I cannot recommend enough playing Midwinter Gala near the start of a campaign to go hunting for incredibly fun story assets like this one. You know how Zoey is a really powerful investigator because she solves Guardian's resource struggles just by doing the thing that a Guardian needs to do? With Archibald, anyone can be Zoey, with the ability to gain resources for engaging and turn those resources into bonus damage.

This deck lets you solve multiple problems that Guardians face, single-handedly fixing your economy and smoothing out the curve of when you face enemies. Sometimes as a dedicated monster-hunter you have a turn where there just isn't much of value to do, and Archibald lets you face an enemy now, when you're ready for it, rather than later when you might have more on your plate. It's also fantastic when you're on the hunt for that victory point enemy that you're hoping to take out before the game ends.

In the right deck, Archibald Hudson can be absurdly powerful and fun. He's particularly powerful when combined with the Runic Axe's Inscriptions of Fury, which can make it worth searching for bonus enemies even if you're already engaged.

The best part is it's relatively low risk since the enemy starts out exhausted!

The arrow action should be used sparingly, but it can let you heal an ally and save an ammunition on those pesky 3-health enemies.

Consider the following scenario from the game I just played: Zoey has a Runic Axe and Archibald Hudson out. During the mythos phase, both she and her partner draw enemies. On Zoey's turn, as a free action before she starts fighting she goes searching for another enemy and finds a swarm of spiders, earning 3 resources from Archibald and another three from her own ability. Now, with three enemies engaged on her, she swings the axe with inscription of fury (and an inscription of the hunt to engage her partner's enemy) and with a single blow knocks out nine spiders within a single turn, at no extra action cost over what it would have taken me to get the first enemy.

So... I busted. And learned a lot. This is a card you have to read really careful:

While you can take this card out of pure greed that's not what I did. I played it in The Web of Dreams and turned out fine. Not Jacqueline Fine-fine, because she exists no more, but fine enough to continue playing after I was defeated.

Playing The Great Work - and other XP greed cards - is inefficient in The Dream-Eaters, because it does proc less often than in normal campaigns.

There are two common ways to approach this card:

1) Just slot it into any deck that can take it to get more XP, having a solid enough deck to prevent being defeated.

2) Count on being defeated at some point. That requires making sure your deck can handle being a Homunculus. I.e., Spell cards with abilities as your main way of interacting with the game. This approach can also be viable if you are playing a campaign with lots of potential extra weaknesses or maybe if you are playing cards with exile (I am awaiting an answer from Alex Werner).

Since I fell in 2) with my run, I essentially only lost 1 and the token fishing when using Wither and Sixth Sense.

What I really mourned was loss of power with Drain Essence. Why is that? Because the wording on the Homunculus is "You get +2 skill value while resolving abilities on Spell cards." It doesn't work with [Drain Essence] (/card/10094), because the effect that you resolve when playing it is not an ability, according to arkhamdb.com So I wondered why, when abilities mainly exist on cards in play, did they not phrase it so it says "You get +2 skill value while resolving abilities on Spell ASSETS."? My best guess is because cards like Bind Monster and the taboo-ed Power Word exist. Too bad for Drain Essence, still...

On the plus side, I was defeated in the scenario that would have added a story weakness into my deck - and ignored that one with a grin.

ANOTHER surprising find (heh) was that when you are transformed, the scenario doesn't necessarily end for you. How come, you ask? It's a bit of a rare case, but if you are playing an investigator with less than 6 (aka the Homunculus's) health or sanity and then would be defeated on point, The Great Work acts very similar to Cheat Death. Since - according to arkhamdb.com -, the trigger for the investigator replacement happens before the impact of being defeated on the game state, you would now have an investigator with, say, 5 damage on them, but with 6 health instead of 5. And that means you'll live! Note that, like Cheat Death, the ability does not replace being defeated, it just sneaks an effect into the game before it actually happens.

The list of eligible investigators for this to happen is longer than I actually expected: Amina Zidane, "Ashcan" Pete, Daisy Walker, Gloria Goldberg, Hank Samson, Luke Robinson, Mark Harrigan, Michael McGlen, Rita Young, Roland Banks, Sefina Rousseau, Silas Marsh, Sister Mary, and Tony Morgan.

I'm very late to this, but I wanted to add my 2c.

On a blind playthrough, this card can easily be a full bottleneck. If your clue getting strategy is event based, or commit based, you just can't get past this.

Our blind run was particularly nasty. We had an event based mystic cluever (who was surprisingly good at recycling read the signs 1-2 times every single round) and Nathaniel Cho as our fighter. Without events or committing, neither could get their score above 3, so we were literally digging for 2 tokens while sitting on a place that let us play no events to deal with the mythos deck.

We had to sit on this single location for 6 rounds, ducking in and out of it to play events just to not die to the build up of mythos cards and carefully managing health/sanity. Eventually, we managed to pull a +1 with Agnes (no rite of seeking) while Nathaniel managed to kill an enemy with basic attack actions and trigger Grete Wagner for the other clue.

I'm personally not a massive fan of cards that turn off your deck with no way to counter them. Sometimes the game will turn off committing cards 'or' playing events 'or' assets, but usually not for more than 1 round (or 2 actions to discard the problem). This card is particularly nasty for the fact that it turns off 2 of your potential 3 options and gives you no way to get access to those options again. Really, the way to deal with it is 'play an investigator with 4 or 5 lore'.

Can only review this from the perspective of playing ||Agnes, but boy, is this card a doozy for her!

First, lets break down what this card does.

• It helps with the actual test numbers. I don't need to wax lyrical on why this is useful. Bigger numbers = better tests. It's a little more narrow, in that it only helps with Spell event tests, but given they're typically higher impact, getting them to 'go off' more reliably is always a bonus.
• It helps beat the Chaos bag. Sometimes, this is just making sure you don't draw the auto-fail. Sometimes it's two bites at the apple for your Hail Mary. Spell events are generally costly, and for the low price of one horror, you can turn off the swingiest token in the bag, ensuring you get the bang for your buck.
• It helps maximise your and minimise your . We've all been there. I need two clues with my Read the Signs, and I'm testing 7 vs 1. Draw 3 Bless tokens and a +1. Almost feels as bad as drawing . Flipside, when you're making these huge tests, you can deliberately fish for Curse tokens to try and 'purge the bag'.
• You can use it to fish for bonus effects. This is, for the most part, limited to Spectral Razor, Ethereal Form, Read the Signs and Banish within spell effects, but can be useful for triggering your other assets, like Ritual Candles or Paradoxical Covenant, or even just fishing for the .

So, it boils down to an amalgam of Holy Rosary and Grotesque Statue, without the soak, and strictly only for spell events. In other decks, this would be a little limiting, as your spell events deplete. For ||Agnes, this just doubles down on what you're already good at. You're already needing to set up to weather the damage you take from your own ability, and potentially having to soak Dark Memory.

For ||Agnes, I think that Sutra has a very strong and positive effect on how your deck functions. Are there better cards? Certainly, but for 2 XP, you get a lot of slot compression, particularly around your neck slot, which is heavily contested between Hallowed Mirror and Heirloom of Hyperborea. Bonus points when paired up with Prophetic so you can bump your spells even more!

I've had a lot of fun with this card, and I think it is a slodi include in decks that can handle drawing it early. This is now easier to do with access to red, as the Survivor card pool has a very fledged out "Discard" archetype. It also has two relevant traits in Insight and Spirit, which are constantly getting more support.

However, I have also come to like this card in general in lower player counts where additional actoins are more valuable. I do think it is able to pull its weight, and more people should try it out.