Survival Technique

Incredibly niche use, but Parallel Jenny Barnes and her ability to take out-of-class talents allows her to tuck one of these into her deck to solve Searching For Izzie testless and instantly, then toss the Survival Technique out on a useful check later or get cash back out of her investigator ability. Great option for those who might want to use the Advanced version of Jenny's Twin .45's but are wary about the more difficult weakness possibly being too much to clear in some scenarios.

(First time commenting and I botched it as an unintended reply with the wrong formatting, whoops. Second time's the charm.)

Ashsflames · 1
Would you care to elaborate on solving searching for Izzie testlessly and instantly? If you mean that you can return searching for Izzie to your hand then yes you can but then it's revelation triggers and it just reattaches to the location farthest from you? Unless I'm missing something? — NarkasisBroon · 13
I doubt, that this is a possible solution for the search. According to the rules this is a weakness with an encounter card trait. So it is treated like one and after being drawn don't belong to any player. So technically you don't own it as long it is on the board. — Tharzax · 1
Nah, you still own it: https://arkhamdb.com/rules#Ownership_and_Control But it would just trigger again after being added to your hand, as has been noted. — AlderSign · 452
Contraband

Say, "Hello," to my little friend: The Gatling Gun!

Drowned City brought us this little gem and I have found that it has resurrected Contraband.

First, here are all of the other cards I could find that can do +3 or more damage per attack:

M1918 BAR - 1 action to play, 1 action per attack, 5 resources, +1 Combat per ammo spent, 1 damage per ammo spent, asset with 8 ammo, 2 hand slots, 4 XP

"I've got a plan!" – 1 action, 3 resources, uses intellect to attack, no intellect bonus, event, 0 XP

"I've got a plan!" (2) – 1 action, 2 resources, uses intellect to attack, +2 intellect, event, 0 hand slots, 2 XP

Fang of Tyr'thrha - 1 action, 3 resources, add Agility to Combat, attack any enemy at a revealed location, event, 0 hand slots, 4 XP

Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 - 1 action to play, 1 action per attack, 4 resources, +5 Combat, asset with single ammo, reload 1 ammo for 1 action, 2 hand slots, 5 XP

Timeworn Brand - 1 action to play, 1 action per attack, 5 resources, add Willpower to Combat, asset where +3 damage attack is allowed once per game, 1 hand slot, 5 XP

Sledgehammer – 1 action to play, 3 actions per attack, 3 resources, +5 Combat, +5 damage, 2 hand slots, 4 XP

Shotgun - 1 action to play, 1 action per attack, 5 resources, +3 Combat, +1- +4 damage depending on test result, asset with 2 ammo, 2 hand slots, 4 XP

Sawed-Off Shotgun - 1 action to play, 1 action per attack, 3 resources, +0 Combat, +1- +5 damage depending on test result, asset with 2 ammo, 2 hand slots, 5 XP

Flamethrower - 1 action to play, 1 action per attack, 4 resources, +4 Combat, +3 damage, asset with 4 ammo, 2 hand slots, 5 XP

Now compare to Gatling Gun + Contraband :

Variable actions (see below), 9 resources, variable combat bonus (see below), variable damage (see below), 2 hand slots, 5 XP

Gatling Gun starts with 12 ammo on it and can use 6 ammo per attack for +6 combat and a flat 6 damage per use. If you play Contraband on a fresh Gatling Gun, you get 24 ammo. If you then play Scrounge for Supplies or Shrine of the Moirai or a similar ability to pull Contraband back into your hand and play it again (or if you have 2x Contraband in your hand), you end up with 48 ammo on the Gatling Gun. For the purposes of the below analysis, I will stick with the 24 ammo version.

24 ammo is enough to give you 4 attacks at +6 combat for a total of 24 damage with a setup cost of 9 resources and two actions. Put another way, that’s 24 damage for 6 actions and 9 resources which is an average of 4 damage and 2.25 resources per attack that likely never miss except for an auto-fail.

