Heavy Furs

Heavy Furs

Seems like it would be good in...

Mark Harrigan who gets cards for his cards taking damage

Tommy Muldoon which gives him 2 free rerolls at the cost of an action to play the fur in the first place

Diana Stanley counts as an ignore for her ability. 2 rerolls for net cost of 1 action and 1 resource. Not bad compared to Grotesque Statue which costs 2 exp.

Dexter Drake it's an asset that he can cycle in for only 1r but can only use it once if he wants to replace it with something else.

Minh Thi Phan and Patrice Hathaway might want it to deal with their signature weaknessess.

fates · 54

Nkosi Mabati

Nkosi Mabati

I think this is a trap card even for Jim Culver. The Cultist, Elder Thing and Tablet tokens are usually worse than Skull tokens only by a bit; usually its around 1-2 points harder. Sometimes they even has the same difficulty and only rarely is it more than 1-2 points. I'd rather take a +1 to all skill tests from a different ally (so you can nullify high negative numbered tokens as well).

The benefit Nkosi has is that you can ignore the effects of the other special tokens which sometimes helps. I don't think this small benefit is worth the cost of 3 (6) exp and a very expensive 4 cost in the ally slot. Seems like you'd be better off taking an ally that gives you +1 Willpower or sticking with Arcane Initiate for more consistency and use your exp for something that'll make a bigger difference.

Might have some really exotic use with naming bless/curse tokens but needs a really dedicated build for it.

fates · 54
For Jim a skull is a flat 0, so obviously better than what you give it credit for. On hard/ expert some tokens punish you just for revealing, not just failing. Like "Doom of Etzli", where the elder thing places 1 doom on your location, costing you two rounds during the first agenda. (Though to be fair, I think paying 6 XP from "The Untamed Wilds" for him is really expensive.) Other investigators (Sister Mary) might take him if they go full into Blessing. I agree, that there are better options in most cases, but suppose you could build a deck with him, where his is far from a trap card. If the black cat is on your side, he looks like an auto include. — Susumu · 383
A lot of people take cards that give them +1 to stuff over cards like nkosi and don't consider how valuable his effect being able to trigger on your teammates is. I'd say Nkosi isn't as strong as granny orne but probably not too much weaker. — Zerogrim · 296
I never assume I'm going to draw a 0. Hail married seem like a waste of action and many special tokens are nasty only on fail. — fates · 54
"many special tokens are nasty only on fail." — DjMiniboss · 44
That statement is less true on Hard and Expert, as Susumu pointed out above. I also think that this makes testing at +2 or 1 more viable, which is nice. — DjMiniboss · 44

Farsight

Farsight

With Occult Lexicon 3 and DES, this card sees renewed use and is honestly overpowered with that. Essentially, every turn you now have a free fast Blood Rite. This is a fast action, three cards and three damage or three resources.

It basically turns Blood Rite into a cryptic research that does damage or generates resources. Basically, a Seeker staple now.

drjones87 · 206
Not everyone knows every acronym, so if you're referring to Dream-Enhancing Serum, it's best to just write that. — snacc · 1025
Or use a link to the card page. That aside, I'm not sure how you are hitting this every turn, as you will quickly flip your deck and reset it. Or if you are doing the shuffle back in option, it isn't doing 3 damage or 3 resources. — Death by Chocolate · 1490

The Black Book

The Black Book

Since nobody's said it yet, I'll be the first to say it:

Peter. Sylvestre.

The Big Man on Campus is now an economy card, netting you an entire resource every turn, that you play a card. Not to mention, the 2 (one from Peter(2), one from TBB) can make anyone resilient to treacheries.

I'm currently playing this combo in an Advanced Wendy deck, and it makes it extraordinarily easy to afford her constant slew of events. Now I just need to find a way to cash in on her whopping 6

cheezzywizz · 34

.25 Automatic

.25 Automatic

My problem with this weapon is no investigator makes great use of it because all rogues have low strength. 3 strength +2 only gets you to 5 (Wini, Skids, Jenny, Finn). That's not enough to hit anything above normal difficulty.

Even with +1 from something else you're really going to struggle with a mid level enemy still. Wasting those bullets is going to really hurt because while this is fast, it's still pretty expensive at 4.

