Wilson Richards, Keen-eyed Mariner (FHV Hard) - Guide/Report

I enjoyed playing Wilson Richards when The Feast of Hemlock Vale came out but he felt like he never really pulled his weight in my two-handed solo games on Hard. This list represents my last attempt before the release of The Drowned City to try to build a deck that can make it through the Vale with a good amount of consistency.

This is a cluever build, and the core of the deck revolves around using Keen Eye's phase-long boost for multiple investigate actions each turn, the second of which usually comes from Ad Hoc.

But wait, I hear you say, Keen Eye is too expensive to use all the time! Well, yeah, but this is a two-handed run and Wilson's partner is Tony Morgan, who can provide him with cash injections from Bank Job and "I'll Pay You Back!".

The partner deck list can be found here.

If you want to skip to the final version of this deck, it can be found here.

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This is the path I took through FHV:

1. Hemlock House.
2. The Twisted Hollow.
3. The Lost Sister.
4. The Longest Night.
5. The Thing in the Depths.
6. Fate of the Vale.

I chose Hemlock House first because it can be a clue-intensive scenario so it would be a good test of Wilson's capabilities, and because I wanted William Hemlock's passive boost for the later scenarios.

I chose The Lost Sister because I'd already started building up Gideon Mizrah's reputation by doing Hemlock House first, and he also has the best codex ability in The Longest Night, which is the premier challenge for this campaign. This scenario is probably also the easiest one in the campaign.

Finally, I chose The Thing in the Depths because these decks aren't really built to survive all the damage and/or horror Written in Rock and The Silent Heath can throw at you, and the titular Thing in the depths is no match for Tony Morgan on Day Three.

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The Deck

Wilson needs to get his signature card (Ad Hoc) into play as early as possible in every game. Without it he's simply not very effective, but since there's currently no card that lets you search for upgrades the only way to find it is to draw it.

Wilson also needs to find cards to discard to Ad Hoc, so given these two things I've come to believe that card draw effects are worth more to him than to pretty much any other investigator.

The main way to use Ad Hoc is to attach it to an "anchor" asset that you will use frequently. The best such anchor card in this deck is Mariner's Compass, but Lantern and, later, Lockpicks can be used as backup options.

In this way, you can discover 1-2 clues using your anchor and then immediately discard an asset from hand to discover one more clue, so you can potentially discover up to three clues with a single action (though generally with two tests).

In a two-player game it's fairly uncommon to find more than two clues on a location in this campaign, so this basic plan works well most of the time.

Lastly, in order to have a good chance of passing your tests on Hard you will want to cover the -5 token every time. It isn't always possible, but it's still the goal.

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The Cards

Now for some more detailed commentary around deck function and card selection.

Keen Eye: This card provides an boost that lasts for your whole turn (technically the entire phase). This is important for Wilson because he will always need to perform multiple tests to discover more than two clues per turn (and sometimes more than one).

Matchbox: This card also provides a bonus that lasts for your entire turn, so all your investigate actions will benefit from it.

Mariner's Compass: As mentioned, this is your best Ad Hoc anchor because it can discover two clues per action. Its built-in boost combines well with Keen Eye so that no matter if you begin with an even or odd number of resources you can always run yourself dry and thus be eligible for the two clue payoff.

Lantern: This is your backup anchor option because it can be used an unlimited number of times. When combined with Matchbox you will always succeed against 2-shroud locations, unless you draw the auto-fail token.

Flashlight, Lockpicks, Gravedigger's Shovel: These cards are the main fodder for Ad Hoc, along with Lantern when it's not being used as an anchor. Importantly, they all have built-in boosts (or a testless effect in the case of the shovel).

Flashlight can guarantee a clue from a 2-shroud location, or a 3-shroud location when combined with Matchbox, and Lockpicks offers a base 7 test score in Wilson's hands (and its discard clause isn't relevant because it's already being discarded).

Magnifying Glass: A passive boost to all your investigate actions. This is one of the best cards in the game.

Tinker: There are a lot of hand slot assets in this deck but you generally won't play more than one investigate asset. This card's main purpose is to let you hold two Magnifying Glasses alongside your Mariner's Compass.

Tetsuo Mori: If you don't have a Mariner's Compass in play this card can help you find one. And if you do have one it can find or recover more assets to discard to Ad Hoc. It can also be used by Tony if he needs to find a key asset.

