In the Know is part of a suite of cards that I call 'remote investigation' cards, with Seeking Answers, Deciphered Reality, Connect the Dots, Interrogate, Sixth Sense (and it's upgrade), Intel Report, and Pendant of the Queen rounding out the rest of the suite. An obvious trait ties all these cards together; the ability to discover clues that are in a different location for where you are.

The advantages of remote investigation are threefold: first, you get to enjoy extra actions in your turn that would otherwise be used to move. This can significantly increase your action efficiency, as you avoid situations like:

• Having to double back if there is an end location that you need to reach and clues have been left behind.
• Having to move into and out of a dead-end for clues.
• Having to move into the range of enemies, or having to wait until your resident guardian clears out the room for you.
• Having to deal with difficult to move into, difficult to move out of, or just impassable locations specific to the scenario.
• Having to move back into the location your were investigating because you were forced out of it by a scenario card.

Second, you get to keep the location with the resign action (if it exists) close at hand. Some scenarios require you to resign as an objective, and sometimes you botch the scenario and want to resign to avoid trauma. Remote investigation allows you to plant yourself at the exit and significantly reduce your risk of involuntary defeat.

Third, it makes the job of whoever's protecting you easier, as you aren't inclined to run off and get into trouble, you damsel-in-distress you. This is especially true if your party runs cards like Barricade (and it's Upgrade), Hiding Spot, Ambush, and Snare Trap.

Is it possible to build a deck themed around remote investigation? Obviously Luke Robinson's entire shtick is remote investigation (or remote anything really), but his ability is a replacement for cards like In the Know, rather than a compliment. Other than him, there are really too few cards with too few charges, spread over too many classes to feasibly build this archetype, yet. Until more remote investigation cards are printed, the likes of In the Know will remain a tech card, otherwise known as your 31st card, maybe taken when you have 1xp to spare, or in a solo campaign, where the few uses are less of a problem.

Review written after the full Path to Carcosa (And Return To Path of Carcosa) has been released:

Archaic Glyphs and it's counterparts Strange Solution and Ancient Stone are pseudo-weaknesses that detract from achieving your objectives in whatever scenario you play, and that's the point; the cards that Archaic Glyphs upgrade into are, as a result, more powerful for their resource and exp costs. Essentially, you're trading away your deck's effectiveness in the early scenarios for more effectiveness in the later ones. That is a strong reason to include this card, because like Delve Too Deep, you have the power to mitigate the amount of a drawback having this card imposes on you by:

• Playing it when your ahead and can afford to lose a few actions.
• Playing and completing it just before you end the scenario, where your additional actions don't matter.
• Playing and using it while clue gathering isn't the current objective and your actions aren't that valuable.
• Playing it as Daisy Walker.
• Playing it in a secret deck with Truth from Fiction and Enraptured.
• Or just NOT playing it because none of the above is true, and committing it to a skill test instead.

I re-iterate that this card is bad and that's the point. Judging it by comparing to other non-quest cards is a mistake. Instead, let's go through the investigators that can take this card, and see how easily they would complete this card's quest, and how desirable the upgraded versions are to them:

• Daisy Walker: Yes. Her additional action on Tome cards means she can knock out the quest without losing any actions, and Archaic Glyphs: Guiding Stones pairs especially well with her alongside Encyclopedia.
• Rex Murphy: No. Rex already has a powerful 'if you succeed an investigation by x' effect built into his character. He doesn't need a second, and every icon discarded hurts his ability to trigger his own.
• Minh Thi Phan. Yes. She will generally have a surplus of and icons in her deck to trigger her ability; extra ones can be sacrificed to Archaic Glyphs without much loss.
• Ursula Downs. Maybe. Completing the quest will hurt her more than Daisy or Minh, but her ability to take an investigate action after moving also covers investigate actions on cards, which all three upgraded versions have, and Archaic Glyphs: Prophecy Foretold pairs ESPECIALLY well with her.
• Joe Diamond: No. You cannot commit cards from his hunch deck, and his actual deck will have fewer icons than most due to competition from guardian cards.
• Mandy Thompson. Yes. Mandy will be drawing cards like there's no tomorrow. Surplus cards can be sacrificed to the un-upgraded version of Archaic Glyphs, or rapidly played from hand with the newest version of Archaic Glyphs: Markings of Isis.
• Norman Withers. NO. Norman CANNOT take any upgraded version of quest cards, making them useless to him.
• Akachi Onyele. No. 2 is going to struggle to get value from the upgraded version of Archaic Glyphs, as they all test intellect.
• Marie Lambeau: Maybe. Marie's arcane slots will be heavily contested, and the upgraded versions will have to compete with the likes of Rite of Seeking and Sixth Sense. However, they have natural synergy with her ability and do fulfil roles outside of investigating.
• All other non-seeker investigators that can take this card. No. Same reason as Norman Withers.

