Barnestorming

This is a 29xp standalone Jenny Barnes deck designed for solo play, but also suitable for multiplayer in an enemy-management role.

The deck centres on strategic use and re-use of Sleight of Hand to play items, make use of them, and then return them to your hand. Once those item cards are back in hand, you can either commit them to tests or play them for their full cost (which Jenny can handle without issue given her independent means). Cards which especially work well with Sleight of Hand are:

• Colt Vest Pocket: Since this gun enters play fast in this way, and returns to your hand before the end of the round, you get to use it without worry.
• Lupara: Whip out this shotgun as a fast action, empty it into the monsters with its bonus combat and damage, and then slot it back in its holster.
• Leather Jacket: If you need to take some attacks of opportunity, or are anticipating some heavy damage, you can throw on the jacket, soak the damage, and then take it off again - essentially this heals you one damage and returns to hand, or heals two damage and discards.
• Flashlight: Since the flashlight doesn't exhaust, you can use its three charges in the same turn to become a clue machine, and then replay it later on to get its benefits all over again.

Some items here do not combo so well with Sleight of Hand - particularly Jenny's Twin .45s (which enter play with 0 ammo if you sleight them). Cards like Eye of the Djinn and the upgraded Lucky Cigarette Case don't really benefit either from Sleight of Hand, although it does let you bring them in fast.

Here is how Jenny gets things done:

• Enemy management: You probably want to shoot or punch enemies rather than evade them. Since this deck is actually not very expensive to run, one strategy is to save up some resources and hard-play Jenny's signature shooters in the endgame with a load of bullets to blast foes with impunity. In general, sleight-of-hand-ing weapons like Lupara and the Pock-pock should see you through (or just evading in a pinch with icon help from cards like Promise of Power.
• Discovering clues: Lola Santiago is an important ally (so important that the deck brings Charisma along to free up a second ally slot), as she can leverage Jenny's regular income to buy clues as needed. Flashlight (preferably sleight-of-hand-ed) and Perception help you out before Lola gets into play).
• Card draw and resource generation: Given the low cost curve of this deck and Jenny's inherent ability to generate two resources a turn, this deck does not have any additional ways to generate resources (although such cards would be easy to add in if you want to). But card draw is a different matter - you want to be churning through your deck fast, (1) to find the cards that you need for the task at hand, and (2) to be able to replay Sleight of Hand as often as possible. Draw power comes via Lucky Cigarette Case, Preposterous Sketches, Perception and Overpower; Quantum Flux is there to refill your deck once both Sleights are in the discard pile, and the singleton Daredevil is in here as a big red button to mill your whole deck (bar weaknesses!) if all the cards you want are in the discard pile. The deck is asset-heavy so once you go through your deck for the first time, ideally your deck should be much thinner, with items either being in play or in hand, and the deck consisting primarily of useful skills and potent events.

tokens plays a secondary role in this deck. Priest of Two Faiths is a great cheap ally to give you damage and horror soak, and puts tokens in the bag to give you a helping hand, but its generation, aided by Promise of Power and Ríastrad, can pay off once Eye of the Djinn enters play, giving you the potential for extra actions (it's one of the few items you should keep in play longer than a turn). If you find that tokens in the bag become a problem, you could slot in a card like Dark Ritual to help control things.

Jenny Barnes goes down a storm at any society soirée, but she also causes a storm when eldritch monstrosities make their unwelcome way into her world - so take her forth to fight the darkness, barnestorming her way to victory!