Truth from Fiction

So as of the end of the Forgotten Age cycle there are 6 assets that have Uses (Secrets), though strictly speaking this doesn't actually have to put secrets on a card that can use them I cant think of a reason why you would want to. Of those 6 cards, one of them is a Forbidden Knowledge, which Daisy, Rex, Jim or Norman Withers could play, but spending 2 resources and an action to put two secrets on Forbidden Knowledge to let you spend 2 horror to get 2 resources back seems.... bad. Unfortunately this won't let you refuel it for a friendly Agnes as you have to choose an asset you control.

As for the in faction cards, both versions of upgraded Ancient Stone can be restocked with this. Using two resources and an action to heal two horror, divided amongst investigators and assets, makes Truth from Fiction behave kind of like a better Emergency Aid for horror which is definitely not bad, especially in Carolyn Fern. However, I think a much better use is to combine it with the damage variant, letting you bank two testless damage for a later turn. Just dealt with an enemy on your space that was keeping you from investigating, but used up the last of your ancient stone pings while doing so? Fear not, instead of spending an action investigating right now you can hedge against the encounter deck by reading a children's book. I would say that how good a strategy this is largely depends on how high a number you noted for your ancient stone translation, the greater the number of secrets you start with the less useful a 2 secret recharge will be for you. I dont think this is worth running if you're planning to go for some Double or Nothing 14 secret ancient stone shenanigans, but if you get put in a bad spot and have to note down 5 or so secrets you might look at this as an option.

Feed the Mind also uses secrets. Moving on.

Another interesting use is In the Know, if you set up camp on a low shroud location and leave a clue there, you can keep using it to save your movements and recharge it with Truth from Fiction, provided a teammate can run around revealing locations and keeping monsters off you. Combined with Disc of Itzamna, Scavenging, Hiding Spot and Analytical Mind out of Minh Thi Phan and you could have a fun deck concept.

Finally, and possibly the most powerful use of this card is the new 5xp Seeker card from Shattered Aeons, Pnakotic Manuscripts. It enters play with only 3 secrets so one copy of Truth from Fiction can nearly double the number of uses you can get from it. Given that each use of it is somewhere between a Ward of Protection and a Will to Survive, doubling up on that is extremely powerful and I think we may see a lot of Seekers, especially in 3 and 4 player games, look into combining these two cards. I do think this is worse in solo or in two player, as actions are generally more pressured at lower player counts and its harder to justify taking the action off investigating to play this, though I still think it will be worth it more often than not.

The biggest downside of all of these strategies is that all of the powerful assets that use secrets cost experience, which means either you are spending exp on swapping this in later in the game or you are putting a dead card in your deck for the first few scenarios. The double books on this card help to mitigate its uselessness in the latter situation somewhat but there isn't a shortage of double int cards with useful effects anymore.

birdfriender · 1283
It’s not useless in a 0xp deck if you are using it to quickly complete a level 0 Archaic Glyphs! One question though, why do you specify camping on a low shroud location with In the Know? ItK doesn’t care about the shroud on your current location. — Death by Chocolate · 1484
Excuse me but where exactly can you see the new cards from the pack?? Can you post a link?? — matt88 · 3228
That's a good point about Archaic Glyphs. As for the low shroud location, you dont have to be on a low shroud location, but Truth from Fiction requires a clue on your location. The idea is that you can just leave a clue on a 2 or 3 shroud location to turn TfF on and then be able to reliable scoop it up when you need to move on. — birdfriender · 1283
I can confirm, using this on Pnakotic Manuscripts is amazing. On of the guys in our playgroup was using this with Daisy, and he did great things with it during both games. You can also use it for it's icons (he did once). Two intellect icons aren't the most useful thing in the world for Daisy — Schielman · 38
Don’t forget every greedy Seeker’s best friend: Mr Rook — PanicMoon · 2
Works with the new Necronomicon too but I'm not sure how valuable it is for that. Compares decently with the riskier Recharge when you have powerful secret cards — Timlagor · 6
Pushed into the Beyond

The text of this card is very missleading. As I encountered this one the first time without a single asset into my play area besides from permanents, it was kind of unclear to me, if I have to discard 3 cards or not. Since i cannot fulfill the "choose" part of the card, what to do next. The word "and" has no entry in the rulebook, so hard to say. In my opinion the cards wording should be: Revelation - Choose a non-story asset you control then shuffle it into your deck. Discard the top 3 cards of your deck. If a copy of that asset is discarded, take 2 horror.

