The Survivor's Magnifying Glass. useful to a clue minded investigator who needs something to do with his/her hand. The net effect of +1 is not always a worthwhile bonus but depending on your character and other cards you may stand to gain a lot if you can hit the magic numbers (2 above the difficulty for Standard, 3 for Hard). Wendy Adams can put this to use till she gets her Lockpicks, the other survivors all suffer intellects of 2- or preferable alternatives. For them Flashlight is a better pure-investigation tool.

But Lantern has an extra use. Automatic damage! Autodamage is always good, a guaranteed dead Swarm of Rats or Acolyte can be absolutely critical, or as a finisher to a foe that you managed to tag with a punch or to end a foe that you've chipped at with a proper weapon. This is the real kicker for this card, say for example you hit someone with a .45 Automatic leaving them with 1 hitpoint, say you wanna avoid some particular tokens in the chaos bag, the Lantern got you covered.

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A note unmentioned in a review of this card insofar.

A -1 Shroud value will affect tertiary card effects, by this I mean Double or Nothing, Lucky!, "Look what I found!" ETC.

I.E, if you reduce a 3 difficulty location to difficulty 2 and fail, your minimum value (0) ensures that you can play "Look what I found!" on the test you just failed by 2 points.

Correspondence with developer:

Q: How does Charles Ross, Esq. work? The card doesn't explicitly states its time window. Can you use its ability then in the next round use up the cost reduction? Maybe even use it twice before playing an item? It using at your location, does it mean your location when you use the ability, or when you play the item (if you use the ability and then move, where can you play an item at reduced cost)?

A: Correct; Charles Ross’s ability applies until it is used, so if you use it in one round you will still get the discount next round, and if you use him more than once before playing a card, you would get a –2 discount. As for your second question, if you move after using Charles Ross’s ability, the discount would apply to the next Item asset played by an investigator at your new location, not the former location.

So basically you can get one additional resource from it per round. Awesome for a 2 resource card!

As cards come out that let you recurse from your discard, this card gets progressively worse. Resourceful, True Survivor now let you grab stuff in the discard and can become borderline (or totally) unplayable because of the risk posed by this card removing all the viable targets, Scavenging has always been a liability and these cards are only gonna grow in number. Thankfully Wendy is getting some solid cards like Waylay and Lucky Cigarette Case to slot next to Backstab and Rabbit's Foot and thus all 4 cards gain consistency.

Here'S hoping Wendy gets a novel though because I really would like to try True Survivor survivor on her.

This might be easy to misread, so just a clarification.

Taking -2 Sanity is not the same as being dealt horror, I.E this is not horror you suffer or a permanent reduction in horror health. Therefore the net benefit of St. Hubert's Key is:

+

+

+2 sanity.

In other words, this card gives you the exact same benefit as a Holy Rosary, and then throws in the extra +1. The difference is however that St. Hubert's Key self-destructs and automatically heals you when you hit your reduced Sanity threshold, thus while St. Hubert's Key gives you a bunch of extra power and safety you must still be careful or you'll loose it faster then you'dd like.

St. Hubert's Key does not invalidate Holy Rosary, the latter is still a much tougher asset than the former and in the mystic's already expensive lineup of key assets finding the extra cash to pay for an often unused boost is hard. Often the St. Hubert's Key will find itself sought after by non- characters like Daisy Walker, "Ashcan" Pete or Rex Murphy who will better appreciate the extra since they spend a lot of their time using that skill to begin with. Note that the reduced Sanity stat has an interesting interaction with Desperate cards (Like Reckless Assault).

Currently the lineup of character's will prioritize tests over tests, and often paying the extra cash will just be a waste, since you will spend a lot of your time utilizing a Rite of Seeking or the like. Note that your experience with this card will vary with difficulty, an of 4 for example (like Jim Culver or Father Mateo with the St. Hubert's Key) will get you much further against difficulty 2 locations in standard than it does in hard and it'll be much easier to bridge the gap for higher difficulty locations with other cards. An of 4 will succeed on a difficulty 2 investigate in The Gathering 80% of the time on standard but just 60% of the time in hard, that's the difference between finishing a 2 clue location (Study) in one round or two.

Final evaluation: St. Hubert's Key is powerful, absolutely, but not always useful. Perhap's it is St. Hubert's Key's downfall that Holy Rosary exists.

EDIT: Bonus note, give special consideration to St. Hubert's Key in solo, especially Solo on standard.

I've never been a huge fan of firearms, due to their limited ammo. Do I want a .45 Automatic, which costs 4 and I can use 4 times, or Machete/Fire Axe/Survival Knife, which are cheaper and I can use all day?

Worse - frustratingly, Rogues have better access to ammunition, albeit indirectly, though Sleight of Hand. That's just wrong.

However... Venturer changes that. An ally that reloads a firearm, and then provides a damage soak before shuffling off? Sounds good. Oh, and he's non-unique, so Leo Anderson can easily play him. For Leo, he's way better than Extra Ammunition - no XP, costs only 1 more, and gives that 2/2 soak.

In the Forgotten Age I picked up Shotgun after the first scenario. I'd neglected it for a long time, as that 2-ammo was a killer. Now, though, with a couple of Venturers, well, Leo isn't flush with ammo - but he does have enough.

He synergises well with Calling in Favors, too; Beat Cop is the same price, so make sure Leo hires some of those for the Jungle, too.

For other investigators, he'll take a bit more investment; you'll probably want Charisma, as I still reckon Beat Cop is still too good to pass up for most guardians (or possibly Art Student for Roland) - but if you're going down the Lightning Gun or Shotgun route, I think it would be worth it!

Firearms are interesting again...