All out of Spells But still got Shells

Introduction:

I am currently on a quest to try fighting with every weapon in arkham horror so when the card Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 was revealed I knew I had to try it.

Then began the search for who could use the weapon well and there were a couple good options but the clear front runners were Dexter Drake with his ability to supplement with spells or Nathaniel Cho with his ability to supplement damage with events. But some of the Tricks Dexter Drake has + his crazy action economy made me pick him.

What I originally wrote off as a meme list just to use the weapon once to say I had used it, ended up being better than almost every fighting deck I have made (that doesn't abuse cyclopean hammer).

Highlight Cards:

Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 provides a massive +5 boost alongside +3 damage but comes at the downside of being a once per turn weapon with bad action economy meaning you are extremely vulnerable to hordes of enemies. This leaves you with 2 major problems to solve action economy as you ideally want to reload before end of turn every time, and a secondary way to fight when not reloaded.

Action Economy Cards:

Leo De Luca, a classic of many rogue decks you really cant go wrong with 1 extra action per turn

Quick Thinking The massive stat boost on mauser makes this trivial to get the extra action barring no pesky auto-fails

Haste One of the more rules abusing use cases, the fight actions on weapons and spells and the reload on Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 are activate actions meaning you can activate 2 weapons and then follow up with reloading for free.

Extra fighting Cards:

Sometimes when out of shells you just need a couple spells. Dexter's massive willpower stat means not much investment is needed here to easily fight most enemies. These are great XP dumps later on with the level 4/5 versions being very powerful.

Azure Flame this is the worst of the spells because the downside is easy to hit and it makes you take health damage but I will mention it because early it is good and if you are playing a campaign like drowned city you can use the diving suit to soak it making it a lot better.

Shrivelling Comparable to Azure flame but you have more sanity and sanity soak with Holy Rosary

Breath of the Sleeper The best 0 xp mystic fighting option but once you get XP an easy card to replace.

Brand of Cthugha probably the best spell in the game once you have the xp for it and the replacement I used for Breath of the Sleeper.

Finding the Big Gun:

Finding Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 is actually the main reason why I was considering Nathaniel Cho as Prepared for the worst allows him to easily locate the gun but Dexter Drake has some great magic tricks.

Molly Maxwell This is the replacement signature alongside Yaztaroth for Dexter and Molly is a powerhouse by naming firearm you instantly get to draw your gun off her and she acts as a great soak outlet or card draw engine afterwards too.

Black Market This card is crazy crazy strong in a mystic + rogue hybrid deck not only does it act as a pseudo Prepared for the worst but it lets you hand out the suite of mystic cancellation cards, rogue economy, and finally if you already have a gun it can enable the rare double mauser setup. This card is an absolute powerhouse and you can mix and match utility cards to fit your investigator setup, my campaign featured 3 mystics and a rogue so everything I was handing out was useful but it is so versatile.

Upgrades/Core cards spending priority: Link to fully upgraded XP deck from my Drowned City Playthrough: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/5309688

1. Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 x2 : This is the whole deck

2. Easy Mark For 1 xp for the set this is basically free

3. Charisma This card lets you have Molly and Leo out

4. Black Market x2: this is where the consistency comes in and is just massive QoL for bad mulligans

Nice to have upgrades:

First Cards to cut when upgrading: Sixth Sense, Deny Existence, Promise of Power, Arcane Initiate, Voice of Ra(if economy feels fine without)

1. Spells, upgrade whichever you like I would keep at least 4 fighting spells in the deck the whole run with this being my tier list: Brand of Cthugha>Shrivelling>Azure Flame>>Breath of the sleeper These upgrades will feel good

2. Observed Passive power every scenario prioritize the doom clearing, mulligans, draw, resources over stat boosting but definitely personal preference.

3. Ward of Protection

4. Spectral Razor

5. If you are getting 60+ XP in a campaign idk what else you can really get but you could start looking into buying some super luxury cards like Deny Existence

Mulligan phase:

You have a ton of flexibility in mulligan with this deck as a single spell can carry you till you get Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 so rather than most fighters where you have to full mulligan for your weapon here you can keep good cards. For example keeping a hand with no Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 but a spell and Leo De Luca is totally fine to do.

Cards I never Mulligan away: Molly Maxwell Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 Brand of Cthugha Leo De Luca

Conclusion

Dexter Drake is crazy strong but also Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 is a super slept on card, on paper it is bad and I worried this deck would be non functional but in reality it trivialized the fighting with it being able to basically solo fight in a 4P campaign a task many decks cant really do.