My Mark Harrigan (for 4+ years) Guide, Expert Difficulty, v3

[This is an old version, the current version can be found here.]

Mark Harrigan is a very powerful Guardian on Expert where you want a four above the target. I've been playing him for years now and so I'd like to think I've learned what works on him and what doesn't. With support Vincent Lee and a dedicated Seeker , this deck is strong as any.

A Brief Aside. It is curious that deckbuilding changes so much from difficulty to difficulty because the difference is innately the modifiers on skill tests and, when you are talking about the most dramatic jump, that from Normal to Hard, certain effects of symbolic chaos tokens that do not simply modify the result. Think about how the and are the same across difficulties while , , , and only have an "Easy/Normal" and a "Hard/Expert" reference card. This means that drawing the latter symbolic chaos tokens is most unfortunate on Easy and Hard, where they are most different from the numeric tokens, and least detrimental on Normal and Expert, where they are most similar to the numeric tokens. The Black Cat and Jim Culver are thus best on Easy and Hard and worst on Normal and Expert. If you are playing on Easy, one might look at a card like Scene of the Crime and say "Why would I take this? I could just pick up the clues with an action or two?" then look at a weapon like a Shotgun and say, "My God! this just evaporates any enemy." I'm always happy to see scenarios incorporate more to the difficulty (starting Doom on the agenda, etc.) The game could've been designed such that, say, during the Mythos phase, each investigator draws one encounter card on the basic difficulty and two on the challenge-mode. That would also affect deckbuilding but in a much different way. I have no real complaints about the way things are, it, in fact, is a good way of making a wide range of cards relevant, because circumstance varies so widely. All of this is important to think about during deck construction. Here we are constructing a deck for Expert play.

General Advice. On Expert, do not build Arkham Horror decks for what they will be when they have experience. Theory crafting is fun, but all Arkham Horror campaigns are designed to reward success immediately which will avalanche into more success and so on. I could make a deck that evolves into something more powerful, but it is unrealistic when rubber hits the road on Expert. Your only consideration, and I mean only, should be making the most powerful experience 0 deck you can make. Scenario one is by far the most important. This is one reason .45 Thompson is better than Runic Axe. Your deck will not be meaningfully different after the first and second scenario and those first three scenarios will determine your success in the campaign.

Four Investigators. This is designed to be a multiplayer deck. If you want a quick conversion to play a deck like this with only one investigator, you can cut Safeguard, Breach the Door, Map the Area, and Stand Together then add an additional copy of Evidence!, two copies of Scene of the Crime, two copies of Followed, one copy of Interrogate, and two copies of Emergency Cache. You may want to look at Lesson Learned when you have spare experience. (I don't like cards like Kicking the Hornet's Nest. Arkham gives you enough problems, you don't need to be making yourself new ones.)

Traumatized. There is literally no investigator in the game of Arkham who suffers more from mental and physical trauma than Mark. It's all the rage, but don't take In the Thick of It. It would be awesome to go into scenario one with an upgraded .45 Thompson that you can draw off Prepared for the Worst, but you're just in such a worse spot no matter how you divide up the trauma. Avoid being defeated in scenarios at all costs and don't take In the Thick of It.

But I Don't Own X! What Could I Add?

• Perception. In a four investigator game, anyone could add Perception. You can commit it to your Map the Area or, more likely, hand it off. Nowhere on the card does it say you can't commit it to allies' tests, it's always good.
• Beat Cop. Does his duty. It's perfectly fine to run em' even if you have two copies of Grete. You can pitch the cop using his fast ability when you want to play the better ally, who may die for that last clue, freeing you up to play the cop, and you can of course just assign lethal damage to either.
• Emergency Cache. Thompsons are pricey and the deck in general has no trouble spending resources. You may want to swap them out when you upgrade into the fancier one but you're in no rush.
• Whatever You Want! Don't try and find analogous, subpar cards, just run what you find effective. You know the parties you play with better than I do.

.45 Thompson. It's not here to match Mark Harrigan's card art but that's a fun bonus. It's among the most effective 0 exp Expert difficulty weapons. It's comically expensive, but gives you 5 ammo, the needed +1 damage, and the +2 (bringing you to a passive 7 ) makes it so that you can safely attack 3 enemies and, with Grete Wagner (or a Daring, Overpower, The Home Front, or Vicious Blow,) those pesky 4 enemies. As a side note, the upgraded version is beyond incredible. It's underrated because Arkham players overvalue splash-y turns and undervalue efficiency. There's no investigator who works better with shotguns but they're overall not really Expert weapons because of how negative the bag's average ends up being.

