Geared Up

Geared Up

Note to all you new players out there who freshly cracked this card out of the box and thought, “Man, that’s lame. It’ll only play like 4 or 5 items most of the time.” The card does not read as printed. They wanted to let you have a little fun with it so they issued an errata to add the clause “One at a time, play …” to empower some degenerate combos.

Okay, wait, I see that little sinister grin curling the corner of your lips, but not so fast, Speed Racer. They noticed that some players were now abusing the card for degenerate combos. So they added another clause by taboo to fix the clause they added by errata. Got that?

So in short, you must add the clause that breaks the card, and then you may optionally add the clause that unbreaks it. What you may not in any circumstance do under rules as written, is play the card by it’s printed unbroken text, so don’t even think about that.

I hope this information was helpful.

Eudaimonea · 5
This was discussed ad nauseam 3 years ago. Some people said, the addendum "one at a time" was necessary, others (including me) said, playing cards is a sequential process, playing them simultainiously does not make sense, and this phrase was a mere clarification. But however people see it, the design team clearly meant the card to work like that from the beginning. And later reconsidered, that it potentially can get to strong, so they taboo'd it. Besides, this card gets really bad in "Hemlock Vale", with or without taboo. — Susumu · 381
Indeed, Geared Up is so absurdly bad in Hemlock Vale (it triggers at the beginning of Preludes, with the extra insult that you cannot transfer more than one played asset out of a Prelude) that we simply house-ruled that Geared Up triggers at the beginning of the ‘real scenario’ instead. There are a lot if mechanical annoyances for Preludes that I’d like the designers to have spent a bit more time thinking about :/ — anaphysik · 98
Yeah, it's no good in Hemlock Vale but way too good in its errata'd form. The notion I'll take strong exception with is that we can safely assume MJ Newman's original intent is reflected in Alex Werner's rulings. We can in no way assume the sequence of intent, realization, and revision @Susumu references occurred behind-the-scenes anymore than we can assume that the original intent for Backpack was that it would offer a timing window in-between the playing of each item and that Nimble would offer one in-between each move. I don't want to rehash original intent because it's inscrutable. All I — Holy Outlaw · 269
... intend to do is smirk at the way the clean-up occurred. There is both an errata and a taboo of the errata, rather than a removal of the errata so the card works as it reads. — Holy Outlaw · 269
Agreed, let’s not revisit the argument from years back. Susumu, you made some good points then and now. I can see I’m reopening an old can. I was just trying to be whimsical. — Eudaimonea · 5

Flurry of Blows

Flurry of Blows

While not for everyone, I've had great results with Sister Mary & Holy Spear You get 4 uses of the the +4 & +2 damage without needing to seal tokens. This is particularly great when there are already a bunch of sealed on Holy Spear or you don't have the bless tokens in the chaos bag. In this scenario, 2 resources & 2 actions can deal upwards of 12 damage!

While it's good at boss clearing & removing victory enemies, it can also be used when you get overrun with monsters. Each Fight can target a different monster at your location.

Overall, I was happy using it, but it's likely slightly overcosted in XP since you already need to buy the Holy Spear.

Calprinicus · 6356
ignore the action cost DOES NOT mean you can ignore other cost . You still — OnThinIce · 27
-- need to seal tokens — OnThinIce · 27

Marksmanship

Marksmanship

No reviews in several years. But this card is really good. If you're a flex, I don't think there is room for this card in your deck. But man, if you're a primary goon, this card can be amazing. If you split up from your cluever for some reason, this can allow you to snipe an enemy off them without taking a move action. Sure this is just fine in primary guardians, but oddly, I think this is better in off-class guardians who use firearms or ranged assets. And as of Hemlock Vale, there are really only 2 who care about it; Skids (especially if using the bow and by the same reasoning, Lily) and Tony Morgan. Tony loves this card. Sure tony can pick 1 of 3 sub classes, but as primary goon, going guardian sub-class makes sense. He gets vicious blow, the new Strong-Armed, and this.

Especially for Tony Morgan, this card neutralises his weakness. Now you don't need to spend additional actions getting to your quarry's location, and engaging. Even in someone with an extra action every round realistically, saving 2 actions on average for 1xp and 2r is great. Not to mention the other times this could come in handy. Using this on any normal gun acts as a vicious blow already, hitting that sweet 3 health spot, able to deal with most things statistically. But especially, the aloof ignoring is super useful if you know the campaign, or your allies. The man in the pallid mask? Great. Kohaku's signature weakness? great. There are plenty of examples, but man. In Tony especially, this card can do some WORK.

Rolandironfist · 37
And Tony can also reliably have the resources to play this, which I always felt was the main drawback of this card — tinybreeder · 29

The Codex of Ages

The Codex of Ages

You're paying 2 resources to automatically succeed a test in the future. It cost 1 action to play & you'll get that action back as part of Mateo's ability.

You don't wanna hold on to it for long, maybe a turn or two, as removing the hurts your team. This is exponential with more players. It's also better played at towards the end of the scenario when skill tests become harder & more important.

Mateo does have access to Shrine of the Moirai to return the codex to his hand potentially getting the 4x in a scenario!

Calprinicus · 6356
Moirai is a non-bo. Signatures have no level, so you can't get them back this way. — TheNameWasTaken · 3

Rod of Carnamagos

Rod of Carnamagos

This is completely nuts with parallel Jim Culver. The more I play with it, the more I think it's the best card in the set.

Beyond the synergy previous mention about using the player window for a Eye of Chaos, Armageddon, & Shroud of Shadows:

  • It can choose a non-elite enemy anywhere!

  • It's , so as long as there is an enemy, there is no reason not to use it.

  • It's easy to trigger & triggers often!

  • You choose the rot & they have amazing utility.

  • You can apply multiple rots with a single use.

  • Abyssal Rot - MVP. Removes the main threat of most enemies. Choose wisely, there is only one.

  • Virescent Rot - locks down hunters, patrollers, & elusive enemies often neutralizing them.

  • Scarlet Rot - Helps rid monsters that spawn far away, are aloof, or ones with doom on them.

  • Putrescent Rot - Helps other Investigators with monsters engaged on them.

  • Aember Rot - Least used, but free resources! Pair with scarlet rot.

Two must includes are Favor of the Moon & Dawn Star! Favor can get a guaranteed trigger & dawn star can kill additional monsters when swarmed.

My personal best is 17 damage in a single attack, killing 3 enemies.

  • Fight with Armageddon.
  • use Rod of Carnamagos during skill test (revealed 2 curses)
  • used both Favor of the Moon to reveal 2 more curses + 1 curse pulled from the chaos bag after.
  • Spend both Dawn Star to negate the modifiers & deal +5 damage each.
  • 17 damage = 7 Armageddon + 5 per Dawn star + 2 rots!
Calprinicus · 6356
I think, Dawn Star would not work with the tokens revealed by the Rod. It does not count the curse tokens revealed during the test, it counts the ones, where it ignores their modifier. The tokens from the Rod are revealed, so they count for Armageddon and other cards, that care about tokens being revealed, but they have no modifier, and hence imho, their modifier can't be ignored by "Dawn Star". — Susumu · 381
Favor of the Moon is unique — OrionAnderson · 125
I second both Susumu (rod tokens dont trigger Dawn Star) and OrionAnderson (Favor of the Moon is unique) but its still a 10 damage action. Nice ! — drfrigof · 1