It felt like the community went pretty bonkers over this card when it came out. I've been using it most of the way through Carcosa so here's my thoughts.

It costs a lot of XP and a lot of money, and you'll maybe want two copies to make sure you get actually it at a useful time. You might feel it needs even more support too in the way of cards to add more secrets on to it, so that's even more slots/resources/xp ploughed into it. This adds up to a lot so it better be pretty damn good.

Basically, it's not been as good as I hoped.

Maybe it's the investigator party mix that's the issue, but I'm Daisy Walker which seems like the intended user. Maybe it's that running it in Carcosa isn't so good. Maybe running it with only two investigators is the problem due to not always being at the same place as another investigator. Who knows?

What tends to happen is that first it requires a lot of saving up if I don't have Dr. Milan Christopher out, which is already annoying. Then I get it on the table and then it sits there waiting for a good opportunity that only seldom comes. The reaction to encounters seems great, but then there's lots of reason it's not useful:

• you pull an enemy. It can't help with that
• you need to test a stat that is too low and you can't boost so it will fail anyway e.g. agility
• there's no skill test involved in the encounter
• you're not at the same location as your team mate so can't help them out
• your team mates encounter is a Peril
• the downside of the encounter is relatively harmless so there's no point wasting it e.g. adding some doom to an agenda that will advance next turn anyway or something

The secrets can sit on the card unused for a while. I find similar things can happen with cards like Ward of Protection and Forewarned which I have also been using, where using the card is just as bad as the potential penalty from the encounter, or it's an enemy so you can't use it - these cards are great and powerful but sometimes can wait a long time for the right opportunity. Pnakotic Manuscripts has been falling into the same category for me.

The other ability this card has does have it uses and has been used to good effect, but the times where you would like to use it are often problematic:

• you need a clutch evade as Daisy Walker, however you'll take an attack of opportunity using it which can be really damaging and exactly what you're trying to avoid. Also her agility is so low that it often wouldn't help anyway.
• you want to help a team mate do something important/difficult/awesome, but you can only help on the first pull and they need to do something else first
• your team mate needs to do something important/difficult/awesome, but they need to take their turn before you do so you can't help them out
• your team mate needs to hack away at an enemy and you can only help them out on the first chop. This one is of course still good, but with a big monster you need consistency
• your team mate needs to do something important/difficult/awesome but they're not in the same place as you and you really need to work the setup to make it click

Now, it is good when combo'd with risky things like the Old Hunting Rifle. It's great for that stuff for sure; however, we've been managing the campaign pretty fine without using that card for a while now. I haven't tried it with things like Lightning Gun etc., but it's probably less great for them as you get so much combat boost that's it's often not really necessary. From reading around it has potential for those all-or-nothing plays that Rogue decks sometimes have and that's probably got some legs. However, in that use case you're waiting for even more stars to align than just everyday usage which is already a bit problematic so you may only get that working a couple times in the whole campaign.

So yeah, in my opinion based on current plays it's basically a lot more situational than it appears. This doesn't make it terrible, but costing 5XP and 5 resources is a very high price to pay for it and I'm not entirely convinced it's worth it.

PS: not sure if anyone else felt like this, but this card also weirdly makes the game less fun too, which is not something I expected. If you remove key pulls from the bag from big moments in the game you have these super plays that have no risk. As a result they can be less exciting; Arkham is all about that chaos bag.

Interesting that the only review of this card in arkhamdb is so negative. The Bow seems to be great for any investigator with a high base agility and access to rougue cards though. The main points of criticism of the bow are:

• Its action intensiveness.

With Leo De Luca the load-action drawback is mostly mitigated and even without him the bow is still usable. If you really need to be dealing damage you can use ally searchers like Calling in Favors or Flare to maximise your damage output with Leo, an ally which is always good to have anyways. Finding your self engaged with a 4 or even 5 health enemy doesn't always mean you have to use more than 1 arrow on it because you should also be running some event monster-removal cards (like Sneak Attack, Waylay, Coup de Grâce, etc) to support the bow or in case you don't draw the bow from the beginning of the game. And Hatchet Man is also a thing by the way.

• Its use of 2 hand-slots.

The only true important asset you may not be able to play while using the bow are the Lockpicks. This is only impactful if you are the main or only cluegatherer and there are many clues for you to pick. If these is the case ofcourse you can skip the bow. On the other side, If your team needs you to deal damage or in true solo (where there are fewer clues to pick) investigators like Jenny Barnes, Finn Edwards and even Wendy Adams can easily get away with not using lockpicks because they have many other ways to boost their intellect and get clues like for exmaple Streetwise, Dr. Milan Christopher, St. Hubert's Key (in case of Jenny Barnes), Lola Santiago, "Look what I found!", etc. So in conclusion, the importance of those hand-slots is relativ to the the amount of cluegathring you will be doing and based on that you make the decision to get the bow or not.

The strenghts of the bow on the other hand outweight it's drawbacks.

1. It's very reliable.

The fact that rougues and rougish characters like Wendy come with a base agility of 4 and the ease with which they can boost that agility make the bow super effective. Staple cards like Streetwise, Lola Santiago or Peter Sylvestre boost agility and don't even represent an opportunity cost because you will be gettingt them anyways. The new Track Shoes and The Moon • XVIII can further increase your agility menaing you can consistently loose your arrows like Legolas with 9+ agility. Considering this and taking into account how ineffective it is to boost combat with rougue and/or survivor cards (I am looking at you Hired Muscle) means that the bow is for the moment more efficient than the Chicago Typewriter. I personally prefer to shoot 2 times per round with 9-12 skillvalue than shoot 4 times per round but with only 5-6 skillvalue...

