Fun card that requires a little help.

Segment of Onyx is fun and powerful, but not without the right tech. You need drawpower to find it, or tutors, and you need deckspace. It's actually quite costly at 3 resources to "complete".

For a full on this card will probably pull it's weight, Preposterous Sketches, Cryptic Research, Mr. "Rook" and Glimpse the Unthinkable make actually finding the things relatively easy, Feed the Mind will find it in a jiffy! For a full-seeker there is one problem though, 3 slots might be very hard to come by! Segment of Onyx competes HARD with the classic "research" cards, Strange Solution and Archaic Glyphs, if it's not pushing those out then it's competing with powerful mechanics like "I've got a plan!", Pathfinder or Connect the Dots. Don't forget that Segment of Onyx also needs support to find them with.

For a non the prerequisite for card support is harder, there are no Glimpse the Unthinkable, Cryptic Research for them and Mr. "Rook" charges might very well be better spent on other things (finding weapons, useful skill cards in the moment). If you get Segment of Onyx then you should probably also be getting Preposterous Sketches ASAP. Feeling like you HAVE to tutor fragments can actually get in your way and until you complete the damn thing the early shards will feel like duds.

I dont think I really need to talk about how powerful this thing is when you complete it, crazy movement efficiency, evasion and unstoppable clue gathering make it rather awesome, Pendant of the Queen is perhaps one of the single strongest items in the game. It's particularly interesting to multi-role characters like Roland Banks and Joe Diamond since they can make full use of every facet of the card, it's also rather attractive for Daisy Walker who can assemble it with Old Book of Lore and she can use Recharge and Enraptured to get extra uses from it. Minh Thi Phan will be a natural fit, she runs through a deck at rapid speed and the flexible uses are of particular interest to her.

After trying out this card with Diana Stanley and Daisy Walker, I have to say I 've had mixed experiences with it.

David Renfield is a swingy card from which you 'll get mixed mileage depending entirely on the scenario layout. While the resource generation, the Willpower boost and the damage soak make David Renfield valuable, you can't always guarrantee you 'll get as much profit out of him as you 'd wish. There are those cases where David Renfield shines, giving you a constant Willpower boost for several turns, while making you rich in the process, but there are also those cases where he 's sitting idle in your hand, waiting for an opportune moment to be played and be exploited, possibly leaving you at an awkward spot or a bad situation. Your mileage with Renfield also depends on how many doom-removing cards you have in your deck. Both times, I had 4; 2 Moonlight Rituals and 2 Calling in Favors. Both times, all of these 4 cards were useful in some way, but they didn't necessarily make David Renfield better. They certainly allowed me to use Renfield more often, but I didn't always get the value I wanted. There were those times that the benefit I was getting was a +1 Willpower boost for a couple of turns and a net-gain of 2-3 resources using 2-3 actions. That's not great value at all. Sometimes I also misinterpreted the situation, which inevitably lead to misplays, making David Renfield even worse. But the worst mistake I did the second time I used him was that I depended almost entirely for my economy on him. And guess what? I was in trouble. Even with 4 cards to remove doom, David Renfield still didn't cut it to guarrantee utility. There were scenarios where my economy was rolling fantastic, but there were also others that I couldn't get as much resources as I needed, thereby severely hindering my ability to be effective. I warn you: Don't make that mistake! But, overall, it was a good experience, mostly finding out Renfield's capabilities and how much you can push your limits.

So, after using David Renfield in 2 campaigns, I have acquired enough experience to point out some tips you can use:

• Never use Renfield unless you have a way to remove doom from him! Probably obvious, but worth pointing out. It's too dangerous.

• You can use Renfield's ability in 2 different ways: Either you stack doom to profit from his moneymaking ability in order to become a hell-of-a-rich guy over the course of a few turns, or keep the doom count on 1 for the constant Willpower boost. Depends on what you need most at a given time and how much the current agenda allows you to go crazy with doom. I was usually abusing the money-making ability, but going the other way is also useful if you don't need as much cash.

• Try to have a lot of doom-clearing cards in your deck. A good Renfield-using deck should have at least 4. The doom-removing cards that exist up until this time are Moonlight Ritual, Calling in Favors and Sacrifice. Having a lot of those gives you options. Besides, if you run Moonlight Ritual, you would also probably go for Blood Pact, so there's kind of some competition for doom-clearing targets. Calling in Favors is usually better than Sacrifice if you also run other allies in your deck, especially if they like to be recalled (like Beat Cop and Mr. "Rook").

• Be aware of scenario cards and mechanics that interact with doom. Cards like Ancient Evils or a badly-timed Mysterious Chanting can ruin your day. Be prepared to face them and run cards that can deal with them, like Ward of Protection.

