nothing...what? Worse, it costs 2 resource, takes up 2 slots and you have to sacrifice another asset.

Put some XP in so it can now do base 4 tests... underwhelming much?

Compare this to miss Doyle and it's night and day. You need to put around 7 or 8 exp (carapace, claws, dominance, dreaming call) and Miss Doyle would still be better.

I would like to add a bit about the □ Jaws that Snatch command. Both Fight and Evade have perks (Ignores Aloof, Retaliate / Alert) but the Evade one still has a bit more advantage that you can attempt the Evade even without engaging the enemy first. (e.g. While you can always Fight unengaged enemy and risk the friendly-fire as per normal game rule)

I was playing 4 players and this was useful to remotely, repeatedly peel off an enemy from Seeker, or from Guardian which would like to play some Asset before going back to fight or would like Retaliate disabled. I can left the servitor as a bodyguard around those in need. □ Armored Carapace is also handy to take treachery failing damage for that Seeker. So if you want to invest minimal XP, I think just Armor + Jaws is quite a serviceable combo that can mitigate a lot of hurt.

While the design and the flavor of that card is great, it is sadly underpowered imo. I've run it in a dedicated Luke deck with plenty of static book boost (magnifying glasses, st Hubert key, yellow tarrot card), enablers and even then, at most, the summon picked up three to four clues over the course of the scenario, even fully upgraded. Sure, sometimes, it came handy because it evaded a few monsters for my fellow investigators, but if you had to choose between that card and Powerword, the latter is far more useful and versatile, and doesn't require a build around deck to function (even if the comparison is unfair, since a fully upgraded Powerword is the most absurd card in the game).

You clearly don't run it for the extra bit of unreliable damage, but mostly for its evade and investigation ability (also its 3 health pool that counter balance the squishyness of most mystic investigators). It's also awkward to use since it cannot explore on its own, and can only navigate through explored areas. Most of the time, I just landed it on a location I was tasked to investigate, then joined the rest of my team while it picked some clues on its own. The best point of this card is it offers you a good presence across the board, no matter your location (your own dream world for exemple). I absolutely recommend it if you want to do a Luke run. It's really a lot fun to watch the little buddy lives its life to its fullest on its own but you should rather skip it if you plan to play anybody else.

The card would've been great if it wasn't considered "unique" and you had to fantasy to be able to run two of them at the same time. In its current state, it is a below-average/okay card in a dedicated deck, but it won't carry you your investigator on its own. It kinda fits a peculiar archetype (flexing) as an element of the whole, but not at the foundation of the archetype. The ability to go through uncharted locations would make the card far better than it is now, even if the owner of the summon would have to be hurt the revelation ability from those locations. Putting two extra xp as fee with a taboo on "Wings of Night" with this said ability would solve a lot of its problem, without hurting the balance of that card.

Here is the list I used for a return to Dunwich playthrough: Initial version: arkhamdb.com Fully upgraded: arkhamdb.com

Notably one of the only customizables Charlie can take, and one that has a couple of uses for him. Dominance (2XP) gives him a handy extra ally at less XP cost than a Charisma, Dreaming Call (3 XP) gives him the ability to bounce back Art Students or damaged allies, Wings of Night (1 xp) gives him a ride and potentially a taxi service, and any of the others gives him a bonus action at 4+1 wild for exhausting, which is both a substantial buff and a mini-Leo.

With all of those, you have a 7 XP bonus ally you can move to and leave at hard to stomach locations and still exhaust in mythos for 2 will or investigation phase for 1 ?. Not terrible for late game XP soaks, but probably not the first XP you're spending. For decks that want 4 Summoned Hounds, or just can't deal with that cards more considerable drawback.

Daemonic Influence is more of a trap - it cuts off the versatility of the card and is an obscene amount of XP that needs to be spent on other keystone 5 XP friends.

On other characters, this one's tough. The arcane or ally slot needs to be dealt with to really maximize usage, and Daemonic Influence is probably the breakeven point, meaning that you're spending a full 10 XP to fully kit a monster to eat your Renfield or Acolyte and give you limited extra actions at what will likely be less than your normal values. Might be a decent pick for doom oriented investigators who need to be able to toss assets, particularly the Mystic who comes with it, Amina Zidane.

