Stir the Pot

This card would be a lot better if the first sentence instead read like this: "Parley. Choose any amount of enemies at your location and test (Book) (X), where X is the chosen enemies' combined damage/horror values."

The way it is right now, it's only usable in specific boss encounter scenarios on enemies that deal 4+ combined damage/horror value, and even then you also have to succeed on a 4 difficulty test. Of course, it feels like a 5 XP card when it's in that specific case, but that makes it a niche purchase.

If the text was written just slightly different, you would be able to more consistently get the 5 XP payoff from this card, not just on boss enemies. If you were able to select any amount of enemies, you would have the option to make your test harder, but deal that much more damage in return. Sometimes you want to deal with thicker enemies that have 3-4 health, but they're not bosses or deal little damage (hello, Coterie Enforcer).

Plus, there is a downside to the upgrade where in some situations you would be able to deal more damage with the level 0 version, by using it on an enemy with 1 damage/horror value.

fr0nt1er · 3
It is cards like this that makes rogue stronger than guardian. This is the perfect end game boss fight card - With one card you can wipe out all enemies at your location. — liwl0115 · 41
Detached from Reality

If I could take this weakness as a player card I would, it’s incredibly useful, on many an occasion have I found myself stuck with other investigators, needing prep and keep thinking “wouldn’t detached from reality be amazing right about now, 2 horror for an elusive and ethereal form blended together and I don’t have to pay for it?! Not to mention my precious deck size isn’t impacted. Overall I’m claiming that this isn’t a weakness, it’s a siesta and Luke doesn’t want to admit it

Mystic101 · 18
Until you need to resign to win and you can't... — MrGoldbee · 1453
Wilson Richards

Wilson has two powerful abilities. Firstly, he becomes a completely normal 3/4/4/3 investigator when activating a Tool asset. Secondly, as befitting the investigator who came in the same box as Wolf Mask, he has the ability to make Wolf Mask look underpowered when he plays it.

Oh, and he very occasionally gets a resource discount.

Play Wilson as a pure fighter, and you'll soon wish you were playing any other investigator. Wilson doesn't get the additional clues from Roland Banks, doesn't get the stat boost & draw on demand of Mark Harrigan, doesn't get additional resource like Zoey Samaras, or additional actions like Tony Morgan/Leo Anderson, or recursion like William Yorick. Heck, he doesn't even get Guardian 5 access. Even Sister Mary with a Hammer or Spear fights better.

As a flex, Wilson's tool access means he plays like a 4 mystic who needs to play out more assets to be effective, has worse draw, less skill value, and more expensive assets*. The one upside Wilson has over a mystic is that he can use Geared Up quite decently, but that only slightly offsets the sheer number of assets he needs to play, and you'll find him less useful than even poor old Jim Culver who at least could ward off an Ancient Evil or two. To add insult to injury, he can't even take Michael Leigh.

Ad Hoc would have had decent combo potential if Wilson had any way of stringing a combo together reliably. As it is, you might be able to get off a free hammer swing or a free investigate in the game if you're lucky, but it's no way something you can depend on.

Future tools and upgrade/improvised cards might breathe new life into Wilson, but I wouldn't be holding my breath.


* Investigative tool assets are all hand slots items, which means you'll need to play out tool belt/bandolier/tinker if you want to use a 2 handed weapon. Unlike a mystic who gets away with simply boosting , Wilson has to boost both and to handle high fight and high shroud locations. You also don't have access to draw options like scroll and Arcane Initiate, econ options like Uncage and Prophetic (Wilson can't take Crafty), your recharge options are more expensive. I struggle to see any upside.

suika · 9437
That's unfair, a Hatchet build works great with him. There are enough cards that make use of his investigator abilities and enough cards that can easily boost his stats well, too. He's no vanilla fighter, but not as cumbersome as he looks, either. — AlderSign · 290
Havent played Wilson yet, but I dont see why he'd be a bad fighter so long as he draws ad hoc to get extra fight actions out of his turn. He has huge burst potential with ad hoc and pushed to the limit that other characters dont. — Spamamdorf · 5
Hatchet is a finicky weapon you use when you can't use better weapons. — suika · 9437
@Spamamdorf: Properly set up an in an ideal board state, Wilson has pretty high burst *potential*. He just has no way to reliably realize that potential. The problem is that Wilson has no reliable way to set up ad hoc (it's one copy, you want to play it on a specific weapon and you have terrible draw), or to draw/recur the cards to disard for ad hoc. — suika · 9437
Hatchet is also a fun and strong one with the right synergies. I guess at this point one has to ask themself why they play this game? To overpoweredly win every aspect of it or to solve fun puzzles. To each their own. — AlderSign · 290
What's fun is subjective, what's strong is less so. I've never commented on how fun Wilson is or isn't, I said Wilson isn't strong, and the fact that he can use Hatchet doesn't change that one bit. — suika · 9437
Opinions are also subjective. I don't get, for example, why your review downplays the resource discount and card pool access. If you can deckbuild and get a bit of XP you can make him strong. Just not in a combat-5-fighter-straightforward way. Ad Hatchet (not letting that one go): As someone who used it as main weapon in one of the worst standalone scenarios for it and won I have a huge amount of respect for it - again, you just need the right cards to make it work (which Wilson has access to). — AlderSign · 290
I downplay it because they're not very good? If your opinion is different show me a Wilson deck that performs well in 2p expert I'll be very happy to change my mind and learn something. — suika · 9437
I agree with most of your analysis, but I'd say that in my opinion, if Wilson could find Ad Hoc reliably, then he'd be a fun and efficient investigator, but having no way to find the one card that basically turns your power level from mediocre to good is really frustrating. Hopefully something will come to change this up, but I highly doubt it... — Valentin1331 · 69473
https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/4314607 — AlderSign · 290
Wolf Mask

0/10 because no thought to balance or thematics were given in the design of this and all other masks. I am cursed to forever see ____ Mask played in every single boring deck people play until the end of time because it's blatantly broken. Truly a terrible fate until I get tired of it and stop playing Arkham Horror.

Seriously though, I really hate these masks. Events and skill cards are the more interesting types of cards, and these diminish their use by virtue of being a ridiculous stat boost.

CHA · 7
Weird they didn't get chained. — MrGoldbee · 1453
In my point of view, Wolf Mask is the best (or most easy to use) one for what it's made for in comparison, sharing the place with Sparrow Mask. I think the other ones (Mouse, Fox and Cat) are more limiting in their replenishing mechanic. — AlderSign · 290
In my experience this hasn't happened at all. The masks turn up often but I don't even see them in half of decks, even wolf mask. — Primpod · 2