Spectral Razor

Spectral Razor

Workhorse event. Pretty good in a large variety of decks.

First off, a singular 3 damage attack with high hit chance is perfectly presentable by itself. People play Backstab fairly regularly and Spectral Razor sure as hell blows that old thing out of the water in terms of price and hit chance. Most characters can mount a +7 or +8 bonus without any support from other cards, which is enough to net hits on medium and hard with relative ease, Backstab in comparison requires some skill card committal or other forms of boosting to land a secure hit.

The ability to blow away a 3-health foe completely free of any support from other cards is perfectly worth a card. It's frankly super impressive at 2 cost and 0 xp.

You can build a deck with 2 Shrivellings and 2 Spectral Razors and use the Razor to cover yourself while you wait to find or play a Shrivelling, alternatively you can play it with Wither and finish off a foe you've started working on. If you have all 3 cards in a deck you've got yourself a very powerful, and dependable, combat focused battle-mystic!

The free engagement is the cherry on top, pull an enemy off of a friend before striking (removing the friendly fire risk) or engage an aloof enemy who'dd otherwise cost you an extra action! Luke Robinson has confusing rules but this probably lets him teleport enemies around!

Obviously the card is uniquely useful in campaigns where 3-health foes are more common, Forgotten age and Circle Undone have these in abundance.

It's good to see more events that are good without heavy support or combo mechanics.

Tsuruki23 · 2568
I don’t think this lets Luke teleport an enemy because (per his ability) he is already treated as ‘engaged with each enemy’ while resolving the effect. Spectral Razor allowing him to engage the enemy doesn’t necessarily cause a change in game state. Even if It did engage, it isn’t clear it would teleport since (per the rules reference) moves with an investigator when they ‘move’ - which Luke isn’t when he resumes being where he was. This does also bring up the question: what happens when Luke uses his ability while engaged where he was - does he provoke from engaged enemies (probably?) and what location are they treated as being at during his event? — Death by Chocolate · 1488
I think this card is rock solid, too. That +2 damage to non-elites is key. This is probably a card you'll need to cut to make way for XP cards eventually, but I think it's a respectable early-to-mid campaign option. — CaiusDrewart · 3183
This + Dayana + Luke is pretty good — Django · 5148
Are you sure you can engage an aloof enemy ? IMO you can't attack it in the first place so you can't play this card on an aloof, not engaged enemy. — Fulanor · 1
You engage it immediately before the attack. It works. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
I’m inclined to agree Fulanor, aloof enemies that aren’t engaged are not legal targets of the Fight action. — FractalMind · 44
I would think that this cannot work against Aloofs, because you don't have a legal target to Fight, regardless what the text of the card says. However Marksmanship seems to set an uncomfortable precedent for this, and since that card obviously brakes the RAW, then this one might be doing it too. — ratnip · 68
Marksmanship clearly states it works on aloof enemies, this card sadly can't Target aloof enemies in the first place so it's no good. — Vultureneck · 74
'An investigator may use the engage action or a card ability to engage an aloof enemy." People have some truly odd interpretations of cards in this game. — jergood · 1
For Like specifically it seems to be moot as his ability itself engages. Still unclear to my brain if this works by itself on an aloof enemy because even though it says "engage before", fight does seem like an illegal target initially...and we didn't get an errata for this in 1.7 — BeCurieUs · 17

Practice Makes Perfect

Practice Makes Perfect

This card really interested me when I saw it. Besides sticking it into any Seeker deck, I can see this doing the most damage with Mark Harrigan. As Practice Makes Perfect is a Tactic card, he can use it. With cards like Vicious Blow, Take the Initiative and The Home Front, you're playing 5 out of 30 targets for Practice Makes Perfect.

When you attack, use Practice Makes Perfect. Either you boost the damage with Vicious Blow, get a variable (1-3 ?s) boost with Take the Initiative, or find The Home Front and all-but-guarantee your attack, as well as transfer a damage to your target. Not only that, but if the skill test succeeds, you get to return the card to your hand! Which means you get to use The Home Front twice in a game reliably.

WolfGeneral349 · 12
The nice thing is that Vicious Blow and The Home Front both effectively do +1 damage so Mark can use Practice Makes Perfect for extra damage more consistently that another investigator. I think Take the Initiative meshes awkwardly with Practice as you don't necissarily want to limit yourself to using Practice only on the first two actions of the round. But Overpower is also practiced-traited, and it's never bad for a fighter to take that card. — Spritz · 69
*necessarily — Spritz · 69
Very true, Take the Initiative isn't especially effective using the PMP formula. Overpower would probably be the better choice in a deck like this. definitely be the better choice. — WolfGeneral349 · 12
you could always take both Take the Initiative and Overpower. worst case scenario, take the initiative is only giving you +1, but you get to keep it in hand for next turn. additionally, more targets means you're less likely to whiff — Zinjanthropus · 229
Take the Initiative isn't super effective with PMP, however it's still better than it not being a practiced skill. Personally I think Mark needs either Take the Initiative or Steadfast to get +3's on the worst willpower treacheries anyways. Having Practice Makes perfect in the deck just makes Take the Initiative the better choice of the two. I'm a fan of Mark with 2x Vicious Blow, 2x Overpower, and 2x Take the Initiative. Then his 1x Home Front. 3 of them for extra damage, 2 for encounter protection. I'm least convinced by overpower, once Mark gets a weapon down he doesn't really need the extra strength. But overpower is always a safe card because you can use it anyways and draw another. I'm not a fan of lvl 1 leadership but Practice Makes Perfect makes the level 2 Leadership more interesting. — bspring · 1

