Bury Them Deep

Bury Them Deep

I'm actually very surprised there hasn't been a single review of Yorick's signature card. Well, let me summarize:

A+. 10/10. Literally the best signature event in the game. Quickly searches up all the signature events to confirm. Yeah, I'm right. It's the best one. Honorable mention to Obscure Studies and Dark Insight, but I do believe Bury Them Deep bests them.

Why is this card so good? I'll tell you. First off, ignore the icons. You will never commit this, period. It's too valuable. At the end of the day, you might fail that test you considered committing this, and that test might fail a scenario, but as long as you manage to kill a Swarm of Rats before things end, you've at least got a VP to show for it. You will kill something nasty, Bury it Deep, and it'll just chill in the victory display like a trophy, knowing that, no matter how bad the scenario goes from there, you got something out of it.

And yeah, that's really satisfying. But let's think about that application. Any non-Elite enemy gets added to the Victory Display, as long as you kill it once with this card in hand. That's incredible. You might think "well now, non-Elite is a pretty hefty restriction since all the really annoying things are Elite", and that's where you'd be dead wrong. This game is full of stupidly annoying enemies that, for some reason, are not Elite and don't have victory on them, meaning you can often encounter them multiple times a scenario (especially if you get a reshuffle). Here are a few, spoilers of course at your discretion:

I bet you thought at least some of those were Elite, didn't you? There are plenty more, but I think I've made my point. This card is just amazing. Enjoy the victory, enjoy the slightly safer travels.

StyxTBeuford · 13086
Or a mind blanked Brood of Yog-Sothoth. +2 VP for one damage! — MrGoldbee · 1520
I'm with in that this card is awesome! Any card that gets me that sweet sweet XP is worth a double take for me. However, I don't know if I would consider the best for two reasons. The first is that pinning an annoying enemy to the victory display isn't terrifically useful unless you're playing 3+ players. Also, enemies that return from the victory display (vengeance) still return. You still get the VP (I think), but not everyone gets buried as deep as they could be. Second, while it's great the VP is gifted to the entire party, Survivors have the lowest need for VP. That is changing as the card pool grows, but still. — LaRoix · 1648
I certainly enjoyed Bury them Deep during my recent Chainsaw Yorick rampage, but there were a few times it just didn't fire. If you draw it late, you may not have time to kill an enemy that fits its conditions, and in one case, I drew it early but got hit my a Treachery that I couldn't let fire and had to throw it for the icons. However, it is very good. A lot of recent campaigns have you shuffling the discard pile into the Encounter deck with most Agenda (aned even most Act) flips, so even in 2 player, you risk seeing enemies again. I would put this in the "Among the signitures I am happiest to see" category. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1101
Live said it best there- recurring enemies more recently have become an issue. I will say from my own experience, as someone who plays primarily two handed, that I very much do feel the effects of the enemy being taken out of the deck. "Road less traveled" and all that, but on average you definitely expect this to make your games safer. I also personally disagree that Survivors have no need for XP. Chainsaws are 4 XP a piece! Survivors have exile cards to spend on as well, and those cards- particularly Test of Will and Flare- are still incredibly powerful. — StyxTBeuford · 13086
*has more recently become an issue. I can't grammar good today. — StyxTBeuford · 13086
Huh! Well spotted, I'd never considered the lock-out-of-reshuffle effect this has. As the only restriction is "Non-Elite", it seems that means this would work on Weakness-Enemies, and be a great synergy with recursion decks. Patrice Hathaway is the immediate example; by default she's 1. high recursion, and 2. has a weakness enemy that is 3. non-elite. — HanoverFist · 772
I would like to note. Even if you have to commit this for some reason or you discard it at the start of the game with short supply (which is what I plan to do), It's recoverable with Yorrick — DaveHz · 1
's elder sign effect. (Sorry, accidental enter) — DaveHz · 1

