I think this is the most underrated card of Chapter 2 so far and will eventually be considered a staple.
If you are a fighter and have access to this card, then it should be in your deck. No ifs, no buts.
You get to engage an enemy off your cluever even if you are already engaged with another enemy. Not only will you not take an attack of opportunity for this, but you'll get paid to do so? It bodies Taunt and Get Over Here.
This card is so much stronger than it first appears.
This is a solid source of health soak if you've got poor in-class options for it and I think its best comparison is Bulletproof Vest (3). If you spend the same 3 XP on Armored Carapace and Dominance (to remove the ally slot) you've got the following differences:
Having an additional copy is a huge boon as the odds of both of them being buried in the bottom of your deck is a lot lower, and you can often have the other copy ready in hand when the first eats dirt. The biggest advantage occurs when you spend just one additional XP on Wings of Night since it will now repay its action cost, likely several times. This also puts it in the perfect XP cost for whoever has access to 0-2 .
The one issue is of course having an asset to discard. My Norman only had hands for one Magnifying Glass and his book in the other, but two glasses in the deck so that solved itself. For anyone else, I'd advise against rushing your servitor out. The perfect moment to play Summoned Servitor is mid-scenario when you've got a depleted assed ready to be sacrificed and know that you will move this turn.
Very fun card.
For a testless Daniela Reyes build, you want to use Brute Force with Toe to Toe, as Toe to Toe is a basic action. As it automatically succeeds, you will be succeeding by 3 with Brute Force as the skill card itself adds +3 fight anyway. So that is +4 damage from those two cards. With Daniela's on attack retaliate ability built into her ability, you are returning one extra damage so you are looking at +5 damage from just two cards, with only 1xp spent on Brute force to achieve this (or you could reduce the damage by 1 and take the automatic evade instead if you need).
But if you throw a Vicious Blow into the mix then that is +6 damage, which is amazing for playing 3 cards and again only spending 1xp. If you have a Guard Dog and it takes some damage when the enemy attacks, you could be looking at +7 testless damage in one turn! Even better yet, if you have Aquinnah in play you could be returning even more damage with her so possibly even more than 7 testless damage (if the stars align and if you play a load of cards at once).
For this build to really pop, you would want Resourceful to return Brute Force, and Hunter's Instinct to return Toe to Toe so you can do this more often a scenario.
[Of note; Hunter's Instinct IS from new new 2026 core, so if you are happy to house-rule playing with an extended build of all cards available then you can add it - I know some people want to only play with cards released in a particular edition etc]
Possible rule oversight about this card.
This agenda adds an activation ability to the Alien Device to turn your clues into damage against the boss. However, said boss has an ability that says to "Reduce that damage to 1 unless it was dealt by a Spell, Relic, Charm, or encounter card.".
Alien Device has none of those traits, and despite being a special scenario card, it's an asset, not an encounter card. So RAW, it should only deal 1 damage per 2 clues.
Which doesn't sound very logical to me... First, why not just write that it deals 1 damage ? Second, all similar abilities on other agendas have a "2 clues for 2 damage" ratio.
Unless we're supposed to consider that the ability, while added to Alien Device (an asset), is actually from the agenda (an encounter card) ?
A dangerous treachery, with an interesting twist.
Like all cards in the "small encounter sets" for this scenario, it is added to the encounter deck upon reaching Act 2, but only in 4 out of 10 possible outcomes.
The first part adds a doom to a specific boss enemy, which can only happen during "The True Culprit" endgame agenda, and only in 2 of the 10 outcomes (so only 50% of the time ; because when this treachery is present, 2 out of 4 possible endings will feature a different boss). But when it does matter, it stings, and adds insult to the injury of the second part.
The second part is a hard Willpower test for either 2 horror or 2 damage (ouch), with the possibility of dealing the damage to another investigator instead of your own. Or, you can deal the damage to a Humanoid enemy, which is generally a bad idea in this scenario if the enemy is Innocent or if the police are present (they will intervene and attack you).
But ! on occasion, this treachery will come as a boon, giving you 2 testless damage against an enemy that you want to defeat... There are 4 such enemies in the basic encounter deck (including a mini-boss), plus 3 other bad guys in 50% of the possibilities when this treachery is present.
I mean, what are the odds of drawing this treachery twice in one Mythos phase while being engaged with the evil concierge, and almost killing him with it ? Apparently, not zero, as it just happened !