"The saddest part is that co-operative games don't get balance updates" -Tsuruki23's review of .32 Colt.

Not anymore they don't! With the introduction of the Taboo List, which was introduced after Tsuruki23 made his review, Machete has been yeeted out of the 0xp pool, giving other weapons, like the .32 Colt, a chance in the spotlight. That, plus the introduction of .32 Colt (2), means it's time for a re-review:

First, this gun might as well be renamed Harrigan's .32 Special. Arriving in the same expansion that the Colt came in, The Soldier doesn't need boosts to and the Colt doesn't provide them, instead putting that value into being a cheaper, longer lasting gun than the .45 Automatic. Mark can feasibly carry this gun late into a campaign and still find reliable use for it.

Second, if your an investigator with 3 or less , you can forget about including this card. So Carolyn, Skids, Jenny, Culver, Diana, Ashcan, Rex and Lola don't want this card.

As for investigators with 4, Zoey Samaras, Leo Anderson, and Tommy Muldoon can probably pass on this weapon, as their in-built resource acquisition or access to rogue cards means they can afford the more powerful weapons with less uses, such as .45 Thompson, .45 Automatic, and Enchanted Blade. That leaves three investigators that might consider this card: Roland Banks, William Yorick, and Joe Diamond.

Third, if you're including this card in your deck, you should heavily consider "Eat lead!" (and it's upgrade). Eat lead's downside is more severe the less ammo in the firearm you're using and the more boosts the firearm provide when attacking. Guess which gun has the most ammo and the fewest boost?

And that's about it. I wish I could go into more detail about how, in my opinion, William Yorick is the second best investigator for including .32 Colt, but I'll leave that for a deck description, rather than here.

EDIT: Also include Warning Shot, with the same justification as "Eat lead!".

This has very quickly become my favorite investigator specific weakness in the game.

The Watcher looks incredibly menacing. 5 fight? 5 evade?! Poor Patrice only has 2 and 2 , how is she somehow supposed to not fail a test against it? Worse, if she does fail, it'll chase her the entire scenario unless she somehow manages to hit it for 2 damage.

The Watcher has two main routes through which it threatens you while it's in your hand. Firstly, it will clog up your hand, dropping Patrice's precious 5 cards per turn to 4. Second, it will hit you for 3 damage every time you cycle your deck. So your options are to either A. deal with the Watcher to free up your hand and eliminate the threat or B. leave it in your hand and tank the damage when it comes. I've found that option A is much better than option B, but it is perfectly possible you draw this card really late and have no answer in the moment, so we'll go over various ways you can either successfully toss this guy aside or tank the damage.

Here are some of the ways I've found you can most easily deal with the Watcher:

• Fight: Patrice has several methods of fighting at her disposal. You can stack using Holy Rosary and David Renfield, then use a Shrivelling or Wither attack, ideally boosted considerably with cards (depending on your difficulty). Alternatively you could use Fire Axe, which, with 3 resources and a bit of combat boosting, can easily push you where you need to be to hit this thing. Remember, you don't actually need to hit it for 2 damage while it's in your hand, you just need to hit it. I like Shrivelling and Axe also because they do allow you to hit for 2 damage should you fail the first test.
• Evade: As above, you can stack and use Mists of R'lyeh to evade. Patrice also has solid access to boosts being a Survivor class investigator. Peter Sylvestre, Track Shoes, and plenty of solid cards like Waylay, Dumb Luck, Survival Instinct 2, and (for multiplayer) Hiding Spot. I particularly like Survival Instinct 2 as a method of evading both Watcher and any other enemies at your location.

