Paint the Town Red

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!

5/9/26

HungryColquhoun · 21122

What makes you think "drawing a card" means moving it to your threat zone? I interpret this ability as drawing a monster card from the encounter deck, looking at its health, taking the corresponding amount of resources, and shuffling the drawn monster card back into the encounter deck. The rules say "drawing a card" means moving it to your hand. We can't move an encounter card to our hand. In this case, by "drawing a card," the developers meant drawing it and looking at it, not moving it anywhere, and certainly not to your threat zone. — drus · 1 9/19/26

@drus — RenarGrey · 1 9/23/26

Each time an investigator draws an encounter card, perform the following steps, in order: Draw the card from the encounter deck. Check for the peril keyword on the drawn card. (If the card has the peril keyword, the investigator who drew the card cannot confer with the other players. Those other players cannot play cards, trigger abilities, or commit cards to that investigator's skill test(s) while the peril encounter is resolving.) Resolve the revelation ability on the drawn card. If the card is an enemy, spawn it following any spawn instruction the card bears. (A spawn instruction is any text bearing a "spawn" precursor.) If the encountered enemy has no spawn instruction, the enemy spawns engaged with the investigator encountering the card and is placed in that investigator's threat area. If the card is a treachery, place the card in the encounter discard pile unless otherwise instructed by the ability. If the drawn card has the surge keyword, the investigator must draw another card. Restart this process at step 1. — RenarGrey · 1 9/23/26

Paint the Town Red

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