Jim Culver: The Musician

Jim is a very nice fit in the era Arkham Files are set in. A Jazz musician is a very 1920’s profession and plays on the other side of Arkham Files thematic setting – the feel of the 20’s. Meanwhile you can also see a clever, subtle connection to Erich Zann (playing music as a mean to achieve supernatural results). While Agnes’ is a 100% Mystic, focused purely on spellcasting, Jim shows us a more flexible side of Mystic characters.

Legacy: Jim was one of very few characters I never ever used in Arkham Horror. Highly situational abilities and very unfortunate set of skills made him almost unplayable. An attempt at making him an all-round investigator was much more successful in Eldritch Horror – he can be easily adjusted to be a fighter, gate-closer or a spellcaster. 

AH:TCG builds up on existing legacy. It combines both of his AH abilities to create a new, exceptional and very playable ability. It keeps the theme of sanity-healing trumpet. And most importantly, it delivers the most successful attempt at a customisable, all-round character. 

The graveyard background is so well painted.
I wish the same one was used for the front of his card

 

Skill values: Jim’s skills are completely different than his Mystic friend’s Agnes’. His Will is not so high, while still good enough to deliver a decent spell-casting. He can, however, both fight and investigate without using spells, if needed due to his solid Combat and Intellect. He won’t be able to manage any of this area as brilliantly, as a specialized guy, but can cover any of them. His Achilles’’ heel is Agility – making him both vulnerable to encounter deck and unable to evade enemies. Since Mystics are capable of covering most aspects of the game with magic, a combination of natural and supernatural means can be very effective. Unlike Skidds, Jim does not suffer from lack of specialization.

His skill values are an important part of Jim’s design. He is a versatile character, having no obvious weak spots. He can use spells with decent results to deal with enemies, get clues etc. Unlike Agnes, he can also use more regular means of archiving the game goals. 

Strength

Theme

Special Ability: Jim’s special ability is another piece of the puzzle. Jim’s distinct capability of treating modifiers on Skull tokens as “0” has few results. It obviously simply increases chances of passing the tests. Serving as a slight boost to all his skills, thus enabling him to perform better, even if he’s skill value is solid only.

More importantly, however, it encourages playing the odds – one can attempt a skill check being only at “+1” against the difficulty, or even at “0”, and still have decent odds at passing the test. Works very well, when planned, still works solidly when triggered while being confronted with the encounter deck. You should also take the ability heavily into account, when you create the deck. Don’t try to overcommit on any particular skill, try to ensure you can always somehow push your stat 1 above the difficulty and play the odds! This is one of the abilities, that won’t work on its own – no “autocast” there, you must both well design your deck and execute it, else it feels like having no special ability at all!

 

I love how much design space introduction of these tokens creates!

An integral part of Jim’s ability is treating Elder Sign as Skulls. It matters for his signature card, but also opens room for very interesting card design (see: Song of the Dead –and I hope we can expect more of similar cards coming). This pretty much uses his Elder Sign effect (though you can treat Elder Sign token as “+1” if needed).

I very much enjoy the thematic aspect of Jim’s skill. It might not strike you as obvious (just like the ability of Jim’s fellow Mystic – Agnes), but is an ingenious design for sure. It is a mix of thematic aspects of Jim’s original special abilities. First of all, it is a “Strange Luck”, meaning, he is not affected by negatives circumstances, manages to emerge successful despite them, dodge the ill effects through unnatural good fortune. And it is “strange” indeed, as it only affects a very narrow portion of tokens. Furthermore, it is related to his “monster- taming” ability. Skull tokens tend to be mostly tied with Enemies/monsters thematically (though, there are exceptions – I wish there were fewer, to be honest). While it is not directly related to the undead, it is still a very clear thematic link. 

Strength

Theme

Signature Cards: Well, this particular part will be short, because Jim’s Trumpet is seriously underpowered. Really, not only it’s the worst signature card so far – I bet (and hope) we won’t see such a weak signature card ever again. Taking a hand slot to sometimes provide minor sanity heal is very disappointing. Even taking into account you can use it whenever ANYONE draws a Skull token (hence in a big team it should get triggered almost every turn) it still is miles away from other investigators in the signature card department. Sanity healing for no action is not bad, but taking a hand slot definitely is too much of an opportunity cost). 