Hallowed Mirror. Mark has trouble with his sanity due to having only five to work with and his health for obvious reasons. Soothing Melody is a great card in this deck.

Grete Wagner. There is not really a story here, you were going to take a +1 ally and Grete is the best one at 0 exp. That being said, she is especially great with Mark because you can draw a card off her trigger.

Safeguard. With 4 investigators, this translates into a free action most turns, even if it misses now and again, it's incredible.

Breach the Door & Map the Area. Mark Harrigan being able to breach with a base 5 and the ability to get a +2 with Sophie, maybe a +1 from Grete Wagner, Breach the Door offers so much value to the team on a 2 location. You'll end up reducing the shroud by at least 3 most of the time and have a good shot of getting to the magic number 0 where only a will fail, in which case you can start grabbing clues. Map the Area might seem funny on Mark with his low , but he'll use it early on when the Seekers are busy, take a damage for the +2, which is an excuse to draw a card.

Evidence! Straight out of the Core Set, this card is still great. It doesn't take an action, doesn't test a skill, only costs 1, and on top of all that, commits for . Scene of the Crime is the comparable card, but doesn't commit to tests as well and requires your precious time in a way that Evidence! does not.

Glory. They're printing Preposterous Sketches in Guardian now?

Practice Makes Perfect. The dream is to hit The Home Front and that's just absurdly powerful, but it works great with Overpower and Vicious Blow. (If the upgraded Overpower wasn't good enough, this encourages upgrading it earlier.)

Prepared for the Worst. Any fighty Guardian that doesn't take multiple interchangeable weapons takes this. Once you can Stick to the Plan, you'll cut one copy of this because you only want one in a game.

Stand Together. Everyone is awestricken by how good the upgraded version is but this one's really good too. It's not just that you're getting one more resource than Emergency Cache, it's that it splits it up over two investigators so each is more likely to be able to make use of what they're given.

Tempt Fate & Shortcut "But they don't do anything." No, you don't understand, they do nothing!

Daring & Overpower. Two fairly similar cards, both great for fairly obvious reasons. They're best on high enemies but you should just use them when you can.

The Home Front & Vicious Blow. Great for dealing with 3 hit point enemies or 2 hit point enemies before you have your .45 Thompson or after its out of ammo. The Home Front is a Vicious Blow with an extra that heals the investigator most desperate for heals, what's not to love?

Shell Shock. A shockingly nightmarish weakness that can easily defeat you out of nowhere. All the more reason to play with Vincent Lee.

Standalone Mode. I would take a single additional Random Basic Weakness in order to get 19 experience, which will get you to step four of the following list plus a single upgraded copy of Stand Together. If you have a gut feeling (or foreknowledge) that you're going to be up against stacks and stacks of hit points, you can take two or three additional but that's, more often than not, more trouble than it's worth.

Experience.

1. Upgrade both copies of .45 Thompson (3 exp each.)
2. Take Stick to the Plan (6 exp.) [You will typically choose Prepared for the Worst, Breach the Door, and lastly Map the Area until you get Custom Ammunition.]
3. Grab one copy of Ace of Swords (1 exp,) cut one copy of Prepared for the Worst.
4. Grab one copy of Custom Ammunition (3 exp,) cut the one copy of Evidence!
5. Upgrade both copies of Stand Together (3 exp each.)
6. Grab two copies of Extra Ammunition (1 exp each,) cut both copies of Map the Area.
7. Upgrade both copies of Overpower (2 exp each.)
8. Upgrade both copies of Vicious Blow (2 exp each.)
9. Upgrade your copy of Hallowed Mirror (3 exp.)
10. Upgrade the remaining copy of Prepared for the Worst (2 exp.)
11. Upgrade both copies of Grete Wagner (3 exp each.)
12. Upgrade both copies of Safeguard (2 exp each.)

After that you're on your own, your feel of the campaign and your party will determine the rest. I'd take a look at Ever Vigilant (4 exp each.) You could take a wildly expensive Key of Ys (10 exp) then two upgraded Backpacks (2 exp each) to grab it alongside your .45 Thompsons, Extra Ammunitions and Hallowed Mirror.