Official rules response on Call for Backup, re: the potential of healing damage/horror from cards without health. (You can't.)

Q:

Call for Backup reads, in part, "heal 1 horror from any card" and "heal 1 damage from any card". Can these effects be used to remove damage/horror from locations (or other unusual cards) that can have damage/horror placed on them for scenario mechanic reasons? (If the answer is "yes", that should really be errata'd out, or else it can break numerous scenarios.) More generally, can it be used to heal damage/horror from cards without health/sanity? (E.g. Daisy's Necronomicon.)

A:

Thank you for your interest in Arkham Horror: The Card Game.

To answer your question(s):

We are ruling that, unless explicitly stated otherwise, cards without a health value cannot have damage healed from them, and can cards without a sanity value cannot have horror healed from them.

When Call for Backup states that it can heal “any card”, that card must be able to be healed. Daisy’s Necronomicon cannot be healed.

Feel free to reach out to us if any more questions arise!

Sincerely,

Alex Werner, FFG Game Rules Specialist

Rules questions and their answers are reviewed by both the Arkham Horror: The Card Game design team and the Game Rules Specialist.

By itself it's not a particularly great or flexible card, an action to play, a test to succeed, resources to pay, for the solo it can be a silver bullet for objective or victory locations, but usually it's more like skill-icon fodder and an early cut for upgrades. it's the deckspace issue that REALLY treats this card harsly.

BUT.

in multiplayer it's a whole other ballgame, the bigger the team the better. Usually in small teams you´ll cheese up the clues on hard locations with clue teck, so Breach the Door is wasted money and card-draw, but when you run into that 4 or 5 shroud location with 3 clues / investigator, even the cluevers are gonna go "uh, I need a minute". Enter: Breach the Door!

As a main fighter in a team, you might often get saddled with a dud turn, best spent regrouping, setting up, taking resources. Breach the Door gives you a neat trick to do to help the team burn down tough spots. A location with 2 clues / investigator and shroud 2 or 3? Turn it into a 0-shroud and watch as all the "flex" character and yourself suddently contribute an easy 8 clues in 9 actions, not bad i'dd say. Otherwise you might take a 4 or 5 shroud and turn it into a 1 or 2 shroud, all of a suddent the cluever does'nt need any setup at all to take care of the whole thing by themselves.

I really hope to see more stuff like this.

The kind of adition that I LOVE seeing added to a cardpool.

it's not a new card per-se but the issue with many XP cards is that they enable a playstyle all by themselves, a playstyle that may not fully exist without them. Chuck Fergus the 4xp version does wonders for an event based deck, but being 4 XP ensures that you cannot truly lean into the archetype until after a lot of upgrading. The 2xp version ensures that you can build the deck in a much more final form for the first scenario, bolstered by the fact that 2 copies of Chuck are no more then 1 scenario away, or even with In the Thick of It you can include the first copy and hope to draw/mulligan from the get-go.

So, a quick look at what Chuck actually does:

4 out of 5 classes have Tactic cards, all but mystic. Many of them are attacks or evades or else do some sort of damage. Multiclass characters can really have a field day with Chuck.

The vast majority of tricks belong to , even if onlyfor these, Chuck can be absolutely worth it.

• Backstab and Sweeping Kick, Sneak Attack and Cunning Distraction, for many of these cards, cards that do damage or evade things, adding to squeeze in more actions or a bonus on the skill test is useful, expanding your window for usefully leveraging the card or increasing the hit chance. For example when youre in heavy combat, squeezing in a fast Sneak Attack at the end might be just what you needed to finish things off efficiently, or else a One-Two Punch to burn down a boss.
• It only takes 2 uses of the cost reduction to fully pay for Chuck's own cost, playing a 3-cost card every turn is sure to bankrupt you immediately, and it makes the big cards like Dynamite Blast and Cunning Distraction much more palateable.
• All the cards in the Breaking and Entering, Cheap Shot and Slip Away suite can really benefit from any one Chuck buff, and as a deck design they scale well with more xp down the line.
• Cycle the deck and draw cards with Easy Mark, if you find just the one and got nothing better to do with Chuck, you get to cycle it like a freebie.

