Quick Getaway

Quick Getaway is a card that tries to do a bit of everything, and unfortunately falls flat. Let's go into some of its different aspects.

Cancels an enemy attack

Stops a monster from taking a nasty bite out of you. The problem is you pay 2 resources for a chance to cancel the attack. In comparison, Dodge costs one resource less, can protect anyone at your location, and guarantees the attack is cancelled. Dodge may be in a different class, but many fighting rogues (e.g. Skids, Tony, Jenny) are able to take Dodge anyway.

Grants you an extra action on your turn evade

This is useful for cards that care about how many actions you've taken e.g. Pay Day. EDIT: As pointed out in the comments, I believe this is not true.

However, you would need to play this during your turn, which usually means taking an AOO, which is something that can often be avoided to begin with. The bigger downside is that for this purpose, Quick Getaway is completely outclassed by Swift Reflexes, which can be used to do any action, including evading with an asset or event, and even has the same cost and icons.

Triggers on evade effects, including exhausting the enemy

This is a nice benefit compared to Dodge. With this, you can trigger all those on evade effects that you didn't get a chance to do earlier. The most common scenario is when a hunter enemy moves into your location. (since, if it was during your turn, you could have done a regular evade instead, and the card you are looking for is Swift Reflexes). When the friendly next door monster wanders in, you can immediately evade it, empty its pockets, shoot it in the face, stab it below the belt, and finish up by calling in the nice cleaning lady. This is a very nice play, and can save you some move actions if you play it right, leaving you free to spend your turn at your current location doing more ..profitable things.

Swift Reflexes cannot be played during the enemy phase, so this is one area Quick Getaway wins out, if you are planning an ambush tactic. But again, here it is completely outclassed by another card, namely Honed Instinct with the Killer Instinct upgrade. Honed Instinct may cost more xp, but just does the job so much better.

One niche that Quick Getaway has is that it can disable a hunting massive enemy before it attacks. Dodge will only cancel one of the attacks, while Killer Instinct cannot trigger, since massive enemies do not have a moment where they actually 'engage'. But you run the risk of drawing the and having the monster smack each investigator around. Moreover, hunting massive monsters are fairly rare. I would rather avoid the risk, and disable the monster during the player phase instead.

Trick traited

Finally, something that sets this card apart. All the usual synergies apply i.e. Crafty, Chuck Fergus and Rita Young

Which deck wants this?

Quick Getaway is a card that is an odd mix of Dodge, Swift Reflexes, and Honed Instinct. It tries to do a little bit of each card, but so inefficiently that you'd be better off taking those other cards instead. I normally like flexible cards, but this one doesn't make the cut. A conditional attack cancel is just very, very bad; evading during the player phase is much better because if you fail, your team still has other chances to neutralize the threat.

The saving grace is the Trick trait, and this makes it viable for Rita Young, who cannot take any of the other cards. Rita already has a built in on evade trigger, and is often strapped for actions. Together with Crafty and Dirty Fighting, you could put this card to good use, although I suspect it will get shuffled out with some XP. But without supporting cards, it is just not strong enough on its own; the effect is situational, unreliable, and the cost is prohibitive.

jemwong · 95
Yeah, it should cost 1 or 0 and probably keep the enemy exhausted through one upkeep phase. Even with Rita, its upside is limited by her ability being once per round rather than phase. — housh · 171
I'd run it in Monterey Jack, too, since he can end up easily drawing an enemy weakness at the end of his turn and nothing else can really react to that properly, at least in solo or if he's taking a turn last in higher counts. — SSW · 213
I don't think this counts as an extra action for the purposes of Pay Day or other cards (Take The Initiative, Calculated Risk). It's just a fast evasion test that is prompted by an enemy AoO which is prompted by an action you started to take. — ArkhamArkhanist · 10
After reading the card again, I think you are right about the action. I'll update the review. As for Monterey, Disc of Itzamna is an alternative, at the cost of the valuable accessory slot. Unless you are so unlucky as to draw into Silver Twilight Acolyte though, I'd probably just resign myself to tanking one hit. — jemwong · 95
Quick Getaway is probably the only piece of decent tech we have for enemies who are massive and ready themselves like Umordhoth and The Experiment. Do I take this card every time? No but I'll definitely adaptable it in for specific scenarios when I know there's an annoying enemy who can really mess me up who I can't deal with during the investigation phase. — bowzo · 122
String of Curses

With 42 cards to spare, this is barely a speedbump in Patrice's deck. It commits for agility, which might come in handy at times. It lets you handle pesky cultists quickly and efficiently to possibly offset an agenda flip. The best pay off for it though? It's an auto evade of the Watcher from Another Dimension. Sure, you place the doom on it, but that gets immediately discarded when the Watcher does. It's an easy button for your weakness.

