Butterfly Swords

You ever say to yourself "I want to attack with ALL my stats" well right here we have for you today a grand special deal.

Roland's Enchanted Butterfly Knives of the Mind! (over matter)

Never again have to think about which stat does what, just add them all together and blast your opponent with them!

Zerogrim · 295
Astronomical Atlas

So, this card is pretty great. It isn't cheap (3-cost, 3 XP), but it ends up reading pretty close to "you draw an additional card each turn" + "you get +1 skill value to a random test each round", and you could do a lot worse than that.

I don't usually consider how many icons are on my assets, but if you are running this in a "regular" Mystic, it may be worth upgrading that Shrivelling to Shrivelling pretty quickly for that extra icon. Generally, I assume you'll use the first every round, and then find tests you are pretty likely to pass to get the cards into your hand.

However, one exceptionally powerful use of this card is with the new signature asset for Norman Withers, Livre d'Eibon. Use Livre d'Eibon to put a skill from your hand on top of your deck, then attach it to the Astronomical Atlas. Then, take a skill test where you can commit that card and get the benefits. When that test ends, you get the skill back, and you can repeat it the next round. Who would like a Deduction or Perception every round? Norman would.

Veronica212 · 300
Combining Livre d'Eibon with Astronomical Atlas to recycle Deduction is a decent way to close out a game, but nothing special compared to running vanilla fingerprint kits. — OrionJA · 1
It costs 1 less resources than a fingerprint kit and is essentially an endless combo until you auto fail while fingerprint kit only has 3 uses. Not sure how they're comparable. — Pollia · 1
Schoffner's Catalogue

Schoffner's Catalogue isn't a good card on its own. The reason is obvious; having to pay 2 resources, a card and a play action for 5 resources is a lousy deal. Yes, you can pay for other investigators' stuff, but the item assets-only clause is a severe limitation in a game with events, spells, allies and whatsnot. Also note that most investigators tend to play their items early-to-mid game, making Schoffner's Catalogue less relevant as the rounds pass by.

Still, it's a good card for a few investigators:

  • Bob Jenkins really likes this card, as he can play it as an extra action and use it to pay for all his other items. The catalogue as an item based support package is literally designed for him.
  • It's also decent for parallell Daisy Walker, as the catalog is pocket sized and requires no hand slots. And =Daisy can use it to pay for her other tomes and as a target for tome-related shenanigans.

Other highlights:

  • Recursion. The catalogue is automatically discarded when empty, making for an easy combo with Scavenging. With Scavenging (2) you can even get it in play without spending a play action.
  • Tome interactions. Whitton Greene to find it, Library Docent to bump it or play it for free, etc.
  • It's also a possible source for harvesting secrets (Eldritch Sophist).

All in all, a niche card that works well for Bob and possibly parallell Daisy. Other investigators will have to find ways to make the catalogue more efficient to make it worth their time - such as a support Minh with Scavenging or a Yorick build with enough costly items to make the catalogue worth using his ability on.

olahren · 3579
I know of a certain actor who might want to keep this near his scripts... almost like recursion is an inherent part of his character... — supertoasty · 40
It's a fair point, and I've updated the review to mention Yorick. Our dear aspiring actor can certainly use the catalogue. — olahren · 3579
Question: do we know this takes a hand slot? The text shown here doesn't say. Also a minor point; Bob's item-playing appears to be an extra action, not a fast action. Same net tempo benefit in a vacuum, better in some cases (Payday!), worse in others (engaged by enemy). — HanoverFist · 755
HanoverFist: We know that it doesn't require a hand slot. Luckily! It would be quite a lot worse if it did. Good point with extra VS fast action; I've edited the review (I quite enjoyed Pay Day in my Bob Jenkins VS Circle Undone-test deck by the way) — olahren · 3579
Great addition to a Minh Scavenging deck, probably instead of Charles Ross. — AlexP · 286
olahren: Awesome, that does boost this card's stock significantly. It really feels like the design of this cycle leaning so heavily on multiplayer asset-trading(Bob Jenkins, Untimely Transaction) hinges on getting more slotless assets worth trading. This now kinda fits that bill- everybody likes money, and this is basically money in book-form. Just... not very much of it! — HanoverFist · 755
Do you play emergency caches? If so, why would you look at this card and say a net gain of 3 resources for a card and a play action are no good? — AussieKSU · 1133
And the cost of 2 resources, and the item limitation is mute compared to the regrowth you can get with scavenging. Sure it's not as universal at e cache, but it's much stronger in many ways. — AussieKSU · 1133
It's a niche card, but for that niche, it's a perfect fit. It's stronger in multiplayer if you have partners with expensive decks, and, of course, if you have some way of bringing it directly into play (IE, Scavenging(2) or Yorick). — Xelto · 7
There is also the additional benefit when playing Dark Horse that you can still play more expensive Items without sacrificing the benefits of Dark Horse while saving up to play them — ErynnWoodward · 1
Gift of Madness

Q: When no more set-aside Monster enemies left, can I trigger action ability on this card to discard?

