Defiance

Stealing a joke from the amazing podcast Drawn to the Flame (if you are a big fan of Arkham Horror and haven't heard of them, go listen to them now):

The flavor text should've read "Still no".

So, stolen jokes aside, this card seems like a pretty nice upgrade over the first. Barring Premonition it's hard to know what kind of token you'll draw. Mystic does have more solutions to this (Olive McBride and Dark Prophecy, for example) but Defiance will still miss from time to time.

This version is a lot more reliable, especially when using any mystic trick to draw more tokens, or maybe seal something. However, this card costs 2 XP, which is a big hurdle. The nice thing about Defiance is that since it's 0 XP, you can put it in your starter deck and replace when you get better cards. It having a icon also means it's never really dead: even if you don't have a way to see more tokens or manipulate the bag, you can just commit it and name the token you want to see the least.

For this card, you need to invest 2 XP. That's a big ask, especially on a skill card you'll use once per scenario at most. As such, unless you have a way to ensure you have a token to draw (Dark Prophecy) I don't really think this is worth it.

Oh, and since both Carcosa and Forgotten Age have ways of manipulating the chaos bag based on your choices, I think the 2 XP becomes even less worth it, as especially in Carcosa you will probably know what tokens are in there.

Veronica212 · 301
Flamethrower

Move aside Lightning Gun the new king of weapons is here!

Comparing it directly to Lightning Gun, you save two resources, get one more ammo and do one more damage. Note the damage is multiplicative with the ammo so you get potentially 16 damage to Lightning Gun's 9.

The first drawback is the body slot. Notably this rules out Bandolier. Thus a flame wielding Guardian will have to fully commit to exclusively using the Flamethrower by using Venturer, Extra Ammunition and Custom Ammunition. Contraband is also interesting if it is available to you.

The other disadvantage is you must be engaged with the enemy. Normally you do not want to risk shooting your friends with your high powered guns so you would want to engage anyways but this weapon actively requires you to be engaged. This may mean a loss of an action for a harried investigator. Also you may want to engage multiple enemies so its a good idea to bring Taunt along as well to avoid attacks of opportunity.

It still has one less fight then Lightning Gun but both are usually sufficient to guarantee success on all but the tentacle and the super negative token you get on Hard and Expert.

Overall I think despite these weaknesses this is by far the most efficient purifier of xenos scum, err I mean mythos monsters available today.

The M1918 BAR is also a very fun weapon and may become more efficient against very low health enemies, but there are too few of those around to compete.

ArkhamPirate · 51
Definitely agree - this is truly a new king. I doubted that BAR is able to detronize LG, but here I have no doubt. Just mention that its synergy with Well Prepared rocks. — KptMarchewa · 1
Card links in this review are broken. — TheNameWasTaken · 3
Card links fixed — ArkhamPirate · 51
Also dearly worth considering: The Reliable card. — tercicatrix · 16
I honestly think this card is straight-up overpowered. I thought Lightning Gun was a fantastic build-around for the Guardian class, and this card just trounces Lightning Gun. What a card. — CaiusDrewart · 3200
Rise to the Occasion

Since no-one seems to have noticed, ill just point out that this card fits perfectly into any deck using Dark Horse, where it's restriction is suddenly "at least 1 higher". For Dark Horse Duke ("Ashcan" Pete), This is basically the perfect skill card to go with all your passive stat boosters.

Of course, Even for Dark Horse its basically a 3rd and 4th copy of Unexpected Courage.

Thornstromb · 65
No, the restriction doesn't change, and that's the problem; finding tests that are two-over the base value to use it on. His Intellect 2 and Fight 2 mean that you're looking for Shroud 4 locations and Combat 4 enemies, which aren't as common as you'd think. Of course, having Dark Horse does make passing that a lot more likely... — AndyB · 957
And if you use Duke (who traits your base as higher for tests he’s used in), you need to find Intellect/Combat 6 tests. That said, I think those tests are common enough, and Pete decks don’t really have ‘too conditional cards’, just dog food. MINOR SPOILERS: (You are 100% guaranteed to encounter a must pass test Pete qualifies for in every scenario in Night of the Zealot, and very likely to encounter more, especially with certain treacherous that impede investigations... and agendas that increase monster fight.) — Death by Chocolate · 1490
It's still a situational card, but Pete is where those shine, because you can always at least throw them at Duke — PartyTime · 1
At one point, I thought that it might good for Finn, to help him tackle the 3 willpower mythos. But even there, in 'normal', with 1 point over the test difficulty, you'll only succed 25% of the time or so... — Palefang · 72
AndyB: it is assumed that you arent performing skill tests if you cant reach a value of at least 0-to-win. Under these conditions, RttO is effectively +1 when applicable. with Dark Horse, it's +1. That's what that meant. — Thornstromb · 65
i meant with dark horse it's +2. whoops. — Thornstromb · 65
Seal of the Seventh Sign

Sealing specialist(s) - Can be splitted between two players, only the reloads should be combined on one player:

Events:

Qualified investigators:

Works well with:

  • Ancient Covenant + Blessing Generator
  • other mystics with spell assets and events with negative side effects on symbol tokens
It's leaving play, so i think it disappears. — SGPrometheus · 855
I agree, it should be removed. — Fullgrimm · 1
The hand is an out of play zone, so yes, putting it in your hand causes it to leave play. — Death by Chocolate · 1490
"Shining Trapezohedron" only pays for play costs of Spell cards, not for the forced effect to spend 1 resource on "Protective Incarnation". That's a different thing and won't work. — Susumu · 383
Also, Twila Katherine Price only places "spent" charges, but this one is "removed". — AlderSign · 423
Vantage Point

I had a friend play this tonight when we were playing the second scenario of Forgotten Age, and he had a pretty clever use for it: he took the last clue off of a high shroud location (shroud 5) and put it on a slightly lower shroud location that had just been revealed (shroud 4). Why was this clever? Because the location we took the last clue from was worth a victory point.

Now, you can obviously use this card to lower the shroud of a location and make it easier to investigate for a turn, but I don't think that's terribly relevant. Why? Because, except for a few corner cases where people have extra actions, you are, at best, going to get two investigations with -1 shroud.

I think the best use of this card you are going to regularly get to use is taking clues from locations you don't want them and moving them somewhere else. And I don't just mean from high shroud locations. Some locations inflict a penalty for trying to move on to them or for trying to investigate on them. And I can think of three locations from that scenario alone that would fit the above description.

But the times you will be most proud of yourself will be the times when you spent one resource and net your team a victory point.

Schielman · 38
This event can save a lot of move actions if there’s a lone clue at the other side of the map. This card had interesting interactions with the rougarou scenario. — Django · 5171
That's pretty much how I like using it: net a free VP from a painful location (such as spend 3 resources to investigate. Yar!) — Razoupaf · 1