This card has generated a lot of hype. And why not? It unlocks an entirely new playing style by allowing investigators to fight with Agility, and the +2 damage is quite impressive. Plus, anyone can take it!

I'm going to argue, though, that Ornate Bow is not actually that good and probably not worth the 3 XP, 4 resources, and 2 hand slots.

First, the action efficiency on Ornate Bow is really poor for an XP card. If you play the Bow and use it once, it's clearly way inferior to just using something like Backstab or "I've got a plan!" or Waylay. If you use it twice, you're dealing 6 damage over 4 actions. That's the same as a level 0 weapon can do! And the more you use it, the worse the action efficiency gets. Use it four times for (optimally) 12 damage over 8 actions. A standard +damage level 0 weapon can deal 14 damage over 8 actions. The more you use the Bow, the less efficient it is compared to the game's level 0 weapons. That's not great for a 3 XP card.

The Bow does have the advantage that you need to pass fewer skill checks. In the above example, 12 damage from the Bow would take 4 successful skill checks, where it would take 6 from the weapons. That's a considerable advantage. But then there's the big disadvantage that a lot of enemies have more than 3 health, and reloading the bow during combat is a huge pain. You either have to swallow attacks of opportunity or you have to evade, and either is wasteful. Even if you're facing 3-health enemies, obviously the optimal situation for the Bow, if/when you miss with the Bow, you suddenly find yourself in an awful spot. If you miss with other weapons, it's not nearly as bad. (Finn can get around this, but I don't think the Bow is that great for him--see below.)

So the Bow is not looking so great for a 3 XP weapon. And indeed, I think anyone with half-decent Combat (and this would include Finn, Jenny, Silas, and Skids) should just use weapons that use Combat instead, because these are way better. Even if your to-hit bonus is a little lower, even the level 0 weapons are more efficient in terms of actions, and the XP weapons available to these investigators are way more efficient. (Not to mention Rogues have a nice set of cards that synergize well with a big gun, like Sleight of Hand and Contraband, but are really terrible with the Bow.)

But what about those high-Agility investigators who have really low Combat but high Agility, like Ursula, Wendy, and Sefina? Doesn't the Bow find a home here?

The answer is: sort of. Yes, these would be the most viable candidates to use the Bow. But I have real doubts here. For one, like I said, you're still not reaching very good efficiency. You're still doing worse, action-wise, than other investigators do using level 0 weapons. Since you have to invest a lot into the Bow in terms of XP, resources, and hand slots, I'm really skeptical when the final result ends up being not very efficient compared to how other investigators can fight.

Besides, these investigators all have really important things to be doing with their hands. Ursula is simply a far better investigator when she's got a Magnifying Glass or two in hand than when she doesn't. Ditto for Sefina with Lockpicks or Spirit Athame or Wendy with Lockpicks. By playing the Bow you are seriously compromising your ability to investigate. I think someone like Sefina or Wendy is better off not fighting very much, and using events like Backstab, Sneak Attack, or Waylay on the rare occasions that they really want to kill something, rather than investing a ton into the Bow for a pretty unspectacular payoff. (Plus, focusing more on events synergizes really well with these characters anyway.)

And yes, Ursula has a possible combo with Dr. Elli Horowitz to get around the Bow's hand slots. But not only is that unreliable (the Bow needs to be in the top 9 cards of your deck), you're just using up a different super-valuable slot instead. More to the point, Ursula can just take Acidic Ichor, which is not only far more efficient than the Bow and attacks at the same base value, it's also far cheaper and doesn't take up any slots at all. She should just do that.

I'm not trying to say the Bow is unplayable. If you really want to make it work, I'm sure it's possible. But I do think the efficiency is not very good and the Bow is not nearly as profitable as it seems at first glance, even for those investigators who seem like the best fits.

I'm a huge fan of Dario.

Any card that gives you a permanent stat boost is worth looking at. Dario gives you two. Incredible! Also, his ability is sort of a Cache-on-a-stick, improving any free action you might have. Undoubtedly very powerful. But he comes with some downsides.

First, as an Ally, his slot is incredibly competitive. He costs is relatively high, his soak isn't amazing, and his stat-boosting ability is tricky to turn on. But, all of these can be mitigated. If you build around him, he's great:

• Money. He costs 4 to play, which is high, and then expects you to have enough money to turn on his ability. However, any card that gives you cash to turn on his ability also gives you cash to play him. He himself gives you cash with his ability. So once you throw in a Lone Wolf or a Hot Streak(4) (or a Hot Streak(2)), he is pretty viable.
• Slots. He competes directly with Leo, of course, but I'm not convinced Leo is always the strongest option. Leo gives you actions but sucks your tempo to the tune of 6 resources. What if you'd like to bounce back pretty quickly? Dario can take 2 actions to play at a net cost of 2 resources, then can give you another 2 next turn to get set up. Regardless, if you'd like to mitigate the slot cost of Dario, Charisma is the obvious answer.

I've played him in a pay-to-win solo Jenny before to great effect. She could afford to win through Streetwise and still keep her Dario bonus up. I've also enjoyed him in solo Jim (with Lone Wolf for money), stacking with St. Hubert's Key to have a very imposing 6 5 3 2 statline. He is much easier to play around than David Renfield as far as econ options go, and he gives you as well.

So give him a try, particularly in solo decks (where 2 stats is massive)!

