Arkham Horror Base Set: Neutrals

I think I owe us some Neutral cards for now! Behold, the terrors that would make a man turn Neutral!



3 XP and 2 resources for 4 HP, and a 2-icon Wild spread. Body slot isn't used by a lot of classes, either, making this a very appealing upgrade to a lot of characters. The great thing about these Neutral cards is you'll pretty much know if your deck needs them or not. 4 HP is a LOT; that blanks an average of two monster attacks, and almost doubles some people's Health. I like it.



And here's the Sanity-based mirror image, which is about as good for all the mirror-universe reasons. However, the Accessory slot is a lot more contested for many characters; does Wendy really want to be paying XP and money for these while waiting for her real Elder Sign? Of course, there's nothing wrong with using these as ablative armor (which is what they're made for, after all), and using them to their fullest until you draw your other Accessories. Sounds good to me.

I mean, yes, this makes Roland into a 9/9 durability character, but that's at the cost of 3 XP (or 6, if you get both). That's a viable build. All the XP cards are build cards; how do *you* want your Roland to go? Shotguns/Ammo for boss killing? Seeker nonsense for solo application? And so on. I don't think any of the experienced cards are must-buys for all possible permutations of a character; that's the joy of deck building, right?



Turns one basic monetary unit of the game into three of another at the cost of one of the third (action, resources, card). That's a pretty solid rate (it's not quite as bad as +1 action net gain, because you might have drawn this as your free draw at the end of turn, or from a multiple card draw spell, or a storyline effect, or etc.). Largely, it feels like a 3:1 compression, and it pays you in delightful boxes full of, it seems, crowbars, accounting ledgers, masquerade masks, and Tommy guns, which just goes to show you that Queen Wendy will have the bestest inauguration ball since that Hastur loser got kicked out of the Maple Theatre (there is no gin in your Emergency Caches because Wendy has already claimed all of it).

Right now this is the best resource generator in the game for non-Rogues and non-Mystics, and the simple efficiency of it means Skids and Agnes will want it, too. That being said...it has no icons for commitment. When you need SOMETHING to make that final push to win the adventure, a pile of resources is probably NOT what you need to draw in the clutch situation. Also, down the road with a larger card pool, I can see decks with a low resource curve not needing a card that fundamentally does nothing to the board in their design. In many ways this feels like the equivalent of the Netrunner Sure Gamble/Trust Fund cards; they were (and are) awesome and everyone ran them for years when the game came out, but then more cards in the pool meant some decks didn't want them, and now inclusion is a conscious choice, not a must-have.

But for now, hell yeah, they feel good to play when you draw them, and they definitely help the resource economy here in the early days of Arkhamming. Just remember that except for Wendy, having too many cards with no icons increases the odds you won't make a clutch test when you need to.



Here's a dependable little buddy that eats up the always-important hand slot. Potential front-runner in the first annual Scavenging Exploitation Beauty Contest, the Flashlight is a reasonable investment for a pretty good investigation bonus, and it comes with an Intellect icon as well, which is always valuable.

Look, Hand slots are valuable. But if your Intellect is 3 or less, you're going to need reliable help to investigate (and if it's higher, you still don't mind having it). Investigation is HOW YOU WIN. This gives you three +2 bonuses to your investigations, which means three very sure shots at getting three vital clues. I could see Daisy not bothering with these, but they're quite useful for anyone (even Roland, with his alternate clue-eating ways), and 2 resources for 3 clues is a great bargain. It's not sexy, it's not an XP card, it eats up a Hand slot, but consider the humble Flashlight before you leave to investigate the ghouls in your basement.



The Neutral Skill cards give a sizable icon boost with the benefit of a card draw (to you, regardless if you play this on someone else or not). That's a very tempting combination; sinking a skill test and drawing a card for no resources. These are very viable cards -- but again, be wary about flooding your deck full of Skill cards. Skill cards do stone cold nothing unless you (or someone on your spot) must make the specific test they can help with, and then you have to decide if the current test is important enough to spend your Skill on. If your hand is full of like two Guts and a few Overpowers and stuff, you're not doing much on the board. So by all means, play them, but at least now, I'm not seeing a deck that goes heavy into all-Skills doing that well; Assets seem to me to be far more viable (again, the sample decks from FFG give a deck breakdown of roughly 70% Asset, 20% Event, 10% Skill, which seems like a great rule of thumb to start your own deck building).

