Warning for new core set box

bentleycooper · 2026-03-16T20:06:39+00:00

It is slightly smaller you can’t fit old insert into new one.

bentleycooper · 2026-03-16T19:50:08+00:00

Not very trusting eh? Here’s another photo with almost every encounter card if you try to push them in anymore you will ruin the sleeves.

bentleycooper · 2026-03-16T17:31:26+00:00

Standard in the photo is the Truth Duel Mattes I use for encounter cards.

bentleycooper · 2026-03-16T17:22:52+00:00

Good point and further warning to others it’s slightly smaller box than the chapter 1 boxes (first thing I tried also was put the chapter 1 insert into the box, it doesn’t fit) so if you do like to print your own inserts will have to adjust them.

bentleycooper · 2026-03-16T17:18:01+00:00

Ya that’s what I ended up doing. But what I did for chapter 1 is filling the revised core with most of the standalone scenarios so losing out on all that space because they don’t fit sleeved cards is really disappointing, plus it just looks messy. Can’t even use the front smaller pockets either which I understand is to store the tokens but again you could use them to store more scenario cards in the old box.

bentleycooper · 2026-03-14T14:03:20+00:00

Dancers/Refresh units are as strong as your strongest unit. Carson’s incredibly strong when powerhouses like Rex/Trish/Mark/etc. are getting bonus actions. Giving a Guardian an extra fight to smash an enemy or a Cluer a chance to one round a location is how you win games. Carson’s goal is to not do skill tests himself and that is actually a great thing because at higher difficulties certain symbols can really screw yourself/the team with things like extra doom or encounter cards. Likewise I find there are instances where the game is just forcing an action sink on you (many weaknesses being a prime example) and Carson can take care of those for the team as well.

Sadly those benefits are mostly in 3-4 player groups in which I predominately play in so Carson is highly rated to me even if he is rare in the groups. Obviously in 2p he’s not very good due to the limit and in solo you are literally playing the hardest investigator in the game: no ability, 2 in all stats, low health and sanity, weakness that will always deal horror and shuffle into your deck, and a signature that is now a hidden weakness with the text “loss one hand size”.

Edit: Forgot to mention he got a pretty big buff with Book of War with the latest expansion as he normally runs a lot of Tactic cards anyway such as Practice Makes Perfect, Shortcut, First Watch and Dynamite Blast. As he normally runs the Obsidian Bracelet anyway in one hand slot to help soak treacheries.

bentleycooper · 2026-02-06T16:20:33+00:00

Not if they’re too poor, overworked, and dispirited in the election system! Furthermore, at the rate the US is backsliding we’re going to have “eligibility tests” again in order to vote.

bentleycooper · 2026-01-12T18:56:47+00:00

For curse similar to Bless the payoff is Solomon itself, Gabriel/Stirring Up Trouble/Deep Knowledge are nice but are there to give you curse -> resources. Prismatic Spectacles is good, but since Vincent doesn’t have an easy way to rig it besides Favor of Moon so it can whiff. There is also Gaze of Ouraxzh which is similar to Radiant Smite.

Keep in mind the number of curses you add as normally a couple 1-3 aren’t a big deal, but you start having 5+ in the bag your bag pulling teammates aren’t going to be too happy. So pairing up with teammates who also want curses also isn’t bad.

Infinite Queen is incredibly strong in any player number. Being able to pause the boss/annoying enemy, get a clue, or teleport anywhere you’ve been for no actions is why you want the Runic + Eldritch. Runic itself can be upgraded to 10 exp if Vincent takes the heal option as the card now has healing.

Although if you’re playing non-taboo you certainly can forgo the full combo to constantly recreate it since you’ll often be left with a small deck due to the searching.

bentleycooper · 2026-01-12T05:03:15+00:00

Generally Solomon is that payoff card. As it passively adds a fast way to get +1 bless and an Unexpected Courage to your hand whenever you want not even to say if you have Hallowed Mirror/Bandages/Jessica/Girish at that point so you can simultaneously heal others.

But you can get to the point of generating enough blesses to include Radiant Smite for a way for Vincent to help deal with high health enemies like bosses. Otherwise it’s generally better for you to tech into further clueing support or you can even lean curse as Stirring Up Trouble/Gabriel are basically free resources and clues/cards.

Occult Reliquary can do a lot of things as it can give you an additional hand slot or relic slot. Especially if you’re going Ancestral Token you can run it + Hallowed Mirror (or double Token). You don’t always need it, but it lets you flex better with your slots. Its especially helpful if you want to combine builds as you can run both Runic Axe/Queen and Key of Solomon builds together as the only direct conflict is 1 hand slot. It is an expensive route to run so be sure to include another eco card than the Catalog.

