The Concept

Try to Set the high score for damage per round.

Kymani Jones is the only investigator that can combine the insane per-shot damage potential of Sawed-Off Shotgun) with Cleaning Kit (3) - which provides both copious ammo and a skill bonus. Since we're 0-5 Rogue, we can also grab Sharpshooter to give us a further boost, potentially reaching double digit skill values before commits/costs and testing against our enemies lower stat, which will typically be a 2 or 3.

This is a 49XP Standalone Deck. If you want to reset to a campaign starter, see the information at the end of the Guide.

Please Note: while the game rules permit a 49XP standalone deck, Arkhamdb only supports random weaknesses up to 4 - the one non-random weakness should be replaced with a fifth random one before you start play.

If 49XP feels like too much to you, here is a 19 XP Variation which uses Underworld Support to reduce the XP requirements at the cost of consistency.

If you aren't concerned with setting high scores and just want to have some fun blasting, the Old Shotgun variant of this concept is less ponderous, check the inspired by section to get to that guide.

Summary

Clueing: ☆ Fighting: ☆☆☆☆☆(☆) Mobility: ☆ Mythos: ☆☆☆ Consistency: ☆☆☆

With testing at over 10 skill, theoretical damage output of up to 24 per round, and enough ammunition in the deck to do that for 10 rounds in a scenario, this one is pretty much off the scale for fighting. About the only thing that is going to stop you here are enemies that can't be harmed by Mundane Weaponry. Or having to notice a clue. Bring a Friendly Salesman to both do the thinking and help you pay for everything.

Sales Pitch: Play this deck if you think "overkill" is the best kind of kill.

Mulligan

Bewitch: "I'll Take That!", Swift Reload, Sleight of Hand

• Hard Mulligan for Sawed-Off Shotgun - you have a 53% chance of seeing one if you see 10 cards.
• Sharpshooter is the second most important, but probably keep Cleaning Kit (3) or Bank Job if you had one in the opening hand.
• Keep the Tarot card, obviously.

If you want more consistency in the mid-game in exchange for a slightly worse early game, replace the Bewitching, one copy of The Moon, and the Swift Reload with the Side Deck Cards. (still 49 XP)

This is an expensive rig (10+ resources to play out the core assets) so the "Watch this!" and Bank Job will help with that, but having your cluever bring a Schoffner's Catalogue or ways to give you resources will help tremendously.

General Playstyle

Over-succeed with Sawed off Shotgun to do quantities of damage that trivialize even the most massive enemies. Having previously set up plenty of Ammunition thanks to Cleaning Kit (3) and Contraband, and a bonus action from haste (2), you can take 4 shots in a round; multiple rounds in a row if necessary.

To help ensure that those shots actually do damage, the rest of the deck is built around boosting our skill, starting by converting the attack to an test with Sharpshooter, which also lowers the difficulty to 2-3 on most enemies. When there aren't enemies to murder, pretty much all you can do is try to investigate using your Grappling Hook - fortunately the Sawed-Off is a 1-handed weapon so you can actually hold both.

Shotgun Math

How many Shots is Too Many Shots?

Because Cleaning Kit (3) has uses (supplies) we can use Emergency Cache (3) to add 4 additional supplies; and then if we've done that to a fresh kit, we can hit it with Contraband possibly twice, pushing us to a dizzying 32 supplies on Cleaning kit.

Realistically you won't need to stack the effects like that, very few scenarios are going to require you to fire more than just the dozen or so rounds you'll get from just playing your supply generating cards whenever you have a moment; even if everything is used separately we've got 14-22 rounds in the deck.

Overplanning for Over-success

When actually taking shots our agility for the test will be 9~11 before considering any permanent expenditures of cards/resources.

• 5 base from using Sharpshooter
• +2 from Delilah thanks to the text on Sharpshooter
• +2 from Cleaning Kit on the first shot of the round (which will usually be the only shot you need)
• +1 from Moon
• +1 from opportunist, which we expect to have return.

Because we get to choose the lower of Evade or Combat, only one defeatable Elite monster will definitely test us at more than a 4; the lowly Umordhoth (He's a 5/6). Most will be testing at 2 or 3.

With an average token value in a standard bag of -2, you can expect to hit for an average of 3-5 damage per shot. Effects like Daring Maneuver will help you avoid succeeding by 0 and wasting a bullet; not that we're particularly worried about running out of bullets. 3-5 damage will do for the vast majority of non- Health elites (Conglomeration being one notable exception), so you will rarely need a second shot.

Because it's an test you can also boost with Streewise (3) if you have spare resources, but this deck is pretty tight on financing so try to avoid doing that before you're fully set-up.

For the enemies you can't take down in one shot, commit more to the follow-up shots, including using your Calculated Risk on the last one. If you have both Hastes in play you can get 5 actions in one round, which will give you a maximum theoretical damage output of 30 (and five ? icons on your Calculated risk for that last shot.) Just make sure you've hit a Cleaning Kit with a Contraband first so you've got enough cartridges.

Resetting to a Campaign Starter

While one could just start by grabbing a single Sawed-Off with Kymani's 5 bonus XP and just use level 0 Cleaning Kits, I don't think that will be effective with no bonus to .

So instead, probably a better way would be to start from my Old Double Barrel Kymani Campaign Starter but buy Sawed-Offs instead of Old Shotgun (2) and then start deviating from there to focus on bonuses like Delilah O'Rourke and The Moon • XVIII instead of the evasion assisting tools, since Sawed-Off lacks an innate stat bonus like Old Shotgun has. But with the much more expensive and less accurate primary weapon you're probably looking at 26XP minimum to feel functional (2x sawed off, 2x sharpshooter, 2x Delilah, and 2x Cleaning kits is already 26XP)

You could also start from an Underworld Support Old Shotgun Campaign Starter - This will reduce the XP cost of getting the sawed-off version of the deck 'functional' by quite a lot at the cost of having less consistency. For an idea of what the 19XP 'Functional' version of this would look like, please check the 19XP underworld Sawed Off standalone previously mentioned.