I've been hard on the Willpower icon in these reviews. Its not that I view it as useless; it's an important Skill. The encounter deck can be full of nonsense that will force you to make all sorts of Willpower tests. The trouble is, for most investigators, unless they're spellcasters they have no normal use for Willpower reliably. And if the encounter deck or Agenda doesn't ask for them, they may never make a Willpower test all game. You'll really want those Willpower icons when the random encounter draws come up, but otherwise they're dead cards in hand.

So that being said I'm relatively happy with Guts. The art and theme are awesome, and if you're worried that your character has a weakness in Willpower (Roland, say), having two of these in your deck seems a reasonable way to boost up your weakness and even cycle a card or two along the way. This does have less applicability on playing on other players, as, again, Willpower is the most random of stats to be called on.



Knife, as the only Neutral weapon, is obviously there so anyone who needs a weapon can get one. But who the hell needs this? Even at 1 resource, Knife barely delivers for what you get. Roland and Skids can get Guardian weapons. Agnes has spells. Giving Wendy only +1 Combat means she still loses against most foes, and if she throws it she spent 1 resource for an average hit, once. Yuck.

So who wants a Knife? Well, it is dirt cheap, and a +1 Combat is better than +nothing Combat. If you feel you need more weapon density in your deck just for self-defense -- which is totally valid in this game -- this is cheap and reliable, easily replaced with no heartbreak when you draw a real weapon, and even has a minor oh-**** button in case of a tough fight. I think it's best when you're using the Skill Talents; Wendy finishes off two bottles of gin with Hard Knocks and then goes to town with her Knife, and now we're talking. In fact, the investment in Knife in that case is basically a permanent 1 resource Wendy doesn't have to spend on her drinking habit. But the thing is there...once you're using Hard Knocks (or any of the other Skill Talents), then the same bonus applies to any other weapon. And all other weapons are better than Knife.

So it is what it is. It's a very cheap weapon anyone can use if you feel you need a few more weapon draws from your deck to feel safe, and that you'll throw away as soon as you don't need it. That's not bad for 1 resource. Just remember that for low-Combat characters, the bonuses Knife provides are so very, very small as to be practically nothing; this is much better as a makeshift or side weapon for Roland or Skids than an actual battle plan for Daisy or Wendy.



The Agility Neutral Skill. Agility is more easily called upon to test than Willpower, so this will be a dead card in your hand less often. Otherwise, yeah, it's a card-draw Skill card. Play it if you think that's what your deck wants to do (Skids and Wendy, especially, should love this -- this gives Wendy more draw to look for her Elder Sign).



And the Combat Neutral Skill. Useful for everyone; maybe Agnes has a slight antipathy towards it, because she favors Willpower so much. Also, +2 Combat to Wendy just makes her horribly average at best; are you putting cards in your deck to make your character average, or to boost their strengths?



The Intellect Neutral Skill. As Intellect defaults to the Best Skill (as investigation IS HOW YOU WIN), this is probably the Neutral Skill you should run if you feel you want to run some, but don't know which one to run.



And then we come to this card. Which, besides the awesome in-joke nod to a classic LotR card, has some interesting things going on. First off, is that a kid from a Spielberg movie fighting off a velociraptor? Are the Goonies coming to Arkham (if so, Wendy is NOT sharing her stash!)? What the sam hell is going on in this picture? It's like the least Lovecraftian thing we've seen!

Also, how badly do you want two Wild icons? This looks awesome for everyone, because it gives +2 to anything, even another player. Unlike the other Neutral Skill cards, this doesn't give a card draw, which seems completely fair in that it's +2 to anything, for anyone.

The drawback of maximum 1 committed for any of the Neutral Skills seems pretty minor; they shouldn't be a large percentage of your decks, so it's doubtful too many people will have a lot sitting around in their hands. It does prevent carpet bombing a vital test near the end game, however, so spend them if you got them!

For right now, I think I have to start two of these in all my decks, and see where we go from there. Like all Skill cards, they're entirely reactive, not proactive, and don't develop the board, but they're great on resource-curve lowering, and give a significant benefit for just a one card investment.

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Since they go into your deck, we might as well discuss the Basic Weaknesses you get randomly dealt into your deck by the game.

By deck construction rules, you make your deck, then shuffle the Basic Weakness in randomly. Nothing in the game says you don't get to know what you have, however, so feel free to look at what your Basic Weakness is before you start playing. Knowing if you have Amnesia or Haunted in your deck changes a lot of potential game plays you have. And, again, any card with "Revelation" must be played by you as soon as it enters your hand by any means.

