Tommy Malloy

If we consider a weakness' strength based on how many actions it takes to get rid of, Tommy Malloy is pretty harsh. His ability basically requires your team to spend three actions, minimum, to off him, which is more than most weaknesses.

There's also very few ways to mitigate the action sink, especially at level 0: you can use one-two punch to get 2 damage in one action, but you just played an event that normally does 4 damage for 2. The other option is Beat Cop, who you'd rather keep around as long as possible. Combine both and you can do it in one action, but you just spent six resources, static +1 combat, some soak and your most damaging event to remove a weakness. I'd rather just blow a whole turn taking basic fight actions, since Tommy's crummy fight stat makes him easy to hit.

In multiplayer someone could evade him, but solo that's really not an option. Even then, someone has to deal with him eventually, eating up your team's actions.

In short, he's really annoying, and will probably take three or more actions to get rid of. At least you can play Glory when you kill him.

SGPrometheus · 821
Or bring some Handcuffs so you can deal with him in 2 actions (and not shuffle him back in when you draw through your deck. Then drag him around for Scene of the Crime or Interrogate. Or better yet, hand the cuffed thug to the newly spoiled Trish. — Death by Chocolate · 1485
We’ve been waiting a long time to finally get a Guardian with a humanoid weakness enemy, so don’t complain too much! :) — Death by Chocolate · 1485
May be a few actions but you also get a draw, with upgraded boxing gloves that nine cards you get to look through. So he pays off more the further you go in a campaign with him. And if you have Trish... — MrGoldbee · 1471
It’s a bit dubious to say he helps Nathaniel by being an enemy. Presumably, as Nathan, you would have killed a different enemy that turn to activate gloves. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
You can use him to put tokens on Relentless, if that floats your boat. There are a ton of weaknesses that take 2 actions to clear; three actions is annoying, but it doesn't hold Nathaniel back that much, plus you can use cards (One-Two Punch as noted above or maybe Counterpunch) or other resources (Beat Cop). Malloy is certainly not in the ranks of the worst weaknesses. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1067
I thought relentless only got tokens from extra damage you deal? How does that work? Aside from that, it's true he's not in the stable of weaknesses that will flat-out kill your investigator, like Cover Up, but he's still damn annoying. Another interesting tidbit is that his prey is only Nathaniel, so he actually won't bother other investigators if they're around. — SGPrometheus · 821
I think the Handcuffs suggestion is the best one. Handcuffs are good anyway, but they’re much easier to take when you can lock your weakness out of your deck using them. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
Got this one popping up on a gondola in the middle of the Venice lagoon, while rowing for our lives, chased by an ancient one... those personal enemies really are committed. — minosrd · 1
Lucky!

AquaDrehz is right that this third version and Parallel Skids's spicy Deckbuilding Options allows you to bring 6 copies of Lucky! (2x each of level 0, 2, and 3) for 10xp. But why stop there?

19 Clove Gar-luck Chicken:

Let's take a closer look at his Additional Options. "When you upgrade a Fortune or Gambit card, you may instead pay the full experience cost on the higher level version and leave the lower level version in your deck (it does not count towards your deck size or the number of copies of that card in your deck)."

So, we start off with a couple of Lucky! (0), and we spend 2xp to upgrade one to Lucky! (2) and leave a special Lucky! (0*) that doesn't count towards size or copies. Now we pay 3xp and upgrade again to Lucky! (3) and leave a second special Lucky! (2*) in our deck. Awesome. Here's where things take a turn. We spend 1xp to buy a NEW Lucky! (0), replacing Lucky! (3). We have to replace it since we can't fit three honest Lucky!'s in our deck.

Now, hold up - buying a level 0 to replace a higher level version of itself, can we do that? Yup. It's already fairly standard practice if you want to change what Strange Solution you got (refer to its FAQ entry) after you got greedy and careless.