2. It has infinite ammo.

This is also important to consider when comparing the bow to other weapons with ammo. With the bow you just drop it and forget about it for the rest of the game. No last bullet anxiety or need to bring expensive support cards like Contraband.

3. It deals 3 damage.

This is very relevant because the new base health of enemies is 3. Been able to oneshot those pesky swarmy 3 health enemies feels good and because they now usually have hunter it's even more fficient than just evading them. Piercing the hearth of those annoying snake-people and 3 health cultist with an arrow is priceless.

4. It only cost 3 XP.

Besides the bow only the Old Hunting Rifle and under certain conditions Lupara can deal 3 damage with one shot. I won't discuss here why the bow is superior to these two but limit myself to mention that as a rougue you can get the bow relatively early in the campaign supported by other staple cards that you normally get early. This means you will reach your max. damage output way earlier than guardians, which have to expend allot more XP for their big game weapons and support cards.

5. It is flexible.

Because you are so invested in agility you can always decide to evade instead of attack. Using the bow doesn't prevents you to play an evade heavy strategy with the added benefit that when an enemy that must be killed in order to get some juicy Xp or advance the story appears, you alway have the damage to take him down.

That's it from my side. If you agree/disagree leave a comment.

Great card! As a seeker, it rewards you for doing your job! Fast action is cool and it's a card for team players, you can fund your team on a high-shroud location. You could even replay it with Eidetic Memory I could see it very well in a Minh deck, she's always been a team player. But it's cool for a lot of investigators, Roland for exemple would welcome the extra cash. A great card indeed!

An interesting cheap card that would normally be a good comparison to Scrying. Scrying is already a tool that some people deem worth it and others do not. Certainly when interacting with the encounter deck, Scrying will be more flexible in preparing for what the group (or solo) would be encountering. You can keep delaying something with it or setup everyone for optimal draws in groups. Since the scroll of secrets is only dealing with a card you may never get to, or might want to be left there it might do little to nothing. And once you think the card on the bottom is ok and you would rather deal with it instead of something else. Well, then this card will no longer be useful "in the encounter deck". I think that interaction has little useful circumstance.

You could, if you wanted combo a little bit with Alyssa Graham and get rid of a card that you recently put to the bottom of the deck in the encounter deck, but outside a corner case such as that, it doesn't seem that useful against the encounter deck.

In regards to individuals player decks, I think that Daisy Walker should always be considered whenever we are dealing with a new tome that has been released. Would this be good for her? I think the comparison there would logically be Old Book of Lore. The cost of Scroll of Secrets is much cheaper, but has limited charges and only really examines 1 card at a time. But Daisy Walker would put this out to get a free draw for three turns (unless a treachery is seen, in which case you discard it). It's not a bad card, especially since if you are going with a draw mechanic to fuel Higher Education, you usually put more than Old Book of Lore in there for draw potential. But I think once you get the book out, you won't be using this, as you only get that free draw action between them once per turn. In this case, it seems like a decent include but nothing special.

With regards to Norman Withers, he also has the potential to put that card on the top of his deck in order to get a cheap interaction out of it instead of his hand which can reduce costs of cards over time if the card found was something that is currently playable at the time. So, it can act as a cost reduced draw action in some circumstances.

Overlay, I think it is an ok card that won't see all that much use. If there are other important interactions amongst and that I am missing out on that seem fruitful, please point them out in the comments.

Cool and fun card. Whip out a ranged weapon and snipe something, its a cool card in idea and practice. it's just not very good.

This is what the card does:

• A +1 damage effect, these are hard to come by in a manner that stacks, layer on the Vicious blow and the gun and you're dealing 4+ points of damage in one hit. Sometimes the 3-damage attack is good enough too!

• Sniper effect. You counter a couple keywords that might increase the risk or cost you an extra action. Ever so often you save an action moving into the enemy, since the enemy might be located to one side or at a finished spot, this then might double up by not making you haul yourself right back again.

You get quite a bit of cool stuff, so that would make it seem like a good card right? 2 saved moves is EASILY worth 2 spent resources. The extra damage. Sounds good? Not quite.

This is a -card-, you gotta draw it, play it, costs money to play and most importantly, it's 1/15th of your deck! characters do not have much luxury in card draw unless their name is Joe Diamond. also struggle with resources.

What I'm getting at is this: Marksmanship is this real cool effect, a timesaver and circumstantial problem solution, doesn't actually do much that you cannot already, no extra accuracy nor grabbing clues or evading or whatever. If Marksmanship isnt immediately helpful, it's a full blown dud! You might draw the enemy yourself, it's engaged with you, a dud! Dealing +1 damage wont let a 2 damage weapon kill a 4 HP enemy, a dud! Maybe you just don't afford it, even if you got the cash you need to save it to pay for the next weapon or ally and the 2 resources will set you back too much, a dud!

........

So you see how many shades of "dud" the card is? I've toted copies of this cards in my hand in PERFECT scenarios, drawn it even. Rougarou? Miskatonic Museum? Pretty much all of Carcosa? It just isn't helpful enough. In a card game the best decks have as few potential duds as possible.

The literal best-case scenario is to combo Marksmanship with Lightning Gun or M1918 BAR and Stick to the Plan. This way all the combo pieces will be uniquely easy to assemble and play on demand.