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.

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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.  

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Wendy Adams: The Urchin

Wendy’s backstory is one of the most classic Mythos clichés, nicely put into a gaming experience. Woman is driven insane by the Mythos forces (and the added irony, since some of her actions clearly made sense, but were seen as completely crazy by the “regular folk”). As a result she ends her life in a mental institution. On top of ruining her life, it also destroys life of Wendy, who after spending few years in an orphanage chooses to live on a street.  

Legacy: Wendy is present in all Arkham File Games. Her design is always centered about being resistant to negative effects thrown at her by the game. Her tough life hardened her will, while also teaching how to hide in the shadows without being detected. This idea is still present in AH:TCG, albeit maybe not so strongly present as in the previous installments of the series.

Another defining aspect of Wendy is her Elder Sign necklace – the only thing left to her by her mom.

Isn't it fun, that both Wendy and Jenny are drifters?

 Skill Values: This is where the design of the sneaky and strong willed urchin begins. With Agility and Will of 4 she is suited like no one else to resist all the dangers of the encounter deck. She will suffer the negative consequences of having to deal with Treachery cards the least of all the characters and can instead focus on progressing the investigation. Additionally, she has solid value of both Stamina and Sanity, protecting her from ending her adventure prematurely.  This is perfectly in line with the previous vision of Wendy as a resistant, cunning character.

She is absolutely terrible at classic fighting though, as her Combat value is 1. While she can somehow boost it with Hard Knocks and one of the Survivor Weapons, it’s not a long-term solution, she could consistently employ. Instead she is forced to rely on alternative means – Backstab, evading etc. It makes the job of handling the bosses tough, though manageable – biggest issues arise if she is forced to kill multiple enemies on a regular basis (see: Acolytes in the second scenario)

Finally with her Intellect of 3 she is managing investigating fairly well, too (apparently she’s rather a clever child), her only weakness is… well, physical weakness.

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Special abilities: The resistance to possible mishaps is also represented through Wendy’s special ability. It allows her to redraw a Chaos Token, possibly saving her from the consequences of a failed skill check. Very often it can be used to save a potentially lost action (failed attack, investigation etc.), making her ability another member of the “free action” set. It comes especially handy if you invested a lot in the test – committed icons, spent resources etc.

To be able to use her ability whenever needed, you should ensure, you have a steady supply of cards – luckily not only Survivor cards are beneficial here. Pickpocketing (which she can include in her deck) is also helpful.

While dodging Deep One's blows, Wendy also got his wallet

A central theme to the Survivor cards is “push your luck” mechanism. You underinvest icons in hope of a good draw – if the Chaos Bag turns out not to be kind enough, you use Lucky! or Look what I found! to succeed against the odds (or a Rabbit Foot, to still squeeze some benefit out of a failed test).  The benefit of such approach is – in case you were lucky enough not to need Lucky! (irony intended) you keep the resources, instead of committing them in advance. Wendy’s ability fits the same niche – you pray not to have to use it, but can preserve resources/cards knowing, that if the worst happens, you get another shot.

The Elder Sign effect is pretty much another “0” in the Chaos Bag. Chances that having the Amulet (thus making it an auto-success) will somehow make any difference are very slim. If it happens, however, it’s most probably another case of her being saved from a bad negative effect; making it a very thematic experience.

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Signature cards: You can't only consider one of Wendy's signature cards at once. They exist in a connection with each other, creating an amazing dynamic. Wendy's Amulet allows you to play events from the discard pile, while her weakness removes the discard pile from the game (on top of inflicting 2 horror) which in result robs you of the events and (almost – see tricks further) all of Amulet's power.

To both achieve this interesting dynamic and prevent the abuse of the Amulet, its text stipulates for played events to go to the bottom of the deck, instead of the discard pile. It means each card will only be replayed once. Also, once you play the amulet, you can't gather more events for later re-use.

It once again leads to a push-your-luck dynamic. With the Amulet on your hand you can either create a pile of events (hoping to recycle lots of them later on), or settle with quick play of the amulet to ensure you'll take advantage of its power, before the dreaded weakness comes in.

One of the weakness, you actually prefer to draw early

There are three problems with the Amulet itself. Firstly, it is rather costly, on top of the events you plan to reuse (Backstab, Elusive, Look What I Found!... only Lucky! seems rather cheap) it uses lots of resources. Secondly, the events are lined up in a given order, so either you plan carefully a way to use them (which is sometimes hard and sometimes next to impossible) or force yourself to use them later on, playing sub-optimally. If you somehow need to play a more situational event (Elusive let's say) or commit one for icons, it lands on top of the discard pile and can easily prevent you from reusing any events at all. And last, but not least, it shares the slot with Rabbit's Foot. It all causes me to commit the Amulet surprisingly often for the juicy 2 Wild icons.

Here are the promised tricks. The general one is - even once the Amulet is in play you can still put events in discard pile and reuse them! You just need to either commit them, or use for Wendy's ability. You can even do sort of two at once! Commit Look what I found and if you still fail the investigation – play it from the discard pile! Discard any event for the Wendy's ability and then play it using her amulet. So in fact, the amulet interacts with Wendy's Special Ability, Elder Sign effect and weakness! It also builds up on the event-heavy nature of Survivor deck. Nice!

Other than the nasty interaction with the Amulet, Wendy's weakness is not a major deal, really.

While the interaction between the cards is cool and creates tons of fun tricks to use, due to its limitations it is not a superb card. In fact, my wife believes it's a very poor one. It certainly is one that does not meet huge expectations you build upon just reading its text.

The Necklace provides light in the dark.
Literally and metaphorically.

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Class/Deckbuilding options: Two main themes of Survivor class are – evading and Push-Your-Luck. It is easily seen in the cards, almost exclusively centered on this topic. Whenever Survivor cards do not fit your approach to evading, you can find some replacements within the Rogue class, toppled with absolutely powerful Pickpocketing. Unluckily, at this moment the most useful Rogue cards (even more useful for Wendy, to who surprisingly often struggles with resources and could use another Push-Your-Luck card – Sure Gamble) are outside of her reach. (Cat Burglar is worth considering, though, despite her access to Leo) Rogue weapons are not particularly strong either to help her with her low Combat, so I’d rather rely on Survivor options for the rare instances of fighting (Backstab helps a LOT, though, basically main way to deal with the big guys, save Double or Nothing for it!).

Since Wendy is not really a fighter, she does mostly investigating job (and some odd jobs like dealing with Locked Doors, spawning cultists in the 2^nd scenario etc.), thus lack of cards to help with investigation in a rogue deck hurts a bit.

As Rogue cards are the other set helping with evading (and similar enemy dodging tricks), it fits Wendy’s profile quite nicely. I sometimes struggle though with thematic explanations of her pulling out Liquid Courage, Hard Knocks or a Derringer…

Despite The Prohibition, even Children abused strong Liquors

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Wendy seems to fit a role, that some of players see as assigned to Skids. She can deal with minor tasks, while dodging the enemies on her way. The Urchin has tons of ways to avoid fighting, while remaining efficient. It seems that designers are on their way to boost evading (Bait and Switch is the Exhibit A here, as with good planning it might be just as good as killing a monster), so we can hope for her to get even stronger with upcoming cards.

The Arkham Files game always had some troubles adjusting for an Urchin. Despite some attempts (Lower Sanity Stamina values in Arkham Horror, for instance) the limitations seem not to portray playing a child (or a teenager if you prefer) too well. It is a sacrifice done for the gameplay reasons (otherwise her card choice would be too limited for creating an interesting and strong enough deck).

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 All images are courtesy of cardgamedb.com and fantasyflightgames.com