Backpack

So... this card reminds me very much of Preposterous Sketches, a card that is honestly pretty mediocre. The simple reality is that paying 2 resources and an action to draw three cards isn't economically viable in a game that is essentially about action management.

However, this card has one two major upsides over Sketches. The first one is that it cannot find weaknesses. This is actually a bigger deal than it seems at first glance since weaknesses are a major reason not to aggressively draw cards.

The second reason is the selection. You don't play backpack in any deck, you play it in a deck that has multiple Item or Supply cards that you really need. Here is a list of all Item and Supply cards.

While it could hit Emergency Cache (and is probably nice if it does hit at least one), you are really looking for decks that run a large number of qualifying cards. Mathematically, you want half your deck to be Item/Supply cards (probably more so you don't miss). Because that's the problem with this card: if you don't get three cards under it, it's really quite mediocre.

That being said, if you ever get Lightning Gun, Extra Ammunition and Emergency Cache on this thing... that's pretty good.

However, because it also takes up a body slot (not the most contested, but not trivial either), I don't see this card getting a ton of play. So, better than Sketches in a few decks, but probably still not the Diesel we need.

Veronica212 · 301
You mention Preposterous Sketches mediocrity. The point of Sketches really is to take 1 action to draw three cards and hopefully get you back up to higher education territory. It is a small price to pay to ensure success moving forward. — Myriad · 1226
True Survivor

Innate cards, which are those? It's: Unexpected Courage, Guts, Manual Dexterity, Rise to the Occasion, "Not without a fight!", Resourceful and Survival Instinct. Out of faction there's Eureka!, Inquiring Mind, Opportunist, Quick Thinking, Fearless, Defiance and Inspiring Presence.

Some pretty good cards there, Resourceful in particular has big combo potential, you can recurse True Survivor with it and basicly play infinite skill cards.

To routinely hit 2+ cards with True Survivor you need 6+ of them in your deck, preferably as many as 8, that means that you're using Unexpected Courage, the most flexible of the bunch, Resourceful since it further enhances your recursion and its also flexible. The other 2-4 cards would depend on the exact survivor but generally all of them can put "Not without a fight!" to use. I wouldnt take "Not without a fight!" in a deck if you dont intend to get True Survivor.

This is a big nope In Wendy, perhaps the character where it would be the best. If you can stomach the risk of removing all your hard-earned skill cards when you draw her weakness then by all means try it. Mind you that it's not QUITE as bad as it might seem but just keep it in mind when you plan the deck.

Silas Bishop is going to love this card, it's probably going to be very good complement to his skill-heavy ability.

Dog and "Ashcan" Pete can do lots of stuff with True Survivor but perhaps most notably is the fact that he can recurse Inspiring Presence, a very nice combo interaction.

William Yorick can do a similar combo with Inspiring Presence, reloading upgraded Beat Cops for example.

UPDATE: After trying this card a bunch in Silas Marsh I can say that it's a terrific way to reload your hand, but the tempo is so terrible that having enough time and money to pay for just the one True Survivor is difficult enough. You want to draw and play this thing late in a game, when most of your cards are in the discard pile. If you really want this effect more then once then recurse it with Resourceful.

Tsuruki23 · 2591
Er... I think you mean Silas Marsh, not Silas Bishop. — Herumen · 1741
Nice review. Good points re: Wendy & Ashcan. Another plus with Ashcan is that skills will stack with Duke. Still like it fir Wendy despite her weakness. — Herumen · 1741
Now that we know Silas uses innate skills specifically, this card looks even better for him. — SGPrometheus · 856
But you can reuse the Nautical Prowless with this card and get Resourceful to loop this combo forever — AquaDrehz · 205
In general, I think Brute Force/Expeditious Retreat/Sharp Vision are great targets for this card as well. — AlderSign · 435
Ward of Protection

While this card benefits from having the ability to cancel any encounter card YOU draw, it loses out on utility to its level 2 younger brother by not being able to protect your fellow investigators. I'd rather have the ability to help out an investigator or even the whole party on a particularly treacherous drawn encounter than being able to discard an enemy. (which most Mystics shouldn't have a problem dealing with anyway with the right spells)

c-hung · 14
Yeah, the targeting freedom on the level 2 version makes it arguably better than this one, which odds a pretty funny position to be in. Adding to the level 2 card's lustre is the fact that many investigators can take it in addition to mystics. — SGPrometheus · 856
Also worth to notice that this card, besides discarding enemies, can break a Surge chain (Beyond the Veil, Attracting Attention from U&U, total Overzealous counter, many more nasty things). Still does it worth 5xp? — KptMarchewa · 1
Infighting

This card gets panned for good reason. It costs a lot for something that other cards already do at level 0. However, with the Vengeance mechanic in the Forgotten Age, it will be interesting to see if this card moves up in priority at all. It's one that I would keep an eye on for now, to see if it ever makes it into someone's deck.

Soloclue · 2622
Roland Banks

Roland Banks is certainly a fun investigator to play with. He is mainly Guardian class and secondarily a Seeker class which makes him versatile in the two main objective in the game, fighting and obtaining clues.

He has a nice ability that lets him find clues whenever he defeats an enemy which, though you might not always be able to activate it, due to there being a lack of clues in the location, can save you an action or two when you need to gather clues (and possibly even more resources when trying to gather clues in high shroud areas).

Stats

He has 9 health practically making him a tank when it comes to taking damage but his low sanity of 5 make him quite vulnerable to a lot of the monsters in the mythos. You will definitely need cards that can either heal horror like Smoking Pipe or cards that shield you from horror like Elder Sign Amulet.

Combat: His 4 combat stat complements his beat up enemies to get clues play style and with a decent weapon like a Machete or his signature weapon, Roland's .38 Special, he can hold his own against a lot of what the mythos has to offer.

Willpower: Willpower is mostly a defensive stat. 3 willpower though on Roland isn't amazing but it's decent. There are rarely encounter cards that require you to succeed on a willpower of 4 or higher.

Intellect: Likewise with willpower, 3 intellect isn't amazing but it's decent. Having cards like Magnifying Glass or Flashlight definitely makes him better at gathering clues, especially when there are no baddies around for him to trigger his ability.

Agility: Roland's worst stat is agility, which isn't really game breaking as his playstyle mainly revolves around him killing enemies to get clues and he is in a class that has a lot of decent weapons. But it severely limits his options though as there are some enemies that he's better of evading and others that he might not even be able to damage at all (I'm looking at you Spoiler for Path to Carcossa)

Signature Cards

Roland's .38 Special is reliable even if you can't proc the +3 to combat buff it still functions as a cheaper version of .45 Automatic but when you get that +3 combat is when the signature card really shines. Also cards like Extra Ammunition works well with this card but if you have Lightning Gun you might be better off saving it for Lightning Gun's limited ammunition.

Cover Up is definitely one of the harder signature weaknesses to workaround which requires you to get clues (which thankfully Roland is decent at). Alternatively, you can have your allies help you especially if there is a more specialized seeker in the team. Also, the price for failure is the equivalent of being defeated in Roland's worse stat (sanity).

Overall, Roland Banks is a versatile as a fighter and clue gatherer but players need to work around Roland's 5 sanity and signature weakness Cover Up.

Telumbra · 4