Additionally, you can use Primed for Action to reduce the cost of Gatling Gun by 2 and play an upgrade action on it where the upgrade costs zero actions.

Also, you can use "I'll take that!" to get Gatling Gun into play for cheaper than 5 resources.

And now for the average stats of Gatling Gun + Contraband at different damage/combat bonus levels. These assume you are attacking one enemy at a time. These efficiency stats get better if you are attacking multiple enemies at a time, but the +6 Combat becomes less effective since the difficulty of your fight test is the sum of the fight values of all enemies at your location.

AVGs FOR 4 ATTACKS AT 6 DAMAGE & +6 COMBAT PER ATTACK

1.5 actions per attack

2.25 resources per attack

AVGs FOR 6 ATTACKS AT 4 DAMAGE & +4 COMBAT PER ATTACK

1.3 actions per attack

1.5 resources per attack

AVGs FOR 8 ATTACKS AT 3 DAMAGE & +3 COMBAT PER ATTACK

1.25 actions per attack

1.1 resources per attack

AVGs FOR 12 ATTACKS AT 2 DAMAGE & +2 COMBAT PER ATTACK

1.17 actions per attack

0.75 resources per attack

Looking at the +3 and greater damage cards, above, only M1918 BAR + Contraband comes close to the power of Gatling Gun + Contraband. The M1918 BAR is very similar to the Gatling Gun with the following differences:

1) M1918 BAR starts with 4 fewer ammo. (This means 8 fewer ammo after Contraband.)

2) M1918 BAR can't split its damage across multiple enemies the way the Gatling Gun can.

3) M1918 BAR can only spend 5 ammo per shot while the Gatling Gun can spend 6.

4) M1918 BAR costs 1 XP less than the Gatling Gun. One extra XP for 8 more ammo, split damage ability, and 1 extra ammo per shot seems worth the 1 XP.

Give it a try!

Grahamers · 1
Your list of ways to deal 4 or more damage in one hit is a bit too short - you're missing at least Shotgun, M1918 BAR, Flamethrower and Sawed-off Shotgun — TheNameWasTaken · 3
Also, I think you're reading "I'll take that!" wrong - it does not require the target asset to be illicit. Rather, it makes the target asset illicit. So you can, of course, use it with the gatling gun, but that's nothing special - all weapons can make use of it. — TheNameWasTaken · 3
@thenamewastaken - Thanks! I updated my review. — Grahamers · 1
Quick list of which investigators can take the combo of Gatling gun + Contraband + Scrounge for Supplies : Parallel Skids O'Toole, Bob Jenkins, Finn Edwards, Jenny Barnes, Preston Fairmont and Tony Morgan — DrOGM · 25
Unscrupulous Loan

Auto-include for Bob and his best friend Joey. Just sell everything you got right before taking a lethal blow or ending the scenario and you will be able to pay back the loan. Just hope you don't die off testless damage/horror in the Mythos phase, because there is no window to react.

stefeef · 13
Wilson Richards

FHV really missed the opportunity to add a level 5 tool for Wilson. Now he just can't take any non-neutral level 5 cards which is weird, because he and Lola are the only investigators that can't. For Lola that makes sense, but for him that's just weird.

stefeef · 13
Parallel Roland can take only up to level 3, and most parallels after him up to level 4. Also untill the release of the Stella deck (so for the first 4 years), all red characters were effectively level 0-3. — Susumu · 385
You could just take the pocket multi tool and sink 10 exp into it — Spamamdorf · 5
Stars of Hyades

I'm surprised nobody has talked about how Sefina can completely circumvent this weakness. Using Friends in Low Places, Clever upgrade or Parallel Fates (2), she can simply rearrange her deck as she likes while drawing a few extra cards. Meanwhile add in Foresight (1) to cancel her weakness. With Double, Double she can even opt to shuffle her deck the first tutor and then arrange it the second time. Very low xp investment needed to make this work and every upgrade also benefits her with card draw.

kongieieie · 32