The main, general-use purpose of this card is to gain resouces while killing your Arcane Initiate, David Renfield, or other Doomed Ally so their doom diesn't cause the agenda to flip early.
You can hope to kill them in other ways during the Mythos phase, but this just makes it a bit more guaranteed
I believe using Robert to play a Remington Model 1858 will net you two free shots if you chose to play it. (I'm not entirely sure if it gets you a 2nd free shot if you discard it, as it hasn't 'entered play'?) In any case he's great for a Fist-based gun fighter rogue. (I'm guessing he was designed to be Michael McGlen's friend, but he seems quite helpful to Tony Morgan too.)
I have couple questions with this card.
Can you play the card like Refine one more time if you transfer to another investigator? The text on Refine shows "Max once per game for each Investigator"
I understand the damage will keep same after transfer. How about if the damages on original investigator are over the cap of the transferred investigator?
I think this is a descent upgrade to an already good level zero card. It does everything the level zero version does and on top of that ...
... it gives an additional skill point to pass the test.
... it heals both damage AND horror from an ally.
... it allows using this skill card in ALL skill tests (including agility tests and money test)
Is it a "must include"? Probably not. But if your investigator likes to evade enemies or if your deck includes cards that put both damage and horror on your allies, then this upgrade might be worth the 4 XP's for a pair.
I'm playing him for the first time in a 3 player Carcosa and his main job is slaughtering enemies. He's hard to hurt permanently and can cycle his defense items (especially Cherished Keepsake and Leather Jacket) back into play easily. I made the mistake of giving him a Fire Axe, I was seduced by the extra damage, but will swap that out for his shovel. In 4 scenarios, he's found less than a half dozen clues, and that's okay. That's not why he's there.
His biggest downside as i get more advanced cards with XP is resource starvation (partially because of the Fire Axe). I'll be adding an Emergency Cache to the deck.
Overall, he's been a blast to play.