Jenny Barnes

Jack of All Trades, Master of None, that is Jenny.

Her stats, straight 3's across the board, make this Dilettante okay at many things, but not incredibly likely to succeed at higher difficulties if she doesn't have something to support her. However, on Easy or Normal she's just one Magnifying Glass away from being a pretty good investigator, especially if she can also grab a Flashlight for those high-shroud locations.

In combat, Jenny is again decent but by no means a powerhouse. Her Jenny's Twin .45s signature card gives her a nice offensive boost, as 5 deals with most non-elites okay. She also has access to the Rogue card pool, so evading is a natural choice. With someone like a Cat Burglar watching her back, she can evade most monsters for quite a while.

The simple truth is that Jenny needs assets and other support cards to help her make skill checks because you simply can't rely on a 3 to carry you very far. However, Jenny has a major advantage in this regard: she gains double the resources everyone else does during the Upkeep phase.

Which, for example, means she can afford to buy a number of high-cost assets, and still put money into her Streetwise when she needs to make a check. In addition, Leo De Luca is a great Rogue Card that rivals the most expensive card in the game. Most players who can play Leo do so, but always have to make a bit of a sour face when they realize just how much money he costs. Jenny knows she'll have more money shortly, so plays Leo gladly.

A brief mention of Jenny's signature weakness, Searching for Izzie. It depends entirely on when it's drawn. Early in a scenario, it'll probably be fine, but if drawn near the end you are taking that trauma.

So, how does Jenny compare to the other Rogues?

  • "Skids" O'Toole has higher , which is of course great for a Rogue. However, his lower and lower sanity means Skids has a tendency to get defeated by sanity damage. I think the ability of Skids to get an extra action is really powerful, but so far it's only come up occasionally because it costs two resources. I think I prefer Jenny's for reliability.

  • Sefina Rousseau is interesting because she's very unlike the rest. Her ability requires loading up on events, and most of her unique abilities allow you to draw more cards. As far as her statline goes, she's much more capable of taking sanity loss, but beware of physical damage with this one.

  • Finn Edwards seems like he would play the same as Skids in a ton of situations: he gives extra actions and has terrible willpower. As long as you can dodge certain encounter deck cards, you'll probably be fine.

In conclusion: Jenny has a rather different playstyle than any of the other Rogues. She does remind me a bit of the playstyle of certain Mystics, where once you have all your spells (or assets in the case of Jenny) you will perform great, but until then you are hurting.

Veronica212 · 300
Once you get Streetwise, Jenny can investigate or evade once per turn, without any asset played. — Django · 5155
True, but you'll want to develop your board. Even at a 6, investigating for a single clue once a turn isn't amazing, and just evading doesn't defeat any monsters. — Veronica212 · 300
People really need to stop having that 'you need to defeat monsters' mentality. — jd9000 · 76
Jday90, doesn't that depend on the number of players..? With four players, monsters spawn like roaches (sometimes literally) and in my experience you need to keep their numbers down less you get overwhelmed by a flock of byakhees. Of course, Vengeance shake things up a bit. — olahren · 3556
@jd90 I think people have a "you need to have some way of dealing with monsters" mentality, and if it takes as many actions to kill the monster as it would to evade it, so much the better. People want to deal with monsters in as few actions as possible; if the monster has hunter that often means killing and if it doesn't, one can evade, probably. Evasion just isn't as effective as killing (obviously), but it definitely has its place. You may be right that people don't value it highly enough, but I agree with @olahren; once you get up to about 3 players, someone needs to start culling monsters or the seeker can't do their job. — SGPrometheus · 847
Evading is valuable in a 4 player game when 3 of 4 can't locate their weapons... — Django · 5155
William Yorick

William Yorick was a blast to play, and I recently won a two-player Dunwich Legacy campaign with Daisy Walker so here are some observations for people considering our favorite actor-turned-gravedigger. This will be a slightly biased review towards multiplayer implications, as I exclusively play in 2-player or 4-player games. Yorick has real issues with consistent clue-gathering (i.e. investigating when he doesn't have tricks up his sleeve), so I think he's a better fit in multiplayer anyways.

