I notice that a lot of the discussion I see about this is in regards to actually gaining XP from Down the Rabbit Hole (DtRH), but I think it has more to offer than that.

DtRH offers more than just some savings on XP, and I think the important thing to realize here is that you don't need to have a net positive XP gain, or even net 0. I'm of the opinion that this card is amazingly good even when it costs you XP. That might seem counter intuitive, but I prefer to look at this as acceleration for your deck's power at the start of the campaign. If it saves you XP on (for example) the first three scenarios, and you don't go negative until scenario 5 or 6, that means you're above the XP curve on 5 of the 8 scenarios, and only below for the last 2 or 3.

I think this is an amazing advantage of DtRH, since Arkham is a game where a lot of the difficulty is in the early scenarios, before your deck has all of the cards that it needs, and thus where you have more limited options. Additionally, early game XP means you're better equipped to take all the XP from those early scenarios, which means you indirectly get even more XP from DtRH. This means you can snowball into the late game with XP for your entire party, and with several good scenario resolutions under your belt.

This is opposed to the late game, where you probably already have a solid deck, and so can afford to take a penalty on the cards you purchase because you're going to feel that a lot less. Another way to look at this is that getting +1 or +2 XP when you only have ~10-20 XP is a %10 increase, where as in the late game where you can have 60+ XP, the penalty of +1 XP per card is just a lower percent of that.

In the end, I see this card as not being too dissimilar to early promoting in Fire Emblem. You're trading your potential late game power for an early game advantage. I think in Arkham (as in the Fire Emblem games I've played) that's a trade that will work out better for you in the long run.

Apart from the straightforward uses for encounter-deck-mitigation and card-selection, this is a fantastic tool for letting Lola Hayes mitigate her (potentially crippling) weakness, especially if her deck is low-cycling. If you see 6 non-weakness cards---great, you know you can sit in any class safely for your next 5 turns! If you see one of her weaknesses, make note of where you put it, and then be sure to switch classes to something with no assets out just in time to draw it.

Compared to Scroll of Secrets (3, seeker version), this gives slightly fewer safe draws (5 vs 6), can't be tutored by Research Librarian, and doesn't auto-discard weaknesses it finds, but is much more flexible in what roles Lola can sit in (you aren't locked into swapping back and forth with Seeker continually), doesn't take a hand slot, and can be played on Lola by a friendly mystic, not just by yourself.

I can't match how entertaining the other review on this weapon is, but I do want to chime in and say that this doesn't actually look that bad, if a bit on the bland side. When a person building a fighting-focused deck looks at this, they (rightfully) go "meh, I can do better than +1 damage per action." That said, this is a very solid weapon for the fighter who doesn't care that much about fighting, but is still expected to do it:

Leo Anderson wants to do ally shenanigans, but definitely wouldn't mind a solid (cheap!) weapon for smashing little fellows, and he can still put his back into it for bosses.

Roland Banks (particularly Parallel Front Roland playing with Due Diligance) might feel like focusing a little more into his investigative side, but would want a damage boost to murder nuisances who get in his way.

Tommy Muldoon, if he's playing a tank role for his teammates in a multiplayer game, or is investing his time and effort into working Agency Backup.

Silas or Daniela are less likely to go for it, but it's still an option for some builds for them. Basically any time you're going to be building most of your deck around something that isn't fighting, but still have 4+ fight and would rather smash things than run from them, this is a solid choice, if you can stomach the xp cost. Like Fire Extinguisher (3), getting consistent +1 damage on an unlimited use weapon at 3 resources is a steal, and this also lets you get in on the big fights without any further investment.

Now that we have an investigator that is Items oriented and has access to The Rat, it is maybe time for another review of the #1.

The first ability is here icing on the cake, we can play another Item , but with Bob Jenkins' passive, we will not need it that much. The only 2 cases when I've found it useful was to play an Item when I was engaged with an enemy and I didn't want to trigger an AoO, or to play Leather Coat/Cherished Keepsake fast for 1 resource right after pulling a scary Encounter Card that involves a test ( for example) to absorb the potential failure.

However, the 2nd ability is a must-have for Bob. It is simple to understand: Empty your Flashlight, your .18 Derringer, your Eon Chart and sell them to Mr Vigil. Then go and Scavenge his hiding place to get them back, play them with your Passive and here you go for another round while having paid for the costs of replaying them. Bonus for Eon Chart that you can use, discard, scavenge and use again in the same round.

This can also work in case you do not have any Item to play with your Passive and you want to turn this un-used action into cash: Play Leather Coat/Cherished Keepsake using your Passive action an throw it immediately. Use Scavenging to get it back during a round when you don't need to scavenge anything else and you're ready to go again.

Finally, there is another series of cards that is worth looking at when considering Joey "The Rat" Vigil: the self-discarding type. We can split them into 2 categories, the ones that involve a test and the ones that do not. If a test is involved during the action that would self-discard the Item, then you have a window to use The Rat before the card self-discards. Other cards do not allow you to do so.

Here's a list of all the cards available to Bob:

Backpack/Schoffner's Catalogue: NO - no Player Window when playing an Item

Bandages: NO

Baseball Bat/Lockpicks: NO - no Player Window after ST.3 Reveal Chaos Token

Gravedigger's Shovel/Lantern/Knife/Tennessee Sour Mash: NO - discard is part of the cost

Old Keyring: YES

Talisman of Protection: NO

Colt Vest Pocket/Colt Vest Pocket (2): YES

That is not a lot of cards, but that means that Old Keyring is now as interesting as Flashlight and Bob Jenkins should most likely run both, the Old Keyring on 4+ shroud locations and the Flashlight on less than 3 shroud locations. Colt Vest Pocket is also amazing as you can play it in advance, and whenever you use it, you get your money back right after. This combo makes it the #1 defensive weapon for Bob.

So what about Bob Jenkins and Joey "The Rat" Vigil? They seem like the best buddies to travel to the Edge of the Earth. Bring Dario El-Amin and Leo De Luca in the loop and you have the best undercover criminal gang in the continent.

I think I'm a little less hot on this card compared to some of the other reviews here, and I'm not seeing this as a new "king of weapons".

Yes, it has the potential to be a 3 damage attack with infinite uses, but I think "succeed by 3" is a bigger deal (especially on higher difficulties) than it seems. On most enemies, your token-modified skill value would have to hit 6+, which will pretty much always require stat boosts, even with the will+fight modifier.

On hard, I think this weapon will do 2 damage more often than one would hope for with a 5 resource, 5 xp weapon, and I think on that difficulty lightning gun, flamethrower, holy spear, and the lv 5 mystic spells still compete with, or even outperform (particularly in consistency) this weapon. On standard or easy, I can definitely see the appeal of picking up a big weapon that always does a minimum of 2 damage and often times 3, but it's still got more variance than comparable choices.

And yes, Reliable goes a long way to get you the consistency you want, but now you're looking at a 2-3 cards, and the other options have their own synergy cards too. None of this is to say that Cyclopean Hammer is bad by any means, I just don't think you should binder your other choices just yet.