Django · 5063
High XP
I used this deck in a 2 player game, with the other character being wendy. It started out as a variation of "corroder", but that deck is too slow to build up, so i used all out of faction slots to draw cards.
We have completed the first campaign and dunwich up to Blood on the Altar, that's how this deck has so much XP.
3 Mental Trauma
As the lead investigator, Jenny has 3 mental trauma from the first campaign (1 from keeping lita and 2 from stopping the ritual), so we added 2 Elder Sign Amulet, while Laboratory Assistant serves as draw acceleration and horror soak (with Charisma x2 you can have both of them out and any other ally).
Starting Hand
- Weapon or Prepared for the Worst
- Hot Streak, Lone Wolf, Emergency Cache
- Laboratory Assistant, Preposterous Sketches
Basic Strategy
Your long term goal is to beat combat, investigate and speed tests using ressoures, with the talents Hard Knocks and Streetwise.
Fist play a weapon, so can deal 2 damage and kill enemies efficiently. When playing Jenny's Twin .45s, spend between 6-8 ressources. Don't play it when you've got a Switchblade 2 out already. If you attack with the switchblade, always aim to get the bonus damage, unless 1 damage kills the target.
After you got a weapon out, you need to improve your income, so play any ressource cards you draw as soon as possible. If you don't have any, play any card drawing effects you can, to get more ressource cards.
While there is no enemy at your location, try to spend one or two action each turn to continue the scenario, like move to unveiled locations or gather clues. The draw acceleration should get you many neutral skill cards for any occasion, so you can beat many skill tests without investing ressources.
Be careful with the Lucky Dice, as you burn through ressources quickly if you use it more than 2 times on a skill check and the chances of getting an autofail increases each time you use it.
For Will tests, keep the Elder Sign Amulet on your hand and commit it. Do not play them, unless you run out of sanity and you have no Laboratory Assistants in play.
Weakness
Drawing more cards also means you're drawing your weaknesses earlier. You may think that's bad, but in my experience it's much better to draw them early, as you'll have more turns to deal with them. It also helps you avoid situations, where you're in the epic boss fight but remember your sister and need to flee, to search for her.
Advice an Draw Acceleration
Some people consider the acceleration cards (Prepared for the Worst, Laboratory Assistant and Preposterous Sketches) action inefficient, however most ressource costs can be ignored in a jenny deck.
Should you wonder, why isn't the most powerful card of the game included in this deck, Wendy had him in her deck, so it wasn't an option for this one (he's unique, so only 1 can be in play). However if you play alone or noone else has him, replace Manual Dexterity with him.
| 15 comments |
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May 19, 2017 |
May 19, 2017sorry - just to say i was talking about my deck not feeling strong yet, not judging yours there at all |
May 19, 2017I felt really powerful, after i upgraded my Rex Murphy deck a few times, in particular his signature card and Cryptic Research. The card draw gave me more (efficient) answers to some problems and increased the decks consistency (getting important cards quicker). It also helpes a lot, after exerting yourself to get back into the game. However i didn't like the seekers focus on investigate stuff, that's why i prefer balanced characters in general and built this deck (but i'm planning to built an aggro focued rex deck at some point). The game's balance also seems to prefer balanced characters, as focusing on combat you waste many actions on running to other players, while a focus on investigate makes you vulnerable to monsters (and anything else is not relevant to win, most of the time). Between jennys balanced stats and the rogue deck's ressource cards, there isn't much she could gain from out-of-faction cards, expect spirit tests (but see last section of "basic strategy"). One thing i should mention, removing Dr. Milan Christopher was an interesting experiment. Without his +1 investigate and no more ressources for investigating, you need to invest more ressources. So i expected to run into ressource problems, however that never happened. The draw increase also leads to drawing more ressource cards. I really like what the deck has become. It can handle most situations with ease and the core assets doesn't need many turns to set up. That does not mean the deck is easy to play, as more options also mean more potential mistakes are made by the player, but that's for you to find out. |
May 19, 2017Forgot to mention: Prepared for the Worst should be replaced (maybe with a weapon). Out of 10 games, i played the card 2 times, otherwise i had a weapon in starting hand. It's also inefficient, as it needs a second action to get the weapon into play. |
May 20, 2017I think im still on the fence about ditching Prepared for the Worst. I get what you mean about just replacing it with another weapon, but unless your going with .41 Derringer (or in due course Chicago Typewriter), you dont get the OOF slot back. The other thing I like it is its function changes late game. If found early you loose an action to get a weapon out early as you might imagine. If found late it lets you find Jenny's Twin .45s. For example in a game i had i think 14 cards left in the deck and a Fire Axe in play when i played it. Now i found her Twins in the 9 cards, but had they been in the bottom 5 cards of the deck, but i knew that I would really have needed that shuffle since it was really the twins that I was looking for. I probably didnt need a Machete that you would presumably take in that OOF weapon spot. Ofc I think Chicago Typewriter will be a game changer on this front by giving a strong in faction option for that late game weapon slot. It might even justify Contraband at that point maybe, which could be a whole different fire arms build. then again im not sure how i feel thematically about a tommy gun toting dilettante. |
