Drain Essence

This card is perfect for Parallel Agnes, especially in the first few scenarios. You can now safely run In the Thick of It and put the trauma to HP as you now have another reliable way to pseudo-heal (aside from Hallowed Mirror of course).

ichinokata00 · 704
Given the way timing works, I'm assuming || Agnes would take the damage first to use her ability, then immediately shift it to the enemy as an outcome of the spell. So she can self-fund and immediately heal, no trauma needed. — Time4Tiddy · 252
Rita Young

Looks like Rita will get a new lease on life with all the fun Trick cards in Hemlock Vale. She's always been one of my favorites, and I'm really looking forward to testing out some "made for Rita" economy actions like Grift to Snitch. Bewitching seems like it was made for her. She'll get good use out of False Surrender (Done Runnin' indeed!) and can Vamp to get maximum results from an easy (for her) evasion test. Now I just want to see Rita doing some running in her Fine Clothes!

Time4Tiddy · 252
The Hatchet is also a really good weapon for her. She attack with it at huge skill value and can easily find ping damage to finish off victims. — OrionAnderson · 139
Microscope

Finally a (relatively) cheap and effective answer to Roland Banks's terrible, terrible weakness. Play it out early, load it up with charges, and clear Cover Up with one test in one round.

Synergizes with Hand-Eye Coordination, which also combos with Chuck West 3 to let you investigate while engaged for free damage.

CombStranger · 294
Sadly, <a href="/card/10030" data-hasqtip="1" aria-describedby="qtip-1">Hand-Eye Coordination</a> only ignores the first <span class="icon-action"></span> according to the FAQ, so that wouldn't work. My freescopin' dreams are shattered. — Groovinator · 1
Er, sorry for the above comment, thought that would work. Basically, Hand-Eye Coordination only ignores the first action cost according the the FAQ, so it wouldn't synergize very well with Microscope. — Groovinator · 1
Great point, CombStranger. Roland's weakness is ludicrously harsh, and this is a good enough card in its own right to warrant inclusion in most decks that are a bit on the cluey side. — Dr_Shigogo · 1
Katana

The melee version of the .35 Winchester and Song of the Dead, with the significant advantage that, of the three, it doesn't use ammo. The others already come with a lot of ammo on account of their damage output being highly random, but infinite is still better.

Two kinds of investigators want this card, the first is hunters with high agility to use the fast action, which is to say Lily Chen and "Skids" O'Toole. Skids has the edge in that he can use Daring Maneuver to turn a flat success on the main attack into a +2, while Lily currently has no way to fix the result after the fact. Of course, skids will be missing the hand slots for investigative tools, while Lily is more comfortable with a 2-hander.

The second type is investigators with access to the level 1 Seeker pool, for the sole purpose of taking Steady-Handed. Steady-Handed lets you trigger it on a 1, 2 or 3 over target, every round. Being able to hit 3 damage 1/round will carry you through most of the game, and since it doesn't have to be ready to use the primary attack, you can follow up with +2 attacks to finish off 4 or 5hp enemies. As a bonus, hitting that +2 will heal a horror. That's amazing value. The only unfortunate thing is that between Roland, Joe, Vincent, Carolyn and Rex, two don't want a weapon and the other three don't have the agility to use the fast action.

Additional cards to consider:

Blasphemous Covenant has synergy with additional token fixing, if you're playing with curses.

Strong-Armed lets you re-roll at the cost of health.

• BTB Roland with the Due Diligence loves Hold Up, and Red Tape even makes it fast.

• Skids and Lily may like Grievous Wound, which lets you add a DoT with the fast attack for enemies you plan to evade.

• Skids theoretically likes False Surrender, which bundles action economy and a small skill bonus in one.

CombStranger · 294
What high agility hunters want to spend 4 resources and 2 hands for a 1 damage fight using agility? Skids can accomplish the same test totals with Knife and Switchblade, unless you're running a lot of +agility passive boosts. Lily has a higher fight than agility. — jaunt · 21
Nevermind. Turns out reading the card explains the card. That said, the fast action agility test is still kind of a sad consolation prize for missing your "by exactly 2" normal attacks. If you want to build around the Katana, I think you're much, much better off with an investigator who can control their success number, to the extent I wouldn't recommend it to any investigator planning on the "I have high agi" backup plan. — jaunt · 21
Don't forget Lily has access to Premonition, so she CAN control it a bit. — AlderSign · 440
Without any other modifier Skids can fight at 5 using combat and 4 using Agility with this. There's really no reason to use the free triggered ability for him unless he can pump his Agility by at least 3 points. This doesn't really seem to be a good deal for him. — Killbray · 13039
Ad Hoc

I read this ability wrong originally. You can only use the ability on the discarded asset. This means you can stock a sledgehammer to toss for a free use of the double arrow attack (as clarified in the FAQ), but you cannot put it on a hammer to get a free use of the double attack after you whack them with the base hit.

This is a bit strange and basically means ad hoc allows you to use tools with big activation costs from your hand for free, after using an attached weapon.

drjones87 · 209
Not exactly for "free". You need: — bugiel_marek · 26
You need: 1. To have a card of specific trait in hand. 2. Discard that card. — bugiel_marek · 26
@bugiel_marek: you discard the card as a part of the Ad Hoc's ability, so your 2nd point is not valid. And the first is a matter of proper deckbuilding. — Almevirian · 7
I’m sure by free he meant zero resources. The effect can also spew potential weapons around the field for other gators to pick up and use without needing resources. Now my big question is wether it’s worth upgrading Sledgehammer just to end up in the discard pile. — Staticalchemist · 1