Absolutely fantastic. During Chapter One, Guardians were notorious for being broke unless your last name was Samaras or Anderson. They were also very one-note for a while having very little supportive options or just ways to do anything aside from 'kill'. Chapter 2 so far aims to alleviate these issues at least a little bit. We are seeing a lot more options for clue-getting and general supportive cards in Tommy Muldoon's deck and that's leaving a wonderful impression on me.

Bounty as a whole is one of the two guardian-specific resource-generation cards in Chapter 2 so far, the other being Logan Hastings. They are basically the Crack the Case and Dr. Milan Christopher of Guardian, but are less consistent as a result due to the sheer nature of what Guardians do. You can always investigate, but you can't always fight. Luckily, it seems like so far that we're seeing enough enemies in Chapter 2 campaigns that it's working well. You can generally expect to get about 2-4 resources with a Bounty as you would seldom want to get 1 resource unless you were desperate. It's fine in a vacuum but you'll almost always want to take this in any combat-oriented Guardian deck as you're getting paid to do your job. It won't ever be on the level ofCrack the Case, but it's safe to say that this is an auto-include.

P.S. The man in the yellow suit(who the hell wears a yellow suit? Is he cosplaying The Man in the Yellow Hat from Curious George?) looks like young Philip Seymour Hoffman without a beard, at least to me. God, I miss him.

I would simply like to note that you could use this to skip the investigation phase. Do with that information as you will.

It might be a good card to pair with other dubious cards. That being said, please troll responsibly and make sure that your group is fine with this chicanery. Ruining 2 or 3 other players' fun is a great way to seem like a massive loser and never get invited to the table again.

I used to love Faustian Bargain. Don't get me wrong, it is a phenomenal card and I would argue the best burst resource gen in the game at level 0(Unscrupulous Loan is probably the best burst resource gen post level-0).

But that's the issue. It's TOO good. Rogues don't give a damn about adding 2 s to the bag. 9/10 out of the time when they want to pass a test they are aiming to overcommit for Lucky Cigarette Case, Quick Thinking, Lockpicks, "Watch this!", Gregory Gry, etc. It's never going to have any real downside except maybe failing a test. And even then, the s will come up later after you've set-up. The rate at which you get resources is so above the curve that it's absolutely insane.

I really don't enjoy playing with it anymore as it just feels too good to include in decks when there are plenty of other burst resource gen options out there that are still good but feels fair to play with. I won't complain if someone else at the table will run it, but as far as I'm concerned I'm not including it in my decks anymore for the sake of deck variety. Even in decks like big money || "Skids" O'Toole with Underworld Support. I just can't do it.

That being said, I don't think this card should be tabooed. Maybe a chain for +1xp but even then, the card is stuck as is. I don't think you can meaningfully taboo this in a way that curbs it while still keeping it's original purpose intact.

Super glad they reprinted this. While not the best card, it's a card that you can slot into any build and helps smooth out decks that have either lots of heavy setup on the first turn or just gives a quick boost to big money decks.

I think the art credit is also misattributed. Mark Behm did the art for Another Day, Another Dollar(In the Clutches of Chaos). That being said, the art is actually pretty high quality but I much prefer the old one. I also really like the reference to the original's flavour text and that makes my brain very happy that I almost nearly vibed with joy.

This started off as a traditional review and turned into more of a rant. Just... take that into consideration when you read this. I write my reviews front to back and seldom go back to revise or add additional pieces of text(This is one of the rare exceptions).

Ah, bad ol' Overzealous. Having this in your deck is like living in a surveillance state. You're never sure when you're going to get screwed but you are constantly living in paranoia of it coming if it ever comes. I'm not entirely sure why FFG decided to bundle this with the CH2 Sore Set. Maybe they're sadistic. Maybe they're making up for some of the weaker(hah) basic weaknesses in the set(Pursued and Wounded come to mind). But if that's the case then Paranoia and Amnesia are also bundled in this set and having all three of them is certainly a product design decision.

I think this is one of the very few weaknesses in the game that you can't really play around. When you draw this, you're essentially having two things happen at once:

1. You brick your draw. This is the same with every basic weakness, but it still happens.

2. You draw three encounter cards in one turn. Three. Technically two because they happen in different rounds but before you act again.

The first thing is fine, you're expected to draw basic weaknesses then and again and a lot of weaknesses both basic and investigator-specific actually revolve around this(the four from Drowned City, Caught Red-Handed, Dreams of the Flood, and plenty of others).

