Mk 1 Grenades

As a "weapon" that does not occupy any slot, It's a good secondary to kill critters, while saving ammo on your big guns. Albeit at the risk of hurting other players, but there are ways around that.

Avoiding damage to other players

Combos

Side question, how does Hatchet Man interact with this card? Is the extra damage dealt to the attacked enemy or the target of Hatchet Man?

Django · 5163
Hatchet Man only deals the damage, if you throw the grenade at the evaded enemy (the others arent attacked) — Adny · 1
Hatchet man says "the next time the evaded enemy takes damage this turn, deal it 1 additional damage", so it doesn't care about who is attacked. My question is wether that part of Hatched man takes precedence over the grenades part in brackets "any additional damage..." or not. — Django · 5163
I misread the card... The additional damage on the grenades cares about the damage, that i added to the attack, like Vicious Blow or Marksmanship. Hatchet Man triggers on damage being dealt, so it still hits the evaded enemy — Adny · 1
I agree, I take it to read as any target-unspecified additional damage. It's italic so it's clarifying text, not a new rule. — pneuma08 · 26
Marksmanship requires a firearm — Chitinid · 14
Never mind, it works with ranged — Chitinid · 14
Chen Li can also selling some explosive Kung Fu moves with these beauties... — Quantallar · 8
This is such a weird (albeit 6 year old) review. "Avoiding damage to other players when using grenades" -> "Don't use grenades" ?! Or do a convoluted (and completely pointless) combo with teamwork and armor of ardennes just so you can blast them with grenades? — flamebreak · 27
Dayana Esperence

There are so many great spell events to choose from. Deny Existence Drawn to the Flame, Uncage the Soul, etc. Since she works on secrets you can use Truth from Fiction to increase her uses. I think she would be fun to build around.

Calprinicus · 6365
Sefina cannot take Dayana because it is a level 3 mystic card. — Cyiel · 1
*facepalm* thanks for the correction. — Calprinicus · 6365
Uncage the Soul is not a Spell event so it can not be attached to Dayana — MrGiblets · 1
Also Drawn to the Flame as well — MrGiblets · 1
Too bad you can't attach Truth from fiction to her. Would be great to fuel other "secret" based cards, like Rook. — Django · 5163
"I've got a plan!"

This card is pretty cool because it is a seeker card that actually lets a seeker fight for real, landing a gigantic blow that can defeat a 4-health monster in a single action.

However, this card is very, very undependable. Unlike Mind over Matter, you absolutely cannot expect this card will be usable when you need it. It isn’t a big deal for most seekers to pick up 3 clues when they are available. Unfortunately, most scenarios don’t let you keep those clues, they force you to spend them in order to move to the next Act. So you can’t use this card at the start of the mission, you can’t use it right after advancing to the next Act, you can’t use it when you are still trying to find the place where the clues are located or otherwise busy dealing with something before you can collect clues, you can’t use it when the Act requires you to spend clues a few at a time as soon as you collect them, and you can’t use it during the many Acts that don’t involve collecting clues at all. And when you do have a lot of clues, it is not uncommon that you are on a roll collecting clues and would rather collect more and end the Act, rather than go off and fight a monster. There are definitely plenty of times you can use this card, but a lot more when you can’t.

On top of that, the card is quite expensive for a one-shot event and you need to be willing and able to spend the money on it. And while you hope you have enough Lore and other cards to hit the target, that may not always be the case, especially if your base Lore isn’t 5. And it could be embarassing if you miss since you likely have no other fighting abilities.

To summarize, this isn’t really a self-defense card that you can hold in your hand and rely on to get you out of trouble. It is more of an extra card you throw into your deck so you can occasionally do something awesome.

ChristopherA · 113
As with all combat events, in case you draw an auto fail, you might be out of options to deal with the enemy. So combat events are generally very risky. — Django · 5163
Well thought out ChristopherA — Barrenjoey · 1
Lore? interesting, Frodo. Good review though. — jmmeye3 · 632
Now that Occult Invocation exists, this one (and its upgrade) is firmly relegated to the binder. — suika · 9506
Duke

Duke is a good dog. No body is going to kill my Duke! Duke and Guard Dog are friends, and I have two dogs! Don't put any damage on Duke or Guard dog on my watch! They are good doggies. They are very brave. I love Duke!

nimonus · 33
I love Duke! — nimonus · 33
Run Stray Cat so he has more furry friends to play with! — StyxTBeuford · 13051
Duke is housebroken. Also, he is a good dog. And he drove Yog Sothoth to another plane of reality! Duke is a hero and a certified therapy dog for Pete! Don't let anyone tell you Duke can't get on the Essex County Express!! — nimonus · 33
Use Calling In Favors to heal up Duke, then play him. Duke never gets to be played so he'll be extra happy. — CHA · 9
Seal of the Seventh Sign

First some numbers. If you combine this with Chthonian Stone and a reasonable bag, you might have 4 out of 15 tokens that cost a charge, meaning this will last around 26-27 draws on average.

On the plus side, this card provides a shield against the dreaded auto-fail token that no other card matches. You could potentially protect everyone in a 4-person party, no matter where they are located, from auto-fail for 3 full rounds. From that perspective, it seems like a pretty powerful effect.

The problem, and the reason I find this card hard to like, is the extreme cost for each failure you prevent. You are probably going to prevent 1-2 tentacle draws by playing this card, at a cost of an action, 4 resources, and a 5 XP cost card. That could be worth it to cancel tentacle draws at really bad times. But you can’t control which tentacle draws you are preventing; a lot of the time, the auto-fail you are preventing, would have come during an investigate check or some other task with no great penalty for failing other than losing an action (or worse, during a treachery skill check you end up failing anyway). And the benefit of not losing 1-2 actions is tiny compared to the heavy cost of this card. You really need to prevent an auto-fail with a heavy, heavy penalty for failure, in order to justify the cost of this card.

And while no other card quite does what this does, there are other ways to protect against auto-fail that are an awful lot cheaper. Such as Time Warp, for example. And while the comparison isn’t a direct one, it is worth mentioning that Father Mateo’s special power does a better job of stopping really important auto-fails than this card, yet it isn’t even that great of a power.

It seems like the time to use this card, would be when the party is about to perform a series of critical actions, every single one of which absolutely has to succeed, and the party is spending a ton of resources to make sure they all succeed, and needs to guard against the auto-fail. Kind of specialized in my book for a 5 XP card.

ChristopherA · 113
Good negative binomial math on the token draws. Without the Stone you're looking at 5/16 which puts you around 22-23 draws before it leaves, and when on its own the Token would've come up on average 1/17 times, you're likely just preventing one bad draw. Obviously the more diluted the bag the better this gets, so this could work better in the last scenarios where the campaign typically throws in more numbered tokens. I think the only way to make this card work is through sealing/ignoring tokens (Counterspell could help here) and through some method of extending its life (Akachi, Recharge), and even there I think you're better off like you said with Time Warp in the first place. I think the best way to deal with autofails is still to just have testless cards in your deck (your Intel Reports, Drawn to the Flames, etc). — StyxTBeuford · 13051
You fail to account for the benefit of test security. — Tsuruki23 · 2581
Honestly this card isn't that great on a large scale, but it does provide comfort and guarantee a prepared win within the campaign — Elecyan · 1
I'm Father Mateo pairing up with Sister Mary, I'm packing the Ancient Covenent and I just got a Pet Blob, I'm taking it. — Apologised · 4