Wendy Adams on the Road (clue-focused evade/survival)

Your main job is

Get clues → evade enemies → escape danger → use your discard pile to turn bad luck into good luck.

Your Main Priorities

1. Get clues safely

Wendy's base-3 intellect makes her naturally capable of investigating.

Your best early clue tool is

Flashlight

Use it to reduce a location's shroud and make difficult investigations much more manageable.

2. Avoid unnecessary fights

Wendy's base combat is poor. She can kill things, but this deck does not want to spend the entire scenario doing that.

Your preferred answer to an enemy is usually

Evade it and keep moving.

3. Maintain cards for Wendy's ability

This is extremely important.

Wendy can discard a card to cancel a revealed chaos token and draw another one. That means cards in your hand are a survival resource.

Don't empty your hand unnecessarily.

The Core Wendy Engine

Wendy's investigator ability lets you discard a card from your hand to redraw a chaos token after revealing one.

This is one of the most powerful parts of the deck.

For example:

You investigate and pull the autofail token.

Normally, the test is over.

Wendy can:

Discard a card from her hand. Ignore that chaos token. Draw another chaos token.

You might still fail, but you get another chance.

The important rule of Wendy's play:

A card in your hand can be worth more than its printed effect.

That doesn't mean you should never play cards. It means you should avoid dropping to zero cards unless you absolutely have to.

If you're holding a card you don't currently need—perhaps an extra weapon or an expensive asset—it can become fuel for Wendy's ability.

Your Mulligan Priorities

Generally look for:

Flashlight Perception Manual Dexterity Unexpected Courage Lucky! Rabbit's Foot Pickpocketing, if you expect plenty of enemies to evade

You usually don't need to keep the following:

Multiple weapons Expensive assets you cannot afford immediately Highly situational events unless you know the scenario calls for them

The ideal opening is something that helps Wendy get clues while keeping her hand healthy.

Getting Clues Flashlight

Flashlight is your best investigation asset.

Use it on locations with high shroud or locations where failing would be particularly costly.

Don't automatically spend charges on an easy location. Wendy has 3 points of intellect and can investigate some low-shroud locations without help.

The ideal flashlight turn is

Arrive at a difficult location → lower its shroud → investigate successfully → use Wendy's ability if the chaos bag tries to ruin everything.

Because you have scavenging, discarded items can potentially become useful again.

Perception

This is one of your most important clue-getting skills.

Commit it when

You need help passing an investigation. The location has important clues. Drawing a card on success will help refill your hand.

That card draw is especially valuable for Wendy because more cards mean more potential uses of her investigator ability.

"Look what I found!"

This is your emergency clue recovery tool.

It is especially useful when:

You fail an investigation by a small amount. You were investigating a location with multiple clues. Failing would otherwise waste your entire action.

Wendy is comfortable taking calculated risks because this card can turn some failures into progress.

Don't waste it just to recover a single easy clue unless that clue is critically important.

Evading Enemies: Your Real Defense

Wendy has a base 4 Agility, making her naturally excellent at evasion.

Against many ordinary enemies, simply evade them and continue your turn.

You don't always need to kill something for it to stop being a problem.

Manual Dexterity

This is one of your best evasion cards.

Use it when:

An enemy has a difficult evade value. Failing to evade would be dangerous. Drawing another card would help maintain Wendy's ability.

Successfully evading while drawing another card is excellent value.

Pickpocketing

Pickpocketing rewards Wendy for doing what she already wants to do: evade enemies.

Whenever possible, use evasion to generate value.

The more cards you draw, the more options you have and the more fuel you potentially have for Wendy's redraw ability.

This is one of the cards that helps turn Wendy from merely evasive into a resourceful survival engine.

Stray Cat

Think of the cat as an emergency button.

You can use it when:

An enemy suddenly appears at the wrong time. You need to evade without spending an action point. Someone else needs protection. You need to escape and continue moving.

Don't waste the cat on a situation you could easily handle with a normal evade action.

Save it for when the timing matters.

What to Do When You Cannot Run

Wendy is primarily an evader, but sometimes an enemy simply has to die.

That's where your combat events and weapons come in.

Backstab

This is one of your strongest emergency attacks.

It allows Wendy to use her excellent agility rather than her weak combat.

Use Backstab against the following:

Dangerous enemies Enemies that are difficult for Wendy to fight normally Targets that absolutely need to be killed

Because it costs resources, don't spend it casually.

Sneak Attack

This is a great follow-up after evading an enemy.

The basic pattern is:

Evade → Sneak Attack → finish the enemy or seriously weaken it.

It is particularly useful against enemies with relatively low remaining health or enemies you want gone without entering a conventional fight.

Switchblade

This is your lighter combat option.

It isn't your primary plan for dealing with enemies, but it can help against weaker targets.

Don't expect Wendy to become Yorick just because she found a knife with attitude.

Knife

The knives are emergency combat tools.

Use them when:

You have no better option. A weak enemy needs to die. You're forced into combat.

They are generally less desirable than simply evading when evasion will solve the problem.

