Aquinnah

Four years on and Synisill's review is still all relevant in almost all cases, but there are two new investigators that can squeeze a little extra use out of poor, poor Aquinnah.

It takes some luck or surgical card draw, but Aquinnah can turn off Patrice Hathaway's signature weakness. The Watcher from Another Dimension is an enemy that attacks you, it just does it from your hand; thus, she can reflect the 3 damage onto an enemy at your location. The significant caveat is that you'd have to save up the whopping 5 resources and have it available during the window when she flies through your hand to play her. You'd also likely need some form of deck manipulation to make sure your deck runs out only when there's an enemy at your location, or else the reflect fails and you still take the hit. Her expensive upgrade makes her $1 cheaper, but her upgraded ability is a bit wasted because you can't reflect it back at the Watcher itself. You may fight or evade the Watcher as though it were at your location, but it's not actually at your location for other effects, such as Aquinnah's ; it's still considered to be in your hand.

More relevant is new kid on the block Daniela Reyes, whose entire schtick is goading enemy attacks. She synergizes with Counterpunch, Toe to Toe, Fend Off and the Bangle of Jinxes. Useful for dealing with enemies you don't want to engage, like the Innsmouth spoiler or Innsmouth spoiler, or enemies that are just plain annoying like everyone's favorite bird. Of course, she's still $5 and still competes for a slot against the perennially useful Peter Sylvestre, but there's always Charisma and Calling in Favors.

CombStranger · 288
Even on Daniela, I'd jump straight to the L3 version 9 times out of 10. Requiring two enemies is just too situational even for her most of the time for this resource cost. — suika · 9505
"Get over here!"

Could I use the bold printed "Fight." on "Get over here!" to trigger fight action on for example a weapon asset in play (Machete) I assume not. Just a question that came up in a latest round. ..................

No, it's the same as you can't use the Fight action on a Machete to trigger the Fight action on a .45 Automatic. But I would recommend asking such basic questions rather on BGG rules forum. — Susumu · 381
r/arkhamhorrorlcg is another great place to get questions answered. ArkhamDB is not structured for Q&A. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Blood Will Have Blood

I can maybe... maybe... see this card in a heavy-soak deck. (Non-Ally soak, to be more precise.) The problem is, it costs one card and a resource to play, so it's really only cost-efficient if you're taking three damage/horror at a time, something that most players try to avoid. Well, if money isn't an issue, you get a net benefit at 2 damage/horror, but nonetheless, it's hard to justify taking. It would be a good but niche card at 0 XP. I can't see it being worth 2 XP.

Xelto · 7
The obvious candidates for this are Tommy and Yorick, who both kinda want their teddy bears and coats to die anyway. — dezzmont · 222
Taking 3 total damage/horror at a time isn't just something that most players avoid -- it's something that is RARE to even encounter in the first place. (It has to specifically be an attack from a single enemy.) 1 damage+1 horror is the overwhelmingly likely typical best case. — anaphysik · 97
do you take this for final levels of a campaign where 4+ damage enemies are pretty common? — Zerogrim · 295
No, because taking the damage on teddy bears and leather coats also costs you actions to play them back (for Tommy) and recursion opportunity costs (for Yorick). Even Calvin at the end of the campaign usually ends up with too much trauma to take damage/horror willy-nilly like that. Standalone Calvin, perhaps. — suika · 9505
Seems like really tough value when things like Glory or Unrelenting can get you there quicker for less XP. You're not going to want to wait for the boss to speed yourself up and then there's the big direct attack to take. — housh · 171
This is a cantrip for the Daniela attqck bait archetype. Seems solid to me. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
2 XP for a cantrip (that doesn't work with soak) is not good? I think it would get play at level 0. — housh · 171
It almost certainly would see play at 0, simply because of Tommy and Yorick and their predisposition to triggering this anyway, it would be extremely rare for this not to be a cantrip in most scenarios at some point for those characters. At 2 XP its a bit much: I don't consider the re-play window on Yorick or Tommy's action cost to get em back significant (Your actively trying to kill them with Tommy ALREADY and Yorick mostly uses his replay windows late game for tank anyway), but the XP cost is pretty rough, especially on Tommy who has the standard guardian woes, but even Yorick is an unusually expensive Survivor because he is one of the few users of a 4 XP card. Might hit the sweet spot at 1 for those two though as a filler card to help draw doing what your already doing in those characters.. — dezzmont · 222
At 0xp, it'd be a more unreliable Glory with potentially higher upside. Tommy and Yorick definitely don't lack for filler cards though. — suika · 9505
Does this even work with the coats and teddy bears and the rest — jmbostwick · 11
Can we use this with Aguinnah and keep her alive longer? I'm not sure due to not very clear wording on both cards. — Therion · 1
Serpents of Yig

