While I understand the logic behind this card as a down-leveled version of the popular classic. I believe printing this card was mostly a mistake. In most non-Preston decks, this card is just too expensive for what it does, and even in young moneybags, he has to boost on top of this to still succeed at something.

This card's natural home is in one main place: Jenny "Stop The Flow Of Time!" Barnes. It replaces the Premonition that tells you how much to commit/pay to hit your goal with... just flat out guaranteeing the (over)success in a very clean way.

Even outside the logical extreme, this thing goes best with big chonky Double or Nothing maneuvers, and its availability at level 0 means that even more rogues (or whomever) have access to it - and even more characters in general have access to it + Double or Nothing.

Maybe I'm wrong and there is a middle ground existence somewhere for this card, but I predict it will mostly be underwhelming or degenerate with little in between.

With the release of the Nathaniel Cho deck, guardians now have an incredible array of resource generation in-faction at level 0. In the past, I would slot two Emergency Cache into practically every guardian deck I made, but these days that feels greedy. I say greedy because cards like this one give your team more resources, even though you get slightly less (I mean, mathematically you get 33% less resources while generating 33% more resources total). Similarly, Clean Them Out gives you one less resource, but eliminates a threat for your team. Relentless pays you for overkilling enemies, which doesn't really fit into the "less greedy" theme I'm trying to point out here, but it is another in-faction resource generation card introduced by Nathaniel Cho.

My point is that it feels like guardians have better options than E.Cache these days. Though you can rarely do better than "1 action and card: 3 resources," you can often do something else in addition, which could prove more useful than just gaining an extra buck.

Not going to lie, an arcane slot card was the last thing I expected from Nate Cho's deck. That being said, this is a strange card that probably has a better place in non-guardian decks, like maybe Akachi.

My problem with Flesh Ward is that for the same amount of resources, I could have just played Something Worth Fighting For which can not only soak horror in a big chunk, but can also do it for my allies and can soak it from Rotting Remains. Basically the floor on Flesh Ward is me taking a single whack of 3 horror from a non-attack, and either dying from it or assigning one of the horror to flesh ward, killing it without spending any charges.

On the other hand, the ceiling of it feels really unrealistic: I have to take four attacks from monsters that only deal one damage of one type, spread over four turns, and then I can take one of each from anything and kill Flesh Ward, mitigating a total of six damage/horror, which is pretty sick, but not at all realistic.

I think there's probably a use case for Flesh Ward as the thing to keep your sanity up while fighting monsters that do one damage AND one horror with their attacks, which there are plenty of in the game. You'll soak some attacks, and by the time Flesh Ward runs out your sanity and health are about even. Maybe you'll get lucky and completely cancel some attacks, and sometimes you'll eat two or more damage or horror and still get hit, but for 50% or 66% of normal, which is strong damage reduction.

The bottom line here is that if you can afford the investment and the time, Flesh Ward will outperform True Grit/Something Worth Fighting For. However, resources and time are in short supply in Arkham, and unless I'm playing Tommy I generally can't find the space for True Grit/Something Worth Fighting For, making me think the same will be true for Flesh Ward, except that because of how it works even Tommy doesn't want it. Maybe it is strong enough to justify its cost for someone like Roland, but I can't tell just from looking at it. I'm sure someone who can manipulate the cancel or the charges would like it a lot, but it looks pretty underwhelming for everyone else.

Update: played the basic Nathaniel deck and got this down very early. Initially, after taking a 2 horror treachery straight to the face, I was like, "I knew it!" But having it for basically the whole scenario did end up saving me 6 health/sanity. I think I end up liking it slightly more than SWFF or TG, but it is a bit selfish.

The decision to increase this to a 2xp card was a very good one, because it was just too strong At level 0, making all other level 0 weapons poor contenders when the Machete is available. Looking back to before the taboo, the existence of Machete was very frustrating, because it discouraged trying out other weapons. Also, it permanently takes up a hand slot, making it harder to use other tools (like magnifying glass for Roland, etc) and 2-handed weapons.

So how does it stand as a 2 xp weapon? It’s still good, and now fills a nice niche instead of just limiting deckbuilding choices. At the time of this review, your choices at level 2 Guardian include Machete, Survival Knife, .32 Colt, Blackjack and .45 Automatic. Each has its own merits, and among these the Machete is still a top choice for investigators with high combat.

A fairly hefty price tag for a typical survivor deck (and Stella Clark out of the box doesn't have a strong economy engine), but Orne is a solid buy, especially for Miss Clark, whose "fail and go again" strategy benefits from controlling degrees of failure. While Granny's +1 helps you pass many Treachery tests, her ability reduces the effects of Rotting Remains, Grasping Hands, and so on and lets you you pick your poison on cards like Abyssal Reach. More positively, she also helps you trigger Grimm's Fairy Tales, Oops!, Dumb Luck, and "Look what I found!", etc. She's not as useful a Horror soak as Peter Sylvestre, but 3 Sanity is nothing to sneeze at. Granny Orne might find a home in a number of Survivor decks, and her upgrade is even better.