Granny Panties

"Chaffing is a bitch when you're on the run from a bunch of Hoods or Cultists. Take my advice, Rita, buy yourself some comfortable underwear and you'll never look back!" — Granny Orne

Granny Orne has plenty of useful advice for Rita Young in this solo deck, which I used to beat the Return to the Night of the Zealot campaign. With a few tweaks, I think it would do well in other campaigns, too. I'm currently testing it against The Path to Carcosa, which demands cards such as Cherished Keepsake and Fine Clothes.

THE STRATEGY

Briefly, this deck uses a combination of Granny Orne, Track Shoes, good stuff and some of the latest tricks to move quickly from location to location to discover clues while evading enemies that Rita meets along the way. Enemies who get their panties in a knot, such as Hoods or the Ghoul Priest, are dispatched with the .18 Derringer or Baseball Bat.

I designed the deck with the intention of upgrading to the Ornate Bow, a card that I had not played before, but it's not strictly necessary to beat the campaign. The deck should probably include at least one copy Fine Clothes for obvious reasons, but that card didn't make the cut in this version. I saved those panties for The Path to Carcosa campaign.

A NOTE ABOUT BASIC WEAKNESSES

I drew my basic weakness at random during testing. The Tower • XVI just happened to be the one in the deck when I beat Return to The Devourer Below. The deck seems to perform well regardless of the basic weakness.

THE CARDS

.18 Derringer — Rita is fantastic at evading enemies, but there are certain goons that just need to die, namely Hoods, the Ghoul Priest and assorted Cultists. Hoods ranks among the worst signature weaknesses in the game because it's an enemy that is a hard counter to Rita's modus operandi. They also have a nasty habit of crashing the party at the worst time, flipping a manageable board state on its head. I've gone back and forth on Meat Cleaver and .18 Derringer in this slot. I like the Cleaver because it doesn't require ammo; however, it can be difficult to ride the fine line between lucidity and lunacy when you have only 5 Sanity to spare. I think the Derringer works better in this build since you can squeeze a few more shots out of it with Sleight of Hand. Once the Derringer is empty, you can throw it at an enemy with Act of Desperation, clearing your hand slots and gaining 3 resources to play the Baseball Bat or Ornate Bow.

Baseball Bat — A couple swings of the bat are enough to kill most of the bigger enemies in the Return to The Night of the Zealot campaign. I haven't had one break on me yet, which is surprising given my penchant for drawing . Once I gain a few XP, I swap the bats for Ornate Bow, which works well in combination with Sleight of Hand and Act of Desperation.

Granny Orne — The consensus in the Arkham Horror LCG community is that Peter Sylvestre is the ally of choice for Rita, but I think Granny Orne is amazing in this build. The appeal of Peter Sylvestre is obvious: he boosts Rita's and prevents her from going insane. That said, Granny Orne can boost all of Rita's skills as needed and soak a considerable amount of horror in her own right. During the Mythos phase, Rita has 4 , 5 once you factor in Granny's . That goes a long way to preventing Rita from taking horror in the first place. If Rita does fail a skill test on a treachery, such as Rotting Remains, Granny can soak up to three horror, which is fantastic. During the Investigation phase, Granny can help Rita pass , and skill tests as necessary. While testing the deck, I triggered Granny's to pass a skill test almost every turn. You can also use Granny in a pinch to trigger cards such as "Look what I found!" and Take Heart. I'm looking forward to playing a longer campaign so I can pick up a copy of Charisma and play Granny Orne and Peter Sylvestre together.

Track Shoes — Rita's other signature card, Track Shoes boost her and enable her to race between locations while dodging enemies. In my experience, 6 is plenty in this particular campaign, another reason why I opted for Granny Orne over Peter Sylvestre.

"Look what I found!", Live and Learn, Lucky! and Resourceful — staples that need no introduction, these help you Investigate, Fight and Evade as needed. Investigation usually takes priority, especially if Granny Orne is running late.