May 20, 2017I consider this a "trap" card, at least for jenny decks. You may find my answer boring, but the only real question for jenny late game is "do your ressources last until the end of the scenario". The answer should be "yes". So why should i discard a Switchblade 2 to weapon that will still take 2 actions to kill most 4+ HP creatues and has only 4 charges? Meaning i need to find a new weapon after that and spend another action (+ressources) to get it out? I'm definately going to try it, but i guess at this point anything that does not help with ressources just decreases the consistency of the deck and adding Contraband for a single purpose seems overpriced. I guess you can "nova turn" some bosses with this, combined with Double or Nothing and Lita Chantler to deal 8 damage (16 with 2 actions, 2 Double or Nothing) and 2 Sure Gamble, to insta kill some bosses. However Switchblade 2 + lita + double also deals 6 damage, or 12 with 2 actions and 2 doubles. 5 Ressources is expensive (even for a jenny deck), so i don't think this can be used as temporary weapon in early game, to fill the gup until you get a blade out. |
May 20, 2017I could replace Manual Dexterity with 2 .41 Derringer as "gap fillers" and replace Prepared for the Worst with Physical Training for important will tests? Or wait for more card draw effects, to speed up the deck? |
May 22, 2017yes sorry i was just musing about the possibility that Contraband might become usable. Atm its far too expensive. i think at 2 or maybe even 3 though i might consider it. Strange that eh, given that Jenny is all about the money but I completely agree. Im in the process of trying out a 2x Preposterous Sketches, 2x Physical Training and 1x Machete (4th weapon, 2x .41 Derringer + Twins) build. Relying on burst damage cards like Backstab, Double or Nothing or just multiple leo/Quick Thinking actions with boosted to compensate on larger enemies if a weapon still doesnt turn up. Seem to be going well so far, though the multiple boosted option is far too expensive to be relied on when its not via the axe. Anyway - I suspect longer term it might converge on something like yours here but with physical training in place of Laboratory Assistant if i dont take the trauma. I dont know if it helps but I realised last night that Laboratory Assistant doesnt actually gain you cards beyond what you would have had without it (one action to play which could have been a draw action, and if you didnt have it in hand you would have had another card), but it is essentially a self replacing sanity boost. Its essentially a self replacing cheaper, mini Elder Sign Amulet here in that regard. Ofc with high draw you might actually get good use out of the hand size boost too, but ive not tried it, you might have a better feel for that perhaps? |
May 23, 2017Regarding Contraband, the ressource cost is secondary, it's primary the card slot, which i also consider some sort of cost. If you have a card for 3+ turns on your hand, you should ask yourself, is it too situational? Should you replace it? For card with a "singular" purpose, the answer is almost always "yes".´, unless the combo is too powerful. Regarding weapons, can you tell me your experiences? I might also change my deck, depending on your observations. I don't like the Axe in jenny's deck, as you should try to save ressources for late game, depending on the situation. I know that Laboratory Assistant is "self replacing", however with 3 unavoidanble mental trauma from "night of the zealot" campaign, she is a good soak. She's also a good soak for some mythos cards, that cause you to discard assets in play. So far, the size boost from Laboratory Assistant was only relevant at the start the game. I had like 10 cards after playing some boosts, however in actual play, it's hardly relevant (if you have cards too long in your hand, see paragraph 1). |
May 24, 2017I might be wrong but i think you start a campaign with no XP. So even if you finished the first campaign you can't use the gained XP and must start with only level 0 cards. |
May 24, 2017Without spoiling anything there are rules at the back of the core campaign book that let you keep your character over with some penalties that you get to read after campaign conclusion. |
May 24, 2017If you want to I mean. I can see that some ppl would see it as appealing to see how far you can take one char. Or up the difficulty a bit and run anlither. Others would want a fresh slate. Plus ofc your char might have too much trauma etc to viably keep going and you end up needing to build your deck a bit to compensate for it. I think that's where Laboratory Assistant is a good include here but might not be needed in a starter deck etc. |
May 24, 2017Jenny didn't die once or went mad, you get the trauma for continuing the campaign. Depending on the resolution, your trauma will also differ. Should i built a 0 XP version of this deck? |
May 25, 2017sorry Im still not sure about it. It does work and it does set up very fast but it also burns your resources quite heavilly. The thing to note about it is that it doesnt have to be used to get the bonus damage. Its an accuracy weapon. And an enabler for for things like Double or Nothing, or Quick Thinking, but there are plenty of times your left wanting for that bonus damage. Afterall if you get leo down you have the extra actions to attack twice etc. You do have the option to go all in to get the damage ofc, but doing so can be an over commitment on some occasions leaving you cash short the follwing turn. In fairness this happens less often than you would expect perhaps. But as I say im trying another direction just now with the Machete/.41 Derringer settup. Obv Switchblade 2 can sub in for derringer once xp is available. It is slower but the derringers/switchblades basic +2 is usually enough to land hits on their own if not to reliably get bonus damage on its own. They really want even just 1 resource spent on a Physical Training/Hard Knocks to get good odds on landing the damage in most cases (and thats on standard). To compensate for this ive put in 2x Hard Knocks and 2x Physical Training which seems to work alright, but you are back to being dependent on drawing and playing one of them and a weapon. Which ofc goes back to the deck being a bit slower and its alot of deck slots, but maybe thats where the balance has to lie for now. Perhaps the advent of Streetwise means that Jenny is meant to be quick to set up for investigating and evading (and rogue evasion based burst damage like Backstab) but slower for combat. Certainly in games when ive paired her up with combat chars it has worked better than with seekers. |
May 25, 2017Gah - you didnt ask about the axe here did you, you asked on the other thread lol, Sorry! Other thread here for anyone follwing this. arkhamdb.com will cross link over there too |
Nice one. Thats a bucket load of xp.
Looks like you have a bit of practice now with quick set up in Jenny. How are you finding it (going draw heavy in her in general i mean)? Still testing and refining mine but i think theres something there. Its not top tier i dont think, but it seems more practical than alot of my previous jenny builds at least and it feels like it does what you want a jenny deck to do.