Bob Bought Himself a Beretta for Christmas

Bob feverishly paces around his office, a look of frustration plainly written on his face. "Greedy Guardianses, always asking Bob to buy rogue weapons for them, to give them his resources. But no, Bob never gets to use them for himself." He eyes the Beretta M1918 on his desk covetously as he says this and tentatively reaches out a hand towards it. "And after all, why shouldn't I? I spent the experience on them. I made the connections. I should be the one to keep them!" And as he lays his hands upon the weapon, Bob the Salesman disappears, and Bob the Monster Slayer appears in his place.

Bob's Big Gun Emporium is Closed! Bob's Monster Hunting Service is Now Open!!

Introduction

So often Bob is cast in the supportive role on the team, reduced to the role of a glorified pack mule, spending his hard-earned experience and deck slots on weapons and items for the "real" fighters in the group. And while it is very fun to buy a Sawed-Off Shotgun for Mark Harrigan, I think it's Bob's turn to have that fun for himself.

I had previously run a big gun Bob deck through the Edge of the Earth campaign and it worked well enough to get the win in the campaign, though it was often inconsistent and slow to set up. Since then, however, there have been a few new cards added that I thought could improve the deck, namely Dirty Deeds, Long Shot, and Pushed to the Limit, that give it a level of consistency and throughput that it was sorely lacking before and really pushed the deck to a spot that can hold its own.

Now, that's not to say that Bob will be a one man murdering machine. As a 3 Survivor, he doesn't have the same raw power of someone like Tony, nor does he have the tricksiness of other survivors like Rita. However, he does bring a good amount of flexibility and support to the team, which I think gives him a very different feel and playstyle to other fighters. I do recommend pairing him with an investigator that can supplement their own damage at times (I ran this with a Minh deck that had Transmogrify and Occult Lexicon), but otherwise, if you're like me and you enjoy trying out different combinations of cards just to see if they can work, this was a very fun and satisfying deck to pilot.

Disclaimer: My experience is almost exclusively at the 2-player count on Standard difficulty and the deck choices and playstyle are made with that experience in mind. Use your best judgement for modifying this for your table.

Overview

The goal of this deck is fairly straightforward: when enemies show up, shoot them with a big gun. More enemies? Throw your gun at them and then push it from your discard pile. Until enemies show up, set up your other assets like Lonnie, Schoffner's, and your coat.

This game plan is hardly unique to Bob; It's a fairly standard fighter strategy, and other rogues such as Jenny, Finn, Winifred, and Tony all have similar card access. So what does Bob bring to the table that lets him stand out from the other fighters? Namely flexibility, support, and a fairly unique card pool.

• Bob's base 4 : Every fighter is going to have those odd turns with no enemies to fight and Bob's base 4 allows him to very easily investigate 1 or 2 shroud locations on Standard difficulty to help advance the game. This means he doesn't need to run the standard clue-grabbing events like "Look what I found!" and can allocate those deck slots to other cards.

• Bob's additional action: An additional action to play an item really helps smooth out setup turns and resolve those awkward turns where you need to play, move, and fight all in the same turn. Additionally, when there's nothing to fight and you're done setting up, giving the cluever an additional action to play their Lockpicks or Grim Memoir means that's one less action they are spending to play a card and one more action they can use to investigate or set up themselves.

• Card access: One of rogue's bigger weaknesses as a class is their slower starts in the early scenarios of a campaign. Survivors, by comparison, are a lot scrappier with their level 0 cards, so Bob being able to start with a mostly survivor deck and then upgrade into the powerful rogue cards is a big plus. Starting with an .18 Derringer is a lot more reliable than starting with a .41 Derringer, for example, and other investigators like Finn and Jenny have a limited number of survivor splash available.

Notable Card Choices

Dirty Deeds

• As the card that inspired the deck, I felt that this needed it's own section. There are many facets to this card, so let's break it down.

  • Dirty Deeds gives a ton of consistency, acting as a "third" and "fourth" copy of each weapon. If this is in your opening hand, you don't even need to worry about mulliganing for a weapon or getting one down early. Just keep this in your hand until an enemy spawns and then play it to tutor out the weapon and fight with it.

