Charlie Kane is Running for Office (True Solo - Final)

DECK POST-MORTEM (After finishing "The Path to Carcosa")

What a ride, Charlie ol' boy! This was my third attempt at this campaign, having failed with Sefina Rousseau and William Yorick on my blind run and later letting both Daisy Walker and Agnes Baker go insane in the asylum. Of all those characters, who would've thought that it'd be Charlie Kane the one to defeat Hastur!?

All in all, I'll say this deck functioned the way I envisioned. That is to say, have plenty of resources and card draw to get my allies out and be able to use them for Charlie's ability. So which cards did what I expected, which ones did way more and which ones would I not pick up again?

Exceeded Expectations:

• Miss Doyle: absolute beast of a card. She could do everything. Need to investigate? Sure, here's Augur. Want to evade or fight at base 5 instead of 1 to start with? Hope and Zeal are there for you. What's that? You want to switch them? Sure thing, all of the kitties are Fast! Oh but what if I need to investigate later and I've gotten rid of Augur? Well just discard a cat during your test and you can bring any of them from the discard pile, right into play, FOR FREE. Honestly, these guys are insane. Also they are cats. Oh and did I mention that Miss Doyle has a icon too? Which means you can use Charlie's ability to go +2 on your test as well? This has been my favorite ally to play in all of Arkham Horror. Cannot recommend her enough.

• Runic Axe: What a beast of a weapon. It can do everything. Even if Charlie is limited by 0-2 cardpool, meaning you can't fully deck out the axe, adding Glory, Elders and Hunt meant that suddenly this beefy weapon could just do everything. Need a heal? Yup! Need to move without an action? Well, be like Thor and Hunt an enemy in another location! What about getting a clue? Yup, can do that too. When you pair this with some other allies and Charlie's ability, it just sings. With Delilah O'Rourke and Michael Leigh in play and NOTHING else, you are doing an attack at +5, doing 1 extra damage from the axe, possibly another extra damage from Michael Leigh's ability and then you can choose to either pay for 1 extra damage with Delilah O'Rourke right away, or wait until the enemy exhausts during the enemy phase and deal 2 damage instead. Honestly it's just gross but I love it. It's also fair, because this ain't exactly a cheap combo!

• Adaptable: Being able to switch in and out of 2 level 0 cards in between scenarios was incredibly to slot in specific situational tools like Fine Clothes to deal with Parley (lots of that in Carcosa!). It also allowed me to trial in and out a few other cards. For 1 XP it gave me a lot of value.

• Mr. "Rook": The longer I went through the campaign, the more scared I became of using him because of just how many weaknesses were in the deck. However, once they started to come out or I lost that fear, being able to tutor pretty much any 3 cards I wanted for 3 resources is kind of nuts. Great soak too and a great target for Calling in Favors to swap in another ally.

"They did their thing":

Guard Dog, Grete Wagner, Motivational Speech, Calling in Favors, Inspiring Presence,Lone Wolf all pulled their expected weight. They did what they had to do by being soak, reactive damage, reactive clue gathering, giving icons I needed for Charlie's ability, allowing me to play allies effectively and a big etc.

Did not meet expectations:

• Easy Mark: I thought this would solve my economy and draw in a 2-for-1 punch but I found they appeared too late or when I didn't need them. And even if I did need them, I was reluctant to use them unless I had at least 2 on hand. This also bloated the deck so I would probably not include them again.
• Faustian Bargain: might be a hot take, but again, I didn't need this card. I probably used it twice in the whole campaign, and more often than not I was swimming in resources anyway because once you have a few allies out you don't need to be spending that much money anyway. Also, Lone Wolf. And Motivational Speech. And Calling in Favors. Yeah.
• Bandolier: I shouldn't have even bothered. Maybe I could've included a Survival Knife? And that would've made sense? but The +1 to was nice though.
• Well Connected was a nice idea that I thought "hey I'll have lots of money I could use this" but honesty, I always had better things to spend my actions on. You could argue that you could set it up early and have it, but Charlie's early game you want your resources on allies and your main weapon. I think this works better as a late game play, but by the time it'd make sense to use it I'll already be swimming in allies and have enough to deal with most tests.

And there you have it! I hope you enjoyed this deck and my analysis. Maybe you can do better and not make my mistakes and make good ol' Charlie an even more powerful man!

Thanks for reading!

ORIGINAL NOTES (Roughly halfway through the campaign)

My first Charlie deck, used for True Solo in The Path to Carcosa campaign.

I went with and because I felt the 0-2 of both allowed for dealing with punching higher than my weight and might mitigate resource generation for my expensive allies.

Straight forward strategy: try to get your allies in play as soon as possible. Faustian Bargain, Easy Mark. Lone Wolf should help your economy, while Motivational Speech and Calling in Favors will let you play allies for free (and refresh an ally as well with the latter!)

Adaptable was an easy pick for me because I liked the idea of being able to switch into Fine Clothes to deal with Parley tests and then take it off the deck when I felt I had allies that would allow me use Charlie's ability to exhaust them for their icons.

The allies you definitely want in play should be pretty obvious:

• Bonnie Walsh: she is an Unexpected Courage every turn that can ready another one of your allies. She is amazing.
• Miss Doyle is just a jack of all trades, you cannot go wrong with her in a true solo build that is all about flexibility.
• Delilah O'Rourke can do 2 testless damage - and you don't even have to evade the enemy, just wait until they attack and exhaust and you can use that window to trigger. And she'll be ready again after Upkeep begins, ready to go again. Her +1 to and are also very appreciated for good ol' Charlie.
• Mr. "Rook" is your tutoring. He is just that good. Use it 3 times, get your weaknesses out of the way early, use him for soak.
• Grete Wagner gives you another +1 to and can even get clues for you. In true solo, where there's usually a single clue in a location, that's invaluable action compression.

And lastly, we still want a weapon to aid combat tests so we can leave our allies ready to do other tasks and we can be a bit more punchy: Machete is just obvious and Runic Axe can be whatever you need it to be. Get it to get you an extra clue or heal some horror for you, or get your enemy down two pips of health so that Delilah O'Rourke can finish it off for a few quid.

I am truly enjoying this deck, cannot wait to continue playing it.