Jenny Barnes: The Dilletante

Jenny is a character, who has had the smallest personal Mythos related experience (hence her “occupation”). It is limited to learning about a bizarre disappearance of her sister. She’s been presented as a daring, adventurous and self-confident woman. An important part of her image consists also of being both rich and charismatic. 

Legacy: Jenny’s design has always been centered on her wealth – be it seemingly infinite amount of money in Arkham Horror or high influence and an asset acquiring related ability in Eldritch. She was also given fairly fight – leaning stats (which is only slightly kept in AH:TCG through her signature card).

Old Jenny graphic is bit to slutty for my taste¹

Skill values: She has a surprising set of all-average stats. While it makes it hard for her to be very proficient easily at any area, she has quite some ways of adapting (very rogue-ish thing, ain’t it?). You must approach the stats in connection with her deckbuilding options and the special ability – they allow hr to use lots of different, even very expensive assets to boost her stats. She can be designed to fit almost any role in the team, as well as play a wild card, if desired. This is why her skills are on the stronger side, despite (usually detrimental) lack of specialization.  

While I would expect her design to be more consistent with the previous installments of Arkham Files, it provides an interesting and thematic twist to the idea of character. Her adaptability and wealth come stronger into picture, putting more of an individual mark.

Strength

Theme

New graphics - guns and hat are still around
And so classy!

 
Special Ability: Like most of the Dunwich characters, Jenny possesses a strong special ability. An additional resource each turn is pretty much a free action each turn. On one hand, it’s true, that taking a resource is bit of a slightly subpar action. On the other, it is an action, which usefulness might come in handy delayed – a free move action is either useful this turn or not at all and hence completely wasted. Free resource might pay off in 2-3 turns. It also opens new deck-building capabilities (as already mentioned before). You should definitely consider it, when building Jenny’s deck in many ways – you can take more expansive assets, use a lot of “spend resource” talents (Hard Knocks etc.), maybe give up on Emergency Cache’s?

Jenny’s ability is quite a straightforward design choice, once again – like in Rex’ case – nicely tied with her original Arkham Horror ability.

Jenny’s Elder Sign effect is one of many “+ a lot” effects, hardly useful, though due to the link with resources, rather thematic.  

Strength

Theme

Signature Cards: Jenny gets a very powerful weapon. +2 paired with her decent Combat and some ways to improve it (Hard Knocks, Physical Training) she can become a formidable fighter. And topped with Double or Nothing! it can easily deal some damage in one action. Unfortunately it’s only one card in a deck and Jenny has a hard time getting all the extra buffs for damage (Vicious Blow) with limited capabilities for Guardian cards. So she still has a hard time being the main fighter.

The pistols have two main drawbacks. Firstly, they have limited uses. This is a minor drawback, as they have one bullet for each resource you spend, when playing the card – and you can expect Jenny to have plenty! If planned right, she can have enough ammo for the remaining of a scenario. The biggest drawback is taking 2 hand slots. It is not a huge issue if despite Jenny’s limitation you design her as the main fighter. However it comes in a way, if you plan to use some other items – Flashlight or Magnifying Glass for investigating, for instance. And in all honestly, I don’t think she’s best suited to be the main fighter, hence her weapon, while having its merits, is also a bit problematic.

Since Arkham Times players around the globe see Jenny with her favorite guns in her hands. I enjoy using them a lot, since it really does feel like being Jenny just as much as the extra resources do. They are neatly tied with her resources ability (having a consistent character design is always a plus in my book).

All The Dunwich Signature cards use the same pattern for the skill icons.

Jenny’s weakness is for me a place where theme unfortunately won with the pure game. Why? Well, the card is incredibly thematic – not only because of the relation with Jenny’s story and relating it to her original personal story mission from Arkham Horror. It is also thematically harsh – you need to go to the farthest location, spend time investigating and do it well enough to convince Jenny her sister is not there. For sure. Nothing was overlooked. Keep going.

I believe the weakness is too harsh, though. It requires spending at least 2-3 actions for running to the location. On the way Jenny¹ might be forced to deal with enemies she would have otherwise skipped. Once there, another 2 actions are spent on an investigation attempt, which might fail (and Jenny is not a master of investigation)… The only silver lining is – Jenny can afford a mental trauma if needed, but it’s hardly a significant comfort.

Strength

Theme

Deckbuilding/Class: Out of all Dunwich characters Jenny seems to suffer the most. Rogue deck has some pretty cool cards, increasing the efficiency of actions (Opportunist, Double or Nothing, Elusive) or second choice weapon (.41 Derringer). However they lack any means of investigating and basically any reliable means to consistently perform decently at any area. She can attain some level of competence with the out of class cards, but it usually feels bit subpar. She does still feel bit stronger than Skids due to far higher adaptability, though. I strongly advise to take some talents, depending on the needs to make best use out of her special ability. Biggest strength of her options are many, many directions you can take when designing her deck.

I don’t feel Jenny fitting the shoes of a Dunwich character too strongly. I would expect her to have some wider choice of cards due to her flexibility as well as riches. Seems like a missed opportunity to me.

Strength

Theme

Jenny is a very thematic character, with perhaps the most interesting design of all of her Arkham Files incarnations. She also seems to personalize the Rogue archetype better than her ex-con colleague, as she can play any required role with solid efficiency or act as a versatile support character. She has a very high replayability, as she offers multiple different builds. I hope expanding card pool will make her even more playable.

Strength

Theme

¹ Why do so many female characters be necessarily sexy? I understand most of the gamers are man,but does anyone buy a game because of suggestive graphics of woman? REALLY?

² Or, technically speaking, another investigator. Why does Jenny believe that they did everything they could and looked very carefully for all the possible evidence? I guess the trust in the team is a huge one.