On the Hunt

Automatically engaging is an amazingly powerful effect when combined with the full choice of all enemies in the encounter deck. Whippoorwills are fairly benign, but become downright pathetic when they're face to face with the main fighter.

I'm pretty sure this works even against concealed since player cards can override game rules, so you replace the concealed spawn instructions with them being engaged with you.

Gws · 68
Winifred Habbamock

FHV-Era Winifred Update/Retrospective:

When the investigator decks came out, I saw a lot of buzz for Winifred, but it died down almost immediately when Edge of the Earth released with a pile of interesting new investigators and a very powerful card set that offered Wini almost nothing she wanted. Edge of the Earth. EoTE was an asset-heavy set chock full of multiclass synergies, bonus action sources (Eon Chart, The Red Clock, etc.), big money tech, and trait-based boosters (Crafty) that rewarded playing items and assets instead of skills. So did the best rogue card in the set (Black Market). Apart from offering Savant and Blur to let Wini pass will tests and waste less time evading, it offered very little support to skill-based, gun-based, foot-based, or oversuccess-based green archetypes. It was the meta of building a big board and then taking lots of tests at high static numbers.

Fortunately, The Scarlet Keys and Hemlock Vale have been much kinder to Wini, delivering plenty of support in all the areas she needed.

Deck Manipulation & Consistency:

Underworld Market is an amazing boon to Winifred, especially for long scenarios. By sticking her weapons and tools in a side deck she can achieve a much higher density of skill cards in her main deck, allowing her self-replenishing skill card engine to run much more smoothly than before. If you end up cycling your deck the option to leave spare weapons and backup soak options in the market until needed unclogs your reshuffles beautifully. Being able to hide your key assets elsewhere also makes level 0 Daredevil feel a lot more reasonable to use.

I'm not sure whether Friends in Low Places is useful or overkill and whether you use it to tutor for assets or refill on skills, but I think you definitely run it. "Bolstering" seems like kind of a trap; I think you only need prompt, want versatile, and maybe stretch to experienced. Innate and Practiced are the obvious choices for vacuuming up skills, but there are a few skills with gambit, fortune, trick, and cursed which can help you double-dip into other card types if you wish.

New Foot Payoffs

British Bull Dog and Thieves' Kit came in as simple reliable foot-based combat and investigation options, each with lots of support cards available, making it much faster for a low level Wini to get rolling. Disguise, Lightfooted, and Dirty Fighting massively increased the reward for taking normal evades, too.

Oversuccess Support

Grift and "I'll take that!" each in their way give a resource per point of success up to some cap, and Grift also gives you a diff 0 test to style on with other effects. Breaking and Entering joined the roster of reusable oversucceed events and Chuck Fergus level 2 appear to make trick builds easier to scale up.

Slot Support

Hidden Pocket can go in the market, and open up the chance for Wini to combine the Beretta M1918 with an investigation tool or Eye of the Djinn, or run Lockpicks, Thieves' Kit, and .25 Automatic all at once. Or to combine her obligatory Lucky Cigarette Case with more fun toys like the clock or garotte wire.

Considering that recent campaigns have also introduced more reasons to evade and a fair number of scenario-based foot checks, I think it's a great time to dust off Wini and put her through her paces.

Underworld Market Wini is like a new character. — MrGoldbee · 1391
Survival Technique

I seem to be missing something about that card... Everyone says this is so good combined with the pitchfork but I don't understand why. Assume not having survival technique but the pitchfork, then you would make one attack and then need one action (where attacks of oppurtunity are possible) and you have it back. Coupled with survival technique you would spend a fast action to get it back on your hand and then spend an action to play it (paying 3 resourses). This does not help. What am I missing?

Xetolosch · 1
You spare the one action to pick it up. That's ok in general. The skill bonus is also nice. Where it shines is when you are playing Wilson, who can perform the fight action with his signature as a fast action. — Tharzax · 1
I have to add that you can use the second ability of the fork with survival technique to put the fork as a fast action into your play area. There you can use the fork for a second attack. In total that are 6 damage in one turn for a two card combo which is great. And on top it's repeatable without additional costs. — Tharzax · 1
I don't get it either... I see why Wilson likes Pitchfork, but I don't see how Survival Instinct helps at all without a third card like Ad Hoc. What is this "second ability" on Pitchfork that makes playing it Fast? — Hylianpuffball · 25
@Tharzax: how? That's what I don't get, it only allows you to put the card in your hand and then you still need an action to play it... — Xetolosch · 1
You are right it's not a good combo if you need to play and pay again. Rather stick to other cards you can recur like breach the door, map the area and shrine of morai etc. — Tharzax · 1
21 or Bust

This is mostly worse than our good old friend Emergency Cache. If you play it honestly and pay normally it's only better if you hit a 20 or 21, slightly worse on an 18 or lower, and much worse if you bust. I feel that it's pretty clearly only worthwhile if you have some kind of trait synergy going with fortune or gambit, or you're already doing token manipulation.

