Roland Banks is easy to like, maybe especially for new players. He looks great in his trenchcoat and fedora, he's has a beefy 4 Fight and a decent 3 in Knowledge and Willpower. Add his cool Roland's .38 Special to his ability to pick up clues when he kills something and you have someone who can really make a difference. After all, the whole game centers around picking up clues while killing off distractions and Roland can do both at the same time! He's versatile and thus fun to play; qualities too easily overlooked when designing hyper-optimized power-decks.

The real problem with Roland is that he can dish it out, but he can't really take it. He has the lowest Sanity of any investigator released so far, and his weakness card really preys on this. Roland also needs to kill stuff to use his special ability, so you have to put him in harms' way to get the most out of him. Several people have pointed out that this combination makes Roland one of the more difficult investigator to play in a campaign and I can only agree.

That's the short of it. Now for the longer analysis:

Statistics: 4 Fight is good. Fight is an easy stat to increase - most weapons do so as part of their function, so you'll easily reach 5, 6 or even 7. That makes him really good at killing stuff, which again makes it easy to activate his clue gathering special.

3 Willpower and 3 Knowledge is decent, really. You will need to use skill cards on the more critical tests, but 3 is a good start. It should be enough for Easy and Normal difficulty campaigns, especially since you want to include plenty of skill cards.

2 Agility is bad, but why evade when you can fight? There's quite a few Agility skill tests in the encounter decks, but they do stamina damage in most cases. And Roland has 9 Stamina! That's an insane amount of stamina, so no worries there.

But what he has in brawns he really lack in brains. 5 Sanity is the lowest of any investigator so far, so you really, REALLY have to nurse his head. There's several Treachery cards that inflicts multiple Horror if failed, so a single Tentacle autofail token can reduce him to a whimpering wreck.

The Roland's .38 Special is a decent weapon even if you're in a location with no clues. If there's clues around you almost can't miss with the +3 Fight benefit. It does +1 damage, so you can take out almost all lesser enemies with a single attack. You will need a few backup weapons, but as a Guardian you have the pick of the litter. The machete is great, and you can buy actual Lightning Guns when you earn some Xp.

Rolands weakness is really in character with his FBI theme; Cover Up. Basically, he has to cover up his (FBIs?) tracks by doing 3 successful investigations to complete it. If he can't do so before the game ends, he loses 1 sanity for the rest of the campaign. When you (and you will!) draw Cover Up late in a game, you can easily find yourself with few clue tokens within reach. In a worst case scenario you wont even enough clues left.

I might sound overly worried here, but remember that the each cycle has (at least) 8 adventures in them. Losing a single point of Sanity makes it so much easier to lose the next, and the next, and so on. No other investigator has a weakness so potentially debilitating as Roland Banks. I'm not saying you can't play around it, but you need to plan for it. Roland is probably the only investigator who should try to draw his weakness early on, just to get it over with.

(Note that the FAQ states: "Any investigator at the same location as Roland Banks with Cover Up in his threat area may trigger the to discard clues from Cover Up". That helps a little!)

You still want to play a half-crazed FBI agent? Good for you! Roland is a challenge, but a fun one. First you'll need to mitigate his mental problems by including plenty of Willpower and ? skill cards. Unexpected Courage and Guts are almost mandatory. Inquiring Mind is good too. You might want to take up smoking, since Smoking Pipe lets you trade stamina for sanity. "If it bleeds..." is also really good, both for you and for your friends. Dodge is also a lifesafer - it lets you avoid an attack; a common source of Horror, and it has a Willpower token when used as a skill card. Allies are nice dump-offs for Horror, especially if you eventually invest in Charisma. Elder Sign Amulets are bulletproof vests for your mind, so you might want to consider one early.

I'm not gonna go heavily into deck building in this review, but DadouXIII has a great write up here.

All in all - Roland can be frustrating to play at times, but I personally prefer him over Zoey Samaras, even if Zoey is far deadlier. He's always useful and his Guardian/Seeker combo gives him a lot of options for spending Xp in campaigns. And last but not least - Roland's nightmarish descent into insanity will give your campaign that extra little edge. :)

Conspiracy theories about Nyarlathotep notwithstanding, this ally is a powerful bomb. There are two main barriers to entry: obviously its whopping 5 experience cost per copy, and it being an ally it bumps off your Leo De Luca or similar unless you invest in Charisma which further increases the effective XP cost.

Frankly though, you get what you pay for, because the effect is game-swinging. As Duke has been doing for ages, increasing an investigator's base skill stacks with other boosts thus making key checks much easier especially on higher difficulties. For example it lets Wendy Adams swing her Baseball Bat on her combo turn with 8. It makes all those +2 effects from the 2 XP versions of Deduction and friends succeed more predictably. It even lets investigators with their low values evade if they need to get away after losing a key weapon... and as a action doesn't cause attacks of opportunity. And it can do two of these in a single turn.

It is also worth pointing out that, unlike most other fast cards, you do not need to play him on your turn, so you can drop him in a pinch to boost your stats for a crucial check or nasty revelation. It can even save you from a poorly-timed Pushed into the Beyond or similar.

On top of all that he usually sticks around long enough to soak up a massive turn of hits with his 4 health 4 sanity.

If an investigator has The Gold Pocket Watch (probably another investigator than you given the extravagant XP cost) then they can skip the mythos phase so you get two turns of the power of crawling chaos. This is exactly the kind of end-game synergy between characters that will win campaigns.

