Kymani goes rogue, using Underworld Methods to chase their ancestor's heritage

Credit: Fantasy Flight Games

Kymani couldn't stand seeing their family and community being segregated, living in misery, while the Miskatonic Musem was making tremendous profits exhibiting the artworks once stolen from their ancestors, at the same time as their people were deported and used as slaves for centuries. These relics are not simply exotic shiny pieces that can be shown to ignorant tourists. No, they are artefacts that have been used by the Tainos to worship Zemis since the beginning of time. And since the people were exploited and their relics are gone, the Tainos lived in incommensurable suffering, between famine, climate catastrophes and diseases, all related to the country that robbed them, and without any compensation for it. It was time for this to change.

Kymani grew up in the poorer neighbourhoods of Arkham, and despite the lack of school, they quickly demonstrated extreme dexterity, which led them to be spotted by a woman named Delilah (though they would always call her Missus O'Rourke), who helped them build their skills as well as an extensive network in the underworld of Arkham. And once they learned about their origins and the history of their islands, their determination grew bigger to bring justice back to the Tainos. Their objective rapidly became clear: get hired by the Miskatonic Musem, use their knowledge of the underworld to prepare for a heist, capture all the stolen relics, and get out of there, neutralising anyone that would stand between them and their objective. They had never killed before, but since this was a matter of life or death for thousands of native Caribbeans, they were ready to sacrifice a few lives for the greater good.

Introduction:

Now that the Scarlet Keys - Investigator Expansion has hit the table, it's time for some deck guides with the new investigators! This deck is meant for multiplayer, with at least one other investigator dedicated to discovering clues.

Here are my other decks of this series:
Zidane Headbutts the Doom
Darrell Snoop ' Tog

This will be my last deck of this series. After a main clue getter and a main fighter, here is a flex deck, starring the amazing Kymani Jones!

I really had a blast playing this deck. It goes fast and achieves a lot. Every turn feels unique thanks to the diversity of actions that you can take, whether it's collecting resources, investigating, evading, discarding or even defeating enemies based on what your team needs most.

Disclaimer: This deck guide was created before the Campaign Expansion was released. Some cards and assumptions in this guide may be made irrelevant later on. I will keep it updated with a changelog if that is the case.

Table of Contents:

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• Reach Objective

• Stay Unnoticed

• Eliminate the Evidence

• Other Cards

• Upgrade Path

• Make Your Own Deck!

Overview:

Main Strategy:

• Use Underworld Market to store some of your key cards in a fast-access deck. The rest will be delivered at will by Lucky Cigarette Case (3).

• Find clues using your with Grappling Hook, Lockpicks and Thieves' Kit.

• Evade enemies with Disguise, Sneak By, Cheap Shot and Breaking and Entering first, then Blur to maintain your actions.

• Use the evade of Stealth (3) and your ability to discard enemies.

• If it is a strong, elite, or victory point enemy, deal damage with Delilah O'Rourke during the Stealth (3) test for -2 cost, and the free action of Dirty Fighting to shoot with your .25 Automatic.

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Finance Your Heist:

This type of heist is not their everyday job, which usually consists in finding an Easy Mark, preferably a wealthy family that built their empire exploiting slavery, Breaking and Entering their mansion or using a Disguise and a Trench Coat to Sneak By and Take that shiny thing to claim their Pay Day once out.

Here, it requires much more preparation. The first step is to take out a Faustian Bargain to hire a reliable Fence that can provide them with all sorts of Underworld goods. Their list includes a Thieves' Kit, higher quality Lockpicks and special gloves for Pickpocketing. Kymani even considered a small gun that they would hide in a Hidden Pocket of their Trench Coat in case things go wrong and they have to Kick the Hornet's Nest by yelling "Watch this!" before engaging in a Dirty Fight.

Raise funds to prepare your heist

To detail, the money generated is coming from 2 types of sources:

• Trade an action for resources with Faustian Bargain, Easy Mark, Kicking the Hornet's Nest, Emergency Cache (3) and Pay Day.

  • Note that Emergency Cache (3) can also add supplies to Thieves' Kit to turn it into 4 clues and 4 resources.
  • When you upgrade to Thieves' Kit (3), Emergency Cache (3) can add up to 8 resources to it! Make sure to commit your 2 Opportunist to this test to secure the cash flow.
  • It still offers the flexibility to bring 4 burst resources if that is what you need the most, to play a Fence from the Underworld Market, for instance.
  • We take Pay Day in this deck because Fence makes it fast.

• Get rewarded for doing your job with Thieves' Kit, Sneak By, "Watch this!", "I'll take that!" and Gregory Gry.