Deep One Bull

Deep One Bull

So apparently the running theme with Innsmouth's enemies, specifically those with the Deep One trait, is that they do bad stuff when they engage with you. This is not very nice, especially for those of us who enjoy using evasion as a reliable countermeasure. This one compounds that problem by making him creep towards you if there are any Deep Ones you do need to kill. Discarding cards is bad because cards win games, and while it is by choice instead of randomly (thank goodness), this guy will still hit you for a solid 2 damage while you do try to fight him, unless you have the capability to take him out in one round- which is not at all guaranteed, especially in the early scenarios he shows up in. 4 fight is rough. 5 health is a lot- even a full round of attacks with most level 0 weapons, assuming you land every hit, will only just be enough to kill him. And, to top all of that off, this thing DOESN'T HAVE VICTORY. There's only one of him in his set of I believe 6 cards, but still! Having to face this guy more than once is just bad times.

All of that is to say, William Yorick is the perfect countermeasure to Deep One Bull, because of two major reasons. A. Yorick can fight and tank really well. His recursion also makes him hurt less from the discard by engagement (take "Let me handle this!" to make sure it goes to him). But even better than that is B, which stands for Bury Them Deep. Yes, for some reason, Deep One Bull is non-Elite. And sure, that means there's other really strong countermeasures here for the more evade savvy among us. You have Waylay, and Slip Away, and what have you. But honestly? I would just bury this guy as deep as you can.

StyxTBeuford · 13086
Or if you don't have Yorick in your team, put some handcuffs on him. — TheNameWasTaken · 3
Yes, that's the one, I'm sure. Cuff him! — StyxTBeuford · 13086
Usually, the Bulls are not the ones in handcuffs.... — LivefromBenefitSt · 1101
ayyyyyyyy — StyxTBeuford · 13086
Could luke robinson be a counter to this kind of effect? He uses a card as if engaged with enemies but as with zoey's cross and massive enemies there isn't actually a point where he becomes engaged to the enemy — Donel · 13
Luke would work this way. If you’re killing anybody from the dreamlands, this guy is going to stay in place. In very tricky scenarios, you can even move this guy towards you but away from the enemy you killed. — MrGoldbee · 1520
Does the enemy effect trigger when i use an engage action? — Andrej553 · 1
Yes, spending an action to engage an enemy or an enemy engaging you is the same from a rules perspective. — Django · 5215

Cryptographic Cipher

Cryptographic Cipher

This card feels similar to fingerprint kit though a good bit worse. It slightly accelerates your clue gathering at the expense of a hand slot and a fairly pricey asset. This makes you take more tests and increases the difficulty of one of those tests instead of making it easier. I already don't use fingerprint kit much because of the high cost, though I think it can be good especially if reloaded with Emergency Cache (3). Will be curious to see if this receives any upgraded versions because as is it's quite lackluster. I'm very unsure why the second ability even exists if not for an upgraded version to make it much better (like setting the shroud to 0).

dubcity566 · 112
Fingerprint Kit can also be Contrabanded — Zinjanthropus · 233
This exists because the free action combines with Trish Scarborough's ability, allowing her to evade a monster engaged with her in a free action. If you're looking at this as basically another way to increase your clue-get by 1 each turn, it's cheaper fingerprint kit (side note, there are plenty of ways to reload secrets as well as supplies). If you're getting more value out of a free investigate action, this is probably better. — SGPrometheus · 858
The second ability is there to ensure you can still get clues the sub optimal way if necessary. If you're suffering a debuff or something, you can use it like a flashlight and not have to slow down so hard. The first ability is amazing though! It does make the test harder, but if you succeed, that's a clue and an action you didn't have before. And as people have mentioned, it's great with Trish to get the auto evade, thereby bypassing the AoO. — LaRoix · 1648
First ability would also allow Alice Luxley to do a damage as a free action, which might clear the location for further investigates. — Time4Tiddy · 252
The second ability can also combo nicely with Lola Santiago, as you can buy another extra clue at a 2 resources discount. — jamalix · 1

Carolyn Fern

Carolyn Fern

I have a question about the card slots during upgrading. Carolyn Fern is permitted 15 Seeker/Mystic cards that are non-healing. At the start of a campaign, let's say you choose 15 cards.