As Elkeinkrad points out, you can pay for this with Prophetic if you have it in play, which notably improves the value proposition if you weren't using that card otherwise that turn. With mystic access, one could also try fishing for desired numbers with the new Olive McBride, although generally anyone who can run Olive can run Voice of Ra to probably-better results.

Preston Fairmont's Family Inheritance has an interesting interaction here that may make genuinely gambling worthwhile, because his resources are use-it-or-lose-it each turn unless he spend an action to bank them. With two action remaining, Preston could play 21 or Bust with his inheritance money, and then spend an action to bank his winnings if he wins big and move on with a shrug if he busts.

Finally, this card's fortune and gambit traits have some interesting potential with the premier green tutor, Friends in Low Places. Selecting gambit lets one search up a number of decent resource economy options (Bank Job, "Watch this!", Kicking the Hornet's Nest), some bonus actions (Honed Instinct, Swift Reflexes), and a handful of other utility options (Copycat, Stir the Pot, Money Talks and deck thinners (Daring Maneuver). There are also some powerful cross-class options like Act of Desperation, Transmogrify, and Practice Makes Perfect.

Fortune probably doesnt have enough hits in mono-green to be worth selecting although it has the very powerful All In and Hot Streak, but for green/red players it opens up a huge library of failure-prevention and failure-exploiting cards in Survivor.

Hank Samson

Obviously Warden Hank is a good. 6 will let you kill everything. But I'd like to comment about what else can he do.

So, I just need to get sure this is correct.

Let's say you run a Dark Horse build. The Resolute - Warden form works against this kind of build since you don't want to have resources to get your +1/+1/+1/+1 at any time unless you find a way to burn your resources earnt by blood (Dig Deep and Scrapper are a thing).

So, let's say you decide to go into your Resolute - Assistant form. While your Dark Horse bonus is activated, you are at a pretty 4/4/5/5 and when you suffer Horror you draw cards. This statline is so so neat and you can flex with this. Later on the campaign of course you will get Charisma + Jessica Hyde + Peter Sylvestre and you will sit in a nice and comfy 5/4/6/6 while both are in play.

If I'm correct, in later stages on a campaign Hank will be basically inmortal and he will be able to do as he pleases with the game, since Mythos cards aren't a thing for him anymore, you will be able to success at hitting things consistently with Fire Axe, and you can add clue getting to your team using Mariner's Compass.

Oh, wait, you can trigger this item's up to three times? Then God have mercy, forget what I said about Warden Hank not working with Dark Horse. Let's say you end your turn with 0 resources. In case Warden Hank suffers damage before your turn starts or via Spirit of Humanity, you get 2 resources thanks to his and you also get your upkeep resource. You will be able to investigate with Mariner's Compass with your lame base 1 . If you use this 2 resources + the upkeep resource, you get a +3 and, on top of that, your Dark Horse bonus. Warden Hank can investigate at 5 getting 2 clues once per round as long as he has suffered damage before the investigation check.

Maybe I'm too overhyped about this, because there are way easier options to get clues with low survivors not involving janky combos (for example, using Old Keyring in 2 shroud locations while leaving big clue getters doing their job in harder locations). What I'm trying to say is that Hank using the Dark Horse engine looks fun and consistent. Depending on the scenario, a Dark Horse build should let you get in either Resolute form and you can still get the best of both worlds. Assistant Hank will better in scenarios where you need to get more clues, still kicking any enemy in the butt when needed while tanking damage/horror for other investigators. Warden Hank will be more consistent in scenarios where there are more enemies because of better values and ocassionaly, if you have your setup ready, as a reward of doing your job tanking damage, you can get 2 clues.

Can Assistant Hank exist without Dark Horse? We know Warden Hank will always have a place as an aggresive tank because of having the biggest printed yet in an AH investigator, but a 3/3/4/4 statline, while looking pretty needs some work. Unless you are a investigator, you lower difficulties with some cards like Gumption or Old Keyring, you are just lucky or you live and learn from your mistakes. He will be consistent because of this , allowing him to draw many cards during the game.

Hank is good. You can build him to suit a ton of groups. Obviously he will have a better time dealing with enemies while tanking stuff, but he can flex if the group and/or the scenarios require it because of his overlooked Assitant Resolute form.

Sure, flavour-wise he isn't as neat as the other investigators of his expansion, but the other investigators are just so neat in this regard, Hank Samson doesn't care, he will just survive everything.

rodro · 69
Until you take testless damage, or a boss eats you, or you take the autofail (or -7), or take damage on a symbol! He's durable but no healing requires prep. — MrGoldbee · 1391
Jessica Hyde / Devil + Peter Sylvestre should have you covered, but you have to look for them and play them.Also, there are a ton of cards that can soak or just ignore damage in his pool. Even then, no healing requieres prep and proper deckbuilding. — rodro · 69
In standard or hard mode, yes. In expert mode he lacks almost everything — OnThinIce · 12