Dodge: We need a third card for Stick to the Plan in the next scenario, and this is pretty much the best candidate. I did consider Toe to Toe so that Wilson could handle minor threats (and it sort of has some synergy with Tetsuo Mori) but in the end I decided it would be better to maximize his clue-grabbing actions, which is one of the guiding principles behind all the card choices in the deck.

Emergency Cache: This card is also in the starting deck for Stick to the Plan, and its level two version is a high priority upgrade.

Stand Together: Even with a Rogue partner helping fund your efforts you can always use more resources.

Jury-Rig: This card represents twelve resources worth of Keen Eye boosts, though it only works for a single test. You can also attach it to Tony's gun if he really needs to hit his target. Note that all of its uses can be spent at once for a +6 boost.

Task Force: This card offers Wilson some much-needed action compression, and you will always have an asset with an investigate action in play to make use of its first effect.

It's a powerful card which opens up new lines of play (you can use its effects on Tony as well) and it's very fairly costed. One of my favourite uses is on a 4-clue location; you can activate Mariner's Compass and Ad Hoc to discover three clues, then grab the fourth clue with this card and move to a new location.

Second Wind: Wilson begins the game with two physical trauma from In the Thick of It so this card will never be a dead draw. His stats aren't good enough to avoid taking a lot of damage from the encounter deck and his only soak is Tetsuo Mori. He will have one or two story allies in several scenarios which can offer a few more points of soak, but you will want to keep them in play for as long as possible.

This card usually isn't worth taking for anyone other than Mark Harrigan but its draw effect puts it over the edge for Wilson.

Perception: After packing all of Wilson's tools into the deck there isn't much room left for skills but this one is worth it.

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Here are a few other cards I either tried but ending up cutting or didn't consider:

Pushed to the Limit: I played with two copies of this for a long time but most of the time it sat in my hand. I was kind of surprised at how often I just didn't want to play it, but it makes a certain kind of sense.

When you're always short on resources you generally want to use them to boost your one Mariner's Compass action per turn, and Pushed to the Limit only offers one clue for the cost of two resources and an action. The value just wasn't there most of the time, and I dropped it back to one copy for a while because without it the deck doesn't have three unique cards to put under Stick to the Plan. Then I ended up never playing it there either so I swapped it out for Dodge.

Backpack: I don't usually take the level zero version of this card but with so many assets in the deck it seemed like it could be good. The best thing going for it is that it can thin out your deck and make it more likely you'll draw Ad Hoc, but the problem then is that that you can't discard assets from it to actually use Ad Hoc.

Another issue with it is that it kind of exacerbates the situation where you don't have Ad Hoc in hand. With so many assets in the deck effectively being dead draws without Ad Hoc it's yet another asset that can't be used proactively to advance the game, except you have to actually spend an action and two resources to play it instead of just keeping it in your hand.

Fingerprint Kit: This one would sit in my hand a lot because there aren't that many locations with four clues so if you end up getting two from your Mariner's Compass or one from your Lockpicks it leaves it in an awkward spot. You could use it to gain one clue but its 1 bonus isn't as good as the bonuses on the other assets.

Take the Initiative: I like this card and generally take it in all my Guardian decks but I ran out of room for it here. It's good for treachery protection and for saving resources on an investigate action, though not really for Mariner's Compass since you want to empty your pool anyway.

Scene of the Crime: This one is good in Hemlock House because the locations are often enemies as well, but in The Twisted Hollow there usually aren't any enemies in play until the second half of the scenario so it's often a dead draw.

Alice Luxley: This is one I didn't try but it's an interesting option. Passive stat boosts are one of the best ways to mitigate the Hard token bag, but Alice still isn't as good as Tetsuo Mori so you would want to play both. And that likely necessitates the addition of Charisma and Motivational Speech.

That version of the deck has potential but I didn't spend any time exploring it.

Geared Up: Another card I didn't try, and the thing that always kills it for me is how it eats your first turn. The effect is good but sometimes there will be more valuable actions you would want to perform on your first turn, and it's particularly bad in this campaign due to the preludes.

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The Campaign

When building new decks I like to repeat each scenario and test out different cards, the goal being to come up with a pair of decks that can consistently get through the campaign with the most XP and the best rewards. I'll then run it through from start to finish to see how the final lists fared.

The XP totals here are from that final run. I'll go over the card upgrades for each scenario and end the report with some comments about how Wilson performed throughout the campaign.

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Scenario One: Hemlock House

When I started testing the deck here I thought it would be best to shoot straight up to the fourth floor to try to parley with William Hemlock, then go and grab Little Sylvie and return to him for another parley so that I could then make use of his 1 bonus for the rest of the scenario, but it's really inefficient to do it that way.

