Samurai Mark

In a week I'll be doing a blind three-player run through Hemlock Vale. This is the deck I built for my brother, who's fairly new to the game. He's played NotZ as Roland, Dunwich as Daisy, and Carcosa as Pete. This will be his first run as a dedicated fighter so it focuses on the basics.

This should be a solid protector in any campaign, and I bet the new card Ofuda would be especially great in TCU or Scarlet Keys.

Swipe Right If You're Also Into Stabbing Things!

Hi there! My name is Mark and I like to hover around other investigators and kill any monsters nearby. In my free time I seek out more enemies to kill just for fun. Clue-finding is a side hustle, but only as an afterthought by checking the pockets of the corpses for clues.

Oh, and I hate running out of ammo so I switched from guns to big knives ages ago. My friends call the big one a katana (it's really just a machete) and the regular one a wakazashi, so I guess that makes me a two-fisted samurai? I decided to run with it, so I never leave home without a couple of Shinto charms to complete the look.

Get To Know Mark, Your Local Sword Saint

Hovering near the investigators is accomplished via Safeguard for some free move actions.

Killing enemies is done most efficiently with the Survival Knife which uses a instead an action. This death-blow has the disadvantage of having to suffer an enemy attack before you get the free retaliate though. With some xp the improved Survival Knife (2) strikes before the enemy. The fast blade is great fun.

Enemies with lots of health will require some softening up. Other enemies deal too much damage to permit a free hit before retaliation, so use the Machete or Enchanted Blade for that task.

Mark gets clues after defeating enemies via Evidence or Grete Wagner. Consider parking yourself on locations with clues before the Mythos phase in order to facilitate this. Note you can heal Grete via Emergency Aid for extra clues.

Because Mark is useless at normal clue-finding, we use lot of cards to pull enemies away from the other investigators and direct them all to Mark. Let Me Handle This redirects Encounter cards. First Watch lets Mark assign the Encounter cards. And On the Hunt helps you to search for enemies in the Encounter deck so that your fellow investigators are less likely to run across them.

A new card we're trying out is Ofuda, which nerfs all kinds of nasty keywords on enemies. The single charge on it is replenished when Ancestral Token loads the chaos bag with bless tokens.

Ideas for Experience

Ever Vigilant (1) is the first upgrade to get, replacing a Prepared for the Worst. Then save up for SttP, the classic package to nearly guarantee a turn-one weapon and great start to scenarios.

Probably your next upgrades are to the Survival Knife (2) to save lots of damage or actions.

Enchant Weapon (3) should come after. I bet it’s best on the knife, but YMMV.

I think Blessed Blade (4) is likely a good one to add next since it helps with blesses and doesn't lose effectiveness when engaged with multiple foes.

But there are some other options too. On the Hunt (3) rewards you with cash and searches the entire Encounter deck for a target. Vicious Blow (2) lets Mark hit harder.