The card is very thematic, that’s true. It feels incredibly personal – musician’s private weapon instrument of choice It does also a great job, linking all Jim’s designs across Arkham Files (always a nice touch to have a reoccurring design element). But at the same time it’s so terribly weak, I only use it to commit to tests.

Jim learned how to play a trumpet with one hand
and still it's not good enough

Jim’s personal weakness is – on the other hand – not too dangerous. If it gets drawn, it most probably does one damage and one horror (chances of dealing more are very slim, even with 15 tokens in the bag are around 24%. They are lower than chances of getting no harm at all!). And that’s it, weakness is gone! The biggest lost, really, is just getting no useful player card. It is sort of balanced with his signature card, since it is also the least damaging weakness out there.

While the name of the card is nicely connected to Jim’s profession and the Skull tokens are indeed tied thematically to him, in the end its effect has no relation to its name.

Strength

Theme

Deckbuilding/Class: Mystic cards allow achieving all sorts of goals (fighting, investigating, evading, protecting against encounter deck, gaining resources, healing sanity, even deck manipulation!¹) so one can create a solid deck based on them and even shape it according to your needs. Jim is very nicely versatile, hence by choosing the right set of cards outside of his class, you can easily make him a good clue collector (choose DrMilan, Magnifying Glass, Look What I Found! etc), fighter (weapons + PhysicalTraining, helping with both regular attacks and spell casting!) or support character (Old Book of Lore, some healing cards). At the same time he should be able to manage his not-strengthened side, due to his special ability. You can also include Leo in his deck (not only because he’s just strong, but also to give him one more attempt to gamble against chaos bag). Regardless of the chosen area of focus, Lucky! can always came in handy if you push your luck too much for an important test.

There are also few Mystic cards, synergizing with his ability – Ritual Candles and Grotesque Statue encourage and/or help living the risky way.  

Can you imagine running around with those burning?
This is what Arkham investigators do.

I could imagine Jim being more inclined to take Rogue or Guardian cards given his thematic character (he’s leaning towards fighting side of things in Eldritch Horror), his current deckbuilding options do not create any unthematic results).  

Strength

Theme

Jim seems not to get too much love among AH:TCG players. He was also reviewed quite negatively by The Aficionado (https://delvetoodeep.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/delve-too-deep-file-xi-jim-culver/). I do really like him a lot, though. He can perform strongly in many roles.

He’s not an auto-play character like Roland or Rex, that’s true. However, this is what makes playing him is very exciting from the very start – the deckbuilding, as you can choose multiple viable builds and successfully pair him with basically any other investigator. Once you start facing the unnatural challenges you keep balancing the odds pretty much every test, fine-tuning every action between skill values, Lucky!’s, Grotesque Statue etc. (throw Song of the Dead in the mix and optimizing gets even more of an interesting challenge!). 

I also cannot agree that’s he’s clearly weaker than Agnes. He’s far less draw dependent and has far more options open than just casting the spells. While his ability is not as spectacular, it can be extremely effective in the long run.

Strength

Theme

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

¹ They lack a powerful, Leo/Beat Cop (2)/Peter (2) level ally though. Maybe one is to be expected to arrive in the upcoming Mythos Packs?

Miskatonic Univeristy - New Player Cards (vol I)

Hello again, my dear readers! Based on your reactions posts about investigators build a good and needed cycle. However every now and then it’s good (and necessary since we’re running out of investigators anyway) to write about a different subject. The recent release of Miskatonic University creates an opportunity and need to share my thoughts about the new player cards.

There are 13 new cards – 2 neutral ones, 2 for each class and a whopping 3 new Survivor cards (2 out of them use the new exile mechanic introduced in Dunwich Legacy rules).

A first glance over the cards made me quite optimistic already – they seem to be on the stronger end of the spectrum and one can easily see a game play situation/deck they would fit well. Even the ones I don’t particularly fancy still seem to have good uses and match particular play styles.

