Better Starter Decks - Wendy Adams

Introduction:

The Revised Core provides a much better ideal starting point than the original Core for whoever wishes to delve into the universe of Arkham Horror The Card Game. One of its many improvements is a very clean and logical distribution of the cards in several distinct packages. Among those are the five pre-made and ready-to-play investigator decks. As soon as this was announced, many expected them to be improved versions of the original starter decks, since the limitation of the single class cards no longer applies to the Revised Core. Alas all the prepackaged decks are exactly the same starter decks suggested in the old Core with no change whatsoever. It is commonly agreed upon that those decks are very underwhelming and that a much better distributions of the available cards can be achieved.

Objective:

This series of decks aims to provide a better alternative to the pre-made decks found in the Revised Core by redistributing the cards in a more sensible manner, while keeping them 100% compatible among each others and preserving their ready-to-play nature.

For the rest of the decks, follow these links:

• Roland Banks
• Daisy Walker
• "Skids" O'Toole
• Agnes Baker

Strategy Tips:

Wendy is a very resilient investigator, focused on evading enemies, resisting treacheries effects, and defy the chaos bag. This deck is mainly focused on gathering clues and evasion. It is therefore not recommended for solo play.
Leo De Luca is the most valuable card in this deck. Ideally you want to play it on your very first turn, as the initial investment pays a lot more the more extra actions you get. It is perfectly fine to spend the first action to gain the necessary 6th resource (albeit playing Emergency Cache would be even better), you will gain that back immediately the moment you play Leo de Luca. After that, Wendy should focus on getting Flashlight, Perception and "Look what I found!". Those will be her primary tools to discover clues. Lucky! can also be used in order to pass investigations that would otherwise fail. Remember that as long as you have cards in your hand, it is fine to try skill tests at a lower margin than normal, because with her ability she can retry the test. Also keep in mind that while this may vary depending on the chaos bag composition, if you have only one card in hand and it would only provide an icon for the skill test, it is generally more convenient to use it to retry the test than to commit it to the test. This means that while Wendy's is only a 3, it effectively works more like a 4, as long as you have the cards to spare. Here is where Leo de Luca can truly help, because you can use the extra action however you want, including gaining an extra card every turn.
Wendy has then several cards to help evading enemies: Dig Deep, Survival Instinct, Manual Dexterity, and since her is very high to begin with, she will hardly need to be closely guarded by a fighter. Cunning Distraction can be very powerful, but its high cost hardly ever justifies playing it. Scavenging deserves a particular mention, especially if used in conjunction with Wendy's Amulet, but Rabbit's Foot is also fine. Basically instead of playing those items you could commit them to skill tests (or discard them with Wendy's ability in the case of Rabbit's Foot), then sooner or later you'll draw a 0 or a +1 while investigating and with Scavenging you'll be able to retrieve those items to commit them over and over again. Of course if a Flashlight is in your discard pile, it should be prioritized.
If enough events are in the discard pile, you can play Wendy's Amulet instead, so that you can then play the events again. Be aware, however, that Abandoned and Alone could throw a wrench on that plan. Also remember that if her amulet is in play, it is more convenient to first commit an event to a skill test (or discard it, with Wendy's ability) and then play it from the discard pile, otherwise you'd only be able to use the card once and it would go directly on the bottom of your deck.
This deck isn't completely devoid of means to defeat enemies, there are 2 copies of Backstab that Wendy can use, and each deals 3 damage. Wendy should save these for any situation where the dedicated fighter needs some help. They are expensive cards, and they don't offer any bonus to the skill test, so they require a proper setup to be effective. Manual Dexterity, or extra resources to burn with Dig Deep should be used to ensure the test doesn't fail; especially if the enemy is engaged with another investigator.

Suggested Upgrades:

What's better than Leo de Luca? A Leo De Luca that only costs 5 resources, of course. It's a very small improvement, but it enables playing this powerful Ally on the very first action. It only costs 1 XP per card, so it's very affordable. Perhaps even more useful is Lockpicks, a card that would allow Wendy to investigate once per round with a modified skill of 7. It is however a card that Skids might want to take instead. Will to Survive is a very useful end-game card. It's best used when Leo de Luca is in play, so you can take advantage of its effect 4 times. Close Call provides Wendy with a mean to dispatch enemies, but it only works if they are not Elite and since they get reshuffled into the Encounter Deck, they might be drawn again. Wendy has the option to purchase more allies: Cat Burglar and Aquinnah (don't bother with the level 1 version, it's not worth the XP). However, while useful, they can't really compare with Leo de Luca. You could still get Charisma to have more than one Ally in play at the same time, but the resource cost might be prohibitive. Lucky! improves on the level 0 version by granting an extra card, and Wendy loves extra cards. It isn't exceptionally better than the regular one, and so it should be left to Agnes if she is a party member. Eucatastrophe is a solid purchase if you really hate the token. It isn't particularly necessary for Wendy, since she is already very resilient to that, but it works very well with Wendy's Amulet since when in play the token grants an automatic success, meaning that she could even attempt Fighting with her 1 .

Replacing Cards:

Knife is the weakest card in the deck. Wendy's is only a 1 and she doesn't really have anything to boost it in this deck. It might still be enough to kill weaker enemies like Swarm of Rats or Ghoul Minion, but even in those cases the rate of success won't be high. Cunning Distraction is another card of dubious utility. Situations with high amounts of enemies concentrated in one place won't be particularly frequent and there are better ways to spend 5 resources. It is however a card that can prove to be useful in The Devourer Below scenario, so keep that in mind. Survival Instinct can be removed for more or less the same reasons. It doesn't cost a single resource, however it only benefits Wendy, since she simply disengages from the other enemies, they don't exhaust (and if they are hunters, they will catch up in the Enemy Phase, unless she moves further away). Pickpocketing isn't strictly necessary. Extra cards are good, but you need to expect to evade at least 2 enemies, because otherwise it would simply be more convenient to spend an action to draw a card directly. Rabbit's Foot is also not particularly useful if you don't plan to frequently fail skill tests (but there's that scavenging trick to consider). If you feel that you don't really need to fight, you can remove Backstab.

Improving the Deck:

While this deck is primarily intended to be ready-to-play as is without any need for deckbuilding, it is certainly possible to improve it by taking cards from decks that aren't being used in your current campaign. In this case it is certainly a good idea to take skill cards from those, especially Unexpected Courage. If Skids's deck isn't used, several options open up to turn Wendy into a more rounded investigator capable of defeating several enemies. Hard Knocks and Overpower can be retrieved, alongside .41 Derringer (even better if later upgraded to the level 2 version). Even if Wendy's is abysmal, she can still be successful with enough cards and with her ability. Sneak Attack can be retrieved instead to keep her focused on clue while expanding her options to deal damage that don't involve . Another card that could be very useful is Elusive, especially in The Midnight Mask scenario.
If Agnes isn't present, Baseball Bat is by far a better weapon for Wendy than the Derringer. She'd still need Hard Knocks, however, to really use it reliably. See the paragraph above to decide which cards to remove to make space.