Foundation Intel

This card is clearly a dead draw, as well as unhelpful hand clutter, but is is also an opening-hand killer, like The Tower • XVI? The Tower explicitly says that it has to stay in your opening hand:

"If The Tower • XVI is drawn in your opening hand during setup (before or after taking a mulligan), you cannot replace it. It must stay in your opening hand."

This direction overrides the general rule that you discard and replace weaknesses during the drawing of the opening hand without resolving them. But Foundation Intel is trickier. It just says flatly that it can't leave your hand. Is that text ever "resolved" (and thus ignorable according to the opening hand rule), or does is it just there? After all, it isn't part of a revelation or forced ability.

Overall, my best reading is that you CAN discard this card during opening hand draw. There's plenty of space on it for more text, so if the designers meant it to apply to that step, they could have easily said so. And since we have the example of the Tower as a card that must stay in your hand during opening hand draw, it seems likely (though hardly clear) that this card, which lacks the specialized text, also lacks the ability.

That's a really good question. I think I'd probably come down on the other side than you if I were playing a live game and just had to make a decision. "Cannot" is absolute so Foundation Intel absolutely can't leave your hand no matter what the circumstances are. That's that. But the Tower needs the extra text because it behaves differently if it's drawn under one specific circumstance and it needs to explain on-card what that is. But I agree, it's not clear at all that either of us are reading it correctly and it might be worth shooting a question to the rules team so we can at least get a sense of what they intended to happen here.. — bee123 · 31
Oh very nice catch, speaking as someone who sort of enjoys sticky rules-resolution puzzles. All told, I'd agree with your take that it CAN be discarded, based on the rules reading for setup: "...Each weakness card drawn during this step is ignored...". If The Tower didn't exist, I doubt we'd even think for a moment that Intel could stick during setup... and because The Tower does exist, I think it demonstrates that you do in fact need additional text (such as is on The Tower) to make the weakness override the base rules. — HanoverFist · 739
Makeshift Trap

Makeshift Trap is amazing card. Sometimes, the game may break due to the single Makeshift Trap. In this review, the upgrades are considered: Improved Timer, Simple, Net. Thus, Makeshift Trap has the following ability:

Uses (3 time). Fast. play during any window. If Makeshift Trap has no time, discard it.

Attach to your location.

Each non-Elite enemy at attached location get -1 fight and -1 evade.

Non-Elite enemies at attached location cannot move or make attacks of opportunity.

Forced - At the end of the round: Remove 1 time from Makeshift Trap.

It's noted that...

  • After the enemy is spawned (and thus engages), Makeshift Trap can be played without AoO.
  • All investigators at that location can move out without AoO. Enemies still stay at that location (including each enemy engaged with the investigators) since they cannot move.
  • The enemy can attack by the default attack during enemy phase. The investigator just moves out of the location to avoid being attacked.
  • Then, the enemy is locked at that location for three rounds. If the location is placed as line segment, Makeshift Trap works as Barricade.
elkeinkrad · 497
From my interpretation of "cannot move" it means the enemy cannot voluntairily move. But it can BE moved by an investigator. My point of reference is [Formless Spawn](/card/04337), which specifically states that it cannot move and cannot BE moved. Meaning, an enemy trapped in a [Makeshift Trap](/card/09100) cannot move but CAN be moved. — MaleficMarby · 31
I think there is no difference between moving and being moved, similar as engagement. It's too hard to classify whether the enemy moves or is moved. — elkeinkrad · 497
Moreover, the given case is not the enemy is moved but enemy moves according to RR. It states "Each enemy in an investigator's threat area is considered to be at the same location as that investigator, and should the investigator move, the enemy remains engaged and moves to the new location simultaneously with the investigator". — elkeinkrad · 497
Professor William Webb

All the combos of Professor William Webb are explained in the level 0 reviews. The review "olahren" made is very complete. This was 2 years ago, now, with The Scarlet Keys Investigators Expansion, Fingerprint Kit, Alchemical Distillation and even Grim Memoir made its appereance and Webb gained even more value because he can target more items with secrets/supplies/charges.

The weakness of the level 0 Webb is that, if you use this card as a sort of Scavenging for Seekers you'd lose at least 1-3 succesful investigate actions just for recycling items during the scenario. The upgraded Webb works the same but it has more sanity soak and an extra icon. The real upgrade of this version is that you still get a clue when an succesful investigation triggers this cards to recycle your items, so you won't lose actions. If you use Webb for his combo potential this upgrade means he won't slow you down, and Seeker class is all about improve action compression with and triggers using your EXP, so this is good enough for me.

