Lita Chantler: arsonist, ghoul-slayer, and Umordhoth's favorite snack. How is it that, over three years after the release of the Arkham Horror LCG, this torch-wielding termagant still has no review? It's time to redress this wrong.

There's two ways to think about Lita -- as an interesting story asset during The Night of the Zealot (she appears to be said Zealot), and as a standard ally, if you decide to make The Night of the Zealot the first chapter of a multi-set campaign.

In the Night of the Zealot, Lita shows up in your house while you run, shrieking, from a ghoul priest. But she's skeptical that you really need any help; her preference is to watch your duel to the death from the comfort of your parlor. If, however, you engage her in conversation and make a well-organized and informed case as to why she should rescue you from the deranged beast clawing at your back, she'll do what she can. Together, you'll defrock the ghoul priest, and then arrive a crossroads. Lita wants to burn your house: if you demur, she storms off in disgust; if you let her, she'll be your BFF, but you'll never quite be the same (I'm not sure if it's the house burning, or the crazed look in Lita's eyes as it burns, but you'll collect your first mental trauma here). In the next two scenarios, Lita will be an excellent pull. Even if you're not going up against monster enemies (her flavor of choice), the multi-investigator fight bonus is wonderful, and she soaks damage and horror like a champ. In the Devourer Below, she may get you out of a sticky situation indeed.

I think the more interesting question, though, is how Lita does BEYOND Night of the Zealot, if you survive it, and if your investigator is in shape for further mythos-plumbing. In short, she does well. Possibly best-card-in-the-game well, excluding one or two permanents. With her massive soak capacity, her zero-resource play cost, and her ability to buff the whole group, not just you, I'd pay 10xp or more to put her in certain decks. And how good is the bonus against monsters? Real good. There are about 120 enemy encounter cards with the monster trait, not to mention some dozen or so weakness enemies, including the signature weaknesses of Father Mateo, Tony, Norman Withers, and William Yorick.

If you want Lita to Undo the Circle with you, or Tread the Path to Carcosa, or Eat some Dreams, just remember that you'll be starting that campaign with a minimum of three mental trauma, one from watching Lita burn your house, and two from your brush with Umordhoth. Of course, you'll have a pile of experience as well, so it might even out somewhat, especially for high-sanity investigators like Norman. Still, I can guarantee for she'll be a dream-pull in just about every scenario.

They FINALLY told us how to actually play him!

From ahc_faq_v17:

"(2.10) “As if…”

Some card effects allow an investigator to resolve an ability or perform an action as if a certain aspect of the game state were altered, using the text “as if…” to indicate the difference. The indicated ability or action is resolved with the altered game state in mind, but the actual game state remains unchanged.

=This includes all steps of the indicated ability/action, including the paying of its costs, attacks of opportunity (where applicable), and resolving each aspect of its effect. =Other card abilities or game effects do not resolve with the altered game state in mind; only the indicated ability/action.

Example 1: Luke Robinson’s ( 4) ability allows him to “play one event each turn as if you were at a connecting location and engaged with each enemy at that location.” If Luke plays Barricade ( 38) as if he were at a connecting location, he would attach it to the location he is considered to be at, instead of the location he is actually at. Doing so would also provoke attacks of opportunities from any enemies at that location, since he is considered to be engaged with them throughout the playing of Barricade. That location has the following ability: “:Reaction: After an event card is attached to this location, deal 1 damage to each investigator at this location.” This ability would still trigger, but it would not deal any damage to Luke, because he is not actually at that location. He is only considered to be at that location for the purposes of the playing of Barricade.

Example 2: Luke Robinson ( 4) instead plays Shortcut ( 22) as if he were at a connecting location. This would allow him to move to a location connected to the chosen location. If there are 1 or more enemies at that location, they do not move with him, because even though the event is resolved as if Luke is engaged with him, those enemies are not actually in his threat area, and therefore do not move when he moves."

At a glance, you'd think Abigail is Daisy Walker's new best friend. Well, you're probably right - she fits in most Daisy decks with little effort, though you may want a Charisma first. However, there should also be some attention on whether or not she can fit into non-Daisy decks, and that's a lot fuzzier.

Abigail has the ability to repeat any Tome for free. This effect will determine whether or not you include Abigail. You can still get an extra hand slot by attaching Tomes without on them, but there's little reason to do so. Ally slots are valuable, and trading an ally slot for a hand slot is likely not worth it. That being said, most characters who aren't Daisy will have a hard time running numerous books and then constantly burning actions to use them. If someone is only running a single book, Research Librarian's consistency and relative cheapness is going to compete for the same slot, and likely be the cheaper and more reliable choice.

One important note is that the Abigail resolves the effect of the , not the full . This means that costs are not part of the effect, so 'free' doesn't only apply to the action, but to any other costs as well. This allows you to squeeze extra uses out of anything that has limited uses. As a result, you will want to keep a careful eye on Tomes with uses, since they become more tempting than before.

For easy reference, as of March 2020, here are the list of Tomes that have corresponding effects:

• Unlimited Uses
  • Old Book of Lore (0) and Old Book of Lore (3)
  • Medical Texts
  • Encyclopedia
  • Book of Shadows (1) and Book of Shadows (3)
  • De Vermis Mysteriis (Requires appropriate event in discard)
  • Dream Diary (0) (Limited use, since you can only have one Essence of the Dream at a time)
• Number of Uses
  • The Necronomicon
  • Archaic Glyphs (Untranslated)
  • Pnakotic Manuscripts (But the reaction is very similar)
  • Scroll of Secrets(0), Scroll of Secrets (3, Seeker), and Scroll of Secrets (3, Mystic)
  • Esoteric Atlas
  • Scroll of Prophecies
  • Otherworld Codex

There are some definite hits in here - an Old Book of Lore drawing two cards every turn or an Encyclopedia giving +4 would be two very common and powerful examples. Scroll of Prophecies can also let you tear through absurd amounts of your deck, and Otherworld Codex can clear an absurd amount of problems or give you two shots at clearing one. If you're using a couple of these effects of these very often, Abigail can give you a lot. However, those are very action and resource intensive combos to pull out for anybody who isn't Daisy.

If you're using at least four copies of Tomes with ... Well, I hope you're playing Daisy. But it's only in those circumstances that I would say the reliability of Abigail is high enough to justify the cost, given many Tomes cost XP to get in the first place. If your build otherwise functions with all of those Tomes, Abigail is worth looking into. Otherwise, it's best not to put too many actions into a combo that might show off a neat trick or two, but won't reliably help you do things that need to be done.

After my first scenario playing as Tony, I've learned something important about this card:

The resources aren't relevant; the actions are.

To put it more plainly, this asset works best if it gives you six (or more) free fight actions over the course of a scenario. In a vacuum we generally equate a resource as being worth an action, which would imply that you want to place as many bounties as possible on one enemy to convert one fight action into several resource actions. However, when an enemy is engaged with you (or even just at your location), a fight action is worth a lot more than a resource action, so the ability to place bounties is more important than placing more than one bounty.

In conclusion, I recommend putting as few bounties on enemies as possible. You're using this for free fight actions, not free resource actions.

I recommend ti using this card to get another Opportunist or Opportunist (2) Equal to infinite using of Daring Maneuver

Or use as Unexpected Courage in cost of lost both cards if you didn't succeed by 2