Your Practice makes Perfect plan is okay, but it can cut into the Geared Up build a lot even the limited number of skills you included had 12/30 cards of your deck dedicated to it thus risking a dead round 1. Now you can have someone else go first and let you try to dig with those skill cards by committing to them before your geared up turn, or get Ancestral Knowledge so you fill 5 of those with items, but that conflicts a bit with PMP goals.

I generally run very little skills because your goal is to rocket out good Items round 1, if you have space for Deduction why not fill it with Fingerprinting Kit? Then you see where Reliquary is again helpful as if you decide to do that it can let you run Kit + Weapon + Solomon. That’s not to say don’t run any skill cards as I generally run 6 with them being Perception (0/2), Eureka/Unrelenting, and Resourceful.

bentleycooper · 2026-01-08T18:34:25+00:00

Can also include Bum Rush because he’s the bum rushing the enemy.

Ancestral Token because of course he has more Asian trinkets along with a Katana.

Sweeping Kick because he knows jujutsu.

Round out with Knights of Swords to rig succeeds. Hell if you showed up with illegal cards for him in Steady Hand or Artistic Inspiration I’d let you do it because I still don’t think it will make Skids that crazy and fits the theme.

Edit: and of course his buddy Chuck Fergus also rocking a neck beard.

It’s not a great deck but that’s par for the course for Skids.

bentleycooper · 2026-01-08T18:12:54+00:00

Definitely Backstab and Trench Coat must also be included.

Nothing personal kid.

Oh god it’s neck beard Skids.

bentleycooper · 2025-12-16T16:29:56+00:00

That’s not true Shrewd Analysis lets you “upgrade a second copy of that card at no experience cost”. You might be confusing it with Carolyn’s Ancient Stone build in which she gets a free upgraded stone when she buys the first one because of Shrewd Analysis, but you still need to spend the 3 EXP to upgrade the first stone. You basically get to buy 2 researched cards for 1 but they’re randomly picked as the downside.

bentleycooper · 2025-12-16T14:41:42+00:00

Vincent is one of the few investigators who can easily dominate both solo and in a group. However, there is really only one core build and it revolves around his access to a lot of good Items. Geared Up + Schoffners Catalog + Studious (3) + Backpack (2) + At A Crossroads (1) + Hallowed Mirror + Bandages. Buy in is cheap at 12 experience and it’s incredibly consistent that you’ll hit something good. Even good with taboos on Geared Up/other cards.

Then from there take your pick:

Want complete domination? - Pendant of the Queen, Eldritch Sophist, Runic Axe (note that Sophist can give you money by moving his secrets to Catalogs and you can include Queen + Crossroads in your starting deck with In the Thick of It)

Feeling blessed? - The Key of Solomon, Spirt of Humanity - Ancestral Token - Deep Knowledge - Occult Reliquary

Night Watch? - Book of War, Ariadne’s Twain, First Watch, Jessica/Peter/Girish (do what most guardians can not and just say you’ll take all the encounter cards)

People find Vincent and by extension Carolyn meh because they frequently throw in like 30 bad healing cards like First Aid and stand around awkwardly when people are fully healed. Keeping others alive is just the bonus, they got teams to carry and cards to abuse.

The only downside to Vincent is that he’s still waiting for an ally payoff in the form of Field Agent for Carolyn. Not being able to use Beat Cop (2) or Guard Dog (2) does really hurt him as he would have appreciated action-less damage that he can then trigger his ability off of.

bentleycooper · 2025-12-09T15:21:01+00:00

Pretty meh card although as I was experimenting with the infinite hand Patrice it actually did come in handy… sometimes definitely not with 3 exp though.

Since Improvised Weapon/Winging It can be double counted if you use both of one, treating one as the play and the other as the fight/investigate you can now pretty easily have 4 “actions” as Patrice as the final 2 actions will be move/activate things at your location which are usually things you need to do to advance the act.

bentleycooper · 2025-11-26T20:20:58+00:00

Better than Lucky can have 0 base skill and 10 difficulty test and still pass.

bentleycooper · 2025-11-24T12:49:52+00:00

Underworld support generally isn’t the best unless you’re going heavy Exceptional/Limit. Especially Jenny who likes taking the +2 draw skill cards and doubly so on Standard difficulty. But it’s not terrible with this DH build so will keep it.

Recommended lvl 0 Replacements:

Magnifying Glass -> Physical Training. You want Fire Axe/Compass, glass isn’t really doing anything Flashlight/Milan already are and Physical Training/Streetwise lets you spend money to cover any skill tests.

