This weapon is bad, and there are a few reviews that say it is, but it is hard to understand just how... amazingly terrible this weapon is. On first blush it is just not that good but it is actually far more insidious than that.

To understand why this is such an amazingly bad weapon, you need to do my favorite thing: Lots of math!

Drawing from the bag a lot of times to achieve an effect is, in Arkham, a bad thing to do. This isn't intuitive, there are many games where "Make 3 tests to do 1 damage 3 times" is actually better than "Make 1 test to do 3 damage." Arkham is not one of those games.

When making attacks with the swords, you test twice. One is probably an auto-success if the other has any chance of success, which means your expecting about a 7% to 4% autofail on one, and 25% fail rate on the other (say... you have 7 total combat strength vs a 5 fight enemy). This means your expected damage comes out to about 5 expected damage when swinging this thing around in a fairly standard situation to be in, which makes it not even a full +1 damage weapon. You are just flatly better off using a weapon with a stronger hitrate boost than a +2 in this scenario, as well as making your attacks hit harder than a mere +1, rather than trying to play into some weird sort of consolation prize for failing while also failing more. After all, you can make up for lost damage on fails way more easily by doing double the damage AND failing less, rather than attacking twice as often.

And your reward for probably being worse than a neutral 1 handed weapon in output is... producing more scenario specific negative tokens. Assuming there are 2 tokens you really don't want to draw for their own sake in a 15 token bag (which is pretty standard for arkham early to mid campaign), you will see one of those really bad tokens 43% of the time. This is probably the best you can expect, but it can get much, much worse.

Just a little example that minimizes spoilers: In Carcosa's first scenario, if you are trying to push past an enemy in a room affected by the scenario, you can expect to take 2 horror every turn you fight with these (not to mention it is a scenario with a -4 symbol). Obviously you can't have the swords at this scenario, but if you hypothetically had the butter knives right now, you probably would completely kill yourself from full health as most guardians after 3 turns of fighting.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg: Spawning enemies, placing doom, losing clues (though obviously that last one is less of a concern for guardians), losing assets, enemies healing, enemies damaging friends, losing actions, all of these things and more can happen on token draws and more! The terrors trying to do kung fu will bring you cannot be understated, and it is why this weapon is so amazingly bad: Not only does it make you worse at fighting than pretty much any other XP weapon that doesn't have a taboo (and probably most 0 XP in guardian) but it makes the game harder for everyone as your turn partially becomes Arkham Horror's turn.

This is why 'purely benign' skill cards like Alchemical Transmutation are considered bad if their upshot isn't strong enough: Merely drawing from the bag for a skill test is a downside even if the listed consequence for failure is 'nothing' often enough. Even rogues don't generally set themselves up for lowball 'nothing' tests.

"But what if the first attack would generally hit?" If the first test would generally pass anyway, you absolutely should be using a different weapon. The only advantage of the swords is to make it virtually guaranteed you will do 1 damage vs enemies you have a harder time hitting. If you are fairly sure you will hit anyway, you hurt yourself any time you are not stabbing a rat because now you fail to do 2 damage 10% of the time (assuming the bag is fairly mild that scenario), compared to the 5% of a normal weapon. Doing more than 1 damage an attack is why you bring weapons in the first place, baring some very specific exceptions, and this just made you WORSE at it than a 2 XP weapon. And, obviously, this gets worse the worse the bag is for you, and it causes worse things to happen to you over the course of a campaign. If even 3 'really bad' tokens are in the bag, you actually will expect to see more than one a turn on average. It gets really terrible for you, really fast.

"What if they release a card that rewards you for spamming attacks?" This is called Custom Ammo, it is fantastic. They will probably never release a version of this card that would work with a machete, and building around 5 XP card using an equivalent event or skill in guardian is obviously a non-starter: Yes you could with a hypothetical full turn +1 event do 13 damage on the turn you play it... or you could just use a lightning gun or flamethrower every turn, and just use the support slot in the deck for ammo. This card will probably never get support because any support it does get would be too dangerous to game balance in the context of other, better weapons. We might see it on something like a character power, but if it was gunna happen it would probably have happened on Lilly Chen. Maybe a scenario specific asset, but obviously that is of very limited general deckbuilding utility and even a damage boost of 1 probably isn't good enough to overcome the 'you are drawing bad tokens every other turn with this and your team is begging you to stop' problem. Either way, if they were gunna print that and intended for it to be used with this weapon, wouldn't it have been in this set?