I started getting better results by grabbing clues on the first floor and then doing the story objectives naturally as I visited the upper floors, which makes sense because you're not wasting actions on multiple moves.

• The encounter deck is very small, the discard pile gets shuffled into the deck when you advance to the third Agenda, there are four copies of Out of the Walls and you will almost always fail its test. This is why it's best to end your turn on a sealed location if possible, because you lose a lot of tempo by having to flip the location back to Dormant before you can seal it (plus some of the flipping effects are brutal).

• Grabbing all the clues from the Dining Room and Foyer and methodically sealing each location as you go is the most efficient approach, but you will probably have to move around a bit for various reasons. It's usually better to leave the high shroud locations like the Parlor to Tony, who has Intel Report and Kicking the Hornet's Nest.

• You only need to seal seven locations to get the maximum XP bonus at the end. After accomplishing this and spawning the Shapeless Cellar Wilson would usually take care of the story actions if they hadn't already been done, and Tony would go down to the basement to shoot the cellar to death.

Hemlock House: 8XP gained (including 1XP from looking at the back of the first prelude Act card).

Upgrades

Added:

1 x Stick to the Plan: A Guardian staple, and its best effect for Wilson is that it reduces his deck size by three, making it more likely he'll draw Ad Hoc either in his mulligan or during the game. There are only three cards in the deck that can be placed beneath it at this point: Task Force, Pushed to the Limit, and Emergency Cache.

2 x Lockpicks: The deck needs a second viable anchor card, for consistency, and this is it. Also, in the next scenario there are a number of locations with only one clue, so it will be more efficient to use this to grab them than the Mariner's Compass.

8XP spent, 0XP left.

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Scenario Two: The Twisted Hollow

This scenario was pretty rough in most of my attempts because it takes Wilson a bit longer to get set up than a lot of other cluevers and it really pays to be able to hit the ground running here. The final deck list performed well enough, but if I got unlucky in the last act I ran out of staying power noticeably quicker than in my other runs through FHV.

• Wilson takes the lantern because he can put Tinker on it.

• Try to reveal a new location each turn to maximize the lantern's use, and to maximize your chances of finding a Lair location. Note that the lantern's reaction can be used on any investigator leaving its location, not just on the one who's moving.

• When Act Two begins and the bear boss appears, run away from it so that it ends up in a dark location when the agenda advances, at which point it gets sent to the Pursuit Zone.

• Since I didn't build any reputation with Judith or Theo, when the bear boss appears one of the investigators has to take one point of physical trauma (you can choose mental instead but I think it's the worse option). Wilson is the best candidate for it because he will generally have more soak and healing available throughout the rest of the campaign, and Tony will sometimes have to tank an enemy.

  Also, neither investigator eats their dinner in the evening prelude, so at the end of this scenario Wilson will have four physical trauma.

• Save Dr. Rosa Marquez's codex ability until the final act. It lets you look at the unrevealed side of any location so it will save time during the search for the exit.

The Twisted Hollow: 7XP gained (from now on, XP totals will include any from the previous prelude, where applicable).

Upgrades

Removed:

1 x Dodge: This card has served its purpose and it's now time to replace it.

Added:

2 x Stand Together: An excellent upgrade, turning it into four resources and four cards for the price of a single action. The conditional requirement is easily met.

1 x Ever Vigilant: This card doesn't get as much use in this deck as I thought it would and it's because you don't actually want to play a lot of his assets. It's still very much worth it for the ones you do want to play, and every bit of action compression is very welcome here.

7XP spent, 0XP left.

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Scenario Three: The Lost Sister

This is a good scenario for Wilson because there isn't much fighting to interrupt his methodical clue gathering unless you happen to get unlucky and run into the Rocky Shoreline. To prevent that from happening, Tony can use the parley ability on Akwan, though you do have to take a chance with your very first move.

• This is probably the easiest scenario in the game. I was always able to reach the end with enough clues to satisfy Gideon's codex effect and also use them to pull the Limulus Hybrid [night] into daylight at least once.

• The encounter deck is quite large so there isn't a great chance that you'll get both copies of Chroma Blight to spawn both Crystal Parasite VP enemies, but it's satisfying when it happens (assuming Tony has enough firepower to kill them).

• When you spawn the set-aside boss location it has to be placed adjacent to a Coastal location, so you can sometimes plan ahead and leave a convenient spot open for it as you place new locations from the deck.

