Pros

• Fast and cheap
• Will help you recover at least 1, often 2 Sanity
• Can heal other investigators at your location; so spread the love around. Remember, you can take your investigator turns in any order, so it's easy to set up
• Has both a Combat and a Willpower skill token, so it's never useless
• Gruesome artwork. What did you DO to that creature?

Cons

• You need to kill a monster, and preferably one with a medium to high horror value

This is a card clearly designed to help low sanity guardians (Zoey and Roland) survive their romp through the horrors of Arkham. The added bonus of healing your friends is just icing on an already delicious cake and fits with the guardian theme of leading from the front.

How is "If it's bleed..." compared to other sanity restoring cards? First Aid takes 4 actions to heal 3 Horror for 2 resources, but can also heal Stamina damage. Moment of Respite (sort of the opposite to this card) restores 3 sanity and a card, but costs both Xp, 3 resoruces and an action. Smoking Pipe restores up to 3 Sanity, but at the cost of stamina and one action.

This card is superior, I'd say, as long as you kill 2 horror value monsters. Which I bet you do twice, before breakfast. =)

At first glance Monster Slayer is utterly unremarkable and may in fact even be a bit bad. My first impressions of the card were utterly negative.

"You mean I have to pay one and make a fight test without weapons and I have to succeed in order for this to trigger?"

I have played the last scenario about a half dozen times and I feel that in the Dunwhich Legacy campaign, if purchased in the final act you will have some good targets to choose from and might be a worthy include if your group only has one monster hunter.

But this card is a fundamental "key stone" card to your deck. I would never advise someone in the midst of a campaign buy the card because its effect is utterly unremarkable compared to the weapons you can buy.

Always buy a Lightning Gun or the Shotgun first and always spend the 9-12 xp to get two copies and extra ammunition (its really worth it for consistency to get two, even with Prepared for the Worst).

Thus, only consider this card if you are closing in on the last two scenarios and you have a bulk of xp burning a hole in your pocket. It is pretty much this or I've Had Worse. If your group needs you to go all in on the monster slayer role (because you are the sole monster hunter in a group of 3 for instance) or you just really, really want to hit some of the nasties at the end and take them down, then by all means.

If Path to Carcosa has a lot of weird, tough monsters then it might be worth an include there as well. Time will tell.

Assuming that I'm reading the rules correctly, it seems like you are able to draw your card during the upkeep and then decide if you want to take your resource for the turn or not. This allows much more flexibility in planning your upcoming turn.

"In player order, each investigator draws 1 card. Once those cards have been drawn, each investigator gains 1 resource." - Rules Reference, p. 25

The term "during" seems to apply to any moment within the phase and there's no entry in the Rules Reference for the term.

With the Acidic Ichor variant (see above) of the Strange Solution, seekers gain an awesome weapon. Strength is a problem for all the current seekers, and having your base increased to 6 is great - and combined with +2 damage, it becomes awesome. On top of that, it's cheap, and it doesn't take a hand slot.

In a recent campaign I equipped Rex with 2 of these as early as I could - they do need a lot of XP - and he was a better fighter than Jenny through much of the rest of the campaign.

Advantages:

• Gives seekers good combat
• Deals 3 damage!
• Cheap
• Leaves hands free

Disadvantages:

• You have to identify the solution, to start with. That relies on the right card coming out, your playing it, and passing the test.
• They're expensive XP-wise - though if compared with The Red-Gloved Man they feel about right.
• They're hard to discard once used - and so hard to Scavenge
• It can be difficult to use all that damage effectively. For example, a 4 damage enemy would require 2 uses - which wastes a third of the damage they can do. Ideally, get someone else to do the additional damage.

To be honest, I think that combat beats evasion (kill it and it goes away) and healing (kill it and it won't hurt you) , so I can't see why you'd use either of the other Strange Solutions.

This card is awesome! And the best thing about him isn't the stats increase - which are brilliant - but rather the freedom he gives. You want to accept 3 attacks of opportunity while you investigate (probably at 6 ) - no problem. Move while under attack - fine. It's one turn where you can more or less ignore any enemies.

Disadvantages?

• Expensive in XP (but worth it!)
• Uses the ally slot.
• Not worth using for combat without having a weapon that increases damage.
• Small cost to play
• Unique - so only 1 in play at a time. Not such a problem as he only lasts until the next Mythos phase.

Advantages?

• Capability. Do what you want for a turn.
• Fast. Don't waste an action using this, and don't suffer an attack of opportunity.
• Works with A Chance Encounter, which is also awesome (though he lasts even less time if brought into play this way)
• Use it with Police Badge or Ace in the Hole for even more over-powered actions in one turn!

Simply brilliant. Game winning.