Jenny Barnes Dunwich (with Roland)

NOTE: Contains full spoilers for The Dunwich Legacy

Introduction

This deck was designed to go along with this Roland deck that is balanced between clues and fighting, as this deck is also somewhat balanced. This deck and the guide is heavily inspired by Jenny Barnes - Don't test me (Dunwich Legacy on Expert) by Croaker13.

This is the deck I ran through The Dunwich Legacy verbatim, on Standard chaos bag with Hard/Expert token legend. See Lessons learned for how I'd play it different.

Restrictions

I have everything up to City of Archives not including Novellas.
My self imposed banned list I use for a campaign I'm familiar with:
Dr. Milan Christopher, Higher Education, Machete, Strange Solution: Acidic Ichor, Peter Sylvestre (2), Key of Ys, Leo De Luca, and Delve Too Deep is restricted to classes that can take it without limiting their card pool.

Thought this banned list has only very minor effect on my card choices, most notably is Delve Too Deep is just too strong to pass up and is much safer than Charon's Obol.

1. Card choices

• Damage
  Our damage dealing options are fairly restricted. I choose to invest my out of class cards mostly in clues, which leaves us with the rather poor level 0 rogue weapons. I choose to forgo the Switchblade in favor of a Knife, and take 2 .41 Derringers. Furthermore I took two Backstab and a Dynamite Blast. Sneak Attack was an option, but before we get our Streetwise this deck isn't very good at evading, I'd rather just pump my Backstab. We're counting on Roland Banks to bring in a few more weapons and cover our bases.

• Utility
  "I'm outta here!" is just too good a card. First, it is necessary in The House Always Wins in order to get an additional victory point. Second, we'll be getting Charon's Obol the first chance we get, and being able to bail is important. If all goes well, is nice to have.
  Two copies of Elusive allow us to bail on tough situations, and of course get to Searching for Izzie if it spawns on the far side of the map.

• Clues
  The inspiration for this deck runs what they call "The Dunwich Breaker suite", which consists of 2x Art Student, 2x Calling in Favors, 2x Drawn to the Flame and 2x Flashlight. That deck also runs Sleight of Hand to enable using a Flashlight twice and I do the same. I chose to leave Art Student and Calling in Favors for my friend Roland Banks, and instead taking only Drawn to the Flame and "Look what I found!". Double or Nothing can act as pseudo-Deduction when investigating a location with shroud 1-2 reduced to 0 with Flashlight.

• Tech
  2x Fine Clothes are specificly added for the first two scenarios of The Dunwich Legacy. Playing The House Always Wins first, you'll want to Parley with Dr. Francis Morgan and then in Extracurricular Activity you'll need to Parley with "Jazz" Mulligan.

• Boosts
  I run a wide range of skills neglecting only Manual Dexterity. We don't plan on evading much in the first two scenarios, and by the third we'll have Streetwise, hopefully. Plus many of our cards have icons. Narrow Escape works as a pseudo-Unexpected Courage, allowing us to take a non-combat action and follow up with a combat action at +2. Sleight of Hand of hand and Narrow Escape both allow us to keep our .41 Derringer in our hand until they are needed.

2. Scenario Rundown

One of the keys of this deck is Adaptable, which allows us to adjust our deck towards the specific scenario. This means we need to take a hard look at every scenario and what we may need. You should also read the aforementioned inspiration for this deck, as they give a real good rundown of the scenarios.

I will give a rundown of which upgrades I picked based on the XP I had, naturally you may have more or less. Adjust accordingly.

• The House Always Wins
  Start here. In order to get three victory from the back rooms you must get the last 2 clues then resign in the Darkened Hall using "I'm outta here!", otherwise when you resign your clues are dropped on the Back Alley and yo won't get the victory point.

• Extracurricular Activity
  Upgrades: Pick up Charon's Obol, don't need Adaptable yet, pick up Lockpicks and remove Perception. We don't want a second copy of Lockpicks, one will do. Add Dr. Francis Morgan until Roland Banks has enough XP for Charisma.
  It should be possible to kill The Experiment but it is much easier to get all the clues and warn the students. Clear Science Building and Student Union with flashlights, clear the Orne Library with Drawn to the Flame or let Roland Banks do it with Art Student and Working a Hunch. Try to get to Humanities Building before you have horror on you, and avoid going to Administration Building unless you have to. If Orne Library is already cleared and you have Drawn to the Flame you can move into Administration Building and out the same turn.

• The Miskatonic Museum
  Upgrades: Get Adaptable and Streetwise, I had 2 XP leftover so I picked up Pickpocketing.
  Adpatable: Dynamite Blast is no use in this scenario, you prefer evading the Hunting Horror and there are no other enemies so there definitely won't be two in one location. You also don't need the two Fine Clothes. I made a bit of a blunder here and swapped in 2x Think on Your Feet and took out Perception for the Pickpocketing. It would be better to take out Dynamite Blast and leave the Perception in. If you don't have leftover XP to buy anything, leave Fine Clothes in, it's more useful as an icon and soak than Dynamite Blast here.
  Evade the Hunting Horror as much as possible using Streetwise if needed unless it starts gathering up doom, then kill it.
  Remember that the Hunting Horror spawns when you enter the Restricted Hall, so be prepared to either evade it, or better yet, play Think on Your Feet when it spawns and leaves. It will follow you out, allowing you to enter the Restricted Hall and gather clues without killing it.
  Lots of potential for Victory points here, take as much as you can without risking death by Charon's Obol. Really, play it safe.