I do not plan to have a very detailed look at all of them, would like to make some general points about them instead - particularly the ones that might be less obvious. I have chosen 2 cards to describe in more details in a separate post – Song of Dead and Brother Xavier.

Guardian cards seem to be an attempt at creating different Guardian sub-types. Emergency Aid not only provides an enormous boost for existing allies (more uses of for Beat Cop [2] and Guard Dog), which is rather obvious. It also delivers yet another healing card in Guardian’s arsenal. And since they are usually paired with low-Stamina characters, it is an additional opportunity for a support/healer role to be added to Guardian characters. You can read more about the sub-classes in upcoming post.

It's bit funny to use Pathfinder for extra movements... in a museum

Seekers are given yet another quick movement card. I guess this is the direction designers wish to develop the class. I’ve got a Plan on the other hand (sort of along Whoops) is another of the cards that provide some means of fighting to less-fighting classes. Such cards are not only necessary to make solo playing enjoyable, but also do not disturb overall class archetype too much, while making deckbuilding far more interesting. After all, these are only singular cards. They do not allow to consistently deal with monsters, but rather to manage “back to the wall” circumstances or give them something to do, when team is facing a “boss” enemy. Their existence also arranges for another layer of decision making – should I keep the card for later and ask my team fighter to relieve me now? Or should I rather use it now, to allow him to do some other job he’s currently busy with?). Both of these cards are very strong, so Seekers (and Roland) get a substantial boost.

I have mixed feelings about the Adaptable card. This comes back to my approach to the game. I like to treat it as a role-playing experience. Granted, it’s easiest during first run of the campaign and somehow manageable during next few runs. And it is definitely getting much harder afterwards. You can’t make yourself forget content of the cards, resolutions etc. Therefore, willingly or not, you do plan your actions based on the knowledge you’ve gained. However, using Adaptable for the purpose of deck changing, in order to adjust it to scenarios feels… well a bit like cheating. As very well pointed out by KP The Aficionado (link to the whole great article at the end of the post) – if you decide to swap level 0 cards, you might as well take Adaptable, so it’s cost-effectiveness is terrific. Contraband is yet another Rogue – support card, slightly underpowered in order not to become grotesquely overpowered in the future, when some multi-use asset comes into the card pool. 

I am a big fan of teamwork cards.

Mystic is my beloved class and yet again they got really awesome cards! Delve to Deep is easily my favorite card in the whole set. First of all, it is incredibly thematic. It reminds of Lovecraft characters, who decide to pursuit the blasphemous knowledge despite knowing that curiosity might lead to their demise. Further on, it builds on Mystic’s tendency to deal a lot with the encounter deck (Ward of Protection, Drawn to the Flame, Scrying…). Lastly, it has a very unique and powerful effect! Great stuff! And in the later stage of the campaign it can easily be replaced, as experience gets less and less important (cards bought in the beginning of the campaign stay with you for its whole duration, while the ones acquired later for fewer scenarios).

In a popular vote for the best card of the mythos pack
held among all the Shuffle's authors
Delve Too Deep won, getting 100% votes!

Survivor cards deserve mostly few words about the exile mechanic. I am a big fan, as it adds yet another layer of decision making. They also seem to have a reasonable cost and extremely thematic uses (designers even considered a very role-playing aspect of the fire extinguisher – using it as a blunt weapon – truly a nice touch!). The 0 level card is rather on the weaker side, though one might see a good use for it, particularly in bigger teams, more prone to have multiple enemies at one location.

Important note - if you don't find an ally you DO NOT exile Flare

Last, but not least, the neutral cards. It becomes quite clear to me now, there are 2 categories of neutral cards. The first category encompasses staple cards, needed, or at least very useful for investigators of every class (and pretty much everyone) – 5 double icon skill cards, Emergency Caches etc. The other one includes cards that are weaker than their class – restricted friends. You use them to have some means of covering your class’ weaker sides or just for the synergy/combo related benefits (think: Knife, clearly an inferior weapon to any Guardian stuff). The two new neutral assets clearly belong to the latter one, providing a weaker way of healing or a combo opportunity for Agnes (possibly more of clever synergies will show up in the future).