  • Since you don't need to play it until an enemy spawns, this gives a lot of freedom in the early turns of the game to do additional setup, explore the map, even investigate and grab some clues.

  • Ignoring the costs of the weapon's activation is anything before the colon of an asset's ability. This includes exhausting the asset, spending ammo, and the activation cost itself. So not only does this give the weapon an "extra" ammo, but you also only need to succeed by 2 on the Beretta's first shot if you need to fire it again since you didn't need to exhaust it. Note that for the Chicago Typewriter you would still need to pay the extra action for the extra +2 since that effect is after the colon (like 99% sure on that one).

The Preciouses...I Mean, Guns

• Beretta M1918: The main star of the show. A colossal +4 overcomes Bob's base 3 and the ability to deal 3 damage at a time means you are fully capable of mowing down enemies, as long as you can succeed by at least two, which you should be able to do fairly easily with Lonnie out. This is the default target of Dirty Deeds.

• .45 Thompson: Not as big of a boost to as the Beretta, but I prefer to have some redundancy in my weapons. The upgrade can be delayed for quite a while, as the main benefit is a 1 resource cost reduction and an ability that honestly isn't likely to matter or even trigger very often.

• .18 Derringer: Two copies in the level 0 deck help us clear out enemies in the initial scenarios before we get the Berettas included. +2 for a level 0 weapon is not bad at all, plus it's an Illicit card for Dirty Deeds in desperate situations.

• Baseball Bat: While not a gun, two copies are included in the level 0 deck because we need weapons with decent combat boosts in the initial scenarios and this is the best option. Upgrade to the Berettas ASAP.

Economy

• Schoffner's Catalogue: It's like an Emergency Cache but for just items! In Bob, this goes up slightly in value for a couple reasons. This is an item that can be played with Bob's additional action and it can be recurred with cards like Resourceful, as well as played for 1 resource cheaper with Shrewd Dealings in play. You can also lend other investigators some of the money to help pay for their items as well.

• Bank Job: One of the new toys for Bob to play with in Hemlock Vale. Honestly, if I could run two, I would, but Bob's restriction of only 5 level 0 rogue cards makes it hard to fit (though you could remove a .45 Thompson and add another Bank Job). Bob doesn't feel the extra action cost of the card as much since he still has his additional action. Play Bank Job and you still have two actions left to play Lonnie and a weapon. Compressing two Emergency Caches into one card is also nice for deck space, and if you end up not needing all of the money then you can always give some over to another investigator.

Supporting Cast

• Pushed to the Limit: This is another great new card for this style of deck. Did Crypt Chill make you discard your Beretta? Not a problem! Push it from your discard, shuffle it back into your deck and then pull it back out with a Dirty Deeds. Because of all this redundancy, I was often even committing spare Berettas and Thompsons to tests to help me succeed, knowing I could use Pushed to the Limit on them later.

• Long Shot: A crucial new card for Bob as a fighter and fighting Survivors in general. They now have a way to kill those odd health enemies (4 health enemies with the Beretta). This is especially important in the first few scenarios, when your margins for defeating enemies are a little narrower, usually requiring skill commits. Killing those enemies in one big shot vs multiple mediocre tests is a big deal and a big tempo increase no matter the scenario.

• Lonnie Ritter: With no level 0 boosting option in Survivor, Lonnie sorta becomes the default choice, but she's still well worth it. Beyond the boost, she also provides near infinite horror soak as long as you have a Leather Coat or Heavy Furs out. This is especially great given that she can help soak Bob's weakness Greed.

• Leather Coat vs Heavy Furs: We need an Item asset with health to work with Lonnie and which one you choose is up to your personal preference. I went with Heavy Furs to have an on-demand way to put damage on it so that Lonnie could heal, as well as a way to cancel a bad token that could mess up the Beretta's over-success requirements. However, the 2 resource cost is not nothing, so you could go with Leather Coat just to reduce the cost curve a bit.