  • Try to only use "I'll take that!" for non-illicit items as the latter will already be fast with Fence. The priority goes to Lucky Cigarette Case, as it can then be used with Hidden Pocket.

Use these resources to execute your plan:

Money is key(mani) for multiple reasons:

• You have 11 cards that cost 3 or more in this deck, and you will want to play all of them.

• The Underworld Market is amazing at tutoring but comes with a major downside: it makes your cards even more expensive. To empty your market, you will need to pay 10 resources...

  • Not only does the market makes your cards more expensive, but it also changes the way you should consider resource generation. You will want to take your key cards out of your deck as early as possible and then play them. This means that you need to prioritise burst over drip when it comes to resource generation. We will prefer Faustian Bargain and Easy Mark compared to Lone Wolf or the new Stylish Coat that only delay the moment you will be able to get enough resources to pull your cards out of the market.

  • Taking Stylish Coat as an example, it takes 5 turns after playing it to generate as many resources as Emergency Cache, and it slowed your set-up during these 5 turns because you could have allocated these resources somewhere else.

  • Because this deck is very asset-heavy, the priority for the market will be to pull out Fence as fast as possible. Otherwise, you are literally using 2 out of 3 actions on setting up each turn for the first half of the scenario: one to get resources and one to play your asset, eventually crippling your tempo.

  • Here is the composition and priority for the market: Fence x1 >> Thieves' Kit x1 or Lockpicks x1, whichever comes first >> Fence x1 >> Pickpocketing x2 >> Dirty Fighting x1 >> Hidden Pocket x2 >> Thieves' Kit or Lockpicks x1 >> Lockpicks x1

  • Before you purchase the Pickpocketing (2), you can add Disguise and Embezzled Treasure in the market.

  • If you have Thieves' Kit and Lockpicks at the same time, you need to assess your situation. If you already have a lot of resource-generating cards, Lockpicks investigates with a higher skill value, which is better for finding your key cards with Lucky Cigarette Case (3). If your Lucky Cigarette Case (3) is not in play yet, or you need resources, then Thieves' Kit is better.

  • When we have better cards to put in the market, we take out the Embezzled Treasure because it would gain 1 resource from the market and since its cost is 0, Fence cannot compensate for that resource. It is the same reasoning for "I'll take that!" and Pay Day.

• Resources are also used with Delilah O'Rourke and Moxie (3) to help you during the game. Once you are fully set up, you can sink your extra money to protect yourself from the encounter deck, pump your investigations, kill elite enemies, and help your future self with saving on the Embezzled Treasure. The latter is really strong for the reasons explained above on the importance of upfront resources with the Underworld Market.

Reach Objective:

Now that they have been hired as a security consultant for the Miskatonic Museum, Kymani knows the place like the back of their hand, but they are still too junior to be trusted with the Old Keyring that opens all the higher security doors. So they decided to use their night shifts to inspect all the doors so that they could prepare the perfect Thieves' Kit, allowing them to enter anywhere. The door of the treasure room, though, had an extra layer of security, requiring the highest quality of Lockpicks in the Market. Fortunately, they found out in advance and informed their Fence about this specific need.

As a good flex deck, you need reliable ways to move the game forward when there is no enemy to handle.

• Thieves' Kit uses your highest stat to bring clues and resources. They are particularly good because they can investigate multiple times per turn.

• As a backup solution, the Lockpicks are investigating with 7 which is better but not enough to prevent them from breaking at some point. While it is not nearly as much of a staple as for other investigators, we still like them to investigate 4 or 5-shroud locations as long as they last.

  • As the campaign evolves and more high-shroud locations appear, we add a second copy to secure your investigation capacity.

  • To increase their longevity, you can commit Quick Thinking and Opportunist (2) to the test or add a few supplies with Emergency Cache (3).

• Another small clue-gathering tech is Kicking the Hornet's Nest, preferably used on a high-shroud location. More on why we like this card in the next section.

Kymani does not have the investigation capacity of the main clue-getter and is really aimed at having a flex role, with a slight inclination towards enemy management.

Stay Unnoticed:

If no one could be killed, that would make everything easier for Kymani once the heist is done. The museum would probably not hire the best sleuth and most likely let it go. Thankfully, Stealth has always been Kymani's strength, using the shape of a room and its dark areas to Blur their movements as they navigate from one hall to another. If some guards turned out to be particularly slow, they would even dare Pickpocketing them out of their badge or a time schedule of the watch rounds.

Managing enemies is centered around evasion. You will actually want enemies as they will allow you to use Pickpocketing (2) and offer you a chance to succeed by a high number for the Lucky Cigarette Case (3), all this without using any action with Blur and Stealth.