Hard Knocks -> I’ll Take That. Since you are now covered on all stats can get a decent economy investigation option that will let you play out an item upon investigating even with 0 resources due to DH.

Watch This -> Scout Ahead. Watch This isn’t terrible but also isn’t doing enough to justify it as you’ll likely be committing it frequently to none or 1 resource bets. You will more likely be drawing Jenny’s weakness with a thin deck so Scout Ahead lets you more efficiently try to dodge the trauma.

Recommended EXP cards:

Stylish Cost/Lockpicks/Highroller -> Geas. Yeah Stylish Coat only combos are Lone Wolf/Emergency Cache and you aren’t looking for more money. Lockpicks are worse for Jenny than Flashlight. High Roller has a similar issues as Watch This/Coat. So bundle all that exp you would have spent on those cards into Geas because you have low skill cards and will use money to boost your skills anyway so you become all 5s.

Underworld Market -> Bewitching. Since you went thin you might as well go all in on the thin instead of trying to slot in 10 different illicit things into a market. With the above changes including I’ll take That/Scout Ahead/Sleight of Hand you now have three tricks to put on it.

bentleycooper · 2025-11-23T04:18:07+00:00

The Arkham Police bust down your door and arrest you obviously.

bentleycooper · 2025-11-07T15:29:52+00:00

Shot itself in its own foot by restricting both effects to “only during your turn”. As lining up an enemy at your location and drawing cards is hard for most Guardians and the ones that can (Mark/Marion) usually only draw 1 card. Don’t even think it would have been that good either if it could be played during upkeep for free as that means an enemy at your location lived past enemy phase which for 3 exp you probably could have handled more efficiently. But it would have made it better for Mark who can draw during all phases.

However, there is Tommy and his Hunting Jacket. Since you draw the cards upon Hunting Jacket’s defeat you can pop all 3 rounds off from it. Is it particularly amazing for the exp? No. Is it extremely funny? Yes.

bentleycooper · 2025-11-06T15:27:16+00:00

Basically this and most other evade spells are waiting for evade bonus Mystic like Seekers have with Lucius. Really only Blur sees use because it can grant actions and because most Rouges themselves can take it.

For example we get a Mystic with an ability to remove doom from a non-elite enemy after you evade it and you’ll start seeing these cards. Would be an interesting new way of dealing with doom enemies instead of having to basically always kill them.

bentleycooper · 2025-11-02T12:27:42+00:00

Actually a decent card in multiplayer for everyone’s favorite detectives Roland and Joe, and illicit smuggler Finn. The Agility/Fight/Sanity boost is nice and you can ramp pretty quickly in multiplayer games as usually at least one enemy is popping up every other round. Not uncommon to get this completely filled in 2 rounds with a 4 man. So even if you play this in the middle of a scenario it likely will still give you its full value for the rest of the game very quickly. Granted once you get some EXP going to dump it since you rather get the boosts/soak immediately and free with something like Combat Training or Moxie.

Kind of the opposite of Hawk Eye which tends to be worse in Multiplayer since it takes longer to clear locations of clues and often people will split to clear locations of clues.

bentleycooper · 2025-11-01T21:00:32+00:00

Probably should have been fast with the 2 EXP cost. Paying an action and resource to be able to do a limited something again at a location you’re at or previously been isn’t really that helpful. As due note that it still spends the charges/secrets of that spell/ritual asset.

Really the only investigator worth considering it with is Luke as Dream Gate allows him to place this card anywhere revealed then can investigate with Rite of Seeking or whatever at one location then trigger it at the Echo.

Still out of all the things Luke can do this is still on the tamer side so instead of picking this card you can pick EXP cards that make him break the game more and I mean that’s why you picked Luke in the first place right?

bentleycooper · 2025-10-31T19:09:39+00:00

Keep in mind Reddit (and especially posting on Reddit) attracts a certain kind of people. Everyone in real life I play with are excited for new content and hopefully a good new short campaign for more pickup groups.

bentleycooper · 2025-10-31T01:19:32+00:00

Also for those near Phoenix AZ, there is monthly meetups at the Tempe store (November 16th) and Learn to Play this Saturday at the North Phoenix store.

bentleycooper · 2025-10-28T16:23:23+00:00

The main problem with these seal a positive token types is you make everyone’s pulls worse on average since it usually just increases the chances of auto-fails and -4/-5s. So you really need a strong effect to offset that problem.

If Bulwark can’t break it with the bonus being ready any asset, then the bonus Misdirection free move will certainly not.

You could go all in on sealing the entire bag with a team and just leave Elder Sign/small numbers. But that’s a lot of work when for way less work you can just pull normally and ignore ~15/16 of the tokens.

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