This card isn't terrible, I have had some fun using it, but it is generally a bit disappointing.

The resource cost of two wouldn't be much for a permanent asset, but for a one shot event it is fairly expensive, compared to the alternative of a skill card which is free. And the restrictions on Coup de Grace are really pretty limiting, unable to be combined with a weapon and usable only as your last action. Lots of times it would just sit in my hand waiting for that perfect moment, while I wished it was a card better suited for the situation I was actually in. The advantage of this card is that it is a totally automatic success, and that is a formidable advantage, the reason why you might consider including the card in your deck. But once I have a character who is set up with enough strength to intentionally enter combat, a skill card like Overpower would do a pretty good job making an attack very likely to hit, while being a lot cheaper and more flexible.

The saving grace of this card is having two strength icons, so it is actually can be used in the same situations as Overpower. But the card draw from overpower is quite a significant bonus, and with the skill bonus being so much more flexible, it is pretty tempting to simplify things by just taking Overpower and skipping this card. In general, I would only put this card in my deck if I had some space and wanted to try something different in my deck construction.

When I first saw this card I was excited to see a big weapon that wasn't horribly short on ammo, but after making a flame thrower character and playing him I find this weapon very effective but rather boring to use. It seemed to take away all the interesting choices my Guardian had to make in combat. The insanely high hit bonus removes the need to decide whether to commit extra cards to the combat test, I was only worried about drawing the auto fail. The insanely high damage removes the need to decide how to finish off a photo with only one health left, the enemy is just flat out dead. The big disadvantage of the flamethrower, being forced to engage the enemy in order to fire, only makes it more boring by removing the question of whether to risk firing at an enemy engaged with an ally. You just calculate what you can do with your actions, and then you do it, and then you try to make sure your flamethrower doesn't run out of ammo.

By comparison, while I find the shotgun to be an overly flawed weapon, if you actually go to the trouble to create an effective shotgun character, it is way more fun to play.

This card is the core of a very entertaining deck type, the “saving money” deck. There are other cards designed to reward you for saving money (such money talks and cunning) but this one is by far the most impactful. It can give you a very substantial bonus on one test of any type each turn, which makes you a very flexible character. This card is primarily designed for filthy rich characters, I find it very difficult not to include it in any Preston Fairmont deck I make, and it is easy to make a Jenny Barnes deck that makes good use of this as well. It is quite practical for Jenny to be getting +4 on a test in the latter part of a mission, and Preston can do even better, and suddenly you are guaranteed to be able to do at least one really good skill check each turn.

Once you have this card it becomes really tempting to save money, so you can reach that point of easily doing one powerful thing each turn. and while spending 5 money to get a +1 bonus once per turn for the rest of the game is not, in theory, as efficient as other more dedicated cards, it is straightforward to do and the money isn't actually totally consumed, either. At the end of the game, in the last turn or two, you can suddenly burn it off on Intel Report or some other high cost cards.

It can also be useful in wealthy decks (typically Rogue decks) that are not quite so dedicated to saving money. If you only save 10 money the flexible +2 bonus is still quite worthwhile, and even the +1 bonus for saving 5 resources is not bad for a card that costs no XP and doesn't use up a slot, if the money was just going to be sitting around anyway. You are not really going to use this card in a deck with a more ordinary cash flow, though – it is not efficient to spend 7 resources (2 for the card plus 5 to power it) just to get a +1 bonus each turn, when resources are scarce and other cards are competing for those resources.

Fill the bag. Empty the bag. Whatever strikes your fancy. Anybody running either and/or mechanics will love this. Especially in multiplayers where the player count tends to churn through tokens fast, "sanding off" tokens and preventing the really big play, like a Hallow.

It's a spell, so even if nobody is running the / mechanics you can set yourself up for a combo using Word of Command or Lucid Dreaming to do a "Heal 10 horror", which is straight up amazing.

In my opinion one of the most interesting places for this is Carolyn Fern, who can run both Hallow and Rite of Equilibrium, although you might want to do this with some curse usage or management in the team.

Finn's favourite gun.

There's not much to say about this thing. It's great for high- characters or characters who lean into it. It's a little too inaccurate to use if your is less than 3, but for "Skids" O'Toole or Winifred Habbamock it's perfect.

Saving actions is a useful mechanic, the .25 Automatic is fast already, so that's a saved action, the free attack on the evade is also good, another saved action. But wait. Is it? The action to evade is still an action, so if youre attacking the enemy, just with evade actions instead of attacks, what's the point?

Here's the point: Speed and safety. Layering the attack onto evades means that you get a double layer of defense, the attack may fail, but the enemy is still evaded, alternatively a tough opponent might survive one attack, but it's not in your way anymore so you can either leisurely finish it or keep moving, safe in the knowledge that when the enemy gets in your way again later, it's prepped for faster killing. Against a boss that you need to work through in more then one round, the initial evade attempt isn't a "wasted" action, not to mention the circumvented Retaliate. Also, dont forget, if the attack actually fails, and you find yourself in trouble, the enemy being evaded gives you an escape route.

Here's another thing. If you're experienced as an character, you should be familiar with those moments when youre stuck evading 2+ enemies who've swarmed you, the .25 Automatic is'nt target-locked onto just the newly evaded guy, you can evade 3 different enemies in a round, and shoot whichever one you want dead with all 3 bullets.

In short, this weapon is by itself not the greatest gun in the world, but for an character, the sheer amount of tricks it unlocks is staggering.