This is going long, so here's a TL:DR:

Pros: ability provides flexibility and value, the combination of guardian/survivor can provide great burst potential, good enough stats (in a purely bodyguard role).

Cons: not a consistent clue-gatherer. Resource economy is an issue. Card draw comes down to drawing Rabbit's Foot or using off-turns with nothing to kill (in a multiplayer game).

Now for the long version (you've been warned)

Front of the card: Yorick has fine stats except for a lack of investigation; and a decent 'fighter/bodyguard/tank's healthy and sanity of 8/6. Whether you'd rather have 9 health and 5 sanity instead of the 8/6 split is up to you and your playstyle. His ability is incredibly impactful; letting you replay assets from your discard pile when you kill enemies. This gives him tremendous flexibility to meet different challenges any given scenario can present. At 0XP; this lets you recur Leather Coat and Cherished Keepsake for defense, First Aid for healing/support. Gravedigger's Shovel gives him guaranteed spot clue-gathering, Baseball Bat can be recurred after an unfortunate chaos bag pull. Lantern is an option, but I'm not sure if it's a great one (-1 shroud isn't great, and Yorick is well set up for dealing damage). Later in a campaign, you have access to Police Badge for bursty turns. Key of Ys because... it's the Key of Ys. Yorick's ability even synergizes with the Key's penalty of making you discard 10 cards off the top of your deck if it goes away. If you aren't satisfied with Teddy bears to protect your sanity, Elder Sign Amulet is a reasonable choice, especially at a resource cost of 2 and XP cost of 3. The only downsides of the ESA are that Cherished Keepsake is free (and it turns out saving resources is really important for late-game Yorick), and Police Badge takes up an accessory slot.

And that doesn't even cover allies. You can go in many different good directions with allies with Yorick. The upgraded Aquinnah can act as his 'boss-killer', along with the combination of baseball bat + Will to Survive. Baseball Bat + Will to survive + Police badge can deal 10 damage in a turn! Brother Xavier is a great sanity soaker and chaos bag-free damage source. Both Beat Cop varieties are reasonable choices. Charisma can be a great way to go with him.

Elder sign effect: +2 and if you win you get to return a card from your discard pile to your hand: +2 is nothing to complain about, and the bonus is great for grabbing Emergency Cache, which you're going to need to keep using his ability to the fullest.

Back of the card: Guardian 0-2 gives him access to great allies as previously mentioned. You don't get access to the best guardian weapons, but Yorick has alternate boss killing options at hand. Shotgun and Lightning Gun aside, you still have a great assortment of weapons. Both .45s, Machete, shovel, and baseball bat do work, and Yorick won't have to settle for inferior options like knives or kukris. Of course, Survivor 0-5 has benefits. Lucky!, "Look what I found!" (although his low investigate skill means he can easily fall below the requirements), Will to Survive is one of the best 'clutch' cards available. And for later scenarios Survivor brings some high-powered Exile cards such as Flare, Devil's Luck to help prevent backbreaking hits to health or sanity, and A Test of Will as a form of a Ward of Protection.

Signature cards: Another place where Yorick shines. Bury Them Deep removes an enemy from the encounter deck. This is handy in several scenarios to remove a particularly annoying baddie. And extra XP are always welcome. His weakness Graveyard Ghouls is not that big of a deal; usually just another enemy to add to the pile. There are worst-case scenarios to draw it, but you can say that about most weaknesses. As long as you have a weapon out, and especially with a good ally or two, the Ghouls are very manageable.

Mulligan strategy: It's very important for him to start with a weapon, so mulliganing events (minus emergency cache, probably) and skill cards for weapons is advised. Having an ally in your opening hand is an important secondary goal. It's hard to overstate just how good Leather Coats/Cherished Keepsakes are for him; if I have a weapon in my starting hand it's a good idea to mulligan for those.