(For both of these options you could also take the relevant cat from Miss Doyle. Hope lets you evade at base 5 while Zeal lets you fight at base 5 ).

• Tanking: Sometimes you just don't have time to respond to the Watcher. In this scenario, it is important that you planned ahead and brought some means of soaking damage. David Renfield, Madame Labranche, and Leather Coat can all soak 2 for you, and as long as you played them when they showed up, you've got nothing to worry about damage wise.

A quick note about Stray Cat, Cunning Distraction, and automatic evade/fight. Currently the ruling based on Harbinger of Valusia is that automatic evasion/fighting does not count as successful since there was no test done. Matt Newman however did recently suggest that you could evade the Watcher using Stray Cat, though it's not clear that this is meant to say it discards the Watcher. For now, until the ruling is made clear, I will be playing as if these cards do not discard the Watcher. Recently the starter decklists from FFG were published implying that Stray Cat can discard the Watcher for you. As a result I highly recommend using automatic evades as a means to discard The Watcher. jk they just changed that again. It is now clear that automatic evade is different from automatic success. In the former case, no test is made so it wouldn't discard the Watcher, in the latter a test is made and automatically succeeds, which does discard the Watcher.

The last thing you need to know about the Watcher is that you want it dealt with as early as possible. The reason for this is because of Patrice's effect: "+1. After this test ends, you may shuffle all but 1 card from your discard pile into your deck." What this means is that you want Patrice to continue taking as many tests as she can just for the opportunities to draw the token. Once she does, you can leave Watcher in your discard and reshuffle everything else into your deck, thereby preventing it from clogging up your hand for several more turns. You could elect to use Olive McBride to find it more reliably, though I personally don't think it's necessary unless you want to do a seal based support Patrice.

Four deluxe cycles later, Fire Axe remains one of the best level 0 weapons in the game, though its role is incredibly different from something like a .45 Thompson or a Shrivelling. The point about this card's accuracy has only gotten more true over time: with the exception of a three+ action'd Chicago Typewriter, there is no other weapon in the game that inherently lets you boost your by 6, not even upgraded weapons. Reading the card, your instinct might be that the two abilities are at odds with one another. Do I keep lots of resources to hit with accuracy for 1 damage, or do I keep resources low so that I only fight at a modest boost but for 2 damage? Moreover, is it worth it to continually spend resources into a weapon instead of spending them elsewhere? How easily can I manage having 0 resources?

Let's first talk about the economy in place for this card. Ideally you want to run this in a deck that isn't very resource hungry. Your other cards should be mostly 0, 1, or 2 resources in cost. This way you can dedicate more of your pool to fighting. There are now a few cards that can be used to recoup resources quickly but consistently:

• Madame Labranche can refund you 1 resource any time you use your Axe to deplete your pool
• Lone Wolf gets you an extra resource a turn
• Forbidden Knowledge puts 4 resources in reserve that you can take as needed without them counting towards your pool
• David Renfield can work similarly to Labranche, though with added risk from the doom you put on him.

Using these cards, it is perfectly viable to have 2 or 3 spare resources each turn to throw into a Fire Axe test, or instead to recoup the resources from last turn's Fire Axe test to spend on something else. The idea here is that you can maintain the use of this card without sacrificing tempo on anything else you need to be doing.

Someone wielding the Fire Axe probably isn't a dedicated fighter, as sinking and recouping resources to sink into it again is not a very consistently possible thing to do in one turn. Rather, the Fire Axe's biggest strength is it lets people who otherwise cannot fight at all help clear the board or defend themselves. If your Mark Harrigan has to dart all the away across the map to save you just so you can Intel Report safely, you're wasting actions. If your Zoey Samaras has to clear a Wizard of the Order you drew to keep the agenda from advancing next turn for you, you might lose rounds. And if you're playing solo, you're gonna need to fight on your own. How do you manage that as Wendy Adams? Fire Axe is the answer to all of those problems.