After Scenario 1, you spend 2 XP to buy two copies of Ancient Stone. The unidentified version does not say "heal horror", so am I correct that we need to remove 2 of our 15 non-healing Seeker/Mystics cards to add the stones to our deck?

If yes, then once we identify the Ancient Stone, and we then upgrade them to the Ancient Stone, since these have "heal horror" text, then we are now have only 13 of our 15 Seeker/Mystic card slots filled. We have 2 slots available again, yes?

If that's the case, what 1xp Seeker/Mystic card do you recommend to fill that space? Since 0xp cards still cost 1xp when you add them to a deck during a campaign, it feels bad to spend xp on a level 0 card. I'm curious to hear what the community has to say.

VanyelAshke · 203
The Seeker or Mystic tarot card is an option, depending on whether you have a clue-gathering Intel build (Seeker tarot) or a spell-slinging Willpower build (Mystic tarot) — VanyelAshke · 203
Forewarned seems appealing if you want extra copies of "Ward of Protection"-like effect. Or maybe "Pathfinder" for extra movement. Even with the Taboo list, Pathfinder is still a level 1 card. — VanyelAshke · 203
Hmm... 2x copies of "Protective Incantation" might be an option. If she has one Arcane slots open, then she can seal either the negative token that will cause a failure (-5, -8) or the worst BS token of that scenario. With Ancient Stones, her economy is strong so she can afford to pay 1 resource per turn. Is this worth it? — VanyelAshke · 203
My interpretation would be the same as how exile cards work. If you exile a card and don't repurchase it, then you replace it with a free level 0 card because your deck is short the required number of cards if not. So if your case, the higher level ancient stones causes your deck to be short the required number of cards, this you fill the void with free level 0 cards. — jdk5143 · 98
@jdk5143 What required number of cards? Carolyn doesn't have a minimum number of seeker cards, and all levels of Ancient Stone count towards your deck size. I don't think the exile analogy applies here. — TheNameWasTaken · 3
Merp. Good point. Basic counting is important. — jdk5143 · 98

Lita Chantler

Lita Chantler

Spoilers for the core campaign below: After scouring both here and on FFG's site, I've made a bizarre discovery that seems to have gone unnoticed: nowhere in the rules are you instructed to remove Lita from your deck in Resolution 3 of the last scenario. You know, the one where you literally throw her into the maw of a dimension-eating god. There's even a bullet that instructs you to write down that you sacrificed her, which seems like the perfect place to have something like, "Remove Lita Chantler from each investigator's deck; you have no longer earned that card, shame on you."

I checked the action that sacrifices her, the resolution, the FAQ and errata, and found nothing. Obviously she's dead... but she's still in my deck? It's a weird oversight for something so old.

SGPrometheus · 858
Or YOU are Umôrdhoth. — MrGoldbee · 1520
It's not that weird an oversight when the rules had no intention of your deck ever being used again after reaching the end of the campaign. End of campaign trauma and campaign log recordings is just intended to modify the campaign log that you can have for posterity as a souvenir from your adventure. — Death by Chocolate · 1504
Maybe Umôrdhoth lets her participate in a work release program from its ghastly innards? I don't heear of many people playing a second campaign with the same investigators, and it's probably less for the trauma (you could do TFA second and make use of the trauma healing in one of the interludes, as a) there are a lot of investigators who are fun to play, so at the end of a campaign I'm usually looking for the next deck, but also, even if Dunwich was the first campaign, by halfway through the second you will be well and truly out of upgrade options in most cases. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1101
Work release program! That's priceless. It's as you say, though: we're probably going to be out of upgrades by the end of Dunwich. Or maybe not; one of us is a Mystic and one is a Guardian, so there's a million things to buy. In any case, if one 'gator dies/goes insane, we'll probably just swap out and continue on for as long as possible. — SGPrometheus · 858