Oh, Hi Mark: Blue's Greatest Hits

Listen Sophie, I'm going away for a while. I've been spearheading this investigation myself, but everywhere I turn is a dead end, every mystery I unravel is too late for me to make a difference. I'm going to team up with my old friend Rex Murphy. He owes me a favor or ten, and I'm calling them all in. We'll get to the bottom of this. He says to follow the evidence we'll have to leave Arkham, so I won't be back for a while. I don't know how long it'll be, or if we'll find anything, but I'll return when I can. And if something goes wrong out there, well, at least we'll be together again.

Campaign: Carcosa (blind)

Difficulty: Normal

Partners: Rex Murphy

Mission: Rapid eradication of all opposition.

Sophie Harrigan’s Guide to Playing the Soldier is a great list for a Mark deck, but oddly, a more traditional list is nearly nowhere to be found. This is my take on a traditional, skill heavy, weapon heavy Mark deck. This incarnation of Mark is intended to be the ultimate ninja warrior partner for a very investigative Rex Murphy. He shoots or slices through lesser foes effortlessly, packs enough of a punch to singlehandedly eliminate elite monsters, moves quickly through the engagement zone, packs enough skills paired with Sophie to pass nearly any single check on Normal difficulty. When the shit hits the fan, he can cancel attacks against himself or his partner, and when everything goes terribly wrong, he's not there at all, he's across the map at the rendezvous while all the monsters are sitting there wondering where he went. He's a ghost. A very, very angry ghost.

Construction:

For our weapons we're going to take only the best: Machete, the best weapon in the game, and .32 Colt, arguably the best gun in the game. While it doesn't appear exciting on the surface, consider the following: it has the highest ammo in the game, it's tied for cheapest gun in the game, it offers the most shots per resource, it's tied with Lightning Gun for most damage added per weapon (discounting Shotgun which can vary from 0 to 10 extra damage), it can chew through 2 Conglomerations of Spheres without reloading if you don't miss, it's in-color for every Guardian, and it's single handed. It's also the weapon best suited for "Eat lead!", if for some reason you're running it. Also, with Mark's 5 might, he's as good with a .32 as Roland or Zoey is with a .45 Automatic.

Our other assets are mostly damage soaking: Guard Dog over unupgraded Beat Cop because you can eke more damage out of it unless you take 3 damage chunks. You don't get the +1 might, and you don't get the 1 free horror soak, but it's also a point cheaper. Don't worry, we'll upgrade to Beat Cop. True Grit lets you soak some damage without taking a slot, but also lets you protect Rex, who is much more fragile than you, and draws you some cards for your trouble. The Smoking Pipe turns personal horror into damage for your assets, and gives you a card. Sorry Rover, smoking's bad for you, but for some reason, watching you smoke actually makes Mark saner. Finally, the Flashlight is so you have the possibility of contributing in low combat missions or just enemy-light rounds. Mark using only onehanded weapons means the flashlight doesn't compete with weapons unless you've got a machete, a loaded .32, and a good reason to hang on to it.

Our events will be only the sleekest, most efficient: 0 resources for a free move action for Mark or Rex, 1 resource to cancel a beefy attack, or 2 resources to ditch your enemies and teleport across the map.

Skills:

You have them all, plus Vicious Blow. Don't worry, we'll upgrade out of them, but until you specialize deeper into Guardian via XP cards and gain some additional economy that way, you'll be a handy jack-of-all-trades. Do you have balls of steel? If so, feel free to replace the standard skills with their desperate counterparts. Manual Dexterity in particular is weak, but since neither Mark nor Rex are good at , they're there in case there are any important checks for it in Carcosa. We won't hang on to them too long, since we have Sophie to fall back on.

Mulligan:

Look for weapons. It only costs you 3 resources to be fully operational (machete or .32), so you can hit the ground running. If you have a weapon, just about anything is equally good if you don't know the mission in advance. Flashlights, guts, unexpected courage and pipes are a little bit better, manual dexterity and perception might be a little bit worse.

Early Game:

This one's easy. Get a weapon into play, keep up with Rex, and crack any skulls standing between him and clues.

Midgame:

Play some other assets, maybe offhand a flashlight if you have a machete already, or if you're holding an empty .32. Soak damage to get cards.

Endgame:

Do what needs doing, kill the biggest bad guys, use Sophie to push you the last few desperate points, and teleport to safety with Elusive.

FAQ (frequently anticipated questions)

Why not card X?

"If it bleeds..." - because you pay a card and a resource to heal you and Rex between 0 and 2 horror. Best use requires a 2 horror monster that you kill while Rex is around and you are both down 2 horror. Smoking Pipe gives 3 sanity basically no matter what. It's not a bad card, I just like reliability.

Evidence! - not my job. Flashlights can help gain up to 3 clues each, evidence does only 1 and can't be destroyed by asset hate to protect your weapons and soaks.

Emergency Aid - only heals damage. We try to avoid leaning on Sophie too much because 2 resources a card and an action is a lot of investment for 2 healing. Because of this, we favor cards that give extra health instead of heal it.

First Aid- Too slow.

Beat Cop- Not that great for Mark until upgrades and we have only 1 Ally slot.

Emergency Cache - we keep the base deck cheap to avoid needing this. We also have no way to directly turn resources into skill bonuses until we get Keen Eye or Combat Training. Sophie lets you get away with this, plus lots of skills.

Prepared for the Worst - 4 weapons gives a decent chance of finding a weapon turn 1. Mark also has greater than average card draw. Spending a resource and an action to dig for a weapon without crazy xp guns in there is wasteful, but would give some consistency.

Physical Training - we have high base stats and Sophie, and it's a bad tempo card.

Dynamite Blast - In a small 2 player game, it's generally a dead card. You should be able to keep your monsters and Rex's monsters reliably dead. It's also tricky to use in a way that doesn't inflict a lot of friendly fire. Without campaign knowledge, I don't know if there will be any huge monster appearances like a certain scenario in the core campaign, but I'm guessing not.

Upgrade Path

Stick to the Plan is amazing. It gives you instant access to Elusive, Shortcut, and Ever Vigilant. It also thins your deck, increasing your odds of drawing a weapon in your opening hand. Ever Vigilant is a good way to spew your opening hand on to the table in one action and with a discount. Vicious Blow is amazing as always. Eventually we'll pick up "I've had worse…". What we don't do is pick up super expensive, two handed guns with limited ammo that generally overkill your targets and throw your machetes in the trash unless you're also running Bandolier, which isn't consistent enough. We'll probably pick up a couple of Elder Sign Amulet too, given that Carcosa is all about insanity, and Mark can only soak 4 before being defeated, and his allies aren't helpful.