At level 0, Father Mateo now has access to Spectral Razor, which will put him up 6 to 2, which should be good on most campaigns on Standard, and will do the 3 damage necessary to take care of this on one action. And since you have a built-in way to deal with the Auto-Fail token, these snakes aren't so difficult to deal with.

dscarpac · 1217
Panic

Is... Is that Taylor Swift in the art?

As much as I like Panic, Stupor, and Arm/Leg Injury from a mechanics perspective, they feel both flavorful and balanced, I feel like running an all soak no healing style deck hamstrings anyone that happens to pull one of these as a random weakness.

Barring something like Doomed or Offer You Cannot Refuse or maybe Through the Gates hitting something important, I feel like most basic weaknesses can be dealt with by anyone... even if it's devastating to the bearer (like Drawing the Sign with Harvey Walters or Paranoia in a big money deck). Harvey probably isn't happy to see Drawing the Sign pop out, but he can still toss it and move on rebuilding his hand. But if you happen to be running someone like Tommy Muldoon relying almost entirely on asset soak instead of healing getting one of these weaknesses cripples you from the moment you draw it to the end of that scenario. In my opinion how you feel about these weaknesses entirely depends on what kind of deck you're playing when you get them. Getting Panic or Stupor in a Carolyn deck probably doesn't bother you (I assume that since you can heal it as if it was horror it would still trigger her ability) as you can just treat it as "Miss a draw, take 1 fake horror, and maybe have to restructure your next turn or two if you're unlucky" but a soak heavy no healing Tommy deck likely has to pick up a new card to compensate for the newfound gaping wound in their arm, leg, or psyche.

Thematically these weaknesses are very flavorful and mechanically interesting, I just wouldn't want to be stuck in the middle of the Antarctic without a Medical Student or First Aid kit. Peter Sylvestre and Jessica Hyde just have to sit there and watch you bleed and panic since the "horror" or "damage" is on you, not them.

NorainJS · 59
I think it depends on the weakness and your job. A cluer with mag class probably won’t care about arm injury, as he neither attacks nor activates something. But for a fighter this is a big problem — Django · 5154
Definitely feel like these weaknesses needed a super inefficient way to remove them without healing. 'Archetype hate' really doesn't jell with the weakness system and every time someone drew one of these who wasn't ready for it they just had a bad time. — dezzmont · 222
1xp healing options are fairly plentiful at this point, and the good thing about healing is that most heal cards target any investigator at your location so you only need 1 person to pick up healing if you get a bad injury. — Zerogrim · 295
Healing access very much depends on class (and player count), in a 2p Rogue/Survivor you'll not find very many reliable healing options (Bandages really aren't), to say nothing of true solo. — suika · 9505
Wait, but Survivor's got like, Spirit of Humanity, innit? That heals, and Rogue can definitely mitigate curses some. Oh, and now they've got Earthly Serenity, too-- Granted, yeah, they still require two actions to get it done — Flamy · 6
Spirit of Humanity heals the Survivor. To heal the Rogue, Earthly Serenity's the only way, and as you say it's a fairly expensive option at that. — suika · 9505
The rogue can Adaptable in Smoking Pipe or Painkillers for these weaknesses. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Yes, but it's a reliability issue. The more players there are, the more likely someone has a heal and the weakness will be short-lived. The fewer the players and the worse the healing options there are, the longer these weaknesses will stay out. — suika · 9505