Versatile Wendy kicks and rolls

Card draw simulator

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matt88 · 2993

Hey guys! This is a deck idea I had about Wendy Adams and I'd like to share. It utilises some unusual cards for her, but I believe we can make good use of them.

General Idea

The main idea is to be playing with Lockpicks and a two-handed weapon, be that either Baseball Bat or Old Hunting Rifle (with more XP) and utilise Joey "The Rat" Vigil in order to adapt to the situation and use whichever of these cards is necessary and get them back with Scavenging. The initial version of the deck is a little weak, but with XP and with the help of Adaptable this deck can take its final form and I believe it will be very powerful. Also note that this deck should be best for the Forgotten Age campaign.

The level 0 version of the deck

The good stuff is on the upgraded version, so I'll be brief on this one: Get Dario El-Amin, Lone Wolf and Well Connected on the board and get to 10+ resources as soon as you can. This will allow you to get clues and evade enemies consistently. Use Backstab and Sneak Attack on small enemies and save Baseball Bat for the harder ones. For clues, Flashlight and "Look what I found!", along with Dario El-Amin's boost and Well Connected should do the most of it.

Upgrade List

  1. 2x Flashlight --> 2x Lockpicks

  2. Adaptable. Swap 2x "Look what I found!" for 2x Lucky Cigarette Case.

  3. Scrapper. With Adaptable swap 2x Unexpected Courage for 2x Daring Maneuver.

  4. Charisma. With Adaptable swap 2x Backstab for 2x Joey "The Rat" Vigil.

  5. 2x Emergency Cache --> 2x Hot Streak (2)

  6. 2x Baseball Bat --> 2x Old Hunting Rifle. With Adaptable swap 2x Sneak Attack for 1x Sleight of Hand and 1x Double or Nothing.

  7. 1x Fight or Flight --> 1x Will to Survive

  8. 1x Daring Maneuver, 1x Cunning --> 2x Flare

  9. 2x Rise to the Occasion --> 2x Rise to the Occasion (3)

  10. 2x Lucky! --> 2x Lucky! (2)

A fully upgraded version of the deck can be seen here: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/342385

The upgraded version of the deck

General Plan

So, after you 've got Lockpicks and Joey "The Rat" Vigil this deck will start showing its true character. Get Lockpicks and Lucky Cigarette Case on the table as soon as possible and start investigating. This will get you clues and card draw, which is important because you need to play a lot of assets. Aim to go alone so that you can trigger Lone Wolf as much as possible. You can generally take care of yourself so that shouldn't worry you a lot. With Dario El-Amin, Lone Wolf and Emergency Cache (or Hot Streak (2) with more XP) aim to be at 10+ resources, so that you get Dario El-Amin's boosts and at least +2 from Well Connected.

Action!

So, you 're now facing an enemy you 've got to kill. Now what?? Here comes Joey "The Rat", allowing you to play Baseball Bat (or Old Hunting Rifle with more XP) without spending an action and by using the boosts from Scrapper, Fight or Flight, Rise to the Occasion and/or Well Connected, kill the enemy. (The best part here is that you don't have to worry about those annoying or side-effects because you can counter them with your special ability.) Then, after you 're done fighting, with boosts from Dario El-Amin and Well Connected, get back your Lockpicks with Scavenging. Daring Maneuver can help if you 're having a hard time with that. Then, replay Lockpicks (you can use Joey "The Rat" to save an action if you want), investigate with Lockpicks (you can easily achieve +2 to investigate now) and get back your Baseball Bat/Old Hunting Rifle from the discard so that you can use it again if you need it.

Card Utility

As you get more upgrades, this deck will become stronger and stronger. You can combine Old Hunting Rifle with Sleight of Hand to save actions and resources and with Will to Survive you can set up some power turns. "Watch this!" is there to get you to 10+ resources faster and it should be generally committed to easy or tests, but it can also be combined with Old Hunting Rifle + Double or Nothing for some nasty damage output plus crazy resource gain. This should be easier to achieve after you get Rise to the Occasion (3). Cunning can help with a tough evasion attempt, or when you 're trying to trigger Scavenging. Flare will help you both to get your allies faster and play them at reduced cost, both of which are important so that you roll faster, but it can also be used as a one-off attack when you need to kill something without having to pull a weapon, which saves you actions and resources.

Other Piloting Notes

9 comments

Mar 14, 2019 FractalMind · 36

I'm building a similar level-0 Jenny Barnes deck that's uses Dario El-Amin, Lone Wolf, Cunning, Money Talks, and Well Connected.

Mar 14, 2019 Alogon · 1045

Wendy Deck without Leo de Luca? Without Peter Sylvester? 0 Xp version without Dark Horse engine? Upgraded version using Old hunting rifle instead of the Bow? Big money upgraded version without High Roller? no good damage/horror soakers or healing...in TFA? I think you will kick the bucket pretty quickly playing this, specially in TFA.

