Chapter 2 review

Paint the Town Red is a resource economy card, and it also allows you to pull out enemies from the encounter deck (e.g. to fish for a victory point enemy). It's a Parley event so you can use it with an enemy engaged without an attack of opportunity (though why you'd want to I don't know). It also has a and icon, so it's somewhat useful to commit.

For me the only use case for this currently in Chapter 2 is Dexter, and only if you're just using the core box with no starter decks, and only if you're looking to target Bat Horror. Dexter's assets tend to be expensive, so extra resources are appreciated, and with the Bat Horror's 4 health you get 4 resources (and then as it's elusive you can shoo it with an attack action). This gives 2 resources per action spent vs. Emergency Cache's 3 (and even then, you need to not care about a Bat Horror running around for the remainder of the scenario...).

For most other 3 health enemies (Hellhound or Mutated Experiment) then you're then at 1.5 resources per action assuming you have Shadowmeld to get away from the enemy or upgraded Cosmic Flame to kill them in one - and even then I'd say keeping charges on these tends to be more valuable than netting 1 resource. Note for Rogue Gangster he will lose you a resource when he engages, so he's not a suitable target for this.

The resource tech in André's starter deck (e.g. Out the Door, "Watch this!"), or even Spiritual Charm from Marie's deck if thinking of Dexter, make this totally and utterly redundant for me.

Conclusions: Aside the very (very) niche use-case I described, this is one of the most binder fodder-worthy cards I've ever seen! Generally new enemies = bad, and you should not be trying to draw them without a stronger incentive (e.g. Stalk Prey is an example of a good incentive). Unless FFG give us more incentives to pull enemies out of the encounter deck in later campaigns then I just don't see a use for this, and even then usually enemies like this come out of the encounter deck sooner or later without help. Easily the worst card in Chapter 2 for me, and it's not even close!

Chapter 2 review

It appears 3 XP is the new benchmark for clue compression events outside the Seeker class, with other examples including Stakeout and Right Under Their Noses. For me, I don't actually mind this XP pricing - I think in Chapter 1 clue compression was by and large too easy (e.g. compare to 0 XP Read the Signs), so putting a sizeable XP price tag on compression is a nice balancing effect.

Even so, there's plenty of other cards Mystics want, so is this worth it with respect to the wider Chapter 2 card pool? To that I say... maybe. For one, it gives you a very good chance to crack a high shroud location by adding to for the investigation - and once you pass that test then you get two clues off the location. 2 resources doesn't seem too steep for this effect.

The extra "if" effect I see as icing on the cake, and there are some nasty new Hex (Langour) and Terror (Unspeakable Truths) treacheries in the core it can target (while also able to target relevant treachery weaknesses such as Pursued). There are enablers of this in the Mystic kit (e.g. Premonition, Sacrificial Doll, Mask of Silenus), with Premonition being the lowest effort of the three. I don't think you necessarily need to trigger this effect for Augur to worthy however.

In terms of close competition, there's upgraded Second Sight. I tend to find this a bit expensive for what it is, as it doesn't net you more clues than basic Second Sight. The benefit of Augur is it will actually make your Second Sight charges go further, so I'd say it's complementary. For synergy, there is Ritual Dagger - but as it shuffles the event back into your deck you need someone who can rattle through their deck quickly to make this work (e.g. Marie Lambeau).

Conclusions: It's worth consideration on Mystic decks focused on clue-finding, and/or for an event focused deck with Ritual Dagger. Otherwise, it's probably worth a miss on most decks (and it's not worth it at all on decks using the wider legacy card pool).

Special shoutout this card is extremely good in campaigns that load the chaos bag with really bad symbol tokens especially late in the campaign. For example, Scarlet Keys will give you 4-5 Cultist tokens and those can be as high as -5.

This is a great design, it offers a way to avoid the doom but the alternative to it is properly costly, ppl need to actually think carefully what the better option is, and the answer to that won't always be the same, it will change based on the moment you draw the card, which scenario you are playing, which investigator you are playing, how your deck is built etc.

Both modes of this card are good, but particularly the Bless consuming mode is just very silly. Healing for two every turn, on whichever investigator is in the worst shape, is game breaking. Suddenly you just don't have to care about random treacheries hitting someone for 2-3, and you can even contemplate letting someone tank a turn of repeated Attacks of Opportunity because they were full to begin with and you can heal them up after.

You don't need to fill the bag, just a few blesses will enable a lot of healing, and cards like Ancestral Token on your fighter will easily power this, or a well timed Keep Faith should be good for at least two uses of healing. You can also mess around with things like Tempt Fate to let you get access to both sides of the book, though note that the book can't be used when the bag is exactly balanced. As soon as someone draws either kind of token, though, your book is back online at the next player window.

4 xp may seem like a lot, but you don't necessarily need two copies, and you don't necessarily need to find the book in your opening hand, or even early in the game. Getting it out on turn 10 when things are starting to get dicey is still very valuable, and if you have the blesses ready to go you can heal for 2 immediately and then again the first time someone has a skill test in the mythos phase. That's plenty to get someone out of danger.