The price of 3 is heavy, but I think Trench Coat is a fine card for certain investigators in certain campaigns. I'm a big believer in passive stat boosts. If you build your investigator to evade frequently, you really need effects like this. On Expert, simply relying on the 4 base Agility of the evade-friendly investigators is not going to get results. You need to crank that Agility up somehow. Peter Sylvestre is a great start, but not everyone can take him, and in any case, the more Agility you can stack, the better. Trench Coat will become less a bit less necessary once you get really strong boosts from XP cards like Suggestion or Streetwise.

At the same time, this card is also offering 2 health soak, which is really nice for someone like Sefina. You could compare this card to Holy Rosary. You get a similar amount of value, with a passive stat boost and a soak of 2. Now, Trench Coat is probably worse than the Rosary, since it costs an extra resource and doesn't apply its stat boost all the time. (It does take up a less-contested slot, but this is probably not enough to even things out.) It's a shame that this card doesn't work in the Mythos phase, nor does it synergize with the likes of Backstab. But I think the Rosary is exceptionally strong for a level 0 card, so something a bit worse is not at all unplayable--as long as you're planning on evading a lot.

I especially like Trench Coat in Forgotten Age. First, an evade-focused build is actually good in that campaign. Second, the extra health is very helpful since the campaign is more damage-oriented than any of the others. This card becomes downright essential for Sefina, and even the 7-8 health investigators are going to appreciate it.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend this card for investigators with 3 or fewer Agility (notwithstanding the flavor text). If you're not planning on evading all the time, this card is not very good. There is the health soak, though, and in the Forgotten Age campaign, someone like Akachi or Mateo (who have access to very little health soak otherwise) could consider it for that reason.

To speculate about the future, I'm guessing we'll soon get a level 0 amulet that soaks horror and helps against treacheries, corresponding to Trench Coat in the same way that Elder Sign Amulet corresponds to Bulletproof Vest.

Reducing shroud is a powerful effect in this game, but I suspect that, at least for the moment, Otherworldly Compass is going to have relatively few buyers.

Reducing shroud is usually better than increasing Intellect. That's because if you can reduce test difficulty to 0, you'll succeed on every token except for the autofail. This is why Flashlight is such a great card for investigators with low Intellect, like Zoey or Akachi, because it lets them pick up 3 clues from low-shroud locations nearly guaranteed. Otherworldly Compass has the potential to occasionally knock even a high-shroud location to 0, if everything works out right, which could be really powerful.

The problem is that it comes in the faction where shroud-reducing effects are least useful. If you have really high Intellect, like Seekers do, the advantages of reducing shroud vs. increasing Intellect go away. (Hence I usually don't run Flashlight in Seeker decks.) On Expert, with -6 and -8 tokens in the bag, reducing shroud from 1 to 0 will sometimes make a difference, but not that often. Reducing a 3 or 4 shroud location to 0 would be pretty nice for Seekers; but I think Otherworldly Compass will pretty rarely give you that much.

So for most investigators who can take it, Otherworldly Compass is going to be pretty equivalent to an Intellect bonus to a test of something like +1 to +3, once per round. I suspect getting +1 or +2 is going to be rather more common than getting +3. This makes the card inferior to both Magnifying Glass and Fieldwork, but a reasonable supplement to those cards if you're already running them and want even more Intellect-boosting assets in your deck.

Note that, unlike Magnifying Glass and Fieldwork, you can't combine Otherworldly Compass with other effects that require an Investigate action. So this card is a non-combo with Archaic Glyphs, Deciphered Reality, and so on.

All in all, I think this card is generally going to be substantially worse than Magnifying Glass and even Fieldwork for most Seeker builds. But I think there are two niches for this card. First, if you're a low-Intellect Seeker (Roland being pretty much the only one), this is a reasonable upgrade to Flashlight, with limitless charges and the potential to occasionally crack a 3+ shroud location. Second, if you can combine Otherworldly Compass with other shroud-reducing effects (like Arcane Insight or The Skeleton Key), it looks more attractive. But this approach seems like a lot of investment that Seekers don't necessarily need to make, not even on high levels.

I've been playing Olive in a Jim deck for Carcosa, and...my experience hasn't been very good.

The numbers on the card are the best parts. 2 resources for 3 Horror soak is great. But I don't think that's worth the slot on its own, as Mystics traditionally have lots of options for Horror mitigation.

Her ability is underwhelming. On standard difficulty, you're likely to draw something like (-1), (-2), . "Great!" you think, "I avoided the tablet!" But, because of how math works, you've drawn a -3 instead. So what? You just have to commit cards or whatever until you're 3-up or 4-up on the difficulty. Well, why not just draw a single token if you're 4-up on the test?

My beef with Olive is this: in order to use her, you have to compensate for the moderate negative value you're likely to draw, but by doing so, you no longer have a statistical advantage by using her.

Now, she combos pretty well with Song of the Dead and Defiance(2). But now you've got a combo piece in your deck that doesn't do much on her own except offer Horror soak. And you're unable to play other allies like Arcane Initiate, Peter Sylvestre, or David Renfield.

The Jim deck I've been playing beats tests because it has 3 extra (0)s in the bag (the ). I can essentially under-commit on tests because I'm likely to succeed at 2-up or even 1-up. Using Olive actually requires me to commit more to my tests than I would otherwise. So it's only helpful when I'm using Song of the Dead, but then it's only 1/turn, and even then it's far from guaranteed to draw that .

The best case use I can see for the witch who'll try anything once is in conjunction with Lucky!, as that allows you to react to the swingy-ness of the double token draw. You drew (-2), (-3), ? Well, you were only 3-up on the test, but you can succeed anyway! But then again, isn't that just a testament to how good Lucky is?