Ends to a Meany - Daisy Walker

Introduction

Roland Banks and Daisy Walker are the most specialized characters out of the core set. There are two key components of any successful game of Arkham Horror the Card Game: killing monsters and getting clues. Daisy is an investigating powerhouse and her extra action supports the team immensely, making the game feel a little too easy.

Required Sets: Revised Core Set

Roland's Deck.

Strengths

Daisy has two goals: gathering clues and her using her ability.

Gathering Clues. 5 will inherently make a character good at getting clues, but the cards she has access to make her unstoppable. Increasing your more with Dr. Milan Christopher and Magnifying Glass makes investigating even breezier. Working a Hunch and Deduction can get extra clues without using extra actions.

Daisy's Ability. Old Book of Lore maximizes the extra action from your ability. Medical Texts is better than nothing, but the healing is nothing compared to raw card advantage. Use Research Librarian to find Old Book of Lore if you don't draw it.

In addition, her is really good, giving you extra cards for having Tomes out. While this isn't exactly a strength, The Necronomicon isn't that bad of a weakness, so don't stress about hitting it. Just take a couple horror if it's early in the game, or let it sit there if it's almost over.

Weaknesses

Daisy's low and tank her chances of dealing with even the weakest enemies consistently. The three ways to deal with monsters are attacking/evading with Mind over Matter, Scrying the monsters to Roland, or Knife for the little ones. Her other flaw is her low health. Use Ward of Protection to prevent treachery cards that deal a lot of damage.

Gameplay

Opening Hand and Turn One. Your first priority is Dr. Milan Christopher. Outside of the extra , you will not have to worry about resources for the rest of the game if he is in your opening hand. Play him turn one. Next, look for an Old Book of Lore. It generates a ton of cards if you start with it. If you don't have Dr. Milan Christopher, this is almost equally good turn one. Take a Research Librarian if you don't have Dr. Milan Christopher or Old Book of Lore. Mulligan everything else.

Playing Around Roland. Staying near Roland throughout the game will make your life much easier because he can come kill enemies you draw, which let's you get along with winning the game. In addition, Old Book of Lore is often more helpful to get Roland his weapons, particularly if you already have Dr. Milan Christopher.

Hand management. Daisy has a lot of hand items available. However, remember that having a lot of different Tomes often doesn't matter because you generally only want to use one Tome a turn, and magnifying glass is never so important that you can't get rid of it. Thus, Daisy's Tote Bag is better used for skill tests than making sure you hold onto as many tomes as possible at a time.

Evasion. Dr. Milan Christopher can leave you with a lot of resources, which can makes evading anything trivial with Hyperawareness. Along with Manual Dexterity and Mind over Matter, she can evade problematic monsters with the right cards.

What is Out

These commonly played cards are not in this list. Why?

Holy Rosary, Shrivelling, Blinding Light, Arcane Studies. Daisy's 3 is not good enough to make her attack or evade monsters successfully with the latter two (you should aim to be two higher than any test you're taking, and 3 doesn't cut it). To be truly good, they require Holy Rosary and Arcane Studies, and adding all of these would significantly take from her investigating prowess. Leave Roland to dispatch with the monsters.

Flashlight. Daisy's hands are valuable. While Flashlight helps investigate, she's typically well over the shroud value of the location anyway, and the other cards help her investigate better.

Working a Hunch. While Daisy can play this, Roland can play it equally well, and this frees her up to take a pair of Knifes to get through the easy early monsters.

Upgrading your Deck

Medical Texts, Research Librarian 2x Encyclopedia

This card is great. It can make Roland land on any enemy, get you away from baddies, or deal with some nasty treachery card. Research Librarian is pretty bad if you already have Dr. Milan Christopher, and Medical Texts is generally worse than both of your other Tomes.

Knife Disc of Itzamna

This is a get-out-of jail free card for the peskiest monsters in the scenario. It is miles better than Knife at dealing with them.

Knife, Medical Texts 2x Cryptic Research

Free cards are the perfect way to get your tasks accomplished and support Roland in killing stuff, especially in scenarios that don't require as much investigating. These cards are removed for the previous reasons.

2x Scrying Disc of Itzamna, Bulletproof Vest

Scrying is worse than simply destroying any monsters that come your way. A second Disc of Itzamna and a Bulletproof Vest will make you stand up to monsters a little bit better than Scrying will.

Bad Upgrades. Magnifying Glass gives a very small benefit for 1 experience. Avoid it unless you finish the second scenario with 1 experience and have nothing better to do with it. Old Book of Lore is fantastic, but 3 experience to get a slightly discounted Old Book of Lore that can save you four resources is not worth it. Any other upgrade is playable though.

Sample Upgraded Deck.

Conclusion

After many games with just the core set, this is what finally got us a win. Good luck ending meanies.