So we're currently at 2x Lucky! (0), 1x Lucky! (0*) and 1x Lucky! (2*). Special upgrade it two more times and you have 1x Lucky! (0), 2x Lucky! (0*), 2x Lucky! (2*), and 1x Lucky! (3), for a total of 11xp. Ever 6xp past this adds another Lucky! (0*) and Lucky! (2*). The sky is the limit in campaign mode, so lets use the Standalone Deckbuilding XP cap of 49. Spending 6xp at a time six more times, leaves us with 2 left over, which we can use to special upgrade that other level 0 that's been patiently sitting there. Final tally at 49xp:

For a grand total of 19 Lucky!'s of various levels. 17 of which don't count towards your deck size or card limit. Worth it? Probably not. Tasty? Definitely.

Lucky Number 13:

Realistically though, you probably don't want that many copies of Lucky! (0) in your deck unless you have enough other draw because it doesn't cycle, so maybe just stick to the stronger versions. We start with 2x Lucky! (0) (because why not?) and special upgrade them up to level 2 and then 3, but this time we purchase new level 2's to replace the 3's and do an abridged loop costing 5xp per loop.

Much less chaff, an extra level 3, and 4 xp left over to maybe buy yourself something nice.

(You could also pull this trick to get 10 copies of Hot Streak or 19 copies of any other Fortune/Gambit with level 0/2 versions. "Look what I found!", A Chance Encounter, Daredevil, Dumb Luck, Oops!, or Daring Maneuver. Daredevil deserves special mention because you can use it to get +19 on any skill test and turn your deck into a pile of 6 weaknesses!)

If that's not enough, you can get Double, Double one of them 1/turn — Zinjanthropus · 229
You can't Double, Double when using Parallel Skids's back (Rogue level 0-3 only) and Double, Double is level 4 — arkhamproxy · 1
Nevermind, apparently the Parallel back displayed on arkhamdb is different than the Parallel back on the downloaded card from FFG — arkhamproxy · 1
Could you not also just skip/replace the first level (0) Lucky and thus only run with 9x level (2*) and 2 regular level (3)? — legobil · 4
Nihilism

Note that unlike many abilities that are resolve when you reveal certain tokens during skill tests, Nihilism's Forced ability, as far as I understand it, occurs even if you reveal, cancel, or ignore tokens outside of skill tests.

This means that Nihilism's Forced ability would also occur when you reveal, cancel, or ignore 's during play of cards like Hypnotic Gaze, Voice of Ra, and also during certain location/agenda/treachery effects that don't involve tests (example: Clover Club Cardroom).

iceysnowman · 164
Spot on my friend. — LaRoix · 1645
It should also be noted that Nihilism has another line of text not shown here: "[action][action]: Discard Nihilism." So while it's still annoying, it is possible to get rid of it. — SGPrometheus · 821
Although, losing 2/3 of a turn can be brutal, especially playing Solo. At least you can control it to some degree. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1067
I tend to always ignore it. Granted, if you are playing Jacqueline Fine or any deck utilizing Olive McBride it might be hard to do that. — AlderSign · 309
Dumb Luck

The Level-0 version of this card fills a weird, uncomfortable space, because, unlike its siblings Oops! and "Look what I found!", not every investigator wants to Evade. You either lean into it (like, say, Rita) or you just don't bother (most Guardians, but Leo for sure), and, while the last few cycles have made Evade a much more attractive option than in Core Set days, it's a "sometimes snack" for most investigators, so jankery around failing isn't so attractive. Besides, the effect, a one turn escape, was really situational, especially in Solo.

But... this card. The "fail within 3" makes it suddenly much more attractive as a clutch card for eligible low investigators. Outside of Patrice, who can't hold onto it for the perfect time, any other Survivor might want it for that annoying enemy which is hard to either Evade or Kill (I am looking at you, Conglomeration of Spheres. Moving the Enemy to the bottom of the Encounter Deck is a huge upgrade, since you are likely to avoid the Enemy for the rest of the scenario (although shuffling the Encounter Discard Pile into the Encounter Deck reduces the effectiveness a bit, and seems a bit more common in recent scenarios).