• Essex County Express
  Upgrades: At this point, it's really a matter of preference. I decided to take my build heavily towards evading, and thus picked up Suggestion. If you want to fight more, you could pick up Chicago Typewriter or upgraded .41 Derringers.
  Adpatable: You don't need "I'm outta here!" in this scenario as there is no resignation option. I added two Slip Away since I neglected to take out my Dynamite Blast, if you did, then add it back and add a single copy of Slip Away. I took out both Think on Your Feet here, which I feel was a mistake. I have not used Backstab since the beginning of the campaign (and will not use it for the remainder of it), and I think it's best to take them out here.
  This is do or die, as t hey say. If you don't win this scenario, you're defeated and with Charon's Obol that means permadeath. Roland Banks is going to need you to look ahead because he needs to be prepared for any sanity damage he may take from entering train cars. You're always way better equipped to dealing with entering the Engine Car and dealing with the act deck advancing with Streetwise. Emergent Monstrosity is a great target for Dynamite Blast as it spawns in the next train car. Still, you should mulligan heavily for clue gathering tools or you'll get stuck with no way to advance.

• Blood on the Altar
  Upgrades: At this point I felt I needed some weapon upgrades, so I got 2x Lupara but they didn't really do anything for me. If I had to choose again, I would probably go with a second Suggestion which I ended up getting in the next scenario. I simply never played with either and was uncertain what I wanted. I would also probably would have gotten a second Pickpocketing.
  Adpatable: I chose to add Scene of the Crime instead of Dynamite Blast, to help with gathering the clues at the The Hidden Chamber, as there are quite a lot of them. Killing Silas Bishop is easy, but the consequences are dire. I took out Backstab at this point, along with Knife which was also never used. If you went with my suggestions, then I would probably take out .41 Derringer at this point and just forgo all damage.
  You're immune to Unhallowed Country which is neat, and Kidnapped! can only deal you 2 damage, quite a boon in this scenario. If you have story allies, you can keep them, just use them for the icons and never play them.
  The Croaker13 has some nice tips about this scenario and Burned Ruins, go read it.

• Undimensioned and Unseen
  Upgrades: Here is where I picked up my second Suggestion and also a couple of Moxie in order to allow me to boost my will for Esoteric Formula since we have so few icons. If you followed my suggestions you already have Suggestion so you might want to start looking at Lola Santiago or Hot Streak, both can enable successes in tough skill checks and getting clues.
  Adaptable: The key to taking this scenario from nightmare to manageable is Waylay, no matter what other choices you make, take 2 Waylay here since it can take out Brood of Yog-Sothoth with just two skill tests against 3 in a skill you can easily pump with Streetwise. It can even kill broods with Towering Beasts on it in a single hit, amazing. I may even go as far as to say this card is broken in this scenario. You no longer need Scene of the Crime and I'd take out one Drawn to the Flame as the encounter cards in this scenario are quite harsh.
  If you're lucky, you have access to Earl Sawyer, which is great for you, and the only story ally you prefer to get instead of Roland Banks.
  Leave most if not all of the clue gathering to Roland Banks who is very poorly equipped to slay broods, let him soak damage for you when needed and kill the non-brood abominations. Feel free to have Roland resign before you after he has soaked up dangerous amounts of damage.

• Where Doom Awaits
  Upgrades: Look for more copies of Lola Santiago, Hot Streak or any powerful endgame card you like such as Cheat Death or The Gold Pocket Watch. I ended up taking Lola Santiago, even though I initially thought about taking Sure Gamble instead, but I simply forgot Lola provides action free clue gathering. Also, I read about being able to use her mid skill test with a flashlight, getting it on the cheap.
  Adaptable: You no longer need Waylay and "I'm outta here!", I chose to go with Fight or Flight as it can help both with evade and my Lupara. There are many other options to consider, though, such as: Ward of Protection, Take Heart. A Chance Encounter (to grab Art Student from Roland), Perseverance, Venturer (for both you and Roland), "Let me handle this!" (If Roland has suffered some mental trauma), Premonition, Lucky! or even Newspaper (to open the paths while you have no clues.
  Money from Hot Streak can be a big boon for finding the Paths with Streetwise as Flashlight, Lockpicks and Roland's tools for getting cleus don't work.

• Lost in Time and Space
  In this scenario you really don't want Drawn to the Flame, as it can fuck you up badly, dumping the location you're on. Also "I'm outta here!" can save you two clues and get you out faster if Roland can get to Tear Through Time. I chose to take back Dynamite Blast to help with some of the 3 toughness enemies. By this time I had three mental trauma from failing Searching for Izzie, meaning I had little choice but to pick up 2 Elder Sign Amulet just to survive the scenario.