Improvisation

Improvisation

It may be kind of a dumb question, but I could not find the answer to it on BGG or here: can you use improvisation to switch role to the same one? I.e. your current role is Mystic amd you switch into Mystic to benefit from the discount.

grizzling · 21
I understand "switch your role" as change your role, so If you stay in the same one, your not actually changing anything. — Fenrirgarm · 11
How "switching" works is pretty undefined in the game rules, so you're pretty much good to do what you want. One thing to note, though... if you swap roles after playing Improvisation, the discount carries over! — mattastrophic · 3313
Nice find regarding the second switch! I disagree with your interpretation of "switching", though. To me it is entirely clear what is meant by natural language already. I don't see any need to check the game rules for a word that should not leave any room for interpretation. If you want to use the discount for a card of your role before playing "Improvisation" I guess you can just switch back with Lola's ability, as suggested by you :) — AlderSign · 391

Armor of Ardennes

Armor of Ardennes

It's almost pure insult how much better Jessica Hyde, a level 1 survivor card, is than this level 5 guardian armor. It has some niche bonuses:

  • Far less contested body slot

  • can tank 3 more damage immediately instead of having to wait for heals

  • those two willpower icons can be used in a Well Prepared deck to moderate effect. (I will pass on commenting on the fight icons since guardians have many sources for those)

  • damage is canceled, which can have edge-case benefits like voiding a Pit Viper's poison (this is not a common benefit)

However these niche bonuses do not make up for:

  • Jessica provides a flat +1 to fight

  • 4 more XP to purchase but a single copy

  • 1r higher cost

  • lower overall damage negation than Jessica since she can benefit from the heal every turn rather than just on turns where damage is taken

  • Jessica has synergy with move damage effects as well (hello Solemn Vow)

  • 1 horror soak

The fact that you can purchase 2x Jessica Hyde + Charisma for the same cost as one copy of this card costs suggests something went very wrong in writing the balance for these two cards.

Difrakt · 1319
The only other advantage to this card is that it's a relic so can be placed on Elli Horowitz. That's not a hugely big deal of course, and doesn't affect many of the investigators who can take it. Truth to tell I tend to forget this card even exists. — Sassenach · 180
How about Jessica and 2x this in play, one on Elli? — Django · 5148
If you mean for Tommy, wich is the only investigator who can access both of them, then I agree with you, but I still prefer to use the ally slot for the Beat cop or the Guardian dog to maximize the damage dealt to enemys. — Fenrirgarm · 11
At the end of the day very few are upgrading to Armor of Ardennes and many Survivors will want this. One difference not covered is that they come from different classes and things are not equal between classes. Jessica Hyde is essentially a new Peter Sylvestre. He is one of the strongest allies in the game and so is Jessica. The ironic thing is that most of the investigators that want the combat bonus don't need the infinity damage soak as much. Jessica and Peter could make for an interesting combo though with someone. Infinity soak. I doubt that I would upgrade to Armor of Ardennes though. — The Lynx · 993
Yeah, the armor is way undertuned. It's just unfortunate that the big splashy Guardian XP card from the Carcosa cycle is almost unplayable. It doesn't even work well with Mark's ability! — CaiusDrewart · 3183

Borrowed Time

Borrowed Time

Took this card in a campaign and it's great fun. I would venture to say it's a little underrated.

Aside from the obvious synergies with Pay Day, The Red-Gloved Man etc., this card provides a few subtler benefits, for example...

  • Saving up your actions when you draw Frozen in Fear so that you can do the Willpower test at the end of your turn, and hopefully get rid of it before your next turn.
  • Saving up your actions if you have an inkling that your mystic is preparing a Delve Too Deep turn.
  • If you're at the same location as a team member, sometimes it's worth it to end your turn at the same location as them (for card commits and card abilities) instead of moving away. Using Borrowed Time, you can stay at your teammate's location for safety and just do the move action that you would've done this turn on the next turn instead.
  • It's easier to avoid ending your turn at certain locations to avoid nasty "end of turn" location effects - again, just save up that move action you would've used this turn for next turn instead.
  • A lot of treacheries affect you only for a certain round, like Dissonant Voices. Borrowed Time can help you save up actions during those rounds so that you can do more useful things with the same 3 actions next turn.
  • Giving yourself extra actions to make your Chicago Typewriter super accurate, or your Kukri extra damaging.
  • Making it easier to trigger action intensive, time-sensitive cards like "Let God sort them out...".
iceysnowman · 164
Well, Borrowed Time is an asset, so you cant play it if you get Dissonnant Voices, and you are Forced to trigger the efect as soon as your next turn begins, so in the 90% of the times, you spend an action to play it and you can save only two actions. I´m not saying it has its usses, but you need to build a specific deck just to trigger it. Quick thinking and Swift reflexes are a must in it, plus all the other cards you want to proc with it. — Fenrirgarm · 11
Sorry Fenrirgarm - are you reading the card as needing to be discarded when its effects trigger the next turn? Borrowed Time can't help if it's in your hand the turn you pull Dissonant Voices, true, but if it's in play already you can trigger the action on it without issue. I like the points raised in this review, I was interested in the card before - and now I'll be sure to buy it in my next campaign :) — Prinny_wizzard · 251
I'm excited to try this as a priority get for my dedicated fighter Tony in my upcoming 4 player campaign. Can't wait to bank all my actions whenever we pull no enemies and use them as needed when we pull 2 or a tough one. — DaveHz · 1