An extremely fun and exciting addition to the game.

This card is kind of similar to Vicious Blow, in that it allows one of your attacks to deal +1 damage, provided that the attack hits. A very strong effect.

To flesh out the comparison a bit more:

--Compared to Vicious Blow, Marksmanship costs 2 more resources and 1 more XP;

--Marksmanship only works on Firearms or Ranged weapons;

--Marksmanship doesn't grant +1 to hit;

--Marksmanship can't grant bonus damage against enemies engaged to you.

However:

--Marksmanship can target enemies one space away, which is very nice and can often save you an action;

--Marksmanship ignores Aloof and Retaliate. In this case I don't think avoiding Retaliate is that significant. You probably wanted to heavily boost your Marksmanship attack anyway, such that your odds of hitting were very high; this means Retaliate is not a huge concern. (And of course some targets won't have this keyword anyway.) Avoiding Aloof is a nice action-saver when it comes up. But this is going to be relatively uncommon because not many enemies both have this keyword and are reasonable targets for Marksmanship. (It's a bit of a waste to snipe a Whippoorwill).

On the whole, I think Vicious Blow is the stronger card; its advantages will basically always be helpful. Marksmanship's advantages are much more situational, requiring specific enemy keywords and specific enemy placement, which you may or may not encounter in any given scenario.

With that said, Marksmanship is still a very welcome addition to the Guardian class and something I will gladly run in addition to Vicious Blow. +1 damage is extremely powerful. (This will be obvious to any veteran of Arkham Horror LCG, but if you want an explanation of why +1 damage is so good, read my review of Vicious Blow.) So Marksmanship will be well worth running, provided that you have a lot of Firearms in your deck. Ideally, these will be really strong firearms like Lightning Gun, because that increases the chance you can get maximum value from Marksmanship by sniping a powerful enemy one location away in only one shot. (The generous to-hit bonus on something like Lightning Gun or Shotgun will also reduce the chance that you miss and waste the card; this is particularly welcome since Marksmanship itself does not help your attack hit.)

Cool and fun card. Whip out a ranged weapon and snipe something, its a cool card in idea and practice. it's just not very good.

This is what the card does:

• A +1 damage effect, these are hard to come by in a manner that stacks, layer on the Vicious blow and the gun and you're dealing 4+ points of damage in one hit. Sometimes the 3-damage attack is good enough too!

• Sniper effect. You counter a couple keywords that might increase the risk or cost you an extra action. Ever so often you save an action moving into the enemy, since the enemy might be located to one side or at a finished spot, this then might double up by not making you haul yourself right back again.

You get quite a bit of cool stuff, so that would make it seem like a good card right? 2 saved moves is EASILY worth 2 spent resources. The extra damage. Sounds good? Not quite.

This is a -card-, you gotta draw it, play it, costs money to play and most importantly, it's 1/15th of your deck! characters do not have much luxury in card draw unless their name is Joe Diamond. also struggle with resources.

What I'm getting at is this: Marksmanship is this real cool effect, a timesaver and circumstantial problem solution, doesn't actually do much that you cannot already, no extra accuracy nor grabbing clues or evading or whatever. If Marksmanship isnt immediately helpful, it's a full blown dud! You might draw the enemy yourself, it's engaged with you, a dud! Dealing +1 damage wont let a 2 damage weapon kill a 4 HP enemy, a dud! Maybe you just don't afford it, even if you got the cash you need to save it to pay for the next weapon or ally and the 2 resources will set you back too much, a dud!

........

So you see how many shades of "dud" the card is? I've toted copies of this cards in my hand in PERFECT scenarios, drawn it even. Rougarou? Miskatonic Museum? Pretty much all of Carcosa? It just isn't helpful enough. In a card game the best decks have as few potential duds as possible.

The literal best-case scenario is to combo Marksmanship with Lightning Gun or M1918 BAR and Stick to the Plan. This way all the combo pieces will be uniquely easy to assemble and play on demand.

Firearms get a shot in the arm.

There are a lot of good things to say about Marksmanship. To be concise, this card is an action saver. At its best, it can save you over a turn of actions (MOVE to connecting location, ENGAGE an enemy off an ally/an aloof enemy, FIGHT for 2ish damage and FIGHT to finish off a foe) and at its worst, it saves you two actions, which is still really good.

It is a tactic, so it can be played off of Stick to the Plan, meaning you will always have it in your back pocket.

And really, the only thing that this requires of you is to run guns... which have gotten a lot better thanks to Venturer and Stick to the Plan (with Extra Ammo).

Oddly enough, this card is probably best in Rogue who can double or nothing with this and really put the hurt on a boss, from afar.

A great card, well worth the xp!

Oh and don't be fooled by the art. Don't use this with barricade and the springfield (my heart wants them to be playable!).

No reviews in several years. But this card is really good. If you're a flex, I don't think there is room for this card in your deck. But man, if you're a primary goon, this card can be amazing. If you split up from your cluever for some reason, this can allow you to snipe an enemy off them without taking a move action. Sure this is just fine in primary guardians, but oddly, I think this is better in off-class guardians who use firearms or ranged assets. And as of Hemlock Vale, there are really only 2 who care about it; Skids (especially if using the bow and by the same reasoning, Lily) and Tony Morgan. Tony loves this card. Sure tony can pick 1 of 3 sub classes, but as primary goon, going guardian sub-class makes sense. He gets vicious blow, the new Strong-Armed, and this.

Especially for Tony Morgan, this card neutralises his weakness. Now you don't need to spend additional actions getting to your quarry's location, and engaging. Even in someone with an extra action every round realistically, saving 2 actions on average for 1xp and 2r is great. Not to mention the other times this could come in handy. Using this on any normal gun acts as a vicious blow already, hitting that sweet 3 health spot, able to deal with most things statistically. But especially, the aloof ignoring is super useful if you know the campaign, or your allies. The man in the pallid mask? Great. Kohaku's signature weakness? great. There are plenty of examples, but man. In Tony especially, this card can do some WORK.