This card mystifies me. When a game includes a card like this, I tend to assume there's something that can make it worthwhile; a combo with another card or in a specific situation or scenario. But I can't really find any point in being Defiant.

There's a set amount of tokens in a chaos bag. In the core Easy and Normal bag there's 6 special tokens (Skull, Cultist, etc) and 12 number tokens (+1, -1, etc). The Hard and Expert bag adds more numbers token, but not additional special tokens. Two of the special tokens cannot be chosen; the Elder Sign auto-success and the Tentacle auto-fail. There's also no Elder Thing token in the starting bags.

Campaigns will often add a few more special tokens depending on the outcome of adventures, often Elder Things and more Broken tablets.

Let's take the Skull token as an example since you have two Skull tokens in each bag. That gives you a 12,5% chance (2/16) to cancel one. That's not really useful, especially since Skull token effects are often manageable. Even if your campaign has added two more (often horrible) Broken Tablet tokens to your bag, you'd still only have a 17% chance of drawing one. That would make the card useful once every sixth time you play it.

Yes, the card does add +1 to any skill test and that's nice. But cards like Unexpected Courage will be far more dependable if that's what you're after.

My guess is that we'll get an upgraded version of this card in a future expansion. Something you'll have to buy for Xp, but that lets you ignore more (even all?) special tokens.

The Art Student is cheap, has 2 Sanity (so she can soak at least one Horror before she dies) and she will instantly discover a clue at your location upon arrival. If you're feeling generous you can always consider her an auto-success Investigation action for 2 resources, with a free meatshield included.

But there's two problems really. The first is that Art Student is a Seeker card, and Seekers are quite good at finding clues. They really shouldn't have to pay 2 resources for a severed tentacle when they can find one for free. They also often get benefits from investigating, benefits this card wont trigger. The second problem is that Seekers have far more attractive allies - Dr. Milan Christopher for example.

"But!" I hear you say, "I can play the Art Student first and then discard her when Dr. Milan shows up!". That's fine and dandy, but what if you have already played Dr. Milan when you draw the student? Then she's just a +1 Knowledge skill card, silently mocking you from the safety of your palm.

"Charisma! I can include Charisma in my deck!" you clamour. Well, you certainly can, but as they say in Kathmandu; "you'd be paying the baker for the benefit of a horse". It's simply not worth the trouble.

I don't normally leave reviews, but having the only review of Rex be negative just seemed wrong.

Rex is currently one of (if not the) strongest investigator in the game, and most of the community on places like Reddit, Facebook, and Discord agree (to the point where many people consider nerfing him in one way or another). While he definitely does have limitations, I'd like to go over exactly why Rex is top tier right now before I Delve Too Deep into his weaknesses.

To talk accurately about Rex, we first have to talk about Higher Education. Higher Education is without a doubt the most influential card in the game right now, as it drastically powers up the investigators who can take it (Rex and Daisy at time of writing). It provides both consistency and efficiency that's unparalleled in other classes, and the 5 card requirement is often negligible for Seekers who excel at card draw.

Higher Education is particularly important to Rex due to his passive ability, which is the main thing that takes him over the edge. Rex's passive allows him to save actions by picking up extra clues, and with no limiting factor he can potentially do this multiple times a turn. His naturally high of 4 and the boost from Higher Ed. means you can guarantee yourself a high probability of grabbing 2 clues over and over again. In 2-4 player games, Rex can hoover up all the clues almost single handed.

The seeker card pool is perfectly suited to helping Rex go on a rampage. Dr. Milan Christopher helps him keep the Higher Ed. engine running, Magnifying Glass naturally works well with Higher Ed. as well, and Preposterous Sketches + Search for the Truth (and the occasional effect) provide hand filling support right from level 0. Splashing for Burglary can keep your pockets full while still grabbing clues due to Rex's ability, and being flush with cash makes Rex almost immune to any based treachery effects. Not only that, but having almost unlimited boosting capabilities makes Rex's Curse almost a non-factor.

Ok, so Rex has strong synergy with strong cards, but you might be asking yourself: can't the same be said for other 'gators too? Well, not really.

The difference is that almost all other 'gators are naturally limited in how often they can use their abilities. "Skids" O'Toole, Daisy Walker, Jenny Barnes, Marie Lambeau, and Roland Banks all have abilities that work only once a turn. Wendy Adams and "Ashcan" Pete can use their powers at the cost of cards, which are a limited resource. Similarly, Agnes Baker is limited by both time (once per phase) and her sanity. The only other 'gators without limits are Jim Culver (who has a low impact ability you can't play around) and Zoey Samaras, who is limited by the existence of enemies in the first place.

Rex is really the only 'gator who has no limit on his ability. He can theoretically get six clues in one turn, saving a total of three actions. This kind of efficiency simply isn't possible with other 'gators. And Rex currently has the card support to make this insane action efficiency a reality with stunning consistency.

But Rex does have a weakness: solo mode. Not that he can't hold his own, in fact I think seekers have more than enough help dealing with enemies through cards like Mind over Matter, "I've got a plan!", and Disc of Itzamna (which Rex can Scavenging back). Rather, Rex is heavily weakened by solo mode because there are simply fewer clues to grab. Any 1 location is "immune" to his powers, and generally speaking he won't be holding onto a ton of clues at once for things like Search for the Truth.

Still, I hope I've been able to illustrate just why Rex is insane in 2+ player games. As long as he's got a buddy to guard him, Rex makes short work of any clue-based scenario (which is quite nearly all of them).