So we’re 2 expansions in and so far Mystics got almost exclusively strong cards, while other classes more of a hit and miss ones. The class ideas are getting clearer with each pack and I’m already biting my fingernails impatiently waiting for next cards.

What are your favorite new cards? Which one do you consider the strongest? Let me know in the comments section!And definitely check out Delve Too Deep's post about the new cards.

Addendum: Here is the second part of DTD's analysis (with quit few guests on board.

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

Zoey Samaras: The Chef

There is a variety of motives, causing the investigators to stand against the seemingly unbeatable powers of the otherworldly forces. Revenge, curiosity, or simply will to survive when faced with monstrous being trying to hunt you down. Zoey, however, is different. She is on a God-given mission. While technically a Chef, most of her life is spent following God’s orders. He speaks to her and she fulfills His instructions, killing the wicked abominations and guarding our world.

Legacy: I have a revelation to make in the very beginning of this article. Zoey has been pretty much my favorite character so far, when taking into account both Arkham Horror and Eldritch Horror. She was always a very proficient fighter with added layer of other capabilities and neat skills. In AH, she had high Lore/Luck value on top of her fighting competence and due to her Killer Instinct only needed one weapon to wreak havoc on all monsters. In Eldritch Horror she got even better! While still bearing her Cross to aid her during fights, she was also able to get additional missions straight from the Creator. And due to her well-spread stats she was also a proficient gate closer! A “killer” combination! (if you pardon this unintended punchline)

So when I learned, Zoey will be included as one of Dunwich Legacy investigators, I was beyond excited. And my excitement grew even further upon reading all Zoey-related cards. I was a bit conscious about her skill seemingly being inferior to Jenny’s, still was very much looking forward to playing her.

SPOILER ALERT!

I was disappointed

Zoey I love. This is how I will remember her!

Skill values: Zoey’s skill values shape her as a very evident killer with one job – slaying the wicked foes. Combat of 4 allows her to rip through them with a great efficiency, whereas Will of 4 protects her from all kinds of negative effects (while also inviting to take advantage of some of the Mystic options). However, one can wonder, since she’s to be a fighter and only a fighter, why wouldn’t she have lower Agility? One point less wouldn’t make a noticeable difference, but could help her to either do a decent job at investigating or boost her Combat to crazy levels (there are characters with a skill value of 5 in the end). 

I don’t really find any thematic explanation for this choice, either. In the end she just seems like a worse version of Roland (another spoiler alert – you’re going to read this phrase again).

Strength 

Theme 

Special Ability: Getting a resource for engaging an enemy is a decent skill. It comes even more handy for a Guardian – their cards are expensive and they do not have any cards to gather extra resources (so far). However, if you compare Zoey’s ability with Jenny’s you have a nasty impression, it’s a slightly weaker variant, really. On an average you do not engage one enemy per turn. The difference is not that big and the ability provides a cool synergy with Zoey’s Cross, nevertheless one can easily see it’s on the weaker side of thing. 

 I am not too sure how to thematically interpret her ability, unless on a quite abstract level. Is it the killer instinct that enables her to be very ehm… resourceful when faced with monsters?

I have mixed feelings about Zoey’s Elder Sign effect. On one hand it’s very thematic. On top of that, many of Zoey’s tests are, in fact, Combat skill checks, so there are decent chances it will get triggered during a fight. On the other hand – it annoyingly often gets drawn during other kinds of skill checks. Moreover, quite often an extra damage doesn’t matter at all – it just leads to an unnecessary overkill – mostly because you can’t really plan to draw an Elder Sing or make reasonable strategy based on an assumption you will get one of 16 (or more!) tokens.

Strength

 Theme

Signature cards: Here we go! Zoey starts to shine for a difference. Her Cross is my favorite signature card so far. It provides alternative means of doing extra damage, while not being a weapon. Beat Cop style, if you allow me such a comparison. It does not require any actions and the resource cost is pretty much negligible, since Zoey gets one when engaging an enemy.

All points one can raise about an upgraded Beat Cop apply to her Crucifix too – you can snipe out single health enemies with a great efficiency (this is definitely my favorite use). If your partner did some damage to the enemy you might finish it off, just by engaging it – no risk, no nasty chaos tokens). When facing a major guy (Ghoul Priest level or so), one additional damage for the start of the fight might also save you one attack in the end.

