Reliable

Does this card work with Lola Hayes, when she's not in guardian? This cards ability has no so i think it's a constant effect and works.

If it works, could be a combo with Otherworldly Compass, Lantern or Lockpicks.

Django · 5171
Yes, it works for exactly the reason you said. Somewhat relatedly, she can use Shortcut 2 (once it's been played) since the free trigger is on the location and not on a seeker card. — Death by Chocolate · 1491
First Watch

In the mythos phases where this is good, I foresee it being amazing. Sometimes you'll get three draws that your seeker/mystic could easily handle and will just have to make do, but if there is a round where your seeker cannot be bogged down with enemies because they need all their actions to win the scenario, this is insane. Give yourself all the enemies (are you roland or Zoey?), avoid all the horror (have fun, agnes), and give your allies the breathing room they need to win. Much like ward of protection, I think this will go in every deck that can take it as a safety against defeat late in the scenario.

SGPrometheus · 855
We ran into this yesterday, and thought long and hard about the proper way to resolve this. I think you're wrong. — AussieKSU · 1141
The rules say "If the encounter deck is empty, shuffle the encounter discard pile back into the encounter deck." There's no "window" for when this triggers. As soon as you look at 3 cards, the deck is empty, and needs to be reshuffled. — AussieKSU · 1141
Oh, no. Probably my mistake. "Look" does not change the zone. They're still in the deck. I think you're correct now... sigh, so confusing. — AussieKSU · 1141
Sneak Attack

A core set card with no review? Yummy.

Sneak Attack is a cool rarity, the testless damage trick! The funny bit is that you actually need to beat a test, the evade.

The upside to trading a fight test for an evade test is that evades tend to be easier, even so 2 actions for 2 damage is bad rate, so whats the angle? Sometimes you need to evade anyway! Retaliating enemies, perhaps the health pool is too damn big for you to deal with in one turn.

Sneak attack is not a strategy unto itself, it's an element in it, say you play Wendy Adams and don't intend to fight with anyway, Sneak Attack! Say you play in a 3 man team, you evade things and run away to deal with clues, why not soften up the bad guy to make it easier for your fighter to kill? Perhaps you "evade for money" via Pickpocketing and Sneak Attack is a natural combination of cards. Alongside Ornate Bow or Backstab you can deal 5 damage in one round, enough to kill off most foes in the game. Sometimes you just play two copies of Sneak Attack to finish something off, 4 damage for 3 actions, despite the cost and card expense, especially given that the damage is all automatic.

Sneak Attack is flexible, effective, and you'll be glad for it when you draw it, it might sit a bit in your hand and you'll be tempted to chuck it at a test, don't, save it and eventually it'll get you out of a heap of trouble. It slots into builds with many aforementioned cards, Backstab, Ornate Bow, Track Shoes, Peter Sylvestre,Pickpocketing, all the agility based stuff. Stay aware of your cost curve! You dont even need all of them, a character like Finn Edwards for example can supplement a big gun with Sneak Attacks and Peter Sylvestre, using the to pick fights and then tag teams the gun and Sneaks in tandem.

The characters who can use Sneak Attack at it's best and it's build-mates include Sefina Rousseau, Finn Edwards, Wendy Adams. Note that all of these have a special set of skill that makes Sneak Attack really shine, a free evade, repeat-use events, combining the evasion centric elements in the and pools. "Skids" O'Toole can do it but he might not afford it.

The upgrade is a tactical choice, it's lukewarm in solo bot it allows you to boop at enemies engaged with friends, freeing you from the evasion requirement, it is indeed an amazing upgrade, but only if you got friends!

