Card Reviews · ArkhamDB

Holy Spear

With the release of Cyclopean Hammer this has lost a lot of appeal. Most bless oriented guardians have a high willpower and Hammer can be augmented quite reliably with reliable, which nets might plus will plus 2 (4 with two copies), has infinite uses and doesn't eat up bless tokens.

The bless generation from this thing is also quite paltry to the many other options often available to bless generators (Keep Faith recursion with resourceful, spirit of humaniry).

As a result, this weapon has gone the way of lightning gun and is firmly obsolete.

2/17/22

drjones87 · 203

I agree that the hammer is powerful, but I think this really only supports bless builds specifically. If you're running little to no bless tech, I would stick to the hammer — Therealestize · 76 2/19/22

+4 that is actually a +4 is pretty nice when the +will power is actually +willpower-3, the fact guardians have a lot of ways to boost willpower does seem to be the issue, but I'd take holy spear over hammer if my willpower was only going to be 3 anyway. (obviously IN a bless build, don't take spear if you don't have blessing raining down from on high.) — Zerogrim · 295 2/20/22

Moonstone

Having made the Ursula Relic deck, I think you either cheat this into play with Dr. Elli Horowitz, or you use Occult Invocation to discard it and get it into play that way. Which really both seem better from previous reviews of this card.

Seekers op btw :D

2/16/22

fiatluxia · 68

Do you think it's worth the effort when you have access to Tooth of Eztli ? If you use the Ornate bow as your main weapon ? But in this case, it uses both your hands if Dr. Elli Horowitz is holding the Moonstone. — AlexP · 287 2/17/22

The Tooth only helps in case of treacheries, I would consider Moonstone as an actual upgrade, especially to cheat it into play as described. — fiatluxia · 68 2/18/22

Back into the Depths

This is probably the most annoying error to date, they printed and had to errata. We have played the scenario more than 3 months ago, not aware of the bug, and it still bothers me a lot. So I thought, it might be a good idea, to give people extra attention to this errata.

It was our second run of Innsmouth and first ever campaign on hard, and up until then, we aced it, unlocked all the Flashbacks I to XIII. As a result, we got all 4 required keys to advance during setup, and because everybody starts at Gateway to Y'ha-nthlei and there is no "may" printed on the card, we had to immediately advance and started the game in Act 2. But by doing so, we didn't have the opportunity to grab some additional keys, we would have needed to unlock:

Flashback XIV in the game
an alternative, optional objective to fulfill
Flashback XV in the Epilogue

We had achieved the second bullet point on our Innsmouth blind run, and found it a rather easy campaign final on standard, but playing the scenario without the optional objective was a completely anticlimactic and lame affair, and loosing out on the Flashbacks double stings.

2/16/22

Susumu · 382

Considering that's based on an obscure and unintuitive ruling and they immediately errata'd it, I'd say the fact that, in the same level, Dagon and Hydra have useless actions printed on them is a much more annoying error. — SSW · 217 2/16/22

Why ist the action useless? There might be doom placed on them. — PowLee · 15 2/16/22

I also don't get, what you mean, SSW. How is the action on them an error? If you want to stay on the location, it is better to try to evade them that way. Of course, you need a character to likely pass the willpower (4) test, but it is a legit action. The forced advance on the other hand is an annoying bug. Yeah, they errata'd it. But we don't doublecheck every card during play, if there might be a missprint. At that moment, we were not aware, that this would cost us Flashback XIV and the rest. We were playing it for the second time, and the first was more than half a year earlier. It was a critical mistake, we now know. But it is likely to not notice it during play. — Susumu · 382 2/16/22

Dagon and Hydra untap then check to see if they are untapped.... — Zerogrim · 295 2/16/22

Gotcha! I indeed missed the "At the end of the round". Yeah, you could still remove the doom placed in the previouse round. But obviously, exhausting them is pointless. — Susumu · 382 2/16/22

I think the important part about the action would be to remove the doom, not to exhaust the ancient one. So I wouldn't call it pointless at all. I guess the default is supposed to be that you place doom on them while you're in their lair. Given that there are edge cases where you can exhaust them during upkeep after they readied, I still think that checking whether they are ready at the end of the round still makes sense.nk it's still appropriate that the game checks whether the ancient one is ready or not for the case that you trigger an edge case where you exhaust them during upkeep. Example for such an obscure edge case: Draw Overzealous, get an encounter card with a skill test, commit quick thinking, succeed by 2, use the extra action to evade them. — PowLee · 15 2/17/22

Lockpicks

I have found a "sour spot" (the opposite of sweet spot) while using this powerful card. It is on investigator with 3 (Skids), with no other gentle boosts available in the deck, and having to work on 2 shroud location with something like 3 clues. Basic investigation with 3 struggles against 2 shroud especially you want to repeatedly succeed, and also using Lockpicks is slow to drain the location since it exhausts. It is like you are given a bazooka but was tasked to kill some birds.

You will have to intentionally find a more difficult location with 1 to make the best use of your action. And therefore replacing starting 2x Flashlight into 2x Lockpicks may not always be a good idea, regarding of flexibility even in Normal difficulty.

2/16/22

5argon · 11337

I think, Lockpicks has two applications. In solo, one clue per round is a good rate. You have to spend actions to move around anyway, so the exhaustion does matter less. In multiplayer, I agree the clueing potential is rather slow. But you get value out of an action per round, where you over succeed by a lot to dig out cards with LCC (3) and potentially trigger other effects. — Susumu · 382 2/16/22

Stunning Blow

For solo Rita Young this is almost an auto-include. Keeping a hand free for a simple Flashlight or Old Keyring means that taking an Ornate Bow or my fave the Old Hunting Rifle is less practical. Better to one-hand a Meat Cleaver or Fire Extinguisher and run a clue helper in the other hand. So Stunning Blow becomes a super-useful tool to add damage and evade, then recur with Resourceful.

2/15/22

Krysmopompas · 366