Act of Desperation — A great way to squeeze a little more value out of your empty .18 Derringer or your spare Ornate Bow. Taking a Fight action at +3 or +4 can be very helpful late game, and the extra resources are a nice bonus. Worst case, it's 2 skill icons, which isn't too shabby.

Breaking and Entering — A great trick released in the Innsmouth Conspiracy cycle, Breaking and Entering helps Rita discover clues in those hard-to-reach places. If you have Track Shoes on the table, Rita has 8 , which is usually enough to guarantee an auto evade if there is an enemy at your location.

Sleight of Hand — One of the best tricks available to Rita, Sleight of Hand dials up a weapon fast when the Hoods come calling. Squeezing extra shots out of the .18 Derringer or Ornate Bow is quite helpful during Return to the Night of the Zealot, which features a fair number of enemies.

Sneak By — Rita takes a lot of Evade actions, so this is a no-brainer. That said, I have played the deck without Sneak By and it worked out OK, so if you'd like to experiment with some of the other tricks in Rita's card pool, you may consider cutting this card. For example, a previous iteration of this deck ran 1x Act of Desperation and 3x A Glimmer of Hope. The extra Wild skill icons worked well in combination with Granny Orne's .

Take Heart — One of the few sources of card draw and resource generation in the card pool. That said, I'm not completely sold on Take Heart in this build. It didn't make a big impression during testing. The Return to the Night of the Zealot is pretty short though, so perhaps it would make its presence felt in a longer campaign. Granny Orne can help you fail a test if necessary, which makes me hesitant to cut this card.

Unexpected Courage — I've gone back and forth between this and Last Chance. Last Chance was in the first iteration of the deck, but during testing I discovered that I tended to horde weapons, Sleight of Hand and Act of Desperation. I considered Rise to the Occasion for this slot, but I think it's a little too narrow for this campaign. Other options include Guts or Desperate Search, but I prefer the flexibility of Unexpected Courage.

OTHER OPTIONS

I built a Bless version of the deck but it proved to be underwhelming during testing. It was OK once I purchased Ancient Covenant but, more often than not, the chaos bag was stingy with the Bless tokens when I needed them and flooded the board with them when I didn't. If I knew that I could consistently draw Bless tokens during Investigate actions, I'd be a happy manfromleng. The only way I know of to fish for Bless tokens with this deck would be to purchase Third Time's a Charm, which I haven't had a chance to test. It sounds OK in theory but it's doesn't guarantee that you'll draw a Bless token when you need it either. Ultimately, jamming a Bless module into the deck forced me to cut a bunch of cards, which I longed for every time I drew one of those inconsequential Bless tokens.

NOTES ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN

Return to The Gathering — This scenario can be tricky depending on whether you need to delve Far Above and/or Far Below Your House and the flow of ghouls from the encounter deck. If the encounter deck drip feeds you ghouls, it's relatively easy for Rita to stay on top of them. If the encounter deck floods the board with ghouls around Agenda/Act 3, Rita can get overwhelmed and run out of time. A typical run should net you about 8 VPs, which is enough to purchase Ornate Bow and a couple other cheap cards. I had great success with Unrelenting, but there are a lot of great options. I always choose R2 because I don't need the mental trauma or Lita.

Return to The Midnight Masks — Rita doesn't care how many Cultists gather at the Main Path for reasons we'll discuss in the moment, so your goal in this scenario is to kill at least 2 Cultists. Killing four is better, of course, but it's challenging for Rita to discover 8 clues, manage the Cultists, among other enemies, and defend herself from False Lead. I usually end up killing The Masked Hunter or Narôgath and then one Cultist chosen at random. Sometimes you'll get lucky and pull two Cultists who are neighbours, in which case you may be able to take out a third.

Return to The Devourer Below — Track Shoes and "Look what I found!" are the stars of the show in this scenario. Track Shoes are key to discovering clues at the Arkham Woods locations quickly and, more importantly, skipping the enemies congregating at the Main Path. "Look what I found!" gets you the clues you need at the Ritual Site. If you can achieve those two objectives, Rita can usually juggle the enemies while placing clues on the Act deck.