Tsuruki23 · 2591
I must be missing something, but what hinders you from playing this card during the player window in the upkeep phase on an enemy that is engaged with you and has just attacked you? It is exhausted from the attack and it is at your location. You also would not play it during the enemy phase as forbidden by the above FAQ entry. — Zamomin · 45
Nvm. I got confused with LotR rules where you can play an event card during any player window... — Zamomin · 45
You actually can do this now using #Chuck Fergus to make sneak attack fast. Sure, you have to wait for the enemy to attack you and become exhausted, but it saves two actions (evading the enemy and playing sneak attack). — remleduff · 1
This card shines with Finn Edwards ability. However, both Wendy and Sefina need to spend an action to evade the enemy prior to playing Sneak Attack. When engaged with multiple enemies, Sneak Attack will trigger attacks of opportunity. Backstab is the obvious comparison, and in my opinion preferable. Cards such as Elusive, Survival Instinct, and Slip Away offer better action economy than Sneak Attack when dealing with enemies. Imho, Sneak Attack is only preferable to these cards when the group lacks damage to deal with enemies that must be killed. — arkham-becons · 57
Eucatastrophe

Uber-Lucky!. The end-all be all switcheroo upset card that turns bad sitations on end and delivers unto you, salvation. This card is so good that a Taboo list appearance wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. For Silas Marsh i'dd take this even if it got the Key of Ys treatment.

First off, the requirement: Your total for a skill test must be 0!

This means that all of your skill value must be totally negated by a test, I.E, the effect is easier to trigger when your starting point is low, so that it might be negated by relatively mild negative tokens like a -2 or -3.

If you skill value is high, it becomes extremely unlikely for the requirement to trigger, attacking an enemy at +6 for example Yorick+Machete+Beat Cop, you'dd need a or somehow net -6 from the token draw, even on hard this is very unlikely! You'dd be much better served by a Lucky! that'd easily let you hit the required number (of probably 2-4) when your baseline is so high.

On the flip-side, if your starting point is +2 or +3, there are plenty of tokens in the average chaos bag that will totally negate that!

.

This leaves you two main uses for Eucatastrophe:

1) A tool to force success through tests which you have no business beating, for example attempting 4 tests with just 2, a common case for a variety of characters whose give them automatic success or +2, I.E, success!

2) A ward against worst-case scenarios, where an or special token might negate your skill value completely. There are, in fact, a few scenarios where the complete skill negation is slightly more common, Forgotten age for example has a few places where there might be 2+ net autofails when certain circumstances arise and most campaigns have crazy tokens in the final scenario.

The characters for whom Eucatastrophe is best for, are therefor:

  • Dudes whose effects are desirable, for example Father Mateo (its blessed!), Silas Marsh, William Yorick (He can recurse Eucatastrophe itself!!!), Calvin Wright.
  • Dudes who might find routine use via a low stat, This usually means sneaking through successes on investigation or evasion, note that there needs to be a bonus on the and your stat still must be reasonable so that you might be able to beat a difficulty 2-4 test, for example Rita Young investigating at a difficulty 2, 3 or 4 location.
  • Dudes who have a tendency to be making high-stakes tests, generally in the current cardpool that means while shooting an Old Hunting Rifle, Ornate Bow or during Waylay or Backstab.

All of the above considered, a few characters rise up from the pile as obviously great characters for Eucatastrophe:

  • Silas Marsh whose is terrific, who needs clutch defense against treacheries and tends to be risking his life on major attacks with the biggest weapons the cardpool allows. Note that you can do the trick below with Drawing Thin if you add Resourceful to the combo.

  • William Yorick whose again is awesome and tends to be making important attacks. Also he can combine Drawing Thin and Eucatastrophe to be a funny kind of efficient at 1-4 difficulty investigating, especially late-campaign (Effectively autosucceeding on 1-2 difficulty investigation, at no net cost other then drawing the cards and playing Drawing Thin!).

  • Father Mateo, whose is literally a miracle and tends to be making lots of risky tests with Shrivelling and Rite of Seeking where a badly timed special token or can be lethal.

While Eucatastrophe is reasonable on the other characters who can take it, i feel that it's a lower priority, especially for Wendy Adams who has no appropriate stats to abuse and a +0 on her . Besides she excells at circumventing bad token draws to begin with!

