Double-barreled Lola abuses FHV

I love the concept of Old Shotgun but loathe the hoops I have to jump through just to get it two shots on it. Well, Hemlock Vale adds one card that makes Old Shotgun a zero-cost, +3 fight, reliable 3-damage weapon with 16 ammo. How?

1--Put Contraband, Emergency Cache, and Prepared for the Worst on Stick to the Plan. Start in Guardian.

2--Mulligan hard for Old Shotgun and Cleaning Kit. Use Backpack to dig for these. Play one or both in your first turn.

3--If you fail to start with Old Shotgun, use Prepared for the Worst to dig for it in your first turn.

4--When you have Old Shotgun and Cleaning Kit in play, play Emergency Cache from Stick to the Plan to increase Cleaning Kit's supplies to eight.

5--On your next turn, switch to Rogue. Play Contraband from Stick to the Plan to raise that to 16 supplies.

Don't worry about putting Old Shotgun into play with zero ammo. Cleaning Kit allows you to play its supplies as ammo as if they were on the gun.

Piloting the Deck

You'll want to to stay in Guardian most of the time, but you can briefly switch to Rogue when you need cash or to Survivor when you need to play some soak.

Keep an extra Guardian skill in hand so you can comfortably manage Crisis of Identity. You might even find that you're able to use Improvisations for their icons.

Between Lola's base combat of three and +3 from Old Shotgun, you're attacking at six. However, you can tap Wolf Mask for +2 and/or toss in any of your skill cards to be at 8+. If you attach Reliable or have a boosty ally in play, all the better.

If you can't stomach the thought of spending a shotgun blast on a Swarm of Rats or an Acolyte, you can punch at five or six if you toss in skill card or pull an easily-replaced offering off of Wolf Mask. Wolf Mask also boosts your agility to a useable level, making you an extremely flexible enemy manager.

Options

To keep this deck at 19 XP, I used the level zero Contraband and only one Emergency Cache, but those would be obvious upgrades.

I used Medical Student to keep down the cost curve and keep the door open for upgrading into synergy cards, but Grete Wagner (and then Grete Wagner) provides about the same soak, stat boot(s), and the option to grab the odd clue or two.

The Level Zero Deck

The zero level deck could use .45 Thompson and the level zero Cleaning Kit. Schoffner's Catalogue is especially useful here. Down the Rabbit Hole is tempting, especially for synergy builds, but it increases the cost of your priority upgrades (Old Shotgun and Stick to the Plan) even though provides substantial long-term value.

The core combo would work in other investigators, but I like how Lola's access to Survivor and multiple classes at level three mean she can take full advantage of upgrades and additional jank, such as Scavenging to recur Cleaning Kits.