Also for new players, you cannot start with a Weakness in your hand. If you have one, you get a free mulligan for just that card. Weaknesses are always in your deck when the game starts, so each character has two painful cards in their 28 remaining waiting to be drawn.



Well, this sucks. Do note there is a rule that you cannot chose to discard a Weakness if you have a choice. So if you're Agnes, and your horrible Dark Memory is in your hand, and your other Weakness is Amnesia, when you draw Amnesia the only card left in your hand will be Dark Memory! Fun! (So obviously if you're Agnes with Amnesia, you play your Dark Memory ASAP). As a clarification, as Amnesia is a Treachery card, it moves directly to your Threat Zone, so it is never in your hand once you draw it.



Yuck. This is much more vital to get rid of ASAP, because -1 to all Skills makes even the Standard CHAOS BAG!!! a -2 difficulty, which is going to skunk you on nearly anything you try to do. You didn't need those two actions, luckily, right?



This one is a lot more manageable, and on more balanced durability investigators its not totally horrifying. It's painful and nasty, but the usual way you take damage is by not fighting. A lot of characters are quite good at fighting or evading. Do those well enough, and your Hypochondria won't even be noticed. I will point out that it's Direct Horror, which means your investigator has to suffer that directly (no soaking it on your buddy cop!). But, because it only triggers when *you* take the damage, you can slough off your damage to your various Cops, Vests, and Guard Dogs and never suffer from this weakness. Until you no longer can, of course.



For those who have not played this game, this is what a monster looks like (OK, fine, an "Enemy", not a monster). The three stats above are Combat test difficulty (so you need a 4 to hit it in Combat), HP (it has 3 HP), and Evasion test difficulty (so you need a 3 to evade it). The average hit you make on it deals 1 damage. The damage it inflicts on you each turn automatically, and each time you suffer an attack of opportunity, is on the bottom (1 HP, in this case, and no Sanity damage, which would be mirroring the HP damage on the other side of the Basic Weakness glyph on the textual bottom of the card if there was any). Can you see why it is nearly impossible for Wendy to defeat this with 1 base Combat? Why her using a Knife to boost her to 2 Combat is basically worthless?

The other terms just mean "this is your monster, deal with it". "Prey" with "only" means it will only attack you. Hunter means it will move one space per turn trying to find you. The special action lets you defeat the Enforcer for 4 resources, which seems totally reasonable for *any* character to pay. Even Roland, who has even odds on defeating him, will have to invest at least two actions and some other resources to try to defeat this beast of a Weakness. It might just be faster to pay up. The "parley" keyword has special rules text in some cases, but largely means you can use Parley abilities without suffering attacks of opportunity.

See what fun enemies are!?



This is maybe the least annoying of the Basic Weaknesses? Because you can always get more resources, and they're interchangeable, unlike the very specific cards Amnesia makes you throw away. Not saying this doesn't suck, but especially if you're running close to the wire, you may not even notice this.



And here's the Sanity mirror-image of Hypochondria, for which most of the same comments apply. However! However, Agnes' play style is very much self-inflict Horror to do fun stuff. Psychosis on Agnes is very much NOT fun stuff. Agnes no like this. Well, nobody does, but it's most crippling on her.



Another Enemy Weakness. This guy is a 2 Combat/3 Evade 3 HP critter, so much less nasty than the Mob Enforcer...except for the fact that he doubles the advancement of Doom tokens. Hint: you probably want to kill him ASAP.



And the Stubborn Detective rounds out our Basic Weaknesses with maybe the most annoying Weakness of all. Yeah, his combat stats aren't that horrifying (although Wendy will struggle, as always, with straight combat), but his ability...man. Thanks to the definition of "your" in the book, when the Stubborn Detective is in your space, even if you are not his Prey...you're blanked. Is the whole party at one location? Everyone's blanked! No special powers for anyone!

He doesn't touch Assets, or Events, but losing your main abilities? I sense a potential bit of group mob violence against the Stubborn Detective if he sticks around too long.

Mob violence, backstabbed ghouls, and gin -- that's how Wendy's Arkham rolls.

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And that ends my wandering tour through the base set investigator cards of Arkham Horror. I'd like to thank you for taking the time to join me in this delightful journey, to thank Queen Wendy for her generous donation of martinis, and my music library for giving me nice things to listen to.

If there's any interest, I'll be happy to keep these going as the game line develops. Suggestions and hints on how to make them better or less aggravating to read are also always welcome.

Take care, and whether it's theatre, music, dance, or whatever, visit some live art today! Your local artists will be happy, you will be happy, and happiness means the A-Team will finally return to the air. So it is written.