• Black Market vs Lucky Cigarette Case (3): The deck desperately needs card draw and once again which one you choose is up to your personal preference. I went with Black Market because I valued initial setup more than a drip feed of cards over time. In the worst case where I bricked on a weapon or Dirty Deeds, Black Market could bail me out, whereas LCC requires that you have your weapon out to consistently trigger its oversuccess condition, thereby defeating the purpose a little bit, in my opinion. Black Market could also be used on another investigator to help them find their cards should you not need it. This also isn't a deck that can trigger a big test with something like Lockpicks every turn, so the value of LCC goes down somewhat. Plus, I'm just a little tired of playing LCC in every rogue deck, sue me.

• Savant: This is the deck's encounter deck protection. It doesn't have the space for "You handle this one!" at level 0 and didn't quite have the resources to afford Counterespionage in the upgraded deck, so 4 icons on a test is how we mitigate treacheries. Also useful as 3 icons on any other test, such as Beretta shots that you really, really need to over-succeed at.

Notable Exclusions/Other Considerations

These are cards that I excluded for various reasons but could be considered based on your team composition, playstyle, or personal preference.

• Bruiser: This was in the first fighter Bob deck I built for EotE to provide economy and repeatable skill boosts. I omitted it this time because it was sometimes awkward to play due to its up-front resource cost and the fact that I was running the current deck with Minh who could provide the repeatable skill boosts. Could probably replace the Schoffner's Catalogue for these if you want.

• Easy Mark: This is about as close to a staple as you can get in Rogue, but 3 cards is quite a lot and I had a hard time finding the deck space for them. Plus, assembling multiples to play in one action is a little more difficult when not running LCC (3). Could cut the Cherished Keepsakes for them, they were a bit redundant.

• Another Day, Another Dollar: This should have been in the deck as a luxury upgrade but I instead went for a cheeky Copycat instead for funsies. Definitely get this when you have spare experience, the extra money really helps smooth things out.

Upgrade Path

When upgrading cards in a deck I put them into three broad categories - Core, Secondary, and Luxury - and prioritize upgrading in that order. Core cards are necessary for the functionality of the deck. Secondary cards support the Core cards but are not key to the deck's function. Luxury cards are nice upgrades but the deck can function without them.

• Core

  • In the Thick of It → 1x Dirty Deeds (3): I don't always get In the Thick of It, but this spends the XP cleanly to get one of the Core cards and with Lonnie healing the trauma isn't as risky. I took 1 Physical and 1 Mental.
  • 2x Baseball Bat → 2x Beretta M1918 (4): Priority #1 for upgrading, this plus Dirty Deeds are the reason for the deck.
  • 1x Take Heart → 1x Dirty Deeds (3): Take Heart was just a place holder card draw, Dirty Deeds does the job better by tutoring.

• Secondary

  • 1x .18 Derringer and 1x Cherished Keepsake → Black Market (2): Second copies of these cards are a bit redundant and Black Market gives us better consistency for finding our Core cards.
  • 2x Unexpected Courage → 2x Savant (1): At 1 XP these can be slotted in any time you're upgrading and have the spare experience.

• Luxury

  • 1x Emergency Cache and 1x Act of Desperation → 2x Emergency Cache (2): Tacking on a card draw to E Cache felt worth it, plus a nice benefit for another investigator off of Black Market if needed.
  • 2x .45 Thompson → .45 Thompson (3) OR Chicago Typewriter (4): Either one of these is fine, the Thompson saves you actions at the expense of lower , the Typewriter gives better at the expense of actions.
  • 2x Another Day, Another Dollar: More money at the start of the scenario can really help smooth out the early plays. Can be bought earlier if you're feeling the strain on your economy.

Conclusion

I always enjoy trying to deckbuild for investigators in different or unusual ways. Asking, "Could Bob be built as a fighter?" and trying to build the best version of that deck that I can is always a satisfying puzzle to try and figure out. Usually those decks end up being a little too janky but this one surprised me not just in how well it performed, but also in how much fun it was to play a fighter who wasn't hyper-focused on fighting and could contribute to the team in a more supportive role. It was also interesting to see how this deck has evolved from the last time I attempted it and very satisfying to win a campaign with Bob of all investigators as the fighter.

Thank you for reading this guide! If you also enjoy playing slightly janky decks and want the satisfaction of thwarting an Old God with Bob as a fighter, I hope you give this deck a try or use it as inspiration for your own version. Good luck and have fun!