This is pure gold for Alice Luxley.

When I am playing my Joe Luxley deck (yes, he took her name, very progressive and all), I always have to remind my group to leave some clues at my location if they want me to be the flex I claim to be. Because no clue -> no discovering clues -> no happy Alice -> no unhappy enemy.

With this at first sight mid-looking upgrade, my buddies can go through with their plans when I see it turning up at my Hunch deck - any clue from anywhere will suffice for Alice, and this is exactly what it does.

I know this is almost pointless to say, but Armor of Ardennes is even less appealing in the mordern card pool since the launch of Hunter's Armor...

For 3 less xp, you can buy 2 Hunter's Armor with the same resource cost, 2 more sanity soak each, and a whole lot of potential then this thing; for the same 5xp of a single suit of Ardennes, that's 2 pieces of 4/4 soak which occupies an even less contested slot (arcane).

So, yeah, unless this is tabooed to somewhere like 1 or 2 xp, I'm not gonna take it out of my binders...

I would like to preface this review with the context that I generally play Arkham at Hard/Expert. At the Expert level, besides taking as few tests as possible, we also need to make sure that whatever tests we do take are being boosted to at least +4 above the test on scenario 1 and +5 or +6 later on . For important elite enemies, we often want to boost to +6 or even +8 even on scenario 1. This means that the amount of stat boost a weapon gives is a crucial factor in judging the viability of the weapon on high difficulty. +2 fist weapons are oftentimes a lot stronger than +1 fist weapons on Hard/Expert. For +1 fist weapons, you typically need a fighter with a base fist of 5 to use them reliably.

We need to compare this gun to other relevant level 0 Guardian weapons to see what this gun does better.

The typical choices at Expert for level 0 Guardian weapons are:

• .45 Thompson: 6 bullets, each with +2 fist. Lasts long and gives a sizeable stat boost. Notably two-handed and costs 6.
• Enchanted Blade: 3 charges, each with +2 fist, then becomes a 1 damage sidearm. Notably one-handed (and takes up an arcane slot which is most of the time irrelevant), and costs 3.
• Runic Axe: recharging weapon that can push to +3 fist. Notably two-handed. Very strong weapon that can be upgraded across the campaign. On scenario 1, we often use the In the Thick of It experience to get the Saga upgrade which allows for two charges to be replenished every turn. This might not be a completely fair comparison to other level 0 weapons, but two copies of Saga-empowered Runic Axe for 3 EXP is one of the most efficient ways to spend In the Thick of It experience in my opinion.

The other situational picks are:

• .45 Automatic: 4 charges, each with +1 fist. Generally only the stronger fighters like Mark Harrigan can take this comfortably without gimping their tests.
• Machete: similar to a .45 Automatic, but is ammoless, at the cost of turning off if there are multiple enemies that spawn on top of you, as well as losing action economy if you need to take actions to engage enemies off other players (which is common at 3 - 4 players). Generally not recommended at this level unless playing solo or perhaps at 2 players.

The Remington Model 1858 has effectively 3 bullets at +1 fist. For the same cost, the Enchanted Blade has 3 charges at +2 fist. In general, even for Marion Tavares decks, I would try to pick Enchanted Blade and .45 Automatic first. Remington Model 1858 can be played in Marion Tavares as she doesn't have access to the good two-handed weapons, but not over Enchanted Blade.

For most other investigators with two handslots, there are much better options.

So, people is so hot in Marion Tavares decks with Fortune trait and The Book of War builds, people forgets she is a Guardian and she can run weapons.

If you can only run a one hand gun, just run the best gun there is.

Marion is all about action compression. Marion can play those events that synergize well with guns at instant speed.

Play gun, shoot for free. Play Hunter's Mark and then play by the face thanks to Marion ability Hand-Eye Coordination to shoot for free again. Those can easily be 5 damage for 5 resources and 1 action, which isn't bad at all. You are testing at 5-6 base, but this can be worked around with allies like Beat Cop or Grete Wagner at level 0, and then be improved with Good Weather, Reliable and a long sort of events, upgrades and assets.

You can tutor for the gun with Prepared for the Worst from your Stick to the Plan pile and then play any other event like Emergency Cache or Stand Together to generate tons of value prior to pay for any future shenanigans, like the gun itself.

Support your gunning with some fight events to keep pumping the damage, and when you play your second gun after using your ammo, discarding automatically your first one due to your unic hand slot, shoot again for free! Maybe you don't have your second gun at hand, but then you can just use Act of Desperation for a potentially 4 damage 1 action and use Marion reaction to play a money event or just a tutor, preparing yourself for the second gun.

The level 4 gun is an adequate upgrade. It will get Marion to a base 6 to combat, but this should do the trick while you flesh out the most urgent things in the build. Just please, don't rely on your events in the early scenarios since you won't have tutors for The Book of War and One-Two Punch, Just reinforce your chances at fightning using the Remington Model 1858. No other Guardian will abuse the hell out of this better than Marion.

Parley actions often require an enemy.
This skill gives a clue to the performing investigator even if the test is not to get a clue.
Trish Scarborough gets an additional clue if there is an enemy in the location.

So commit this skill to a Parley test Trish performs to handle an enemy (Existential Riddle, Persuasion) and she gets 2 clues.

Over possibility: Trish performs whatever Parley action that requires a test, an other investigator commits Contemplative to this test and if the test is successful, Trish automatically evade this enemy (non-ELite enemy if you use the taboo list).