Zoey Samaras (first build)

What do you think about Sleight of Hand? I think it's a very good card for Zoey.

I can see potential with sleight of hand if I go down the lightning gun / shotgun route but is it worth it for the .45? Other non-gun uses I haven’t thought of? Cheers

Well if you are short and money and facing a monster, it allows you to play your machete without taking any opportunity attacks and leaving you with three actions to kill that monster. It's not optimal, but still pretty acceptable.

And with some weapon you can buy with xp it's just insane. The bar for example

Fine Clothes and Dynamite Blast are great for Path to Carcosa. I won't spoil why, just in case this your first play through Carcosa, but they are good.

No splashes? You could put in something to cover one of Zoey's weaknesses (in terms of play-style, not literally Smite the Wicked). Maybe Dig Deep to help with the rare important evade (or just sure up some encounter deck initiated tests). Drawn to the Flame appears in a lot of Zoey decks, but you might not need it if you're playing alongside Rex. Personally, I'd at least swap Unexpected Courage for Lucky!. They kinda do very similar things (+2 to any test), but you have to choose when to use Unexpected Courage, which could be on a test when you draw a [+1] from the chaos bag. Lucky! you can hold on to till you need it.

Actually you could put in a splash to cover Smite the Wicked. Elusive or Astral Travel would do well.

You should consider Peter Sylvestre. +1 speed (which is a test coming quite often during mythos) and healing horrors. I think it's better than the guard dog.

Thanks for all the tips - definitely some good thoughts here. Swapping out unexpected courage for lucky makes huge sense so will do that. I’ve also realised that we don’t have survival knife yet, so have replaced with an extra .45 and Elusive. Tempted with Peter Sylvestre but I will be playing beat cop whenever I can and upgrading..