This is a really good card for anyone fighting with bows, swords, or Mauser-style guns. (With automatics it probably gets outshined by Sleight of Hand
You spend 1 card, 1 action, and the normal resource cost of your weapon to put the weapon into play and make an attack with it. That works out to making this basically read "0 cost, fast: gain a bonus action" as long as you draw it before you need to play your weapon, which is already pretty good. The going rate for bonus actions tends to be 2 resources, and while most are less situational than this one, 0 is a lot better than 2.
But it's more than just a bonus action card. It
- Lets you keep your weapon in hand until you need it, without fearing attacks of opportunity, and still spend a full turn fighting with it without warning
- Changes the test to agility
- Is a tactic and trick event
- and a play/parley/activate/fight action
In your level 0 deck the first bullet point is probably the most important. Low-XP investigators are slow to set up and struggle to find everything they need. Lacking good tutoring and burst economy they often must make awkward choices about what to prioritize putting into play. Engine cards like Leo or Lone Wolf generate more value the sooner you get them down, and Lockpicks only gives you 1 investigate per turn, so putting off getting your weapons down is often tempting, but dangerous. This gives you an extra turn or two to set up.
As you start upgrading though, you'll find this has so many good interactions that it almost accidentally accumulates bonus value. You can make this fast with Chuck, Roland, Alessandra, Farsight, and so on. You can turn a resource profit with Sleuth or Crafty. You can find it with Friends or Plan or Bewitching. You can use it with Fine Clothes to set up Exploit Weakness, and so on.