I 've been waiting for this moment for quite a long of time. Finally, a Survivor weapon worthy of Fire Axe gets released. Of course, in order to make this weapon worthwhile you have to take horror almost every time you attack, but you can easily negate this disadvantage by running Peter Sylvestre and particularly his upgraded version and maybe some other soak along with him, like Cherished Keepsake. Now this makes it more of a build-around card, just like Fire Axe, but honestly, since (in my opinion) Peter Sylvestre is one of the best allies in the game, I think this is totally fine. The other fact is that this weapon becomes more powerful when you are at low sanity, so you actually want to be taking the horror anyway and by having Peter by your side, this should not be very concerning. You can even heal horror when using this card if you want, by assigning the horror you take on Peter when you attack and healing a horror from your investigator card when you kill the enemy.

This card also opens up interesting deckbuilding options and upgrade paths. Since you want to be at low sanity anyway, it seems like you can benefit from Desperate cards more, Fight or Flight becomes more powerful, and with the ally Yaotl you can focus more on the "Desperate" side of things. Also, some investigators work better with this card than others. It seems like it is a good fit to investigators with low sanity and there are some investigators that will still prefer Fire Axe over this. I will now go through a list of investigators who can use this and outline possible interactions:

• Calvin Wright: This weapon is just awsome on Calvin. He can use it to take horror on demand in order to increase his stats and he can easily get to 3-or-lower sanity in order to get the empowered bonus. Desperate cards were already good for him and now they are even better.

• Silas Marsh: With his low sanity and high combat stat, it seems that Silas can make good use of this card. He is still good with Fire Axe, but now he has a decent alternative, that allows him to kill enemies without having to go into Dark Horse/Fire Axe mode.

• Rita Young: This weapon seems like a natural fit for Rita. Honestly, I can't think of any reason why Rita wouldn't want to include Peter Sylvestre in her deck, other than being On Her Own. It's better both than Fire Axe and Baseball Bat for her.

• Wendy Adams: Her low combat stat and high sanity makes it very difficult for her to use this weapon efficiently. Fire Axe is way better for her and even Baseball Bat can be more effective than it. I guess, you can use it if you really want a one-handed weapon other than Fire Axe to go alongside Lockpicks and, interestingly enough, her weakness, Abandoned and Alone, can help her get to 3-or-lower sanity faster if she really wants it.

• "Ashcan" Pete: His low sanity makes him a good candidate, but I think Fire Axe is still better. The Dark Horse/Fire Axe combo is very valuable for him and I think it won't be easy to drop it in favor of this weapon.

• William Yorick: Weapons from the Guardian class usually do a better job at killing enemies than Survivor ones and this fact doesn't change here either. Additionally, Peter Sylvestre isn't really the best ally for Yorick, so I think the Meat Cleaver + Peter Sylvestre combo is not very valuable for him.

• Agnes Baker: This weapon is interesting for her. If she starts with double Arcane Research, she can easily drop at 3 sanity or below in order to get the empowered bonus and with the self-horror mechanic she can even deal 1 extra damage if she wants to and all of a sudden she can deal with some enemies without using a Shrivelling charge.

• Preston Fairmont: Preston is another interesting candidate. The only other, truly viable option for him has been Fire Axe so far, which denies him from playing the way he was naturally meant to be played and that is no other than stacking resources. It is however more difficult to use than Fire Axe. With Fire Axe, all he wanted was to find the weapon and he was fine. Now, if he wants to use Meat Cleaver, it has to go with Hard Knocks, replacing a previous 1-card combo into a 2-card combo, not to mention that it is less efficient resource-wise. Additionally, he really wants the empowered bonus in order to make it worthwhile and starting at 7 sanity is not helping a lot. That issue can be addressed however by tanking treacheries and enemies, or even ignore Lodge "Debts" in order to take trauma. I'm not sure how good that weapon will be on him, but at least it will allow him to play naturally and offer him more upgrade options.

• Minh Thi Phan: Her primary role is not to fight and the benefit she gets from Peter Sylvestre is insignificant for her, so I think this weapon is just terrible for her. If she wants to fight, I believe Fire Axe does a way better job.

• Finn Edwards: I have no experience playing Finn, but I think this weapon is not a good fit for him for various reasons, one of them being that he doesn't have access to the upgraded Peter Sylvestre. Additionally, Finn is better at investigating and evading rather than fighting so I think that he is better off with situational weapons like .41 Derringer and Lupara.

• Marie Lambeau: Obviously useless for her; She has a Combat of only 1 and she's a Mystic.

