Roland Banks (TTS)

Pros and cons

Roland is a character good at finding clues by killing monsters. He has a good amount of Health (9), which comes to balance with his low skill (2), so he can take a few hits from agility testing treacheries.

His low sanity of (5) makes him vulnerable to willpower tests. We need cards to protect him from those treacheries.

He may be good at finding clues but his weakness card is there to mess with his plan - better draw it in the beginning and deal with it fast rather than at the end of a scenario.

Last but not least his resource income is pretty poor - be very careful where resources are spent. Don't play many heavy assets that cost a lot otherwise Roland will be left in a bad position costing actions to defend yourself.

Gameplay

Try to get a weapon asset in your hand from the beginning. There are 6 weapons and the best choices are Machete and Roland's .38 Special. Use Flashlight in low shroud locations and keep Evidence! and Working a Hunch for the high shroud ones. Guts, Physical Training and Dynamite Blast their use is for willpower tests. If you have the resources you can play Dynamite Blast as a boss finisher.

Ideal first Hand: Machete, Flashlight, Emergency Cache, Guard Dog, Unexpected Courage.

Upgrade route

You don't have a lot of choices in the core set. There are two routes: the fun one with the Shotgun and the efficient one with Encyclopedia.

Shotgun route: Buy asap a Shotgun with 2x Extra Ammunition and swap them with 2x Physical Training and 1x .45 Automatic. While it looks strong in terms of fighting you usually won't draw often the combo; and Shotgun without Ammunition is actually meh..

On the other hand, Encyclopedia seems the best choice here. It costs only 2 xp and you can add an Elder Sign Amulet to protect your sanity.

After buying your core choices go for 2x Beat Cop to upgrade those 2x Guard Dog and you are ready to enter the 3rd scenario and hope for the chaos bag to be nice to you.

Summary

Most people think Roland is a good starting investigator to enter the game and learn the mechanics. I would agree that he is easy to learn but difficult to master. His low sanity is his main problem and you can easily be defeated from a treachery card.

In the Dunwich cycle, Roland gets some beautiful cards in his hand and you can be more creative and versatile. I hope you like this guide and we'll continue with his Dunwich deck build.