I've already gushed about his strengths, so now I'll talk about weaknesses. As previously mentioned, he's no investigator. He can dig up the odd clue or two in a pinch, but it's night and day compared to a dedicated cluver, or even most 'generalist' investigators like Rogues and Wendy Adams with Lockpicks or Mystics with Rite of Seeking. So as a solo, probably not a good choice. But in a multiplayer campaign, his biggest weakness is his resource economy. His allies and assets aren't cheap, unless you want to run with Peter Sylvestre and/or Stray Cat. Madame Labranche as a secondary charisma ally may be a consideration; I wouldn't want her over a beat cop however. A real plan b (or plan a) for allies would be to save up for The Red-Gloved Man. You could kill something and play Red Gloved Man from the discard pile to boost investigate for some sneaky weakness mitigation. Graveyard shovel and Baseball Bat aren't expensive, but replaying them can be. In multiplayer, if you're not killing something, you're often going to be trading actions for resources, instead of helping to gather clues and advancing the act deck.

You have limited card draw as well; it's just Rabbit's Foot and Prepared for the Worst. This means Yorick isn't well-equipped for poor opening draws. I found this out the hard way, mulliganing 5 cards without finding an ally nor a weapon during one scenario. It's really important in this game to get set up in the opening turn of a scenario.

In conclusion; Yorick is well-positioned in a specialist role for a 2-4 player group. You can cover for his weak investigate potential much better in that setting. Turns out the combination of guardian/survivor is incredibly good for fighting. His ability really elevates specific disposable cards, and is one of the better abilities in the game IMO. For people who want to play the monster killer/bodyguard role but want something a little different than a Guardian, Yorick is both fun and effective.

See my review about "backpack", it can be used to fill your discard pile with items, if you discard it without playing the cards below it (by playing another body slot item, for example). — Django · 5155
Haven't played with backpack yet, but I'll look into it! — bigstupidgrin · 84
Keep in mind that due to timing windows, you cannot trigger his ability to recur a baseball bat that breaks during an attack. — Daerthalus · 16
For example. If you sucessfully attack an enemy with 2 remaining health and draw a Skull token, the baseball bat breaks at the end of the attack action after the window to trigger Yorick's ability has closed. — Daerthalus · 16
Backpack

Advantages

  • Along with Calling in Favors, the second neutral "tutor" type of card, so it can be added to any investigator's deck.
  • Cards below this one don't count toward your handsize.
  • Cards below this can be played with stuff like Ever Vigilant
  • Treacheries like "discard X cards from your hand" won't affect this one
  • Thins out your deck. You don't have to play the cards below this one
  • Can be recovered with Scavenging to be played again and again...
  • Very useful to search for specific cards, like signature stuff with matching types (Zoey's Cross, Finn's Trusty .38,...)
  • Can "find" a second copy of itself, which can be played as normal. Be aware that this discards the first copy and you may lose other cards below it.
  • Play this card with William Yorick and discard it while 3 assets are below it (for ex. by playing another body slot item) to get more assets into your own discard pile to make more use of his special ability

Disatvantages

  • Cards below this cannot be commited
  • Treacheries that discard this one put all assets under it into your discard pile as well
  • It's effect can be wasted a bit, if only 1 or 2 cards were found
Django · 5155
About the last listed disadvantage: if my plan for my deck is to find a crucial item early (weapon, valuable trinket) then Backpack is highly valuable (like at least No Stone Unturned avaiable for everyone). For example Zoey: she can find LGs, Machettes, Survival Knives, Extra ammos, Emergency Caches, ZOEY'S CROSS... Finding one of these is nice and justifies including this item to deck, finding two makes it extremely valuable. And if you find three? Some statistics: getting 5 weapons and two copies of any card mentioned by me means 10 targets for Backpack. Playing it as a first action gives 95% chance to hit one card (73% for only weapon), 72% to hit two cards and 36% to hit three cards. — KptMarchewa · 1
Thanks, i wan't thinking of specific items. Update: Added Kpt@Marchewa's point; Neutral tutor; it can "find" itself — Django · 5155
Self-tutoring? Backpackception. — The_Wall · 288
So we have confirmation this works with cards like Ever Vigilant and Sleight of Hand? I ask because if you can Sleight items out of it, it makes the backpack a lot better. — Myriad · 1226
@myriad This works with Ever Vigilant, because Ever Vigilant allows you to play assets from your hand, but not Sleight of Hand, because that puts assets from your hand into play. Since Backpack specifically says you can play the attached cards as if they were in your hand, you can't do other things with those cards like put them in play through another effect or commit them to tests. — SGPrometheus · 847
But you CAN Sleight of Hand your Backpack into play, find some items, and play those before taking the Backpack back into your hand , with the understanding that any of the Items that don't get played will be discarded. — CSerpent · 126
Rex's Curse