Baseball Bat

The Bat gives Wendy a more powerful conventional weapon, but it doesn't naturally work with her strengths.

Use it when you know you may need to fight repeatedly or when the scenario forces combat.

Otherwise, remember that Wendy would often rather spend those actions investigating and evading.

Surviving Treacheries

Wendy isn't just good at evading enemies. Her ability also makes her surprisingly good at surviving important tests.

Guts

Use this for important willpower tests.

The card draw on success is particularly valuable because it replaces the card you committed and helps maintain your hand.

Unexpected Courage

This is your universal emergency skill boost.

Save it for tests where:

Failure would be especially painful. You need to guarantee success as much as possible. Your other skill cards don't match the test.

Because Wendy can also redraw bad chaos tokens, combining skill boosts with her ability can make crucial tests much more reliable.

Lucky!

This is one of your best survival cards.

Use it after failing by a small amount to turn failure into success.

Don't automatically commit extra cards before drawing a token if you have Lucky! available and the risk is manageable.

Sometimes the best Wendy play is

Take the test at reasonable odds. See the result. Use Wendy's ability if the token is terrible. If you still fail narrowly, use Lucky!

That gives you several layers of protection.

Your Economy Emergency Cache

Wendy needs resources for several important cards, including:

Backstab Sneak Attack Elusive Aquinnah Her other assets

Use Emergency Cache when it enables an important play rather than playing it automatically as soon as you draw it.

Because Wendy's ability needs cards, not resources, there is often a balance between playing a card for value and keeping it as discard fuel.

Mobility and Escape Elusive

This is one of your strongest emergency survival cards.

Use it when:

You're trapped somewhere dangerous. An enemy is preventing you from reaching the team. You need to cross the map quickly. The scenario is collapsing around you, and positioning matters more than anything else.

Don't use Elusive just because walking would take an extra action. This card can save an entire scenario when used at the right moment.

Your Discard-Pile Package Scavenging

Scavenging allows Wendy to recover useful items after successfully investigating.

This works particularly well with your item-heavy deck.

Potentially useful targets include:

Flashlight Rabbit's Foot Weapons Other eligible Items

The goal is to get additional value from things that have already been used or discarded.

This is another reason Wendy benefits from successful investigations: you're not just getting clues—you can potentially rebuild your equipment.

Your Other Assets Rabbit's Foot

Rabbit's Foot helps Wendy recover from failed skill tests by drawing cards.

That card draw is valuable because Wendy actively wants a healthy hand.

Don't intentionally fail tests just to trigger it, obviously. But if failure happens, the rabbit's foot can make it less painful.

Hard Knocks

Hard Knocks is a flexible way to improve Wendy's weak combat when absolutely necessary.

This is not something you should continuously dump resources into.

Think of it as:

"I really need this enemy hit to land."

If you find yourself using Hard Knocks constantly, Wendy is probably fighting more than this deck wants her to.

Dig Deep

Dig Deep gives Wendy additional flexibility for important willpower and agility tests.

This is particularly useful when:

Treachery must be passed. A difficult escape absolutely cannot fail. You need extra insurance beyond your cards and Wendy's redraw ability.

Again, don't burn all your resources boosting routine tests.

Leather Coat

Your physical protection.

Play it when the scenario or enemies threaten Wendy's relatively limited health.

Wendy wants to avoid damage whenever possible, but a good survivor still wears a coat when the apocalypse starts raining.

Aquinnah

Aquinnah is expensive and powerful, so timing matters.

She can help Wendy turn enemy attacks into damage against another enemy.

This makes her most valuable when:

Multiple enemies are nearby. Enemies are going to attack anyway. You have enough resources to afford her without crippling your other plays.

Don't rush to play her in the opening turns unless you expect immediate combat pressure.

Opportunist and Overpowering Opportunist

This is a situational skill card.

Use it when you're already very likely to succeed and can take advantage of getting it back afterward.

It's best when you don't need to gamble on a difficult test.

Overpower

Overpower is mainly for those occasions when Wendy must fight.

Commit it when

The enemy needs to die. You have a decent chance of succeeding. Drawing a card will help replenish your hand.

Don't use it simply because you have it. Wendy would usually prefer to solve problems with her agility.

A Typical Wendy Turn

Imagine Wendy starts her turn at a 3-shroud location with:

2 clues Flashlight in play An enemy engaged her. Manual Dexterity in hand Several cards available for Wendy's ability Action 1: Evade

Commit manual dexterity if necessary.

You succeed, evade the enemy, and draw a card.

Now Wendy has:

Removed the immediate threat. Gained another card. Potentially gained more fuel for her investigative ability. Action 2: Investigate

Use a flashlight to lower the location's shroud.

Investigate.

If the chaos token is terrible, discard an expendable card to use Wendy's ability and redraw.

Action 3: Investigate again

Repeat the process or use another clue tool if necessary.

That is the deck working exactly as intended:

Avoid danger → investigate efficiently → maintain your hand → refuse to let one bad chaos token ruin the plan.