Mar 14, 2019 FractalMind · 36

@Alogon Wendy Adams can handle herself in FTA. I ran a similar build on hard mode and did just fine without any damage/horror soaks (outside of Peter Sylvestre), nor did I bring any weapons, but rather relied on evasion using Cat Burglar and spot removal with Backstab and Waylay. Truth be told, the Dark Horse build isn't the best for Wendy. In my experience she has little issue passing will or agility tests, nor does she struggle with investigation when she has lockpicks/flashlight in play or has "Look what I found!" or Lucky! in hand. Hence there's no reason to hamstring her with respect to resources just to get a bump to her skills when she really doesn't need that bump. Furthermore, Wendy has access to excellent sources of resource generation (Lone Wolf, "Watch this!") which doesn't make sense to include if you're running Dark Horse.

Mar 15, 2019 Alogon · 1045

@FractalMindHey, I didn't say that Wendy can't handle herself! she is in my opinion one of the best investigators in the game (solo or multiplayer) and also my personal favourite. I said this specific build here seems janky to me. I also didn't say that the Dark Horse build is the best of them all. I actually only play with Dark Hoarse at 0 XP and then quickly transition into a big money engine using Charon's Obol and Adaptable. And by the way the Dark Horse engine on Wendy is usually: (Madame Labranche + Lone Wolf + any Talent and/or Fire Axe) that way you get 3 resources per round to further boost your skills with talents or to play events, so Lone Wolf dons't only make sense but is a core asset of the Dark Hoarse Wendy build... and using the same logic I also don't see why "Watch this!" shouldn't work with Dark Hoarse, even though I haven't run it yet. Finally you can't say you are playing a build "without soaks" if you are playing the good old (...or young?) Peter Sylvestre, the mother (...or father?) of all soaks :D. I would link you my builds but if you are beating TFA on hard without breaking a sweat I think you are doing pretty well and don't need any suggestions.

Mar 15, 2019 matt88 · 2993

@FractalMind Yeah, Jenny Barnes is probably the best investigator for this kind of build, but I like Wendy Adams quite a bit so I wanted to try something like that on her.

@Alogon Both Leo De Luca and Peter Sylvestre are great for Wendy Adams, I will agree to that, but I wanted to try something different. I also don't think these cards would fit very well in this deck. For Dark Horse, I'm not a big fan of a Dark Horse build in Wendy, it just shuts down a lot of viable options and upgrade paths. FractalMind also made some pretty good points on Dark Horse, with which I agree. High Roller would be a good addition in this deck indeed, but deck slots are tight, plus I already have a lot assets to play (hence the Flare). As for the soak, the biggest issue in the Forgotten Age is health loss and Joey "The Rat" Vigil has 3 damage soak, which combined with Wendy's high Agility, should be more than enough to cover that issue.

Mar 15, 2019 matt88 · 2993

@AlogonOh, forgot to say about the Bow. Ornate Bow is not a good fit for this deck for a variety of reasons. First, it's more expensive. Secondly, it requires different approach. The transition from using Baseball Bat to using the Bow would be a lot harder than to using the Old Hunting Rifle. I also aim to not hold a weapon for long, as my primary handslot item will be Lockpicks. The plan is to spend turns investigating and doing other things for the majority of the scenario duration and pull a weapon when I have to. In this context, Old Hunting Rifle does a better job, by pulling it and killing something big when the time comes, something which would be more difficult to do with Ornate Bow. Plus, I have built around Baseball Bat and Old Hunting Rifle.

Mar 15, 2019 Django · 4879

Why no Money Talks? Should be better than Cunning and can be played again with her amulet.

Mar 15, 2019 matt88 · 2993

@Django Money Talks is decent, but, practically, it would mostly help with Wendy's low Combat stat, which is still a boon for sure, but I've got that covered by other means. Cunning on the other hand can help both at evading and at investigating and, most importantly, at triggering Scavenging when Lockpicks is in the discard.

Mar 16, 2019 Alogon · 1045

@matt88Dark Horse doesn't shut down upgrade paths. With Charon's Obol and Adaptable you can't quickly transition to any other build. For example in TFA I start with Dark Horse but after 3-4 scenarios all the Dark Horse combo is completely gone from the deck. My argument is that between 0 and 16 XP the Dark Horse build is one of the best there is.

I myself started playing Wendy after the release of TFA and the return to the core set. When I saw that people were still posting Wendy Dark Horse decks I used to think, "lol fools, they don't realise that the meta has changed, rich Wendy rules now." Then one day I decided to play Jenny and Wendy together and only due to collection limitations (Jenny was taking most of the money cards) I decided to put the Dark Horse combo in my 0 Xp Wendy deck...after a few games my opinion changed.

One last thing, can you pls review my Daisy support deck? here is the link:

arkhamdb.com