This is why Kicking the Hornet's Nest is so good in Kymani Jones. It provides you with an enemy that you can easily dispose of, while triggering your assets and allowing you to skip an annoying spawning requirement.
Only taking 1 copy felt like the sweet spot between exciting, risky business with high rewards and limiting your chances to whiff or pull an enemy that is not as fun as you expected.

Early evasion:

• Use Breaking and Entering when there is a clue at your location. Breaking and Entering also evades an enemy at your location, which means that you can evade an enemy engaged with another investigator or aloof and save an action engaging.

• Cheap Shot is used when there is no clue at your location or when you want to deal 1 damage to an enemy to make it easier to use your ability.

• Sneak By when you are confident you can use your ability easily, and there is no clue at your location. It can also help if you really need resources for your set up.

We quickly upgrade out of these as they are card and cost-intensive.

Later evasion:

• Blur (1) and Blur (4) will be our exhaust engines. The reason why we choose these is mainly for the action that we gain back, making it virtually fast to evade and exhaust any number of enemies as long as there are charges left. For that matter, except if that second action is crucial, we try to spend the charges 1 by 1.

  • You may ask why this is better than Breaking and Entering (2). I decided against Breaking and Entering (2) as it also needs to be supported by Crafty or Chuck Fergus, which then needs more deck space and requires more experience. Also, with testing at only 7, it is not that easy to guarantee Breaking and Entering (2) to succeed by 3 every time. Finally, automatic evasion does not trigger the full reward of Pickpocketing (2). For all these reasons, I think that Blur is simply better for Kymani.

• If you are not dealing with a hunter enemy and do not mind leaving that enemy here for the rest of the game, Stealth (3) is fast, saves a Blur charge, triggers your Pickpocketing (2) and makes it almost sure that you'll succeed.

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Eliminate Evidence:

It was impossible to dodge every guard in the museum, and Kymani knew that. Nevertheless, they would try to avoid spilling blood anytime it was not absolutely necessary.

To do so, using their Stealth to Sneak behind a guard and then using their environment to disarm them was their method of choice. Their current favourite trick? Open a storage room door, and shut it right behind a guard who had a peek-in to see what could have caused it to open. After breaking the lock, they were sure that this one would never bother them anymore.

Evading enemies can be faster than dealing with them, but often, clearing the board is a safer thing to do.

Neutralise enemies blocking your way:

• Enemies have to be exhausted to be vulnerable to Kymani's ability. To do that, you need to evade them first. But when you evade an enemy, you are not engaged with it anymore, and you can only evade an enemy engaged with you. That situation is solved by the engage ability of Kymani for exhausted enemies.

• Early in the campaign, you can use Disguise to dab your enemies. It is illicit, so Fence makes it and can be in the Underworld Market. It helps with over-succeeding at the second evasion thanks to the +2 , and if you do not succeed, the enemy does not ready at the end of the turn so that you can try again immediately next turn.

• As you gain more experience, though, you learn that it is much better not to be seen at all. Stealth (3) used to evade an exhausted enemy will trigger your ability , with -2 to the test's difficulty. I only added 1 copy as I never felt the need to have more. If you are playing 3 or 4 players, you may consider a second copy.

  • With Blur and Stealth (3), you can deal with one enemy per turn without spending a single action which is fantastic.

Note that discarding enemies is not the same as defeating them. You will not gain victory points from discarded enemies as they go to the encounter discard pile. This may be relevant for some events that trigger when an enemy is defeated. It is also really useful in The Forgotten Age to get rid of vengeance enemies.

Kill the nosy ones:

Unfortunately, some guards took their job way too seriously. Agent Fletcher was one of them. He was deeply convinced that these Grotesque Statues would be better conserved within the walls of a museum than in the hands of savages. He suspected Kymani from the start and would never let go unless something bad happened to him. They were one of the main reasons why they ordered this .25 Automatic and practised the Dirty Fighting methods of Hatchet Men while working with Missus O'Rourke.

If you are dealing with enemies that have a high evade score, high health points, victory points or have the elite trait, you will have to deal them damage to help discard them with your ability or simply to defeat them.

• Dirty Fighting is amazing in this deck. It gives you +2 when evading an exhausted enemy, which brings your ability to 11 with Stealth (3) and your 2 . It also gives you an additional action to shoot at the enemy if need be.

• This action is best used on the .25 Automatic, bringing you to a comfortable 6 , that can be further increased by Opportunist (2) and the from Delilah O'Rourke.

  • If you upgrade to the .25 Automatic (2) at the very end of a campaign, you'll have the chance to shoot 2 bullets without spending any action, with their and the additional action of Dirty Fighting.

• Delilah O'Rourke can deal 2 damage . She is best used during the skill test triggered by Stealth (3) as the -2 difficulty means -2 cost for her ability.