• Removing doom from Renfield costs an action. You should bear that in mind if you 're playing with fire. If, for example a strong enemy spawns at your location during the turn you were planning to remove the doom and you need all 3 actions to deal with it, you will be in trouble. That is why it may be good to pack some actionless way to remove doom from David Renfield like Forbidden Knowledge.

I would also like to point out a few investigators who can make good use of David Renfield:

• Marie Lambeau is probably no 1 candidate to use Renfield due to her ability. In my opinion, David Renfield is the best card that uses the doom element she can use, probably even better than Blood Pact. Even though Blood Pact is a permanent, it's not as solid as using Renfield for her, as she needs to first find a target for it, while David Renfield gives her solid access to her special ability so that she can start using it whenever she wants.

• Mutated Dr. Christopher also makes Renfield a good candidate for Daisy Walker as an alternative way to make resources, especially if she wants to use spells from the faction. The constant Willpower boost from him along with other boosters like Holy Rosary or St. Hubert's Key will make her a decent fighter and she can use Arcane Studies or Higher Education to help her land those hits.

• Diana Stanley can use the extra Willpower boost and the resources gained from Renfield, especially early game. In my experience, she's been a rather resource-hungry investigator and she wants an alternative way to generate resources until she upgrades to "I've had worse…" (2).

• I can also see this card in a spell-heavy Jim Culver/Father Mateo build. Spells are expensive in the first place and none of these investigators is known for their expceptional Willpower. Father Mateo also has the additional benefit of being able to toy with doom in more interesting ways.

• As pointed out by another reviewer, this card makes for an interesting case in "Ashcan" Pete. He can use his ability to trigger Renfield twice a round, possibly being able to make huge piles of resources. The main issue here is whether he needs that Willpower boost and somewhere to put all those resources into, but I can see a spell-oriented deck for him with Renfield + Peter Sylvestre (2) for the Willpower boosts plus Shrivellings/Withers/Sixth Senses/Rite of Seekings and Pluckys to put all those resources into, protected by Peter Sylvestre's infinite horror soak. It 's somewhat janky, but someone might make it work. Also note that the upcoming Versitile card will allow him to take 1 additional Mystic card, possibly giving more (?) consistency to this build. Just saying...

In the end, I think David Renfield is a good card. He 's generally good for investigators who need the Willpower boost and can use the extra resources. His value varies from scenario to scenario, but in the end, you will (almost) always find some room to make some value out of him. He 's probably not as good to investigators with innately high Willpower (Agnes and Akachi) and whoever is running him has to bear in mind that he can not fully rely on Renfield for the hard stuff.

I'm thinking Tony Morgan should strongly consider this card as an early upgrade. First off, he's already motivated to fight enemies with Bounties on them with an upgraded .41 Derringer. With his native 5 you can already see that, just by doing what Tony already wants to do, you can easily achieve 5+ action turns. Then you factor in all the ways you'd normally try to get big action turns with Rogues: Leo De Luca, Ace in the Hole, Borrowed Time, an easily activated Quick Thinking on, say, a Derringer Fight test, and maybe couple that with Double or Nothing if you're feeling extra cheeky.

Also I think this was overlooked in the other review, but I think it's interesting that Borrowed Time lets you defer actions by spending actions. This means technically if you have 3 charges on Borrowed Time, you can continually defer those actions all game and you'd technically be taking 6 action turns. This means that, if you choose to defer those actions over and over again, you can play Pay Day for 6 resources whenever it comes up. Not bad.

Now it's unrealistic to say you'd be able to achieve the maximum number of potential actions in one turn because it's so heavily dependent on oversuccess and having the right cards all at once, but just for fun let's see what's possible. Start with your default 3. You gain +1 from doing at least one Bounty Fight and +1 from Leo. Use Quick Thinking and Double or Nothing on a Derringer test (without Taboo you could commit 2 Quick Thinking) to net +4 actions (or +6 without Taboo). Gain +3 from Borrowed Time and another +3 from Ace in the Hole. You're looking at 15 or 17 actions depending on Taboo. Will you ever get that many? Probably not, but you can easily get 5 or so between Tony's ability and Leo, and 6 or 7 won't be hard to pull off thanks to Quick Thinking and Derringer. If you have the Borrowed Time loop happening, you can bump all those numbers up by 3 easily.

Spoilers for Miskatonic Museum abound, but you probably knew that already!

I've been considering the two different helpers in Miskatonic (Adam Lynch) being the other) as I consider an optimal playthrough type run.

I think that Adam is pretty much inferior across the board, with a couple caveats:

1. If you're trying to get through the scenario as fast as possible.
2. If your primary clue gathering mechanic is not based on investigating using .

