I'm a fan of this card, it has a funny way of increasing your odds at a test.

On standard, tokens tend to run the gamut of -1 to -4, they can be a nuisance yes, but they do not warrant Defiance level hate.

On hard/expert, those things can HURT. tend to be the most game-y with varied penalties from 0 to -4, god forbid the craziness that tends to key off them in campaign finale's. and strongly tend to be -3 with nasty effects, finally the varies heavily from campaign to campaign, in Core, Dunwich and Circle it's the "punishing token", with a huge penalty and often bad effects, in the other campaigns this token is more routine at -3 or -4.

The thing is, on hard, these tokens can influence your decisions and options so heavily that they limit your choices, some scenarios have tokens so punishing that if you're not testing everything at +3 you're screwing yourself over.

Defiance eases this pressure a lot.

The later in a campaign you get the more special tokens will be in the chaos bag, a few campaigns add very few, others pile them on like sprinkles on a 5'yr old's sundae. Obviously Defiance is therefore much greater value in said campaigns and so/so late in any given campaign. I would never go without it into the finale of Carcosa for example.

My best case for Defiance: It pretty routinely turns impossible tests (The kinda test where you say "Well, I'f I get a !") into something more like a 60% chance.

This one is playable.

Dump 1 extra ammo from something like .45 Thompson or an upgrade, from .32 Colt or it's upgrade, these weapons are rolling in ammo anyway. If you're making the attack at a decent value like +2 or +3 over the target difficulty, revealing and choosing from 2 tokens is a pretty safe bet for success.

The upgrade "Eat lead!" can spend extra ammo and reveal extra tokens, but why would you? (Actually, it can help you 1-shot a certain, large, monster, but that's a story for another day).

Freedom from is a boon in of itself and a reasonable pinch play when you're making a big attack with things like Lightning Gun or Vicious Blow, just cover the largest penalty in the bag and you get a guaranteed hit, this can be pretty useful in multiplayer.

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Unlike the 2xp version, this card is presentable, playable, it's still not a particularly good card, it's very specific and even so it will not as consistently score you successful attacks as, say, Lucky! would.

Finally, Diana Stanley has special interest in this card, as an "ignore" effect she can use it to power up.

There are only so and so many enemies that will come your way per scenario, and Vicious Blow is one of those major tech cards that can bridge the gap and turn a risky fight into a trivial one, and keep you ahead of the enemy curve.

Picture this: You've got a .45 Thompson in play with 2 shots left on it and Vicious Blow in hand and a 4 hp enemy shows up, you could shoot it twice with the Thompson, or you could save the ammo and the action and try to kill it outright. The saved bullet then goes towards killing a (probably) smaller 2 or 3 health enemy later.

While the +2 prerequisite can be risky, the added + tick offsets that quite a bit.

The power of your main weapon directly affects Vicious Blow, a Lightning Gun lands that +2 damage more routinely then a Machete, in a pinch a simple buffed punch to deal 3 damage can solve a LOT of problems. Especially in Forgotten age where 3 health foes with reasonably low fight stats are all over the place.

I highly recommend you get Vicious Blow in your deck when you're in the mid-campaign, once you've put in the key tech at 10-15 XP it's probably time to upgrade this one.

Good example how Daisy Walker existing makes for some pretty wonky card design.

Tome's for her are so outright powerful that if they make tomes with triggers at all the book has to suck for everybody, only to be viable on her. An irksome thing.

This card is an outright terrible variant on Pathfinder, both cards can routinely get you 2 locations of move in one action, this one requires a revealed location, a slot, and has 4 uses. What??? WHY??? Also, Pathfinder moves you for totally free if you're moving just 1 location anyway.

This thing is easier to tutor, there being some tutors that target items and tomes specifically, but really. WHY??? Sure, Pathfinder is above curve, I'dd still be looking at it if it cost 2 XP, possibly 3, but I don't really think Pathfinder is OP enough to warrant that, just to incite excitement for this cruddy thing. Personally I'dd mutate Pathfinder to be 1 / Investigator but that's just me.

Binder fodder.

Edit: In case you're thinking this might get you past enemies.

In solo, the revelation requirement can be a hard-shutdown of this tactic, leaving you just as stuck and down 3 resources and this card that's not helping you at all. Besides, often when an enemy is barring your way, the Pathfinder trigger to engage it as a free action gives you 3 tries to evade it. In multiplayer if you're the sort of person who is avoiding enemies hard enough to consider this use of this card, there's probably a person who is chasing after them just as hard, I.E, them moving in to engage and kill the enemy leaves you free to move past and do your thing.

One of the good tarots.

Compared to Dr. Milan Christopher and Alice Luxley costing 4 resources, paying 3 for +1 is very feasible. The fact that the card is worth the cost, even if you dont luck out and get it in the opening hand, that's a good tarot.

You can swap from Dr. Milan Christopher to Death • XIII to leave your ally slot free for other characters, for example Mr. "Rook", Leo De Luca, Beat Cop.

Obviously, you can stack Death • XIII and Dr. Milan Christopher, especially seeing as how Dr. Milan Christopher can pay for Death • XIII. This may or may not be too expensive in many decks, especially flex decks that are supposed to fight and clue even handedly.