"What if I am Lilly Chen, or don't want to use ammo synergy cards?" Timeworn Brand exists, which out preforms this card in basically every way as well as freeing a hand slot for a useful tool or backup weapon. As does Cyclopean Hammer, which usually radically out preforms either as long as you build around it even slightly.

The cruelest thing about this weapon is that it came out in the EOTE box, which is probably the worst campaign to use it, because it will probably actively kill you there on your first playthrough if it gets even remotely cold, but there are a few other campaigns this weapon is very bad, such as Carcosa (where in some scenarios skulls are effectively autofails, meaning you will have 4 autofails in a 17 sized bag and thus you will be doing an average of 1.2 damage a swing with these even assuming you are otherwise good on the bag), TFA (Speedrun killing yourself!) and TCU (where pretty much every scenario past early game has really bad token effects).

We could also get into all the anti-synergy with any sort of temporary boosting effect (like 'pay to pump,' exhausting boosts, or committed cards), or the fact these are a nightmare vs any retaliate enemy (again, have fun in Carcosa where you will statistically take more damage than you deal vs some enemies just from the skulls+autofail problem!), and how these are not technically a strict upgrade on knives 2 (they have overall better potential damage, but if you care about having a very 'sure thing' 2 damage they are worse for characters with good speed), but the fact these are low damage weapons with a big downside is already enough to sink them as a concept: You want your low damage weapons to either have the potential to do more than high damage weapons, or come with some big upside that overcomes the fact they don't do the primary job of weapons as well. You don't want them to have a special gimmick that just makes them worse.

This weapon could be named 'Cursed Butterfly Swords' and it would make more thematic sense, the effect of drawing lots of tokens will cause so many bad things to happen it feels like it should be a "I gain radical power in exchange for this benefit." effect. But in reality it promises, at most, just 1 extra damage on top of what a Timeworn Brand (already not exactly the highest damage weapon in the game) does if everything goes perfectly, and has a lower average expected damage output than it in reality. It is deeply in need of some sort of help to make any sort of sense to take in any deck.

Not saying that this is a great card, but it's a fun challenge during deck buildung (and upgrading) and makes every opening hand draw exciting. I had some success with Geared Up and Rex Murphy, but most things I noticed should work with different investigators as well.

1.) Try to find cheap items rather than pricy ones. Costs of 1-3 are the right spot. In fact, my Rex' deck contained no items more expensive than 3. You should be able to pay for ALL your items from your starting hand.

2.) Upgrade your items as soon as possible. Not only will it makes your early game more powerful, upgraded items also have better icons for committing into skill tests. Sometimes they get cheaper too or have abilities.

3.) Mulligan hard for items, even if it hurts.

4.) Because you pack lots of items and often two copies, clever ways of discarding copies (with bad icons) from your hand or from play helps your mid-/late-game where you already have your assets out. Examples are Cornered, Occult Invocation, Blood-Rite, Act of Desperation or even mitigating discard effects like in Divination or Mists of R'lyeh. I paired Geared Up with Forced Learning to get rid of double items during upkeep. Items which go away or go empty like Disc of Itzamna or Scroll of Secrets allows you to refill the slots. Investigators like "Ashcan" Pete and Wendy Adams (Hello In the Thick of It / Versatile) for discarding cards from hand, but also William Yorick and Dexter Drake should find ways to utilize left over items.

5.) Remember that you still can play fast cards or use actions on your items in turn one. That's why I love Eon Chart, because as a item it grants free move and/or investigate actions right at the start. The tabooed Scroll of Secrets (all versions) helps you refilling your hand for the mythos. Fast Events like Working a Hunch or Shortcut (2) also are playable in turn one. Funny: If you happen to find No Stone Unturned (5) in your opening hand, you could play it right at the beginning of the investigation phase (but before your turn begins) to catch Schoffner's Catalogue, a critical weapon or signature item or Backpack (2) for playing it for free with Geared Up.

6.) To get the most out of it economy wise, non-fast items comes to mind. But don't be afraid to include fast items like Magnifying Glass, Ice Pick or Segment of Onyx. You will get the resource reducing anyhow. Also fast items don't slow down your mid-/late-game if you draw them late.

7.) The most difficult part for me to make Geared Up work is to find items with different or no slots. Because if you have a pile of cards which required hand slots you'll end up drawing them as essentially dead items slowing down your game. Relic Hunter is a possibility to play more accessories. If you look closely, there are neat items with no or odd slots: Dream-Enhancing Serum and Talisman of Protection just use arcane slots, if you have no spells to prepare. Slotless mentions are Handcuffs, Mk 1 Grenades, Bandages, Tennessee Sour Mash and Liquid Courage. And then there are the great Schoffner's Catalogue and the footwear items, of course. The true winners in my Rex Murphy deck though were 2 Strange Solution, which I upgraded with the help of Into the Rabbit Hole and Shrewd Analysis. 3 Segment of Onyx (also slotless) were fun, too. You shouldn't play much body slot items, because Backpack is the best option here (if it works with Geared Up, playing the item assets one at a time, which I think it should). Once I were able to play all items from one Backpack, followed by another Backpack.