I guess at best its used to hit a low strength, low threat enemy as a secondary fighter but then why would you evade it first (to make use of the free shot reaction ability)?

Tony doesn't need this either of course with his poor evade.

fates · 54
It's true that it's hard to use 25 automatic without any supporting card. Nevertheless, many supporting cards exist: Sharpshooter, commiting lots of cards (wini?), Well Connected with big money deck, Hard Knocks. — elkeinkrad · 504
Rogue as a class is all about finding ways to utilize their great payoffs on their cards despite their low consistency. This generally means either cycling skill commits fueled by lucky cig case or pump assets using their absurd economy. Rogues aren't like guardians or mystics where they expect to passively pass combat tests by using weapons with giant modifiers, they require more finesse! — dezzmont · 222
5 is pretty good, you know. Most Guardians with Machete only fight at 5. It's unfair to discount this weapon on the grounds that it "only" reaches 5 - there are plenty of ways to boost this further. Delilah O'Rourke exists and perfectly synergizes with this style of evade+fight Rogue. You can commit skills and then benefit from the oversuccess with your LCC. You can leverage the Rogue resource economy to pay for boosts. And even if the attack does whiff, it was a free action from an evasion you were probably going to do regardless. Being able to shoot without spending an action after evading is great action economy if you wanted to evade anyway for Delilah, Pickpocketing (2), etc. It's a solid Finn card if you want to build him in a more fighty or flex role; Lockpicks in one hand and .25 in the other with Delilah O'Rourke as backup. — Soul_Turtle · 506
Beside Finn Trishs ability can also trigger the reaction if you choose to evade an enemy. This also works with breaking and entering. And with this weapon the skill hatchet man becomes a rouges vicious blow. And in the end even payday gives you an additional resource. — Tharzax · 1
I don't think Pay Day gives an additional resource for this. It's just performing the Fight ability, but not spending an action to do so. — snacc · 1025
I would say it triggers because of the bolt action designator fight. According to the rulebook you perform a modified fight action. — Tharzax · 1
@Tharzax Pay day explicitly states "for each action you have performed this turn". 25 Automatic says "perform the above Fight ability without spending an action". Seems pretty clear to me. — snacc · 1025
Look up the card page for Eon Chart, because it has some good discussions on this topic. Fundamentally Actions are different to Abilities, although they are often and easily confused. — snacc · 1025
Better look in the discussions of shortcut and it's upgrade for the interaction with frozen in fear. And yes spending actions is not the same as taking them, but for me the ability tell me to perform a modified fight action. — Tharzax · 1
There is no mention of Frozen in Fear in either of the Shortcut pages, so I'm really not sure what you're referring to. — snacc · 1025
The ability does not tell you to "perform a modified fight action". It literally says right there on the card "perform the above fight *ability* without spending an action". Ultimately it's your game and you can play it as incorrectly as you want to. — snacc · 1025
Just look into the rule referencebook for the description of bolt action designators: https://arkhamdb.com/rules#Action_Designators — Tharzax · 1
@Soul_Turtle. 5 is an awful attack stat on hard+expert. Most worthwhile enemies have 3-5 strength. So you're at best 2 over. You'll get screwed over by the extremely common -3, -4, -5 tokens and probably get with a failure penalty on special tokens. You can't compare it to Machete which has unlimited uses and costs less resources. If the attack misses, you waste 1 ammo/resource. Guardians also frequently boost their strength, but Rogues don't often. You can commit more to a test or factor in some synergy but thats just more resources to make a mediocre card slightly better and you could say that about any card. You could instead take a great card and make it even better in that case. — fates · 54
@Tharzax A discussion here includes a quote directly from the game designer, MJ Newman: https://ffg-forum-archive.entropicdreams.com/topic/301629-what-counts-as-a-performed-action-and-what-doesnt/ — snacc · 1025
@Tharzax "... activating an ability with an action designator 'performs the designated action as described in the rules, but modified in the manner described by the ability.' In this case, the modification is the fact that it is no longer an action , but is a free triggered ability ...". This is MJ Newman's direct response to this question. If you do not spend an action, then it is not considered an action. Therefore no synergy with Pay Day or Haste etc. I hope that clears things up for you. — snacc · 1025