In either of those cases, Adam will be marginally more useful - he'll allow you to skip over most of the exhibit halls other than doing the bare minimum to get clues, saving you 1 per (using the Security Office as a single rather than , or as compared to just sending your clue-sweeper in to each Exhibit Hall, with the possible consequences of revealing them.

Here's my thoughts:

Both Allies have the same 1/1 statline and the same "Oops, I let an innocent die, take a bad token" penalty. So you're looking at the bonuses they give.

Harold Walsted is a +2 investigate in all Miskatonic locations (which is going to be every location in the scenario). Whoever you're playing, a +2 investigate boost is going to be useful. For Rex Murphy you're significantly more likely to double up on clues. For anyone else, the ability to forgo throwing cards or resources or actions at your investigate checks (The majority of the locations are Shroud 2 or 3, so a +2 on top of the 4 or 5 you're bringing puts you easily at +2 or +3 for your tests), especially in a scenario like MM, that is often timed by the number of cards remaining before you take 10 damage, is huge! And for most seasoned players, clearing clues off all the locations is going to be key, because that's where the sweet XP lives!

On top of that, Harold comes from the Breaking and Entering side of the Act, rather than the Night at the Museum side. For investigators that are trying to maximize clue gathering, breaking down the door is going to be the method of choice anyway, to keep those 2 starting clues for immediate use in the Museum Halls.

The Security Office has two possible options - to search your deck and draw or to look at Exhibit Halls. If you're clearing all the halls, knowing which is which is helpful, but not worth the actions it would take. So if you get the right Security Office, Adam lets you spend 1 less action to search and draw. Which, to be clear, is pretty neat! But he costs you two clues, which are the key resource to discovering what's going on! So 50% of the time he'll save you 1-3 actions, depending on what you're digging for in your deck.

Harold, on the other hand, is going to trigger repeatedly during the game, since you're looking to clear 5-6 clues to open all the halls, and then clear out the Exhibit Hall

The only real upside Adam has is that's the most trope-y of individuals, being the completely new security guard at the haunted museum who is definitely going to get eaten by the monstrous horror at some point in time!

Spoilers for Miskatonic Museum abound, but you probably knew that already!

I've been considering the two different helpers in Miskatonic (Harold Walsted being the other) as I consider an optimal playthrough type run.

I think that Adam is pretty much inferior across the board, with a couple caveats:

1. If you're trying to get through the scenario as fast as possible.
2. If your primary clue gathering mechanic is not based on investigating using .

In either of those cases, Adam will be marginally more useful - he'll allow you to skip over most of the exhibit halls other than doing the bare minimum to get clues, saving you 1 per (using the Security Office as a single rather than , or as compared to just sending your clue-sweeper in to each Exhibit Hall, with the possible consequences of revealing them.

Here's my thoughts:

Both Allies have the same 1/1 statline and the same "Oops, I let an innocent die, take a bad token" penalty. So you're looking at the bonuses they give.

Harold Walsted is a +2 investigate in all Miskatonic locations (which is going to be every location in the scenario). Whoever you're playing, a +2 investigate boost is going to be useful. For Rex Murphy you're significantly more likely to double up on clues. For anyone else, the ability to forgo throwing cards or resources or actions at your investigate checks (The majority of the locations are Shroud 2 or 3, so a +2 on top of the 4 or 5 you're bringing puts you easily at +2 or +3 for your tests), especially in a scenario like MM, that is often timed by the number of cards remaining before you take 10 damage, is huge! And for most seasoned players, clearing clues off all the locations is going to be key, because that's where the sweet XP lives!

On top of that, Harold comes from the Breaking and Entering side of the Act, rather than the Night at the Museum side. For investigators that are trying to maximize clue gathering, breaking down the door is going to be the method of choice anyway, to keep those 2 starting clues for immediate use in the Museum Halls.

The Security Office has two possible options - to search your deck and draw or to look at Exhibit Halls. If you're clearing all the halls, knowing which is which is helpful, but not worth the actions it would take. So if you get the right Security Office, Adam lets you spend 1 less action to search and draw. Which, to be clear, is pretty neat! But he costs you two clues, which are the key resource to discovering what's going on! So 50% of the time he'll save you 1-3 actions, depending on what you're digging for in your deck.

Harold, on the other hand, is going to trigger repeatedly during the game, since you're looking to clear 5-6 clues to open all the halls, and then clear out the Exhibit Hall

The only real upside Adam has is that's the most trope-y of individuals, being the completely new security guard at the haunted museum who is definitely going to get eaten by the monstrous horror at some point in time!