Tsuruki23 · 2591
Not sure I agree that this doesn't suit Wendy. With her amulet in play this is an auto succeed, which opens up some incredible combo potential. Trigger 2x Drawing Thin for 4 resources and to ensure failure then chuck in Double or Nothing to really ensure failure and this gives her a guaranteed 4 damage from a single swing of the baseball bat, or 6 damage if used in conjunction with Backstab. It would then be sitting right there at the top of the discard pile to be re-used on the following action. Seems pretty powerful to me, albeit situational. — Sassenach · 189
Even without Wendy's Amulet in play i think this card is amazing for Wendy. Yorick and Silas can recur this card very easily, but they have to pay 2 resources each time, and Silas in particular is very well suited to not having his test value brought down to 0. Wendy can hold back on this as insurance alongside Lucky! and her main ability. If she fails by a small margin after a token pull, she uses Lucky!, and if she fails to 0 she uses this. It's such great backup insurance that she wont need to continually pour resources into unlike the other guys. And she can still recur it very easily. To guarantee it, commit a Resourceful to a test of 3 on 3 or less (her base investigate stat on 3 shroud for example) with Lucky! and another Eucatastrophe in hand. Or just use Resourceful on a test she's more likely to pass, like a Lockpicks investigate on a low shroud or a Fire Axe attack. I think people are horribly underestimating this card for Wendy, and I genuinely think it's going to be strongest for her. — StyxTBeuford · 13053
Do keep in mind that Eucatastrophy is not affected, at all, by the test difficulty. it doesnt matter if you chuck Double or nothing at a test and Drawing thinm if your skill value at the end isnt 0, it wont hit Eucatastrophy. — Tsuruki23 · 2591
This means that taking tests at +3, such as by swinging baseball bat or just her unmodified intellect, they stand pretty good chances at hitting -2 and therefore not triggering Eucatastrophy. — Tsuruki23 · 2591
I don't understand your point here. Wendy's elder sign ability with the amulet in an auto succeed. This means that you can make the difficulty of the test as high as you like and still pass it. In other words, it's a guaranteed pass whether you need to use Eucatastrophe or not. Of course that's a big deal. It doesn't matter what token you draw because whatever it is will still succeed, so you can pile on as many cards like DoN or DT and still get the succeed effect as well as all the subsidiary benefits. Frankly who cares if you might have succeeded anyway ? Either way you succeed. — Sassenach · 189
You have to get your result down to 0 to play Eucatastrophe, so it does matter what token you draw. — StyxTBeuford · 13053
OK, but what he said was that it doesn't matter about the test difficulty, which is nonsense. DoN and DT can make a test unpassable quite easily. — Sassenach · 189
I'm not sure I'm following what your issue is. Eucatastrophe's trigger is 100% independent of the test difficulty. It only cares if your skill value drops to 0. So you can play Euca when Wendy pulls a -4 with a Flashlight'd Investigate on a shroud 2 location (0 on 0, a pass) and you can play it when she pulls a -4 on a normal Investigate of a 2 shroud location (0 on 2, a failure). You could similarly play it if it were a Drawing Thin'd and Double or Nothing'd Investigate on that location where she pulls a -4 token (0 on 8, a failure). In none of these instances does the test difficulty help trigger Eucatastrophe. Unless you mean that the Elder Sign you get from Eucatastrophe might be useless in letting you pass a test with such a high difficulty, which is true except in the case of automatic success such as Wendy with her amulet out. Eucatastrophe's ability to be played is completely independent of test difficulty and dependent on token draw and skill level. — StyxTBeuford · 13053
The point is that the ability to treat Eucatastrophe as an auto succeed allows Wendy to play DoN on a fight check, which she would never be able to do otherwise. Sure, she has to ensure that she doesn't only fail by 2, but that ought to be trivially easy for her given her low baseline stat. The harder she can make the test the better of course, because the harder it is the fewer the number of tokens that might cause it to whiff. By using DT and DoN she should be able to almost guarantee that it can't whiff. — Sassenach · 189
I dont follow. She can fail by 2, 200, or even succeed as in the example I showed. Failure is not at all a requirement of playing Eucatastrophe. You merely need your skill value to reach 0. It relies solely on token pull and not at all on test difficulty. — StyxTBeuford · 13053
@Sassenach I think you are misunderstanding one thing. The condition to use Eucatastrophe is "Skill value" plus "token value" = 0. — Killbray · 12787
So if your "skill value" is 3 the "token value" is "-2" and the skill test difficulty is "10" due to DoN shenaningans, you get "3" + "-2" which is equal 1 and you can't use eucatastrophe because the skill test difficulty really doesn't factor in the equation. It is also important to note that you might draw a "+1" which means even Calvin Wright with a 0 could find himself unable to use Eucatastrophe. — Killbray · 12787
Ah yes. Sorry everyone, I seem to have had a temporary brain fart. — Sassenach · 189
No worries, it happens. — StyxTBeuford · 13053
I think the best use of this card is as insurance against Old Hunting Rifle jamming. — matt88 · 3242
Good add for Ashcan Pete IMO. Refreshes Duke and passes a failed test? Amazing — brerlapine · 19
question! the effect of William Yorick elder sign could be applied on the same copy of Eucatastrophe we have played? is this copy in the discard pile when the effect resolves? I think so. Yorick's elder sign effect: +2. If this test is successful, return 1 card from your discard pile to your hand. — Matamagos · 4
@Metamagos — Flazzy · 6
@Metamagos Yes, it could be applied. I use Eucatastrophe with Silas... wonderful combo: Eucatastrophe + Resourceful — Flazzy · 6
Trivia point...the word Eucatastrophe was coined by JRRTolkein. — AndyN · 42
"question! the effect of William Yorick elder sign could be applied on the same copy of Eucatastrophe we have played? is this copy in the discard pile when the effect resolves? I think so. Yorick's elder sign effect: +2. If this test is successful, return 1 card from your discard pile to your hand" — bprad · 1
What is the answer to this question? "question! the effect of William Yorick elder sign could be applied on the same copy of Eucatastrophe we have played? is this copy in the discard pile when the effect resolves? I think so. Yorick's elder sign effect: +2. If this test is successful, return 1 card from your discard pile to your hand". I am not sure Eucatastrophe will be in the discard pile for it to be recursed. — bprad · 1
Slip Away