• For dealing with the boss, I would generally move Wilson into the Fungal Cave on his last action then have Tony pull the boss into the light (if possible) using two clues, then he would start shooting it. On Wilson's next turn he would then clear the cave of its four clues for the VP, completing Gideon's task in the process.

The Lost Sister: 13XP gained.

Upgrades

Removed:

2 x Tetsuo Mori: This was a tough call because Tetsuo provides good utility, but his replacement is, on balance, much better.

2 x Jury-Rig: I'd primarily used this card on Tony's guns, usually in preparation for a boss fight, but his upgrades lessened the need for it.

Added:

2 x Girish Kadakia: This is a real powerhouse of an ally, and his +2 skill bonus will be particularly useful in the campaign's finale.

2 x Hand-Eye Coordination: Wilson has a very noticeable lack of action compression so it can sometimes be hard to take advantage of Keen Eye's phase-long boost (say, if you need to move to a new location to continue investigating). This card lets him leverage that boost more often, and it also provides some utility by allowing you to safely investigate when engaged with an enemy.

1 x Charisma: In the next scenario you start with Dr. Rosa Marquez in play, so this card is necessary to allow you to have Girish Kadakia as well.

13XP spent, 0XP left.

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Scenario Four: The Longest Night

This is it, the greatest challenge in The Feast of Hemlock Vale, at least the way I try to do it, which is to finish it with no damage on The Captives.

Doing well at this scenario is largely a matter of having enough actions to stay on top of all the enemy handling, and Wilson doesn't really fare well when it comes to the whole action economy thing. Tony does, however, so this is the one scenario in the game where Wilson runs interference for Tony instead of the other way around.

Wilson and Tony did perform noticeably worse than my last couple of duos here but I still managed to get a few clean runs, including on my final attempt.

• You don't need to kill every enemy to succeed, you just need to delay them and/or tank them until the doom clock runs out. Girish Kadakia is a big help in that regard, though even he can't compare to the real star ally for this scenario, the Guard Dog.

• If Tony has a weapon (or the means to tutor one) in his opening hand he'll start at the western Outer Fields location with the Ursine Hybrid so that he can deal with it right away, otherwise he'll start at the adjacent farm location. This is also where I place the starting trap in case he ends up a couple of points short of killing it.

• If Wilson has Stand Together in his opening hand he'll start with Tony, otherwise he'll start at the southern farm location (it could be any of them, I just choose this one). I place the decoy at Wilson's location and a barrier at the north and east locations on the Farmhouse side.

• It's important to reveal all the farm locations to find the Coop and Milkhouse so you can start a Fire! as early as possible. Placing barriers in front of a burning building is the best way to deal with all the enemies that can't ignore barriers.

• Wilson has William Hemlock for an ally and Tony has Gideon Mizrah. Try to use Gideon's codex ability as soon as possible as it prevents an enemy from entering play. This is a good deal because most enemies take more than two actions to dispose of, and doing it early helps you maintain momentum in the crucial early part of the game where you're spending actions on getting set up (playing assets, moving to locations to reveal them, etc).

• Try to always float at least one clue between turns in case you draw Hunting Shadow or False Lead (it's better to prevent False Lead from surging).

• Incursion is the most dangerous encounter card when it comes to preserving your 5XP bonus for ending with The Captives unharmed. It can be hard to play around, but I will often try to place extra barriers or end the turn engaged with enemies (if it isn't too awkward) if the game state warrants it.

The Longest Night: 7XP gained.

Upgrades

Removed:

None.

Added:

2 x Gravedigger's Shovel: This is a significant boost when you discard it to Ad Hoc, potentially netting you four clues for a single action when used with Mariner's Compass. It's also a much better value proposition when you want to actually put it on the table. Two clues for two actions isn't great, but consider that Wilson would generally have to spend more resources than other cluevers to grab clues from a high shroud location and it starts to look much better.

1 x Emergency Cache: This adds a draw effect to the base version, turning it into a much more playable card.

6XP spent, 1XP left.

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Scenario Five: The Thing in the Depths

The boss (the The Thing in the Depths) spawns early in this one and all Tony has to do is kill it to end the scenario. Hopefully, Wilson will have cleared all the VP locations of clues and escorted River Hawthorne for the bonus XP by the time he's ready to deliver the final blow, but if not then he can toy with it for as long as his soak holds out.

• Try to plan ahead with the sinking mechanic and minimize your movement. It's often better for both investigators to end their turn on the same location even if it wastes an action or two. One advantage of going for the boss kill resolution is that you don't have to do as much backtracking.

• The Act will never advance so the Grasping Tendrils won't get added to the encounter deck.

