Warning Shot

Atrocious

Warning Shot is one of most laughably bad events in the game: while it looks good on paper, in practice it has a bunch of issues that makes it botherline unplayable

  • Moves away all non-elite enemies: the fact it doesn't target Elites is unfortunate but expected to prevent this card from making some scenarios way easier, like Extracurricular Activity, but even looking at its main effect it is not that great. You are a Guardian: your job most of the time is to kill enemies, moving them away, while it CAN be as good as killing them, won't do the trick against all of them. You got Hunters chasing down people, Doom generators, enemies that make your life harder if they are alive. Sometimes moving away ALL enemies makes your life harder because they are all gonna be huddled up in one location, so if you want to kill a specific one it's only gonna delay the inevitable rather than helping you with the task (unless you run Dynamite Blast, that other useless card)

  • Even if you want all enemies to just move away, to get full value from this, every Investigator needs to be toghether in one location and being swarmed by enemies: being in that situation to begin with isn't ideal, but even finding yourself surrounded by that many enemies at once is not that common either. In 1 or 2 players, this is rarely gonna move away more than 2 enemies, while in 3 to 4 players, it's far more likely enemies will be spread out on the map because the chance all Investigators will stick toghether in one location are incredibly low

  • It cost 2 resources to play: this is the deal breaker. You need to spend 2 resources ON TOP of using an ammo that could have been shot to kill an enemy instead to trigger this effect. That is immensely overpriced for what it does, given Guardians do not have the best of economies, and even then they have cheaper events that could have been used instead. A slot Warning Shot occupies could have been used by something as lame as Monster Slayer to kill more crap. That is without even getting on how this becomes commit fodder if you do not have a gun in play OR you are out of ammo. This would be already not that great if it had no resource cost, at 2 it is just horrible.

Ironically, this card is better for Rogue rather than Guardians: "Skids" O'Toole can use something like the .25 Automatic to fast play it and have a target for Warning Shot when he wants to play it, and both him and Leo Anderson can also use Venturer and Swift Reload to make up for the ammo spent. But overall I found this to be an extremely crappy Event, not even worth to be used as deck filler: the only use I can see on this is for Guardians playing through Forgotten Age, but if you are playing as a Guardian in Forgotten Age you need to reconsider your life choices mate.

This card never left my binder. So while I can't give an experienced opinion on this card, I would agree with you. The best use I can see however (in theory, now that you brought the card again to my attention) however would not be in TFA, but rather "The Longest Night" from Hemlock Vale. And this brings another plus for Rogues, who can play it: they could switch it into the deck mid-campaign with "Adaptable" without XP. — Susumu · 366
Dynamite Blast is far from useless and not at all comparable to this binder fodder. But yes I agree this card is hot garbage in all but the most niche cases. — snacc · 982
Entering the Dreamlands

At the start of this scenario, the chaos bag has no in it. This act, along with each of the next two, permanently adds a to the chaos bag upon its completion. By my reading (tell me if it's wrong), this means that if the investigators are defeated before advancing a single act, they'll play the rest of the campaign without any in their chaos bag. Yes, you'll take a trauma from the defeat, and you'll miss out on 10 or 12 experience... but maybe this isn't a totally incorrect option?

Pros:

  • Three tokens which, on Hard/Expert, ramp up to -6 or even worse in the next three scenarios, are excluded from the bag. You can almost think of it as three Permanent versions of Protective Incantation
  • Cards which particularly want to avoid the , such as Baseball Bat, Old Hunting Rifle, and "Hit me!" can be used with nigh-impunity
  • Mental bandwidth requirement of first scenario reduced to zero

Cons:

  • Up to 12 potential XP left on the table
  • Jim Culver's passive ability loses its effect on the chaos bag
  • Song of the Dead can no longer deal bonus damage
  • Fun of first scenario also reduced to zero

Notes:

  • William Yorick can get 1 XP by burying his Graveyard Ghouls or another Weakness enemy
  • You can avoid adding another negative token to the chaos bag of this campaign in Interlude III: The Great Ones, by either playing it as a standalone campaign, or by winning scenario I-B while choosing to leave Dr. Maheswaran with her patients, or by resigning or losing that same scenario. If you take the doctor with you and then win, whether she survives or not you will find that "The dreamers grow weaker" which results in the additional negative token.
zigludo · 3
But also most of the time the skull starts often soft during a scenario and gets harder. So it might be better idea to be included. — Tharzax · 1
Generally, I prefer having more tokens in the bag as opposed to less. The more you have, the less likely you draw the autofail, and as the campaign goes on you tend to be able to more reliably pass tests with respect to any modifier you see on these tokens. This is complicated by the symbol tokens having effects not dependent on failure, especially on hard or expert, but generally more skulls gets you away from the really bad effects you’re likely to draw from the other three tokens. — StyxTBeuford · 12985
Toe to Toe

Surprised in the number of reviews that Carolyn or Vincent are not mentioned at all for this card as they are perhaps the best users of it. As test-less damage for them is really good... like really really good:

1) They have one less stat overall so get rewarded more for test-less actions

2) They have one more health/sanity overall so are more tanky for the enemies attack

3) They get rewarded for healing the damage/horror they took

4) They can combo it with Empirical Hypothesis's 1xp upgrade for when you take damage/horror to also draw a card from it

5) For Carolyn she can stick it on Stick to the Plan

So for example, watch as your Carolyn clears a nearby room full of cultists or helps the actual Guardian smack an annoying enemy into the discard pile on demand. All while she grabs a test-less clue, resource, and card per turn (Field Agent, Empirical Hypothesis, Ancient Stone). A support character than can free flex into a Guardian role a few times a scenario all the while actively keeping the act progress going with getting clues and keeping others alive is very strong and this card helps complete that.

McJames · 40
Crafty

Works well with Kate Winthrop for econ or stat boost when you need an uneven boost to maximize the chances of succeding by exactly x (although ideally you want Steady Hands for that). She runs lots of insights and tools, so this card will be relevant for most of her deck.

midnatssol · 2
Grift

I love this card!

On the surface it's just another green economy card, with stipulations and risk factors that make it hard for it to compete with the likes of Faustian Bargain. However, when used as a combo piece, this card can be incredibly clutch. First of all it's a trick that requires the presence of an enemy. This makes it a perfect target for Bewitching.

The real beauty of this card however, is in combination with the many "succeed by" skills. Both within the rogue class itself, and elsewhere. Need to take out an Acolyte? Just commit a copy of Momentum to your Grift to get one extra resource (assuming you succeed and wouldn't already have done so by 6). And as long as you succeed by at least 3, you'll be fighting that Acolyte at 0 difficulty. And because Grift is a parley, there is no attack of opportunity.

I love pairing Grift with cards like Nimble, Purified and Lucky Cigarette Case for big value plays.

Other great synergies include: Opportunist, "Watch this!", All In, and Manual Dexterity.

And if you're playing without the taboo list, adding a Double or Nothing to any of the aforementioned combos is a great way to make 100% certain you will draw an auto-fail token. Jokes aside this card goes crazy with Double or Nothing and it is a very fun time as long as you don't make a habit of abusing it.

Uffruption · 108
What’s even better, as illicit card this can be stored in underworld market and be played fast with fence. — Django · 5071