[Edit:

• Carolyn Fern: This card heals horror, so interestingly enough, Carolyn can take it (I missed that when I was initially writing this review). I'm not sure it's that good for Carolyn, though. She 's not the ideal investigator to be using weapons. If she wants to fight, she has better options, like Shrivelling, Dynamite Blast or Mind over Matter. This weapon however has some very good interactions with her. To begin with, if she wants to use it she definitely wants the empowered bonus so dropping to 3 or less sanity is a must. This can be easily achievable for her by running double Arcane Research and St. Hubert's Key. With these 2 cards, she starts at 5 sanity, so she can easily drop to 3 or less sanity in order to make Meat Cleaver viable (enter Forbidden Knowledge here). Arcane Research is not the best for her, but she can at least use it in order to upgrade Clarity of Mind into Clarity of Mind (3) with a 4 XP discount. She can also use cards like Ace of Swords or Reliable in order to make Meat Cleaver more worthwhile. When Carolyn uses this weapon and has a Peter Sylvestre in play, she can basically earn 2 resources simply by attacking and killing the enemy; 1 by assigning the horror on Peter when she attacks (Peter heals at end of turn so she gets a resource) and 1 by healing a horror from herself after she kills the enemy. So, considering all these, this is probably the best weapon for Carolyn. She's not the best investigator to be using weapons, but she can pull it off if she wants to.

• Zoey Samaras/Rex Murphy/Jenny Barnes: They don't need this, or have better options.

• Jim Culver: Jim is another interesting candidate. He has a combat stat of 3 and he's a Mystic, which makes it worth consideration. If he starts with double Arcane Research and/or uses St. Hubert's Key (similarly with Carolyn) it will be easier to drop at 3 or less sanity and he can use allies like Alyssa Graham or his Trumpet in order to soak or heal horror so that he avoids the danger zone. I'm not sure it's quite that good for him though, but it's an option. My guess is that Enchanted Blade will probably be better than Meat Cleaver for him.]

A significant disadvantage this weapon has is that it can be painful to attack 3 times in a row when you 're facing a tough enemy, so it's good to have alternatives for when you get swarmed or when you 're up against a boss. So, considering this, this card does not make a good pair with Will to Survive, which annoys me quite a bit, because a Survivor running Fire Axe was facing the same problem, so this weapon doesn't change that a lot. It doesn't make Will to Survive unusable, but taking 3 horror for 6 damage in one turn isn't really the best thing you can do, unless your Peter is fully healed.

In the end, I think this weapon is best for Calvin, Silas and Rita. Calvin gets the most benefit out of it and the other two are good fighters and have alternatives when they are facing a tough situation. Other investigators can also benefit from it, but I think these 3 are the best candidates.

I really like this card with Agnes. At first I wasn't quite sure if it would be worth the slots as she can already be pretty strong with Shrivel and Spectral Razor (Scrounge for Supplies loop) ... so I took it out. I then realized that I relied on it a bit not for damage, but for healing horror, and I suppose saving charges or razors when for a tougher enemy. Put in some Fight or Flight and you can finish off an enemy with your meat cleaver and heal some of that horror.

This is not just a good card when played in a specialized way to maximize its benefits. I want to make it clear that this weapon is also very useful as just a general purpose weapon in the Survivor weapon pool. At the time of this writing, survivors without access to weapon-oriented classes have a very limited selection of weapons, and this can be the most reliable available weapon if you don't want to deal with the weird limitations of the other survivor weapons. The Fire Axe is a great weapon, but it forces you to give up all your money when you use it, which is really annoying if you don't want to play that type of character. And the Baseball Bat is also a great weapon, but aside from requiring two hands, it can suddenly disappear at any time and leave you without a weapon. The Meat Cleaver may look like a weird weapon because the way it manipulates sanity, but it really isn't that difficult for a normal character to use. You do not actually need to reduce your sanity to three to use the weapon as a + 1 bonus is still just as good as a machete, and while your sanity does tend to go down when using the weapon, it is not absolutely essential to play with Peter Sylvestre; it is pretty common that it gives you back the sanity you lose, so your overall sanity loss is usually pretty slow, and survivors have lots of other ways to soak some horror if necessary. In any case, the reality is that if you want to be serious about fighting you normally need more than one weapon in your deck so you can actually draw one when you need it, so even if Meat Cleaver is not your very favorite weapon, it is still available as a perfectly functional weapon to round out your deck.

If you’re willing to use up an arcane slot, this can be a tremendously fun weapon for a guardian to Enchant for Agnes. Between two and four damage for an alpha attack, depending on your starting horror and whether you want to take one and/or heal. Using a holy meat cleaver has a huge impact on your sanity!