Obviously, horrifically, the three encounter cards are absolutely brutal. You could pull additional doom or take a big chunk of damage/horror. You could draw three enemies. Or you'll just get a mix of a clusterfuck of no good, evil stuff coming your way.

I think my biggest concern with this card is packaging both this and Paranoia into the Core Set for new players. When we think of basic weaknesses we think of the standard to remove treacheries that have various downsides or a one and done treachery. Most of the brutal weaknesses in the game fall under the latter. Paranoia, Overzealous, Dendromorphosis(which doesn't fit this but is still a very brutal weakness for most investigators), Amnesia, Offer You Cannot Refuse, and Indebted are in my opinion the worst weaknesses in the game. I'm sure I missed a few but those are the heavy hitters that come to mind.

Paranoia you can play around by playing more aggressive with your resources. Amnesia you can relatively do the same but with cards you play or commit. These are both very bad weaknesses, but there is still some counterplay and it changes up how you play your deck. Dendromorphosis is similar as well, putting you in a mindset that your hand slots are transient and that you'll want to be careful with how you manage them.

What is the counterplay for Overzealous? Get lucky on skill checks? Draw three nothing-burgers? Draw two enemies as an enemy-handler? I don't know! I don't think there is any. You draw it and your whole day is ruined. At least for Paranoia and Amnesia you can be careful and prepare for their respective arrivals!

My biggest concern is having these three of the most historically brutal weaknesses put in the very first release of Chapter 2. I understand that these are iconic. Veteran players are going to be familiar with them. I feel awful for the people who sleeve up the Joe Diamond starter decklist in the Core Set 2026 rulebook and are getting into AHLCG for the first time. They're almost certainly going to draw into it if they use his ability nearly every single turn and it's going to be a lesson in pain. What was the rationale for this? Joe Diamond draws a lot therefore he should be punished by drawing into Overzealous? He'd be punished for drawing into every weakness in that regard. It would be circular logic. Why not give him a different weakness instead so that new players can feel a bit more comfortable for their first time playing? What would happen when they're in their very first scenario and they draw into it? It would feel unfair. That they couldn't do anything to play around it. But that's not true! They could have played around it by using their ability less and leaning away of the theme of the investigator, which is just contradictory in how the investigator plays out. And don't even get me started on Dexter Drake getting Paranoia. It's like they want to punish those two investigators' starter decks for playing them as intended. It doesn't make any sense and it just pisses me off.

Art direction, flavour text, and just overall theming of a card is very important to me. I design custom cards and investigators and it's possibly my favourite part of doing so because each card is the option to tell a little story. The art compared to Overzealous (Path to Carcosa) is exactly the same except for the lighting. For some reason Overzealous (Core 2026) is lighter and detracts from the overall theming of the card. It seems more light-hearted and less seriousness as opposed to the dimmer and moodier lighter of the original. Furthermore, the flavour text just comes off as cheesy to me? Both of them are cheesy to be fair, but I feel like the original flavour text is better. I'm worried for the art direction as a whole for Chapter 2 onwards as cards like Hunting Dog, Perception, Hand-Crank Flashlight, and Studious concern me. That's not to say that there are some bangers out there like Bodyguard, Resilience, Sharp Rhetoric, Decisive Strike, Will of the Cosmos, Soul Link, Aleksey Saburov, and Guts (Core 2026) all look incredible and in my eyes, feel like Arkham. I think part of why this shift in art is happening is because they've nearly ran out of usable art from FFG's original Call of Cthulhu LCG. Many, many cards in both AHLCG's player and scenario cards, utilise art from CoC LCG. Jack "Brass" Brady / Steeped in Violence, Altar of the Blessed, Dabbler in the Unknown, Danny O'Bannion's Crony, Notebook Sketches, The Cornered Man, Hatchet Man, Antediluvian Dreams, The Spawn of Madness, Doctor Bancroft / Military Historian, Hamu IV 1:13 / "The heavens speak the Truth...", Displaced, Norman Blackwood, Sr. / Crafty Veteran, On the Lam, Jeff Harson / Manic Musician, Seven Cryptical Books of Hsaan / Secrets of the Outer Gods, Theosophist, Bending the Rules, Eschatologist... you get the point. A genuine large amount of art from this game was reused from CoC LCG, but they're running out of usable art because most of the art is dated and wouldn't fit the artstyle of AHLCG.

But yeah, that's that.