Roland Banks in Return to TCU (Hard) (Deck Guide)

This deck was created for a two-handed Ironman run of Return to the Circle Undone on Hard and focuses on enemy management. The partner deck features Jacqueline Fine and focuses on collecting clues.

The guide for that deck, along with a campaign report which includes the upgrades purchased for both decks, can be found here :

Jacqueline Fine in Return to TCU (Hard) (Campaign Guide)

Introduction

This deck went through a number of major revisions before I settled on the list below. In every version I relied on passive stat boost allies for both horror soak and to bring up Roland's Combat skill, the two areas where he's particularly lacking, as a base four in Combat is good but not really good enough for a Hard token bag.

This deck features one of his best tricks, the Stick to the Plan/Astounding Revelation combo :

• Since Stick to the Plan activates before you draw your opening hand and it searches your entire deck it will always trigger the Astounding Revelation, which means you begin every game on seven resources and with only 24 cards in your deck after you draw your opening hand.

I chose not to take his replacement cards from The Dirge of Reason novella for two reasons :

• Mysteries Remain has a unique and powerful effect, but the gun is simply better in this deck.

• The Dirge of Reason is a huge liability, particularly with such a small deck size. You have no control over when it appears so if you're not ready for it (or even if you are) it can be a pretty big tempo hit. And if it gets shuffled back and comes out again the second tempo hit and lost draw can be devastating.

In contrast, Cover Up does nothing when it hits the table and will never get shuffled back into your deck. It's not at all difficult to deal with if you're prepared, and you can always choose to simply not clear it. Yes, having Roland Banks take mental trauma can be a valid choice (though probably not more than once).

The Cards

I mostly play two-handed solo games so I usually have one deck focused on enemy management and the other on collecting clues, but in each case I always leave a few slots for the off role because it's more efficient than having a deck which can do only one thing.

• .45 Automatic x 2, Enchanted Blade x 2 : The .45 Auto is the very definition of an acceptable weapon. It's not bad, not great, and it gets the job done, but you'll want to upgrade out of it as soon as possible. The Enchanted Blade provides some nice utility for a few of the enemy types that prefer being killed by a relic, and it has more staying power since it can still be used when it runs out of charges.

• Roland's .38 Special x 1 : Roland's gun is a good weapon. That +3 Combat bonus feels like safety in the early stages of a campaign and it's big enough to still be relevant in the later stages. My mid-to-late campaign weapon strategy saw it fall out of use fairly quickly but I was always glad to have it in hand as a backup weapon and it did still get some facetime.

  You might think its clue requirement is a serious issue, but consider that with the other cards in this deck (Prepared for the Worst, On the Hunt, Shortcut) you have a lot of control over when and where you use it, and you'll generally only fire it four times per game.

  Having said that, it does gain value with more players in the game since not only are there more clues to gather there are also more enemies to shoot, both of which serve to shorten the window during which it would lose the bonus.

• Prepared for the Worst x 1 : With a small deck size (after the first scenario) and five weapons in the deck you'll pretty much always hit something with this, and that's all it really needs to do. Two copies felt like one too many for The Witching Hour, anyway, because we didn't always want to kill our target...

• Handcuffs x 2 : Instead, we arrested them! This is obviously sweet for clearing that first objective where we need to have three exhausted witches at the Circle but it has so many great uses throughout the rest of the campaign, right up until the last couple of scenarios.

  It also synergizes with Roland's kit such that after you handcuff an enemy you can engage them and then drag them to another location to interrogate them (Scene of the Crime) or execute them (Grete Wagner/Roland's ability).

• Scene of the Crime x 2, Grete Wagner x 2 : Speaking of which, these are our supplemental clue-gathering tools. Grete would typically grab a couple of clues and soak one point of horror, then sit around providing her passive Combat boost until either the second copy showed up or the situation was dire enough to warrant sacrificing her. She's expensive, but she becomes more affordable very quickly after the first scenario.

• Tetsuo Mori x 2 : Good soak and good utility for tutoring the Handcuffs but he's really just a placeholder until we can upgrade into Beat Cop (2).

• In the Thick of It x 1 : A great new card from the Edge of the Earth box which will be hard to resist putting into every one of my decks in future. An early Charisma is the best use for its XP.

• Crack the Case x 2 : This card really highlights how powerful Roland's ability is and how testless actions in particular can feel exciting to use because they almost feel like cheating.

  Crack the Case is well balanced because to get a big payoff on a high shroud location you need to invest heavily into passing an investigate test. But not if you're Roland! You can bypass the cost and go straight to the benefit, claiming a huge bounty by doing something you'd do anyway : kill an enemy.

  Of course, you don't always have to hold it until you hit the jackpot; sometimes claiming only two resources is the right move if it maintains your tempo, and as a bonus you can also share the resources with your partner, which is something I actually did quite often.

• On the Hunt x 2 : This one has Roland's name written all over it and it complements just about everything the deck is trying to do. My favourite use for it is to dig for a VP enemy to ensure you get the maximum amount of XP in the scenario, but it's also great for giving yourself a free pass in the Mythos phase, or at least as near to as you'd be likely to get otherwise.

• Shortcut x 2 : Fantastic utility for Roland. Apart from its standard action compression usage it allows him to relocate at the start of a turn to make use of Scene of the Crime, or to drag an engaged enemy from a clueless to a clueful location to make use of his ability and/or Grete's, or to simply ensure you get the bonus from his gun.

• Logical Reasoning x 2 : This is some tech for The Witching Hour, specifically for Frozen in Fear, which is something Roland struggles to deal with. It's also good for committing to or recovering from Rotting Remains, which again only shows up in the first scenario.

• Vicious Blow x 2, Overpower x 2, Daring x 2, Take the Initiative x 2 : A pretty standard set of skill boosters. Take the Initiative is there mostly to soften the impact from some of the Mythos phase tests rather than actually pass them, because Roland rarely passed any of them.

• Obsessive x 1 : As far as weaknesses go this is honestly a pretty nasty one because it has a knack for grabbing the one card from your hand you really didn't want it to take, no matter your handsize. For that reason getting rid of it was often a high priority, which meant that Jacqueline basically lost a whole turn to it every other game.

• Cover Up x 1 : I learned a long time ago that other players can interact with most treacheries in your play area, including weaknesses, but it didn't occur to me during this campaign that that would apply to this one.

  Having Jacqueline help out with this would've made a pretty big difference every time it came up but, as it was, Roland dealt with it himself in each scenario by generally observing two distinct modes of play : Before Cover Up, and After Cover Up.

  Before Cover Up you want to try to hold back on using Scene of the Crime, Grete Wagner and sometimes support cards like On the Hunt or Shortcut. And After Cover Up, well, you get the idea.

The fully upgraded list can be found here :

Roland Banks (44XP)