scg · 1
Bad symbols tho. — MrGoldbee · 1460
'Automatic evasion' doesn't mean the same thing as 'successfully evade'; the latter requires a skill test that String (and Stray Cat, by common proxy) bypass, so it won't ditch the Watcher for you. — Teag · 52
Do we know for sure this works with watcher? Watcher says it can be evaded or attacked as if it were at your location, but I don't think it's "at your location" for any other purposes (like to be a target of the parley ability on string of curses). — FarCryFromHuman · 1
What Teag says. It had been confirmed in FAQ, that Patrice could evade the Watcher with Hope, even the discard ability to auto-succeed, but could not use the Stray Cat, because this is an auto-evade, not an auto-success on an evasion attempt. So "String of Curses" won't work either. — Susumu · 366
That said, as FarCryFromHuman notes, you cannot even play the card, while the Watcher is in your hand, as it is not Fight/Evade — Adny · 1
Yes, that's on top of that. "Your hand" is an out of play area, so not "at your location". Hidden cards can only be interacted with the way, that is printed on the card, in this case, it's fight or evade, and does not include a parley action. — Susumu · 366
Quick Getaway

So, here we have a card which gives you basicly "free action" for 2 resource if you can succeed on evade check reliably. Especially if you are playing with Kymani, then you can just ignore your monster and start doing your things, easily evaded the monster and then kill it with ability (And maybe some boost).

Nekron314 · 1
Abandoned and Alone

There are three main changes to Abandoned and Alone -> (Advanced):

  1. 3 horror instead of 2.
  2. Doesn't remove weaknesses from the game.
  3. If nothing is removed, shuffle it into your deck instead of taking horror.

The first is rather obvious in impact, and will usually be the most relevant. The second mostly means you can't cheese away other weaknesses and is bad, but primarily relevant if you're cycling through your deck again.

The third is actually somewhat mixed. With the original Abandoned and Alone, if you had an empty deck you would keep drawing it over and over until you die. Including the horror from drawing from an empty deck, that's 3 horror every turn. Given that it also removes cards from your deck from the game, it could result in an accelerated death spiral. Unlikely, but possible. With this version, if you never have anything to remove, it always shuffles back into your deck with no effect. You'll therefore never draw from an empty deck again, which also means not seeing your other weaknesses again. It will still eat up a draw, though.

Of course, if you have either Wendy's Amulet|(Advanced) in play, all your events will get shuffled back regardless, so you could simply cycle through some number of events over and over, never again drawing any weakness already. And if you hit the original early, you could get away with exiling nothing but weaknesses. This one you can't avoid that way.

Overall, significantly worse, harder to cheese, but you can possibly delay taking the horror indefinitely if you need to (by having nothing your discard pile). The question is: Is that worth being able to play non-top events via the advanced Wendy's Amulet?

EnderA · 1
In my opinion, advanced Wendy's Amulet is really really powerful. — elkeinkrad · 492
Grappling Hook

I am a bit underwhelmed with this card. I have been playing a Kymani Jones deck for the last few sessions and have only once gotten value out of the Grappling Hook as an asset. Action compression does exist, but I feel the 3 resource cost is a bit steep for something that I will likely not use. The investigation with agility is helpful, but lets be honest, we probably have our picks or thieves tools out anyway... I have used the icons on the card though. They line up wonderfully for the evade elimination schtick...

Maybe if it was fast I would be more upbeat on it.

dlikos · 152
Be aware though, that the book symbol will not add to the skill test for the evade elimination schtick. It is still an agility test, so only foot and wild icons match. This is different to passive boosts like on Lola Santiago, where both symbols will add to your skill value. — Susumu · 366
I'm really surprised, I move evade investigate with it all the time, being able to move or investigate without provoking op attacks, pulling enemies around, grabbing them off other people and evading them. I use it almost every turn as kymani if I've got it down — NarkasisBroon · 10
As a solo tool, the engage action is almost always dead, except in the case of aloof enemies, so it basically just caps out at move/evade/investigate, which isn't always practical. But in 2 player or higher, it's ludicrously efficient. — SSW · 213
@SSW ludicrously efficient is a pretty massive exaggeration. I found similar issues as dlikos using Kymani and I always play 4-player. The big issue with me though with Grappling Hook was that it was redundant as I was also running Riot Whistle and Thieves' Kit, which made that aspect of Grappling Hook less necessary. Most the times I didn't see any value in playing it, and even when I did I only got like 1 or 2 uses out of it in the rest of the scenario which is not really worth it considering its cost and the other cards you could put in your handslot instead. — Sylvee · 101
@Susumu... are you sure about the book icon not being included? — dlikos · 152
I now agree with @Susumu... that only makes the card more underwhelming. Sadface. — dlikos · 152