Altogether a great card.

DOSSIER FROM THE COLLECTION OF FEDERAL AGENT ROLAND BANKS AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

Subject Name: Seeker of Carcosa

Nickname: 3 health Wizard with Aloof

Affiliations: Humanoid, Cultist

Threat Level: High

Subject was last seen in the Historical Society conducting research, object unknown. Agents {REDACTED} and {REDACTED} attempted to approach the subject, but were seen and fled from. Agent {REDACTED} then said that the subject, as well as their allies in the building, proceeded to, in her words, "force them to play the world's dumbest game of whack-a-mole," attempting to continue their research while evading the agents. According to Agent {REDACTED}, this game was made more difficult due to the subject's "Aloof keyword forcing them to spend an action engaging them," the way they "loved spawning at least 1 location away," and their "3 health," allowing them to absorb an abnormal amount of force before incapacitation. (Note: Send {REDACTED} over to Carolyn Fern, she seems to have suffered some psychological damage. She described the events in the Society as if it were all some sort of game.)

Suggested Course of Action: However strange Agent {REDACTED}'s terminology, her observations appear to be accurate judging by the corroborating testimony of her partner. Subject must be assumed to have higher-than-average durability, requiring more than small-arms fire to incapacitate. Due to the secretive nature of their research and their confirmed hostility to federal agents, the use of deadly force is authorized. Agents are warned that the subject is evasive, and that a substantial amount of time (Note: In {REDACTED}'s current state, she described the amount of time that was required "On average, 3 actions, one to MOVE, one to ENGAGE, and one to FIGHT." As she never elaborated on how long an "action" is in more conventional units of time, this information is limited in usefulness) might be required in order to find and incapacitate them.

ELIMINATE WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.

This is quite a strong Trish card. In my experience, the hardest thing about Trish is getting enemies into the locations you want them to be. Kicking the Hornet's nest lets you spawn an enemy (ignoring Spawn locations) in any location you are standing in. Not only does this greatly help with Trish's consistency, she even gets resources AND a testless clue for doing it!

For 1 action, you play Kicking Up the Hornet's Nest and find enemy of your choice. I've had it whiff once when there wasn't an enemy in the top 9 cards, but it's far more common to see 2-3 enemies and have a choice of what you want to spawn. You can choose an enemy with Victory Point if you want, but typically I look for enemies that will stay in play a bit. Most of the time you are hoping for a Hunter enemy that you can lead around the map to other locations that have clues on them. Not only do you now get to spawn an enemy at the most ideal location (possibly even your choice of enemy from a few options), you get paid resources and a free clue for this! Now that you've discovered a clue at a location with an enemy, you can trigger Trish's ability to get a second free clue or instantly evade the enemy. For one total action, you either get 2 testless clues plus some resources, or 1 testless clue plus resources and an evaded enemy. No matter which you choose, you are set up for future turns with an enemy at an ideal location. Presto! You just got paid money and a clue to greatly reduce the situational nature of Trish's ability! All of this for one action and a 0 xp, 0 cost event.

Best case use is to use this to spawn a Hunter early, then keep moving on from locations while leaving clues behind. So long as you stay a step ahead of the Hunter, you can use cards like Pocket Telescope, In The Know, or Damning Testimony to safely pick up the clues you left behind (two at a time, with Trish's ability, or evading the hunter if needed). I was surprised how often I could use this rope-a-dope strategy to drag a Hunter across the map, activating Trish's ability reliably multiple turns in a row.

I don't think this card is OP or that Trish is now top tier or anything, but I think this single card is enough to make me seriously reevaluate her reliability. Getting paid (in both resources and testless clues) for doing exactly what Trish wants to be doing is very good. I'm not sure how often other Rogues will want to play this (I can see Tony liking it), but I will probably never play Trish without it again.