I would like to add a new perspective to □ Tripwire. Players might think of a time bomb trip wire with 1 count by combining with □ Improved Timer and □□□□ Explosive Device (additional 5 XP investment). But you can stop at just □ Tripwire. By eliminating any enemy appearing in the same turn they appear utilizing -1 Fight, -1 Evade, the trap lasts indefinitely! If you want to put minimal XP in the trap this is a strong 1 XP wonder.

My friend was attempting to left □□□□ Explosive Device around with some timer and Resign, leaving the rest of the team to lure enemies to the bomb and fight using the reduced fight and evade. It was a cool but unfortunately the rule says the trap must be removed following that player's elimination (resign). (Same for attached Map the Area, Breach the Door, etc.)

Control of Attachments : Player retain control of the card attached to location (which is a scenario/encounter card).

Elimination : The cards he or she controls in play and all of the cards in his or her out-of-play areas (such as hand, deck, discard pile) are removed from the game. Any card that player owns but does not control that is in play remains in play, but if that card leaves play it is removed from the game. (The trap is both owned and in control, so it will not get remain in play.)

This is my favourite card in the Scarlet Keys pack (among many great cards).

Why?

• It's flexible: Customisable offers lots of ways to lean into a card giving lots of replayability in future campaigns.
• It's powerful. It's REALLY powerful.
• It's a puzzle. If you manage to get 3 enemies with Power Word in play, managing them all each round is a challenge, and sometimes a negotiation with other players. When you solve the puzzle, the benefits are huge. Sometimes the "solution" means an investigator has to compromise in some other way.
• It's a story. I play AHLCG for the RPG moments and this card creates many. I had turns where I Commanded 3 enemies to do things to my will, then blew them all up with Storm of Spirits, followed by an Ethereal Slip across the map to victory.

But more than anything, it's the best card because It's ALL those things combined. There are many great cards in the game, that do one or another thing very well. Consider Grizzled. It's hugely powerful, and flexible, but, in the end, it boils down to "just" an incredible Skill card.

And that's why I love Power Word because it enables us to enjoy every aspect of what makes a great card, in one place.

Thanks to this card, any 4 of the Dunwich investigators who aren't above taking things can work together to create a garbage can lid that has 7 other, smaller garbage can lids hidden inside of it.

Has science gone too far?

EDIT: No it has not, due to the play-from-garbage-only clause on shield, which I overlooked. Wow. What a literally garbage card.

There are plenty of sad stories behind this location... Most often, it is a place where one of our beloved investigators is buried forever. An extremely hilarious place for the first blind playthrough.

This is a neat card thematically, but let's do the math.

For the purposes of this, let's assume actions, cards and resources are an equivalent value, since you can always spend one action for one of either. They aren't, but weighting the value of actions and cards is even more unkind to the skull.

Playing this out costs one action and one card, starting you at a -2 deficit for no return. You have to do this early on, because things need to die around you before you can actually use it, and you can't guarantee when that will happen.

Clicking once costs one action for one resource and one card, so you're still at a net -1 deficit.

Clicking twice costs another action, so you've now broken even. You've now spent three actions and a card to gain two resources and two cards. That's equivalent to not playing the skull at all and simply clicking for the cards/resources, except with much less flexibility, and you're wasting your accessory slot for the privilege.

It's not until the third activation, requiring three dead enemies/allies and four invested actions to actually start to come out on top economically, and only barely. At that point you've heavily invested in improving your basic Get Resource/Draw Card action, something you (ideally) aren't actually using in the back half of the scenario.

That said, the upgraded version is phenomenal, if you can stomach 3xp. Assuming you can play it out and wait for three things to die around you (or two with Akachi), you can jump from a -2 deficit at install to a net +3 payoff on the first click. It even compares favorably to the elite ciggs, which continues to only draw one card/turn. It is a shame that 3xp prices it out of Leo or the ever-hilarious Bow Wendy decks, but Tony and Akachi can make great use of it.