8.) Be aware that there could be a few locks in scenarios, but also cheesy benefits to consider. In Curse of the Rougarou I started the game at a location were I was not allowed to play any assets at all. If you use the tarot deck from Return to Circle Undone, there are all sorts of silly interactions: One tarot card that forbids to play assets turn one, another steals slots or cards in your opening hand, starting resources or your mulligan. On the other hand, “2 fewer actions” don't hurt you at all, and 2 additional mulligans or 2 additional cards in the opening hand get very powerful.

This card is an instant classic in big money Sefina, but even better in Underworld support big money. (Why would you run that? Because it gets you a smaller deck which gets you closer to Double, Double.) With scroll of secrets, tennessee Sour mash or any number of spells, this is free real estate. And you can even use it during the encounter phase to boost a well-connected. Definitely worth one XP. And the flavor text is fun.

This card came out in the same pack as Bob Jenkins, and it’s a card about selling something, so obviously Bob should take it, right?

Surprisingly not! While it’s a good way to retain money in the party, you can already split the cost of items, and you get a free action to do so every turn. We slotted this in a four player campaign and it mostly stuck in Bob’s hand, especially when his signature came out.

But other rogues, especially ones who pack double assets for reliability but only slot one… this is upside. Winnifred can sell off her spare lockpick or Mauser to a seeker or guardian. Sefina can give a spare crystallizer to Nathaniel… or if there’s enough money around, double double and sell liquid courage too.

Smart use is giving people things they can’t normally play with (like guns to Preston and Lily). Genius use is using this with your survivor to give them a card that cost just as much money as they have, so they can trigger Dark Horse and you get a nice round number for well-connected. Plus, you draw a card for being such an upstanding player.

Fun fact: the quote for this card isn’t from game lore. It actually came from playtesting.

As dezzmont said, this weapon could be on the anti-taboo list someday, hopefully.

I think the intent of the Game Designers was to force Lily Chen to invest in multiple stats over the course of the campaign, first with Spectral Razor, Brand of Cthugha and of course take advantage of your Spells used to boost the Dragon Pole. Then transition to that helps for every attack, and end the campaign with for all the upgraded cards.

Butterfly Swords, Defensive Stance, Sweeping Kick, Dodge, Fang of Tyr'thrha, Combat Training are all focussed and this all goes to "Sounds good but I will most likely never use it" area as there is literally no reason to use any of these when the Cyclopean Hammer is better on every aspect and doesn't require you to transition from to .

So I was thinking of leaving a review about how I wish to make this weapon better, while still fair.

The Combat bonus:

When comparing to the Cyclopean Hammer, the Flamethrower, the Lightning Gun, Shotgun, the combat bonus of +2 on a Hand x2 lvl 5 card seems a bit minimal for a basic attack.

The exception is the Holy Spear but it comes in a deck that is suppose to pull a lot of to compensate for the low bonus.

Suggested Fix:

It would make sense to have "Add your " This would make it more balanced maybe in that sense, especially as only Lily Chen, Sister Mary and Mark Harrigan have 3 .

Synergy with Balance of the Body:

I like the idea that lvl 5 weapons are "tailored" for the they are released with, like the Holy Spear and Sister Mary and here, the lacks of synergy with Lily is striking.

Suggested Fix:

So how to make these Butterfly Swords more adapted to Lily Chen? A lead could be the Balance of the Body that allows you to make 3 different attacks, meaning use 3 different ": Fight." triggers.

If the swords would for example have the non-exhaust attack as a different trigger than the exhaust one that deals 1 more damage, that would allow us to use the 2 actions of the Discipline activation only with the Butterfly Swords, leaving us only with the 3rd attack to fill in our deck, with Sweeping Kick for example, that would find a good use here (when I would not add it to my deck otherwise), or Spectral Razor that I probably started with.

Let me know in the comments your suggested fix and I'll try to keep this updated!

Last little comment for anyone wondering: you can exhaust the Butterfly Swords on the 1st attack and keep using the normal attack for the following attacks. The only restriction is that you cannot exhaust them twice (unless you use Galvanize).