Not a review but to clarify rules on this tricky card: when you return the token, its effects are not canceled, but its modifier is. So you apply the modifier of the second token, but the effects of both. (edit: this include both tokens that have effects that apply immediately when you pull them, as well as tokens having delayed effects, such as "if you fail"). To fully understand this interaction you should read the skill test timing chart in the rules reference!

jd9000 · 76
This is a tricky one... According to skill test timing, ST.3 is Reveal a chaos token, ST.4 is apply chaos token symbol effect, and ST.6 is Determine success/failure. According to this, when Rex's curses triggers as you are about to succeed a test, you have already been through ST.4 once and must now return to ST.3 and go through all the following steps again. In other words, symbols with a direct effect will have two chances to be drawn and triggered For example, in the scenario The Gathering, if you reveal a Broken Tablet and a Ghoul is at your location, you would take 1 damage in ST.4, then (if you succeed) Rex's curse would pull you back at ST.3 and you could draw a Broken Tablet again for a second damage! - - - Though a question still stands for me: what happens if you draw several chaos tokens (e.g. revealing a Cultist Token on hard in The Gathering prompts you to reveal another chaos token). In this case, what chaos token should you return to the bag? I'd say that you should return the last revealed chaos token, and hence you would still sit with that cultist token on the board and the possibility of taking 2 horrors on failure, but that's my guess. Also, situation may get complicated when you reveal multiple chaos token at the same time and not one after another. — Alleria · 115
A recent FAQ entry regarding multiple chaos tokens being revealed due to Olive McBride, states that even if a card mention "chaos token" in the singular form its effect extends to all the chaos tokens revealed. Following the same logic I think Rex's curse would make you return all chaos tokens revealed if you would succeed, and not just the last one. — Killbray · 12407
@Alleria: not only symbols with a direct effect: other token effects create a delayed effect that applies even if they're returned to the bag — jd9000 · 76
Mitch Brown

I was not too clear on the new FAQ wording for slots so I requested some clarity from FFG. Official answer:

Greetings,

The new FAQ entry changes the slot rule to the following: “If playing or gaining control of an asset would put an investigator above his or her slot limit for that type of asset, the investigator must choose and discard other assets under his or her control simultaneously with the new asset entering the slot.” This is different from the previous rule, which said “If an investigator is at his or her slot limit for a type of asset and wishes to play or gain control of a different asset that would use that slot...”

The difference here is that with the way the rule is now worded, you only have to discard other assets if playing a card puts you above your slot limit. Previously, if I had an ally in play and wanted to play an ally, I would first have to discard that ally because I was “at my slot limit” for allies. With the new rule, I only have to discard the ally that is in play if playing a new ally would put me above my slot limit.

This means that you are now able to play an asset while you are at your slot limit without discarding an asset, provided that asset gives you the slots you need to keep them both in play.

I hope that helps! Cheers,


Matthew Newman Senior Card Game Developer Fantasy Flight Games

Xulez · 151
Does that mean that if you have an ally on the board and play Mitch, you can keep them both?? If so, that is great!! :)) — matt88 · 3210
yes, assuming that your other Allys in play are non-unique (since Mitch himself is a unique Ally). — Faranim · 417
Wow, this makes this sig card insanely better. — clydeiii · 41