• If you have Dr. Rosa Marquez in play you can use her codex ability to flip an Open Water location back to its bog side. This is best used to help Tony since the boss is elusive and it will move away from him after his first attack each turn (forcing Tony to enter an Open Water location and draw an encounter card).

The Thing in the Depths: 16XP (including 1XP that was left over and 4XP from the final prelude following this scenario).

Upgrades

Removed:

2 x Matchbox: I had to make room for a couple of new cards and this was probably the best choice.

1 x Lantern: And this was the second best choice.

Added:

2 x "I've had worse…": I often take the XP2 version of this card but rarely the XP4 one, but in this case I chose the "enter the Abyss" finale for this run, which means you have to tank a bunch of powerful elites for a turn.

2 x Second Wind: This is another survivability upgrade, and its lower cost is also appreciated.

1 x Ever Vigilant: This is a great upgrade which Tony can take full advantage of if Wilson doesn't have enough assets to drop, as is usually the case.

1 x Fine Tuning: I tried this card out for a while during my test runs and it was pretty interesting. It had the potential to add a lot of throughput when used on the Mariner's Compass (and it protects you from failure in a similar manner to the upgraded compass, Mariner's Compass) but it proved to be right on the cusp of viable because there weren't a lot of locations with more than two clues in most scenarios and Wilson didn't have enough actions to move to a new location and perform another investigate a lot of the time.

I included it here because I had 1XP left over and it could actually be very good in the finale with Lockpicks since your goal is to simply generate as many high test scores as quickly as you can (whether or not there are any clues left on your location).

16XP spent, 0XP left.

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Scenario Six: Fate of the Vale

Over the course of the campaign I've taken upgrades with this scenario in mind, and during testing it actually wasn't too hard to complete the #1 ending where Dr Marquez sacrifices herself.

I didn't really get the hang of this scenario the first time I played it, but I've come to enjoy it more on repeat visits. It plays very differently when you build for it, at least in the early part where you need to cycle through the cards in The Abyss.

Card draw effects are particularly valuable in Act One because your stats depend upon your hand size and the encounter deck is full of discard effects. Fortunately for Wilson card draw is one of his deck's core strengths.

• Do a hard mulligan for Lockpicks instead of Ad Hoc. The only thing that matters for the first act is generating the biggest test scores you can so that you can find both investigator cards.

• Find the location that cares about investigate actions and sit at it. You'll probably take some hits from the enemy, but that's what Girish Kadakia is for. Tony can sometimes sit with you and hit the enemy to prevent it from attacking but he does have to discard a card to the location effect so it doesn't always make sense to do so.

• When the Cave locations enter play you can hang out at them in relative safety. It feels good ducking in and out of them as you move around grabbing clues.

• Your clues disappear when you advance to Act Three so make sure you use them liberally in the first two acts.

• In Act Three (Fate of the Vale V.I) there's a good chance Tony will clear most of the cards in The Abyss in a single turn, so you can just sit back and mop up whatever is left.

  On the following turn both investigators can move in, and then you just have to survive one enemy phase with all the bosses beating on you. Between both investigators (and with cards like Girish Kadakia and "I've had worse…") it shouldn't be a problem.

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Final Thoughts

Can Wilson be an effective cluever on Hard? Is this deck the best bunch of cards for the job?

This is definitely the best version of Wilson I've created in the FHV era, and it surprised me a few times with how effective it could be. It's still really obvious how much of his power budget is tied up in his signature card though, and his low rolls are really low because he can't fall back on his base stats.

Still, investigating almost purely through assets is kind of a unique niche and it was a definite change of pace from my last few Seeker-led runs.

Keen Eye performed well throughout the campaign. Its main purpose was to bring his up to a level sufficient to ensure a good chance of success, which usually involved covering a -5 token, and most of the time that meant only using Keen Eye for a 1-3 point gain.

Due to the varying shroud levels of each location you didn't need to boost him for every test, so planning a path through each scenario involved managing your resource availability between both investigators. Strategic use of Bank Job and "I'll Pay You Back!" became almost a mini-game unto itself.

So Wilson can be an effective cluever on Hard, but I wonder how he would fare outside FHV. Its preludes go a fair way towards smoothing out the variance in getting Ad Hoc or a key asset in play or in hand, and the scenarios which didn't have an associated prelude did feel a bit sketchier in that regard.

I'll end by saying that FHV is probably the game's best campaign, at least mechanically, but The Forgotten Age remains my favourite overall because of its narrative and theme.