RR "Target" says :

The term "choose" indicates that one or more targets must be chosen in order for an ability to resolve. The player resolving the ability must choose a game element (usually a card) that meets the targeting requirements of the ability.

If an ability requires the choosing of a target, and there is no valid target (or not enough valid targets), the ability cannot be initiated.

csfeelx · 1
However, discarding Gift of Madness from your hand can change the game state. So you can trigger the ability to discard this card, even if there are no set-aside enemies left. — toastsushi · 74
But, by the "Target" rules, ability cannot initiated when have no valid target. And ability means not partial sentence but entire sentences. So, isn't it right that I can't trigger action ability while first sentence has no valid target? — csfeelx · 1
The colon appears before "Randomly choose 1 enemy...." this means that it's not part of the cost to trigger this ability, only the spent action is a requirement. So you can trigger this ability by spending an action, then you fufill as much of the effect as possible. When there's no monsters left, you can still discard the card. You payed for the cost to trigger it and fufilled as much of the effect as you possibly could. — MaleficMarby · 31
Thanx. I understand that "ability requires..." belongs to "cost". If so, in a similar case, is there any problem using "You handle this one" just to get 1 resource when I'm playing Solo? (have no valid target, but the game state changes by get 1 resources.) — csfeelx · 1
Sometimes, we overlook "choose" but "choose" defines the target of the ability and it works as another requirement in AHLCG. As long as it states "choose 1 enemy ...", you need an valid target (=set aside enemy) to trigger this ability. One possiblility is that "randomly choose" is different from "choose" but... — elkeinkrad · 497
For example, I'm sure you agree that you can play Eavesdrop only if there is an unengaged enemy in your location. Here, undefined X is 0, which means that you test intellect (0) if no rule prevent you play Eavesdrop with no unengaged enemy. Similarly, you can play Followed only if there is an enemy in your location. — elkeinkrad · 497
@elkeinkrad. So you're saying we can not trigger this card's action capability when no more set-aside monster remain? — csfeelx · 1
@elkeinkrad You're right. I just checked the Lonnie Ritter's FAQ. According to that, an ability with "choose" must needs a valid target. So we can not trigger this card's action ability trigger when no more set-aside monster left. — csfeelx · 1
Lonnie's FAQ does not apply. The second part of the ability is the requirement of the target, therefore you cannot trigger it if no item has damage on it. On Gift of Madness, the second half is done regardless if there was a target or not. Otherwise, a part of the game will be unplayable and you will be driven insane. — toastsushi · 74
@toastsushi. I know. I find that part strange, and that's why I asked this question. However, according to the choose rule about Target mentioned in the Lonnie's FAQ, this card's action ability "cannot be triggered" when no more set-aside monster left. Is there any rules to judge differently? — csfeelx · 1
Lonnie's FAQ particularly emphasized about "choose" rule. And "Ability" means not a one sentence, but the whole sentence. I also think it's unreasonable, but, by the book, isn't it right that we can not? Maybe the designer made a mistake, or want to drive someone insane. — csfeelx · 1
I beat this with Nephthys, luckily. — MrGoldbee · 1493
Azure Flame

This card has an unexpected synergy for an investigator who came out years earlier. Jim Culver, musician, can use this spell to great effect. His power lets him to treat the elder sign as a skull, and skulls as +0. But that’s different than the token.

So when Jim puts Flame into play, he’s only afraid if he draws an actual zero (on hard or expert, there aren’t any +1s in the bag.)

This makes it much better for him than shriveling, which can trigger off during a skull token even if it counts as a zero.

MrGoldbee · 1493
He also has pretty even health/sanity, as i recall. This also lets you focus your trumpet heals on encounter horror and horror from clairvoyance. — SGPrometheus · 847
I wouldn't call it a synergy, really, because Jim treats Azure Flame just as well as any other investigator. His power doesn't really interact with it. — DjMiniboss · 44
His elder sign does — MrGoldbee · 1493
That's fair enough, I just don't feel like it's particularly good for Jim. That's one token out of at least sixteen. — DjMiniboss · 44
There are not that many tokens, where "Azure Flame" (or the other Jaqueline spells) will hurt. In that regard, Jim has a significant lower chance of taking the blow, in Expert even better then Easy. — Susumu · 381
Take for exampte the NotZ bag. The Elder Sign is regarding these spells 1 out of 6 "bad" tokens on easy, 1 out of 4 on standard or hard and even only 1 out of 2 on expert. — Susumu · 381