  • If you are trying to defeat the enemy, the best is to first evade it with Blur, use the .25 Automatic attacks given by Dirty Fighting. You can then engage the enemy again with your ability and use Stealth (3) to cut the price of Delilah O'Rourke. If the 2 damage from Delilah kills the enemy, it stops the test, and you will not have to pull a chaos token for the Stealth (3) evasion.

• Hatchet Man is used during the Blur evasion to kill even-health enemies easily, acting like a Vicious Blow.

  • For example, you can use it to kill Agent Fletcher by evading him with Blur, committing Hatchet Man and shooting once with the .25 Automatic.

With Delilah O'Rourke and Hatchet Man committed on a Blur test, you can deal any number of damage between 1 and up to 7, without spending a single one of your basic 3 actions.

Example of a turn using your ability to discard an enemy:

1: Play Kicking the Hornet's Nest. Pick up a 3-fight, 6-health, 3-evade, non-elite, non-victory point enemy at your location. Gain 6 resources and discover 1 clue at your location.

2: Evade using Blur (1), commit Hatchet Man. With Trench Coat and Delilah O'Rourke, you are testing 8 against 3. You pull the -4, succeed and spend a charge to gain an additional action.

3: Gain an action from Dirty Fighting that you use to attack with your .25 Automatic. Commit Quick Thinking, you pull the -4 and still succeed, gaining an action. You deal 3 damage thanks to Hatchet Man.

Engage the exhausted enemy.

Use Stealth (3) to evade the exhausted enemy. Use Delilah O'Rourke's ability during the test to spend 1 resource and deal 2 damage to the enemy. You pull the -5. The enemy has 1 health remaining, you are testing 9 against 1, therefore, succeed by 3 and discard the enemy.

exhaust Lucky Cigarette Case (3) and Pickpocketing (2) x2 to gain 3 cards and 2 resources.

4: (gained from Blur): Investigate with Lockpicks

5: (gained from Quick Thinking): Investigate with Thieves' Kit.

6: Investigate with Thieves' Kit.

: Play Pay Day fast thanks to Fence and gain 6 resources.

Conclusion:

• Used: 1 event, 2 skills, 1 charge from Blur
• Result: 6-health enemy discarded, 4 clues, 15 resources and 3 cards.

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Other Cards:

• Grappling Hook is good as an action saver but is a bit underwhelming because of all our other methods to save actions. It works best when an enemy is engaged with another investigator or an aloof enemy is 1 location away. You can then spend to move, investigate and engage the enemy, saving 1 action. Your 3rd action will be used to evade with Blur, discard the enemy with Stealth (3) and still have another action left to investigate.

• Lucky Cigarette Case (3) really shines in this deck because we want to succeed by a really high number to discard enemies. This is the reason why a lot of assets only have 1 copy.

• Pickpocketing (2) is used to its full potential as we are doing a lot of evasions that are not automatic.

• Daring Maneuver is great as a safety net, helping to kill a bigger foe before we are done setting up your assets, preventing the damage from Blur, triggering Pickpocketing (2), "I'll take that!" and "Watch this!", or prevents your 2 Opportunist (2) from being discarded.

• Trench Coat is mainly a recipient for the Hidden Pockets, that comes with a nice boon of +1 during evasions, including for your ability.

• Speak of the devil, Hidden Pockets are an easy and way to have either 4 hand slots, or 3 hand slots (1 investigation tool, 1 Grappling Hook, 1 .25 Automatic) and 2 Lucky Cigarette Case (3) if it was played using "I'll take that!".

• Opportunist offers an amazing synergy with the succeed by X archetype, bringing +2 to any test you would have already succeeded without them. It is safer to wait until you have both to start committing them to tests.

• In the Thick of It giving you 2 physical trauma allows us to start with 8 experience points, which is enough to buy and fill our underworld market! This will make your Vincent Lee teammates thrilled!

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Upgrade Path:

Link to the 0xp deck

Core Upgrades:

Luxury Upgrades:

Create your own upgrade paths easily on Arkham-Starter.com.
Credits to 5argon

Link to the full xp deck

Make Your Own Deck!

There are many ways to build them, as a main cluever, a main enemy manager, or using Chuck Fergus, for instance. This video from Veronica from Until the End of Time reviews some of the core pieces of those different archetypes.

The pilfer was not easy, but it all went well for Kymani. Interestingly enough, they also crossed the path of an Old Friend busy stealing an esoteric statue called "Miss Doyle and her 9 dreamed lives".

The month after the theft was interesting as they had to blur the lines while being mandated to investigate. Meanwhile, the relics made it all safely back to where they belonged, allowing the prayers to Zemis to start again. This would mean the beginning of a brighter future for the Taino.

To create your own guides, find the template I have created here