Outside of Survivor, who might like this? Agnes has better options for XP, while Tommy probably wants to hit (or get hit) rather than Evade, and I'm not sure Preston can land this often enough to be worth the XP. I think Minh might like it as a safety card, although she has a lot of other options.

I feel like most enemies are 2 or 3 agility, so I think Preston could get the L2 to trigger pretty reliably. You can't go less than zero after all. I suppose he could also take Stealth to combo with it (like you can do with Flashlight and LWIF). Not sure what kind of janky Preston deck that would be, but it is an option. — Zinjanthropus · 229
Yeah, it's possible, but are those enemies that Presnton wants to desperately see stuck back in the Encounter Deck as opposed to just killing? Maybe if he was getting mobbed by enemies? — LivefromBenefitSt · 1067
An enemy at the bottom of the encounter deck is nearly as good as an enemy in the discard pile, and just as good if the encounter discard pile was getting shuffled back in before the deck would be drawn through anyway. — Yenreb · 15
I'd strongly consider this for Minh in TFA. Pit Vipers can wreck her campaign, and have an evade of 3--right in the sweet spot for this card--and there's bound to be a time when she's separated from the Guardian for a little while. And if she doesn't need to play it, in Minh's hands it's 3 agility or 2 will pips committed against a treachery. — Pinchers · 130
In the meanwhile Patrice CAN hold on to it via Katja Eastbank, making this card a solid counter against the Watcher from Another Dimension. — AlderSign · 309
Caught Red-Handed

I love how this card interacts with one of Finn Edwards best assets: Pickpocketing. You evaded an enemy and now you get a draw? Yaaay! Oh no, you got Caught Red-Handed. Not only do you lose the draw, your evade was wasted too. And since 90% there won't be another enemy near, Caught Red-Handed gets shuffled back into the deck. Awch!

Of course, the more people you play with, the more chance there is that there will be a hunter enemy at a connecting location. But even though I play most my games with 3, I've found that hunter enemies appear at connecting locations quite infrequently (since you want to kill those ASAP). And then you need to draw Caught Red-Handed at that exact moment to get rid of it.

I like (and hate) this weakness because it really makes you think whether it's truly worth risking that draw from Pickpocketing, especially if multiple enemies are exhausted. An easy way to get rid of this weakness is good old Mr. "Rook", being able to move away from the hunter enemy and exactly time drawing your weakness. However, it does take one of Finn's valuable Seeker/Survivor slots, and competes as an ally slot with the very important Peter Sylvestre (as Finn takes more horror than most with his low Willpower).

Nenananas · 258
For me Mr Rook is disposable, i wouldn't count him as occupying your ally slot. At the latest when his secrets are used i either replace him or i assign the final damage/ horror. — Django · 5108
Because Caught Red Handed actually moves an enemy toward you it can actually save you an action to move and/or engage an enemy if you're intentionally drawing it with Rook — Zinjanthropus · 229
It's a pretty gentle weakness as these things go, I think. If you draw in it in upkeep it doesn't do anything by definition because the enemies have just readied, and even if you draw it in your turn it typically wastes an action at most. It's only really dangerous in situations where there are more enemies at your location than you can safely re-evade or there's a hunter boss you're trying to do something clever with. And even in those situations it maybe just means you get attacked by an enemy or two. There are much worse worst-case-scenario results from signature weaknesses , lol. Even Tony's Quarry, which I think is also pretty tame, can cost you a whole round's worth time, if you draw it in the upkeep where the agenda is And it can even be helpful from time to time. If you've evaded a hunter enemy and moved away, (Vengeance enemies in TFA , for instance) it can attract it to you so you can evade it again w/o doubling back or getting attacked. And it's always funny when the hunter enemy it attracts is another weakness enemy with Prey : Someone else only and it can't do anything to Finn xD — bee123 · 31
I agree with your review. I have intentionally decided not to trigger Pickpocketing at times because I could not risk drawing this weakness (and didn't have time to do additional evades during my turn). — iceysnowman · 164