The most ideal use for this card is for someone with access to with high (4 or 5) but mediocre (ideally 3) , allowing them to use their brains to evade. Until very recently, the only Investigator that fits that bill and can take this card is Rex Murphy, and Rex probably wont even take it because it's not the best use for his 5 off slots. Dream Eaters added Mandy Thompson, whose 3 and 1 means she's a prime candidate for what Slip Away provides. Her means of defense are quite limited, so Slip Away gives her solid defense, alongside Decoy and Think on Your Feet. So the next best thing is to think of Investigators who can at least use a high combined total to lockdown an enemy for an extra turn. This is Finn Edwards (8), Rita Young (7), Wendy Adams (7), "Skids" O'Toole (7), and again Rex Murphy (7).

The next question is what does this card let you do that normal evades don't? Well, it can lockdown a particularly bad non-elite enemy for an extra turn if you over succeed. In multiplayer this feels like a pretty big waste of a card slot, but in solo this can be quite useful if you play an evasive character who starts getting bogged down by continually drawing enemies. In that regard I think it works best for Finn, as the action is free anyway, and if he's running Pickpocketing he'll make up for the opportunity cost quite a bit. It's a good emergency card to have in your back pocket, though it's no Elusive. it's also still pretty good for solo Sefina Rousseau as you can lockdown several enemies in a short span of time with The Painted World, and she tests this card at a combined total of 6, which is still at least decent. Wendy Adams and Rita Young can use it to buy time to set up Waylay.

Overall a decent card, but one that's quite niche unless you're playing solo. If you're going with Mandy Thompson, I think this should be the first card you include.

StyxTBeuford · 13053
I will certainly be running this in my 0XP Jenny deck that will get built into an evade, gather clues and do indirect damage deck with XP. Her blessed and cursed statline (3's) mean that she won't be able to evade well until she has some assets into play. It will probably get replaced by Suggestion (1) though after 1 or 2 scenarios. I do like the idea of having an enemy exhausted for an additional round. I think that could be a huge benefit. — The Lynx · 1005
In addition to locking down enemies for an addition turn (which can be good), this is also just a good way to successfully evade a really hard to evade enemy when you aren't fully set up to deal with it, or if you can't afford to take a hit. — Zinjanthropus · 231
I use this in my solo Jenny, and it's really helpful to get the books added. The 2-cost for her is a less big deal. — canelson · 1
For how niche the card is, I think, they should either have left the non-Elite restriction away, or give the card a second foot pip instead of the book. (So that it provides better chance to evade an elite withouth paying the resources.) — Susumu · 383