Does anyone know what would happen if I choose a spell such as Armageddon as my branded spell, and end up playing on a scenario that makes me start the game with fewer than 5 resources? per either the Indebted weakness as certain scenarios and campaigns can have you add a random basic weakness to your deck midway through campaigns

Example being, I am starting a custom scenario with 2 fewer resources per the setup instructions in this campaign,

What would happen with my branded spell Eldritch Brand since I no longer have the 4 required resources to pay for the branded spell before drawing my opening hand,

Would the spell stay in my deck and I just have to hope I end up drawing into it because I cannot meet the payment requirements?

Eldritch Brand

For many of the uses of A Glimmer of Hope (0), this is a marginal upgrade at best. If your desire is to have a bunch of cards that you can use as discard fodder and then profitably recur as more discard fodder by pulling back two or three at a time, then this is only a slight help - if you find you need to commit the cards instead, then they serve as an Unexpected Courage half the time instead of a meagre icon. Unfortunately for "Ashcan" Pete, a strong "Glimmer of Hope" candidate, this is generally the wrong half of the time for him - if you're pulling Glimmers back to your hand so that you can ready Duke and then commit to help him sniff out a clue or take a bite at a ghoul, A Glimmer of Hope (2) doesn't serve you any better than the base version. It is at least inexpensive, clocking in at just 2/3rds of an XP per card. If it ends up helping your Wendy Adams pass an important or test, then it might earn its keep even if you normally plan on discarding it to fuel her ability. But Cornered also costs 2 XP, can give you a +2 to any type of test, and takes A Glimmer of Hope (0) just fine.

I think this card is more directed towards the other use case of A Glimmer of Hope, where you actually intend to commit the card for its icons. This usually means that you're improving those icons in some way: Grisly Totem (0) and its advanced variants Grisly Totem (3 - Seeker) / Grisly Totem (3 - Survivor) and/or the ability of Minh Thi Phan. Just one such effect elevates each copy of A Glimmer of Hope (2) above Unexpected Courage, and being able to recur two or three at once for an action and a resource starts to look like a reasonable deal. If you're able to add two icons to the card instead then you're golden. Better still, if you manage to get all three copies of A Glimmer of Hope (2) into your hand and/or discard pile as Minh, then you've got a perfect package solution to your signature weakness The King in Yellow: Act One; exactly three cards with six icons for either a or test. The kicker? If you run into the nightmare scenario where Minh pulls the autofail on her test to get rid of The King in Yellow: Act One then you can simply take the action to pull all three copies of A Glimmer of Hope (2) back into your hand and try again at the next opportunity, potentially saving yourself from total disaster.

The other natural A Glimmer of Hope (2) committer is George Barnaby who gets to commit the cards that he's using as discard fodder - potentially right away. Either Glimmer is a +2 to a skill test for most Cornered investigators, but the 2 XP investment in this version might be the difference between discarding to Cornered and instantly committing to a test giving you +3, or +4. This is particularly notable given George's base 2 , where going to 6 rather than 5 might be more comfortable as mythos protection, particularly on hard or expert difficulty. Similarly, for Georges who are hoping to snare up some opponents with an Anchor Chain, while you cannot immediately benefit from a A Glimmer of Hope (2) that you plan to use as discard fodder to activate Anchor Chain's stun, if you happen to have one "tucked in the boat" already then that can pump your evade attempt to 6 instead of 5. Nautical!

Finally, A Glimmer of Hope (2) is not a dead card for Yaotl in the way that A Glimmer of Hope (0) would be; It's still a weak card for him, especially for an experienced card, but it could resolve some of the tension between wanting access to more discard fodder and wanting your cards to feature non-wild icons in something like a desperate "Ashcan" Pete Yaotl deck.

You better watch who we play
You better watch what he does for me
Don't get carried away
Gaunt, if you can dismember me, hunt
Yeah hunt, but remember

Unexhausts are hard to find
Unexhausts are hard to find
I get lucky, gaunt
I get lucky, gaunt
When I dodge you...

I've been playing for almost 3 years and only recently noticed that Fast asset has an innate "Play only during your turn." baked in the rule. It mainly affects players trying to put down Magnifying Glass inside the test in order to sidestep Crypt Chill or similar tactics.

However, Fast play this card inside the Mythos phase test (that is, surely not during the card owner's turn) in order to remove 3 was a common combo that my table used, turned out to be a misplay. e.g. Right after playing Tempt Fate in an attempt to have net free 3 for that test. It was a seemingly obvious combo for cards that came in the same box that actually doesn't work.

You cannot perform such combo in other player's turn in Investigation phase either.

Rule : Fast

• A fast asset may be played by an investigator during any player window on his or her turn.

Assets? Events? Robert is the guy with the gun. The gun you gave him, because you didn't want to pay 4 for that .45 Automatic to go into a hand slot you didn't have open, you just wanted a combat trick to defeat the ghoul that's engaged with you. So you discarded the gun ("played the event"), paid the "resource cost" of 0, and did a Fight at +1 for 2 damage. That's better than Monster Slayer. Imagine if every firearm in your deck could just turn into a buffed version of Monster Slayer as and when you needed it to? If the same cards that are your expensive, slow, sustained damage options are also your zero cost, instant, burst damage options? Robert can make that happen for you, and all on the body of a Beat Cop (0).

This can be build altering. The game only has three fundamental types of player cards, so letting one type stand in for another is strong. A reasonable first instinct might be to look at Robert here and think that he's only for the likes of Michael McGlen, or even a placeholder for his mighty, upgraded version. I would contend that he's a perfectly solid ally in his own right, even for flex characters. If an investigator would normally take 2 weapons and 4 fighting events, then they could go down the Robert Castaigne route and just bring six guns. On normal, a character with a fight as low as 3, thanks to Robert's static boost and the likely +1/2 from a gun's accuracy can be testing at 5/6 for both their gun-in-play shooting and their gun-given-to-Robert pseudo-events. And these events are reliable, because they're not really events at all; Dissonant Voices can't stop their use, Torturous Chords can't increase their cost. Think how much more likely are you to have a gun in your opening hand when there's six in your deck compared to just two. The fact that it's locked to one-handed guns is fine for Tony Morgan and Michael McGlen because that's their default style anyway, and flexible investigators can easily leave the other hand free for clue-gathering tools.

The trick is having access to enough decent firearms to be able to build your deck gun-heavy. Guardian access helps, but even Survivor/illicit/generic 0-level access is decent because Robert loves to fire a .18 Derringer. Even "Ashcan" Pete gets to base 5 with Robert backing him up, and Duke gets the static bonus. He'd have to use up all his out-of-class cards to make it to a "mere" 5 firearms in his deck as of time at writing but I think this goes to show how there's much more to Castaigne than meets the eye. He's willing to work with all kinds of different people.

One of the concerns that can arise from having many small guns is that it can spread your XP thin, but those who can take Robert Castaigne (4) don't need to worry about that so much; If every gun with base Robert can be a more-accurate Monster Slayer, then upgrading your Robert to his final form effectively gives all of those cards "fast" and "draw a card" when played through him as pseudo-events; That's gotta be an improvement of around 3 XP per firearm! And he buffs their use as actual guns just as hard.

Finally, Robert scores extra cool points for being a "Castaigne" - perhaps from the same Castaigne family as Louis and Hildred from Robert Chambers' "The King In Yellow"? All hail the new Emperor of America!