This is a card that works best in investigators who A: Would not have a good time taking any other weapon and B. Have the economic infrastructure to use it consistently. This means you want it with investigators with either low or limited weapon access. Here are some investigators who love to hack Eldritch horrors to pieces:

• Preston Fairmont. The 4 resources he gets every turn on Family Inheritance are not in his resource pool. That means you can take more than one test a turn at +2 damage and at least +4 without any resource support; alternatively it gives Preston the ability to both play a card and Fire Axe at +6 and 2 damage in the same turn, in either order. Again, this is before you add in any infrastructure like Madame Labranche or Lone Wolf.

• Patrice Hathaway. Patrice gets a Violin that will often act as an extra Madame Labranche, yielding her 3 resources a turn instead of 2. In fact, with Cornered and Recall the Future, or enough icons like from Last Chance, Patrice can follow up her resource committed Fire Axe tests with card committed Fire Axe tests, meaning even at 0 resources pumped into it she can still hit for 2 damage. As if that's not enough, it's the perfect card to deal with Watcher from Another Dimension. In fact, it even works if you fail the first test, as if you can hit it on the follow up, you'll hit for 2 damage and kill it exactly.

• Wendy Adams. Wendy can rely on events like Waylay and Backstab to do most of her fighting, but her subclass access means she can pile on resources and use the Axe as a way to close out gaps of 1 damage, or go for 2 damage in a pinch.

• Minh Thi Phan. investigators are usually constrained on weapon choice. Mind over Matter and "I've got a plan!" only work as one shot effects, not as consistent defense. Minh however is an investigator who runs cheap, draws lots of cards, and whose is low. Fire Axe is a solid weapon choice for her so long as you're not needing both hand slots for something else.

• Silas Marsh. Silas, like Minh, likes to run cheap, with lots of skill cards and draw. Fire Axe can let him boost his already high to almost guarantee a hit for 1. He probably wants other 2 damage weapons alongside it, like Meat Cleaver, but Fire Axe is a good backup.

Some slightly more left field picks:

• Finn Edwards. His base is 3, but he often dislikes fighting with other weapons, electing instead to do damage in the same way Wendy usually does damage. He can make great use of Pickpocketing 2 and Hatchet Man (which is already thematically fitting) just to follow that up with a Fire Axe test for 2 or 3 damage.

• Marie Lambeau. She can take Forbidden Knowledge and David Renfield to use Fire Axe as a means to fight without using a Shrivelling charge.

• Jenny Barnes. This depends heavily on what you want your version of Jenny to be doing, but the cost of boosting the Axe is lower for her than most investigators, so it can be a great closer of 1 damage in the right Jenny deck.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Dark Horse. This is a card whose most consistent application is to turn your +6 tests on Fire Axe into +7 . Whether that's worth the tempo loss of 3 resources, a card, and an action depends heavily on the chaos bag (and therefore the difficulty as well as the campaign), the investigator you chose, and whether or not you can follow up a Fire Axe attack with a test in some other stat. For example, a Preston Fairmont deck might use skill pumps like Dig Deep to get most of its work done, in which case Dark Horse can be used to great effect on or tests (admittedly tends to be more narrow in its application mid round, but there are treacheries where this is relevant). Alternatively, Preston might choose instead to buy most of his evades and clues, via Lola Santiago, Intel Report, and Decoy. In this sort of deck, Dark Horse loses value. So think critically about how much you need that +1 boost, how often you can get it, and whether or not the other boosts are worthwhile. We often call resource low decks "Dark Horse" decks, but in reality Dark Horse has become less and less valuable of a card among them. Fire Axe, meanwhile, has only gotten better.

Fire Axe is the weapon of choice for non-fighters. It keeps your weakest investigators alive and saves them time to do the things they're naturally good at doing. It's for that reason that it's managed to become my personal favorite weapon in the game. It's not always easy to use, but it's well worth it.