thakaris · 199
If they had wanted the discard to be conditional, they would have said ‘Then discard...’ since ‘then’ is their keyword for a step condiiibal in the previous one resolving. I think your proposed wording is clearly the correct interpretation. ‘Do A and B’ means ‘Do A. Do B.’ I think it’s the same way that Emergency Cache 2 (Gain 3 resources and draw a card.) will still draw a card even if an effect (such as sacrificial beast) prevents you from gaining resources. — Death by Chocolate · 1484
I asked FF games about this card, and you can choose a weakness unless it has “can’t leave play“. Weakness assets that CAN be shuffled –Dexter's Occult Scraps Weakness assets that CAN'T leave play with this card. –Mandy's Necronomicon –Minh's King in Yellow. –Baron Samedi –Wounded Bystander — MarcMF2 · 8
Treasure Hunter

TL;DR: Leo Anderson might use it, particularly in solo, if you have a limited card pool and can't find better non-unique allies.

So the immediate comparison for Treasure Hunter one would make would be to Hired Muscle, an expensive, niche, hard-to-slot ally that is arguably only usable in Jenny Barnes or Leo Anderson.

Hired Muscle does have something going for it, however: it is one of a handful of assets that gives you a static +1 boost. That list, as of The Depths of Yoth, is:

Because is tied to Weapons, a static +1 boost is quite rare. So then you can think of situations where you really want that extra , like Shotgun Leo Anderson or Gambling Jenny with .41 Derringer(2), Lucky Cigarette Case, etc.

Treasure Hunter's +1 boost, however, is not rare at all. Dr. Milan Christopher, Magnifying Glass, St. Hubert's Key, Hemispheric Map, Alyssa Graham, Dario El-Amin, Lola Santiago, and sometimes Newspaper are probably the best examples. So if Treasure Hunter lacks the biggest selling point of a mediocre card, that pretty much makes it a bad card, right?

The last comparison to make for TH (and Muscle too) is the talents that give a 1-to-1 pump for that skill. If you had Hyperawareness, you'd spend 2 up front instead of 1, and then you'd spend 1 per check to get the same boost. If you're using more than 1/turn, then Treasure Hunter starts to look decent. That is offset by how it takes up Leo De Luca's ally slot, and how you don't need to spend the money on a Talent until you need to. Overall I don't think Treasure Hunter makes up for those downsides.

You could use it in Charisma Jenny with Dr. Milan Christopher for lolz though.

PureFlight · 783
I've really enjoyed this card in a dark horse wendy focused on investigation, the downsideof treasure hunter becomes a non factor and can help you empty your resource pool — aurchen · 262
He's meant to die. — MrButtermancer · 56
Guidance

I've run this card a few times now in a Rex deck, and I have to say that it impresses more often than it disappoints.

I agree with an earlier reviewer that stated this card might as well read "You lose an action, another investigator gains an action" because that's effectively what this card does. But it also gives options.

I tend to play the dedicated clue sniffer on my team, and there are occasional rounds where another investigator (usually the combat monster) is trying to optimise a turn, but just needs one more action to pull it off. Or, for some reason, sniffing clues isn't needed for one particular turn, and Rex Murphy can't contribute what the team needs. This card can be used to shift one of your actions to an investigator who can put it to better use.

There's also the icon on the card, which can come in handy in the worst cases of scenarios... but at that point, you're probably in trouble.

I find that I tend to want five cards sitting in my hand anyway, to enable Higher Education, and the perfect candidates for those five are cards that are fine sitting in my hand until a situation occurs where they're exceptional. This, plus two copies of Delve Too Deep, gets me over half way there!

For a 0xp card, this one fits the bill.

