Skids Does Hard Time

In my quest to play every character, I had to play the original Skids O'Toole eventually. This was particularly daunting because my group plays almost exclusively on Hard, which makes his mediocre statline even more of a liability.

I focus a lot on risk and mitigating worst-case scenarios. Common wisdom holds that you don't really need a dedicated fighter, but in my experience drawing back-to-back enemies with a few bad token pulls is still the most likely way to lose a scenario. If my tone sounds negative, it's not because I'm expecting failure, it's because I'm looking for the problem cases to solve.

This particular list was designed to be the dedicated monster wrangler in a 2-player Forgotten Age campaign with Daisy Walker. In a different campaign or paired with a more flexy cluever, I'd cut the 2x Disguise for more clue-gathering or scenario tech.

Crystallizer of Dreams

Lucky Cigarette Case is a rogue staple, but it isn't a trivial ask on Hard. Even investigating with Lockpicks 7v3 is probably not going to succeed by 2 most of the time.

With Skids' mediocre stats, getting a few extra icons from Crystallizer of Dreams can be a scenario-winning difference. I chose 21 or Bust over Emergency Cache specifically for the icons.

That said, it's not powerful enough that we want to build around it long term. We should probably cut them for The Red Clock or something after a few scenarios.

Weapon Choices

The defining element here is, "weapons that give me at least +2." Machete is a great card, but we really need to invest in our attacks hitting reliably. Even with Lonnie and a +2 weapon, we're only fighting at 6.

I'm not planning on upgrading Runic Axe - it's just a solid 0 XP weapon that lets you fight at +3. You can fight an enemy each turn pretty sustainably, burn it out when you get in a tight spot, and then replace it rather than waiting for it to recharge.

I'm undecided on whether one of these should be cut for a Prepared for the Worst. It's less efficient early, but will help us find XP weapons we pick up later.

Lonnie Ritter + Heavy Furs

This classic combo gives us a much-needed +1 and some additional soak. Heavy Furs is particularly nice on Hard, where tokens often give painful effects whether you pass the test or not. (Especially in Forgotten Age, where it includes poison and extra doom.)

This also opens up Toe to Toe, which is much cheaper and more reliable testless damage than Sneak Attack or Small Favor.

Economy (No Lone Wolf?)

If I were to list Skid's strengths, #1 would be "access to Rogue economy and expensive Guardian assets." Six resource events is a lot, but this is a pricey deck. Additionally, the ability to convert resources to extra actions effectively gives you a 0-XP Borrowed Time, letting you bank turns playing resource cards until you need extra actions for fighting monsters.

Cutting Lone Wolf is a painful choice. It's some of the best economy in the game, and with Skids that translates directly into extra actions. But on the turns where we draw two enemies, I need to be at the same location as the cluever. I can't be wasting actions catching up to them every time they draw an enemy, and as the fighter I usually want to go first. I'd rather spend one action on a resource-gain event than try to manage positioning to keep Lone Wolf online. Ultimately, Safeguard is going to net us more actions than Lone Wolf would.

1x Embezzled Treasure is a little bit win-more, but sending even extra 2-3 resources into the next scenario can be a big deal early in a campaign.

No Kicking the Hornet's Nest / On the Hunt

Look, I'm getting as good at fighting as I can, but I can still only kill so many enemies. Spawning an extra enemy sounds like an easy way to spiral off one bad autofail into a lost scenario. I want situational events that will get me out of a tight spot, not ones that will get me into one.

The soak from Lonnie Ritter + Heavy Furs also makes me less worried about Treacheries in general - Frozen in Fear is still a bad draw, but I'm not going to die to a few Rotting Remains equivalents. (Maybe your seeker will be extra nice and play Logical Reasoning.)

Other Events

2x Intel Report is my one concession to cluevering. We've got the economy to play it, it's amazing testless action compression, and it even has the perk of committing for 2 icons off Crystallizer to help guarantee our cluever's Deduction.

1x Dynamite Blast and Elusive are idiomatic situational options that could easily be replaced based on personal preference.