Giving Zoey a Cross was an obvious design choice – it’s her starting gear in Arkham Files since its beginning and naturally fits a believer (a God’s warrior, one could say). I am just slightly skeptical about a connection between the holy jewelry and suddenly striking the monsters.¹

This would be such a cool graphic if not for the dinosaur-like creature
making a come back from Unexpected Courage

Zoey’s weakness might vary in impact, depending on few factors. The obvious one is the strength of the drawn enemy. The second one is its type – is it a hunter enemy or not? If it is, Zoey most probably won’t have to >>hunt<< (haha!) it down, though it might stalk some of her teammates. The timing (and size of the map) is also crucial. If there’s nothing very urgent to do, Zoey (or one of her friends) might as well go and smite the wicked. In this sense it’s just one extra monster added to the adventure, possibly even less impactful for a bigger team. If it’s drawn towards the end of a tense scenario… oh well, then it’s Cover Up all over again (these seem to affect Guardians so badly!). And unlike all the task weaknesses it still matters in the last scenario. All in all, it’s slightly more damaging than a typical weakness, while not being Roland’s level.

The weakness is an obvious thematic choice for Zoey. Even though the design is bit simplistic (and surprisingly similar to Jenny’s weakness) one cannot deny its thematic quality. She’s on a God given quest and once he points to another target, she feels compelled to fulfill his commands to the point at which failing does permanent damage to her mental stability. 

Strength

Theme

Class/Deckbuilding options: Zoey is a Dunwich Style Guardian. The class choice is obvious both mechanically and thematically. She can have some options on what to take from the different classes depending on your needs and approach. Regardless of exact direction, you can always use Double or Nothing for devastating blows (combined with a weapon and a Vicious Blow it does 6 damage in one go!), all round strong Lucky! (nicely supporting Double or Nothing, as well). If you’re looking for an extra fighting edge (and more chances to draw a weapon), Baseball Bats come in very handy. If you decide to help a bit with Zoey’s investigating capabilities, Rite of Seeking and Drawn to the Flame both seem to be a very good option. Finally, if you’re looking at some support alternatives (also helping with Zoey’s low Sanity), Liquid Courage does the job.

A Chef by day, a monster slayer by night.
Let's hope she does not use any of the gained monster bits in her day job...

 I have already mentioned how the Dunwich characters’ deckbuilding requirements are on the weaker side of things for me. Zoey is less affected, as there are tons of strong level 0 Guardian cards. However, I could picture her with a Mystic subclass so well! High Will would allow her to use multiple spells, Fearless to heal Sanity… That would not only make Zoey stronger, it would also fit her legacy image. In Arkham Files games her Lore stat (which is the spellcasting attribute in the previous 2 games) is on the higher end. Such a wasted opportunity! Not to mention, I feel slightly uneasy with some of the cards Zoey can theoretically access when it comes to the theme side of things (all Dunwich guys are affected, I guess).

Strength

Theme

All in all Zoey seems to be a bit bland. She does lots of fighting and that’s pretty much it. Even spiced up a tiny bit with a selection of 5 cards from different classes, she’s still extremely one-dimensional. In fact, in the post about Roland I criticized him for being rather dull. I am taking my words back – he’s so actually quite fun and even more so, compared to the killer chef.

While I do appreciate a specialized approach, it makes playing her bit on the boring side. To make matters worse, she is only slightly more of an efficient killer, than Roland is, while the latter can do so much more! We even tried her in a 4-player game, hoping her highly specialized profile would fit a bigger party more. Still she was a minor disappointment. Unfortunately the final verdict is not favorable to Zoey.

Strength

Theme

¹I am a Christian myself, however I can see no place for God in the universe of Lovercraft and definitely not the Judeo-Christian one. The cold, uncaring universe in which humanity is part of thin layer of a biosphere in a Necro-cosmos faced with unhuman powers beyond their understanding, Idiot-God Azathoth, destroying worlds at will and just all the lack of purpose do not fit with the concept of the all-loving God. It begs a question – who speaks to Zoey? 

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