Of course, once you have one, there's a ton of things about this card that are unique, and I think its position as an immobile action generator is most interesting:

1. it can be left at hunter occupied locations to evade them endlessly, trivializing some enemies and even some scenarios. Ignoring Alert means its particularly good against Vengeance enemies and a certain forgotten age Snake.
2. It attacks aloof monsters, and you can add vicious blow to the skill check. It also occupies space, which helps with placement of Acolytes and empty location enemies (although I think you'd prefer to drop Acolyte ON the space)
3. It can live in hard to reach areas with bad EOT effects, as well as areas that constantly repopulate clues, where it will just get you a clue every turn. Scarlet Keys has a few of these.

This really seems like a card destined to be used mostly by off-mystic subclasses. Most purple characters don't really want to testing non-will stats even if they get base 4 for free, and they have other things to do with their arcane slots. Maybe a full-cluever purple runs eyes/daemonic/wings with St. Hubert's Key and Ikiaq alongside their Clairvoyance to imitate Pathfinder Ursula Downs, or maybe when Marie Lambeau or Amina Zidane go to Dunwich they run Daemonic/claws to go hunting Whippoorwills and Acolytes, perhaps running Blood Pact to test at a cozy 7. But it's a really convoluted way to do stuff mystics can mostly already do.

On the other hand, 4 XP is enough to get Dominance (remove ally slot), Wings (you can move with it), and your choice of the fight/evade/investigate options. That's within reach for all the 0-2 mystic types, who can run it as an arcane slot passive that gives them a free move or basic action most turns instead.

Patrice Hathaway is especially well-positioned to take advantage here. She has 2s in all non-will stats, so the base 4 is always a +2. Despite Will being her best value, she can't use big mystic spells for her action compression. If she runs this with Foolishness, she can now replace her base stats twice per turn. And with 5 draws a turn from the survivor pool she can easily access enough commits and boosts to make the servitor succeed or just use it to trigger failure cards. Her biggest problem is a shortage of actions, though, so you may want to include some fast assets like Fire Axe, Plucky, or Talisman of Protection as Servitor food.

Daisy Walker actually loses book if she makes it investigate for her, but a free investigate at -1 is still good, and leaving it behind in a hazardous location is great. It still benefits from Magnifying Glass, Dr. Milan Christopher, Death • XIII, and so on. Alternatively, she could take it on evade mode. It would test at 5 with Hiking Boots, 10 with Mind over Matter, and if she Transmogrifys an enemy she can still snag clues with the evade servitor.

Sister Mary can take it to supplement her damage or clue output, since both are base 3, and then boost them with Ace of Swords, Beat Cop, St. Hubert's Key, Field Agent, and so on. Honorable mention to Alice Luxley who apparently loves getting tips from beyond the veil, since the servitor gives you a safe Investigate action to trigger her damage with when engaged by enemies.

It's a little more awkward for the event-focused Sefina Rousseau, and because it's not really an ally Charlie Kane can't take it unless he commits to the mystic class. But it's potentially interesting if he does, despite being grossly outshined by Summoned Hound cheese if you play that way.

Haven't tried it yet, but might be perfect for Father Mateo.

With Ancient Covenant you'll be passing any skill check with Summoned Servitors relatevely low stats without any boosts. And you'll have The Codex of Ages to make it's stat line 5/5/5

If I have a Summoned Servitor in-hand and one in-play, and the Dreaming Call upgrade, can I return the in-play one to my hand as the additional cost for playing the in-hand one? Or does the unique flag prevent that sort of swapping? If so can I use the in-play Summoned Servitors action(s), play the in-hand one to get a fresh Summoned Servitor, and then have the fresh Summoned Servitor do the same action(s)? Ie, if I have the Daemonic Influence upgrade and Servitor 1 Fights and Evades, then my Investigator plays Servitor 2 (removing/replacing Servitor 1), can Servitor 2 do it's own Fight and/or Evade action this turn? Normally I'd assume Servitor 1 and Servitor 2 would have their 'per turn' tracked individually, but with them being unique I'm not sure.

I'm considering running this with Dominance (remove Arcane), Eyes of Flame and Dreaming Call. All up it's 6xp to have a drone flying around either farming low Shroud locations or mopping up the last clue at mid Shroud locations that I can potentially jump back to my location for 2 resources. At a glance 6xp for two cards that will gather a handful of clues per game if deployed early/well isn't amazing, but I think the real value is in Investigating being a simple background task that the drone can perform reliably enough that it frees the actual Seeker up to do more productive Investigations. As I understand it this can't be attacked or otherwise disrupted beyond the methods of losing an asset, and since the drone is taking the action not the Investigator it won't provoke attacks of opportunity, so it seems like once it's in-play it'll be super stable.

Overall I really like the concept behind this card but it feels like Dominance and Daemonic Influence are basically mandatory and that's 7xp before it can even do anything other than slowly wandering the map.