On the other hand, if you play the "seeking for afar" archetype, this card does not improve the archetype unless you want to recycle items. Maybe Luke Robinson can use this to recycle the Grotesque Statue, since he has 3 and some token manipulation can make this kind of decks more viable for him on Hard and Expert Mode even with his small .

Webb (2) is Scavening for the Seeker class except for those seekers who have some sort of access to the Survivor class (Rex Murphy, Vincent Lee, Mandy Thompson and Minh Thi Phan). Webb (2) does not require to pass the test by 2 or more, so it is more reliable in Hard and Expert Mode. The other way to get 1 copy of Scavening for this class is paying Versatile, but your deck gets bigger and that can be a problem is you want to use specifically one or two items. Another problem of Webb compared to Scavening is that he uses the Ally slot, but playing as a Seeker usually means buying Charisma or Miskatonic Archaeology Funding to play two or three at the same time. The last problem of Webb is that he has limited uses, but all his recycled assets have major impact on the game and you can always run cards to forget about the secrets that also synergises with some powerful Seeker assets.

To sum up, Webb (2) can be good in some decks, but he is not an autoinclude nor and staple of the Seeker class. He has limitations you have to sort out to make him work. Even though, he is fun and I recommend to try him at least.

For me, Harvey Walters is a strong candidate to run Webb (2) in his decks since he can abuse the hell out of this card. He usually runs Miskatonic Archaeology Funding because he is very durable and he usually plays some Miskatonic allies in his decks, so Webb (2) ally slot problem is instantly solved. Webb (2) + Magnifying Glass is a good deck engine to discard and recycle your empty The Necronomicon and Ancient Stones.

On the other hand, I'd love to see some Joe Diamond decks using this in a cluever deck. He loves the 3 horror soak of Webb (3) because of his poor Mythos defense, and the possibility to recycle Fingerprint Kit 1-3 times during a scenario doing the Magnifying Glass discard tech sounds good! If you manage to get your Detective's Colt 1911s on the table you can even play a Hawk-Eye Folding Camera to enhance your while cycling through the Magnifying Glass and the kit. The only problem is the money, so you'll need to run cards like Crafty, Burning the Midnight Oil and Crack the Case or even running Charisma + Dr. Milan Christopher. He can also "Webb recycle" the Police Badge to support other investigators or cycle through 2 copies of Eon Chart with his good enough card pool.

rodro · 205
Scroll of Secrets

Previous reviewers have mentioned the ability of this card to get rid of Weakness cards from your draw pile. This is a very powerful use, since a weakness not only sucks up effort to overcome, but also means you didn't draw a useful card. When done right this only slightly restricts your play for a single turn.

Here's the super-clear "how to" for new players:

  • Turn 1: put this into play with your last action during a non-emergency moment
  • use the ability to look at the bottom 3 cards of your deck, discard any weaknesses, draw 1, put remainder on top of your deck
  • Turn 2: before you take your first action, repeat the procedure above, and for just this turn don't do any searches or effects that shuffle your deck
  • Turn 3: repeat the procedure above to use up last charge before your first action

This will draw you 3 cards, look through 9 cards, and conceivably discard up to 3 weaknesses found there. If you do any searches during the second turn you ruin the work of setting up your top cards and make it likely that you're surfacing the same cards twice instead of unique cards.

Happy hunting!

Thank you for pointing out the need to avoid actions that make you shuffle the deck to ensure a very efficient use of the Scroll of Secrets. Especially in a multiplayer game initial setup may be optimized by card tutors that require the deck to be shuffled afterwards. — Staticalchemist · 1
Small Radio

I have a question Does text on this card that says : "Instead of paying that ability's non-[action] costs" means that I can only triggers ability on partner assets like Avery Claypool, Roald Ellsworth and others Resolute partner assets right? So I can't use small radio to trigger others partner assets's ability (who not in the play) that cost [action] to play right? Please help me T-T

SEEHIGH · 1
ArkhamDB's comment section is not the right place to ask rules questions. Use BGG, Reddit, or one of the game's several Discords for that. As the card explicitly says, you can activate abilities on Partners who are not in play, ignoring all costs except for their action cost. So if an ability requires spending an action, you still must spend that action. However, all other costs on that Partner such as supplies are ignored, and you instead exhaust Small Radio and spend 1 supply from it. — Soul_Turtle · 468