A Fistful of Dollars

Hey guys, this is my first guide so bare with me. That being said, the inspiration for this deck was Roland's new/upgraded .38 Special. It is a beast of a weapon. It only costs 3 resources, gives +1 damage, and has +2 regularly, and +4 if there is a clue on your location. The best part, in my opinion, is that you can add an ammo back to the .38 Special if you kill an enemy at a location with no clues on it. Essentially, if you play your cards right (no pun intended), you could in theory never run out of ammo.

This guide is not geared towards stacking all kinds of Upgrades onto to the .38 Special, but is as I said above, merely it's inspiration.
So, lets get to it with some combo's and card explanation.

Unlike Roland's original abilities, Alternate Back Roland is not allowed Seeker cards Level 0-5. That means no: Magnifying Glass, Dr. Christopher, or Deduction. In fact, after this deck was finished, I realized I did not focus on actually investigating at all. Roland has a decent 3 to fall back on, but it's nothing to shake a stick at. We will be focusing on getting clues by defeating enemies, and making them spawn on top of us as much as possible.

Resources

Let's start with how we're going to pay for all of this killing equipment. Guardians cost a lot of money to play, and generally you have to make tough decisions as to what cards you're going to use each round (if you have the resources at all). Bruiser will help pay the cost of at least 2 resources on any weapon you decide to play, or can give you a +1 at the cost of one of those resources.

The .38 Special does an excellent job of re-chambering bullets, but lets look at .45 Thompson. It costs 6 resources, which is a Damn hefty cost for anything that isn't the Lightning Gun (and we can't have that either). But with each Ammo you spend, you get a resource- a total of 5, essentially making the cost to play this weapon 1 resource. Think of it as a long term investment.

So it's out of Ammo, what now? Time to cash in on said investment. Let's use Act of Desperation to swing our empty .45 Thompson and give ourselves a +6 and pick up 6 resources at the same time! And, with 2 copies of each, you can do this twice (in theory), to net yourself 22 resources total. (5 from each .45 Thompson bullet and 6 from Act of desperation x 2)

To pay for any of these weapons initially though, we have Stick to the Plan. I plan to put the following 3 cards on mine:

Emergency Cache Use on the 1st Round to start paying for gear.

On the Hunt If you didn't need to use Emergency Cache, use this at the beginning of the first Mythos phase. Search for an easy kill and net yourself 3 resources.

If you have Grete in play, you can trigger both her and Roland's ability to net yourself 2 clues!

Prepared for the Worst - A straight-forward card. If you need a weapon and couldn't Mulligan for one, starting digging.

Keeping your Sanity

A brief story: During the last adventure of Dim Carcosa, I was running Joe Diamond and pulled -7- encounter cards in a row during a single Mythos Phase. Totally died. So to that end, I now tend to sometimes go overboard when covering my ass during checks.

The Bandolier will give us peace of and let us hold the .45 Thompson in 1 set of hands, and our Khopesh in the other. While we're on it, I added the Khopesh to help us get around the map a little more. Kill an enemy, grab a clue, and warp to the next enemy on the map.

Then we have Holy Rosary which will give us +1 and 2 Bless tokens if we succeed on a a skill on a treachery.

With both the Rosary and Bandolier in play, this will put our Willpower at +5 . This feels like the 'safe' zone when it comes to Willpower tests. You're not out of the clear, but you at least have a fighting chance.

Next on the list is Forewarned. Drop a clue on your location to avoid a treachery. This combo's well with the .38 Special by keeping a clue on your location for the +4 bonus.

Finally, Enchanted Blade is going to be a key item in keeping your Horror level at a minimum. I would reframe from putting this into play until you actually need to heal Horror on Roland. You've only got 3 Charges, so make them count.

Card Draw

Though its only a small amount, use Practice Makes Perfect to search for Overpower. If you succeed, it goes to your hand and you can use it again. Do this with each copy for a total of 8 potential drawn cards.

And don't forget, you can also use it to search for Vicious Blow if you need the extra damage.

Backpack- Plain and simple: Dig for Bandolier, Holy Rosary, or Weapons. The only Supply card in the deck is Emergency Cache, which is attached to Stick to the plan.

Movement

Roland -finally- has access to Elusive! This card will save your ass in a pinch. Say you have 1-2 Sanity left and need to get somewhere safe. Use this card to heal up, regroup, or save a fellow Investigator.

Shortcut: Sometimes you'll need all 3 actions to defeat a monster. Shortcut saves you a Move action and allows you take care of business as needed.

Scout Ahead is a new card from Edge of the Earth. It costs a resource to play and a Move action; but, you Move up to 3 times. To ensure that you get the most bang for your buck, I would highly advise using this only when you need to move to that 3rd location.

Help a fellow Investigator out by covering their ass. Use Safeguard to tag along and cover them if they draw a monster in the Mythos phase.

Lastly we have Vantage Point. My idea around this card is to use it to grab a clue from 5 or 6 Shrouded areas, or to move the last clue on a Victory Point location to an area with lower shroud (or a monster).

Weakness

The Thing That Follows is a 3/2/3 Monster that will basically never go away. In other words, he's our #1 candidate for nabbing clues. We can easily beat a 3 and deal 2 damage. He does spawn at the farthest location, but we have Khopesh, Scout Ahead, and Shortcut if we absolutely needed to use them for that.

The Mulligan

Best advice is to try and grab the cards you only have 1 copy of, and that are of the utmost important to survival or setting up your early game.

My idea hand would be: Bruiser, Grete Wagner, Roland's .38 Special or .45 Thompson, Backpack, and Practice Makes Perfect.

There are 5 total weapons in this deck, so the odds are good that you get at least 1 in your opening hand. If you don't, hang on to Backpack or Prepared for the Worst to help you search.

Also of note is that this version of Roland starts with 5 Experience. It's up to you, but I would buy Bruiser and save the other 2 experience for the next scenario. Also-also, both Overpower and Vicious Blow perform fine until later levels, so they are not a priority to upgrade right away.

Closing

I hope you enjoy this deck, and my thoughts on how to use it. Parallel Roland is by no means a powerhouse like the other Guardians, but he has some excellent features that make him well worth playing- especially with a partner.

Looking forward to all of the comments!