(NOTE: The above review is based on Rex Murphy, in 2 or 3 player games, on Easy/Normal difficulty, YMMV.)

cb42 · 38
But remember that there are a lot of other things you can do with your actions that can be more powerful. Shortcut, for example, can donate an action to another investigator without costing yourself one. Or you could play a card like I've Got a Plan! to help fight yourself, which is a way more powerful use of an action. — CaiusDrewart · 3200
Just generally, it is true that sometimes there aren't any clues to be found but there are other priorities on the board, but the Seeker card pool has a lot of other options for those situations which are far more powerful and efficient than Guidance (which is just a fundamentally inefficient card.) And of course, in all the situations where there are clues to be found (which is most of the time), Guidance is just awful, as the most important and efficient investigator is forfeiting cards and actions. — CaiusDrewart · 3200
One more thought: you mention a possible synergy here with Higher Education, in that Higher Education allows you to have very situational cards in your hand. (Though you still want those cards to be as useful and powerful as possible, obviously). Fair enough. But another effect Higher Education has is that it makes "take a resource" actions actually quite reasonable. This means that donating your actions to other investigators becomes even less appealing if you have that card in play. — CaiusDrewart · 3200
@CaiusDrewart I've used I've Got a Plan! previously, but I've found the card sits in my hand, wasted, more often than not. It's quite expensive, and I'm often not the best choice to fight. I've played it, auto-failed the test, then had to use my second and third actions trying an inefficient evasion. Regardless, I'm not saying Guidance is an excellent card, just that when I draw it, I more often think "now we have options up our sleeve" than "Damn, I wish I'd drawn something else." So I just thought I'd post a positive-ish review. — cb42 · 38
@cb42 I agree with you. There are situations, especially towards the end of a scenario, where any action that you could take is less valuable than providing an extra action to another investigator. I feel this is especially true with Rex given how efficient he is at gathering clue; he does his job so well that he can afford give one or two of his actions to another investigator. — FractalMind · 44
@FractalMind: That logic doesn't make much sense to me. Rex's actions are so amazing that he should... forfeit them? — CaiusDrewart · 3200
@CaiusDrewart It’s not about being ‘amazing’ in a universal sense. It’s that his actions are efficient and Rex hyperspeciallizes well. But no matter how much you specialize in gathering clues, there’s usually a set number of clues to get, so passing off an action to another specialist can be worthwhile when you have time to get all the clues. I do agree that 9 times out of 10, shortcut does what you needed out of Guidance and better. — Death by Chocolate · 1484
@Death by Chocolate You nailed it. I do agree that Shortcut, in most cases, is better except when the other investigator could use an extra action for an attack. What would make the card more useful is you could give the action to any investigator regardless of their location. Maybe an idea for an upgraded Guidance??? — FractalMind · 44
Trusted

This is one of those 'really good for one investigator, meh for everyone else' kinds of cards. And this time it's Pete that wins. Because his base health and sanity is split between him and Duke, this is essentially a boost for Pete while increasing the number of hits Duke can take.

I play a decent amount of Pete/Duke decks, and I haven't been tempted by this card. Between Inspiring Presence (for healing Duke, and extra Duke use per turn), Vicious Blow (for a little damage boost), and No Stone Unturned (to dig up a Dark Horse, if needed), I'd be hard pressed to include this card. — cb42 · 38
I’ve run this in Pete decks and not found it terribly impressive. Certainly duke makes it much more reliable as a heal, and as far as healing goes, the easy comparison is First Aid - which costs 1 more resource and 4 more actions to heal 3 instead of 2 (also more flexibly). Really, I think this card is more valuable on allies who use their health/sanity for effect (primarily Guard Dog, Beat Cop 2, and Aquinnah) where this card reads more like: cost 1, fast, deal 1 damage to an enemy and heal 1 Horror - which is a pretty solid card effect! — Death by Chocolate · 1484
I don't understand the logic here at all. Why is it so important for Pete to increase Duke's health and sanity? If Pete is worried about his durability, he has a huge number of strong in-faction options like Cherished Keepsake, Leather Coat, Peter Sylvester, etc. — CaiusDrewart · 3200
@CaiusDrewart If you’re running Dark Horse Pete, you likely would prefer to run Madame than the boyfriend, Cherished Keepsake conflicts with Rabbit’s Foot, and well, there’s no good argument against Leather Coat beyond the matter than Dark Horse Pete would rather spend a single resource than a single action to buffer two points. I’m not convinced Trusted is the best choice, but I think their are viable reasons to include it. — Death by Chocolate · 1484
Not only does this not cost an action, but if you're running a Survival Knife deck, this can actually GIVE you an action. Say, for instance, you have any ally who is at currently at 1/1, and you are facing two enemies that do 1 damage/horror. With this and survival knife, you can spend 2 full actions doing something besides fighting these stupid rats. It's very worth it in a S-Knife deck. — crymoricus · 252