The latest cycle for Arkham Horror is now out in the wild, so it is time to take a look at the Investigator cards from the full set. I'm going to be taking a look at the out-of-class cards that existing Investigators gained access to in the near future, but before then I thought it'd be worth taking a quick look at the new Neutral cards, as well as the four new Basic Weakness cards we now have access to.
Neutral cards sit in an interesting spot, given that every Investigator currently in print has Neutral 0-5 in their Deckbuilding Options, and I'm only aware of two Investigators where their Deckbuilding Restrictions prohibit some Neutral cards from being taken (Rex Murphy with Tempt Fate, and Carolyn Fern with Ornate Bow and Timeworn Brand). I know that Unexpected Courage is almost always one of the first cards I'll put in a deck, and - unfortunately - In the Thick of It seems to be sat in a similar spot for a lot of other people. The design team need to be careful with Neutral card designs to leave them as a valid option for a subset of Investigators, without hitting the point where they're nearly an auto-include.
Basic Weakness cards almost go the other way - unless you're using a house rule, you don't have a say in what your Random Basic Weakness ends up being, but they ideally want to have some impact on how you're going to play your deck. There are quite a few of these that I've seen described as a "double action soak", where the only concern is when you'll have two spare actions to get rid of them, but they're not doing much else. At the other extreme, you have something like the Doomed chain which can kill you outright - and surprisingly quickly, if you're unlucky with what you draw.
Anyway, let's see what new options have cropped up in Hemlock Vale.
Neutral
Bide Your Time
Bide Your Time is an interesting one - and the first Double card I'm looking at here. Double is a new keyword that appears on Events from Hemlock Vale where there's an additional action cost to play them. In theory, the increased action cost should allow for stronger effects compared to other cards with the same resource cost.
In the case of Bide Your Time, you're spending a card and two Actions this turn to get two additional Actions next turn. This sort of ability has generally just been a thing for Rogues in the past, with Borrowed Time as the major example, so it is interesting to see this sort of tech available to all classes via this Event.
This isn't a card for every deck, but there are certainly use cases for it - a combat Guardian may be interested in delayed Actions from the turn before an Act or Agenda flip, for example, in case they're about to land in a boss fight where additional swings are going to be better than whatever other options they hand. Anyone considering playing the likes of The Red-Gloved Man or Mind Over Matter, where you get more value the more Actions you can take will find those cards gain additional value if combined with Bide Your Time.
If you were already considering including cards that would benefit from reallocating when you will take actions, then Bide Your Time is worth considering, but it is definitely at "Win more" element rather than a required element for most builds I can think of. I'm sure someone is going to achieve some crazy combo with it, though.
Eldritch Tongue
Eldritch Tongue was one of the cards I looked at in the first part of my spoiler season review. Overall, my thoughts on it remain the same - getting to recycle Parley events adds some great flexibility, but how useful it ends up being is going to depend on how many Parley events you're choosing to run in your deck.
Every class ended up with at least one Parley event in their new kit, with Rogue getting even more (which makes sense, given Alessandra's debut). Coupled with the limited number of Parley events available before Hemlock Vale, I've yet to be convinced that - despite the utility - this card is worth running outside of Rogues or other Investigators with access to Rogue cards.
Well-Dressed
Well-Dressed was also looked at in the first part of my spoiler season review. As with Eldritch Tongue, my thoughts on Well-Dressed haven't really changed since my first write-up - it's a great boost to Parley actions, but you need enough Parley action with skill tests involved to mean you're likely to have a Parley test to make and this skill card in your hand at the same time.
Outside of Investigators with access to Rogue cards, I'm not sure there are enough Parley cards around to make running Well-Dressed worthwhile. If you're playing as part of a group, and multiple players are dipping into Parley cards, then having this as support for the group could be an option, though I'm not sure how compelling an option it ends up being.
Dawn Star (XP: 1)
I quite like the addition of Dawn Star to the game - while I enjoy using Bless tokens, my regular group will attest to the fact that I'm not a big fan of Curse tokens in my Chaos bag, and especially not in large quantities. I'm sure there are people who like to flood the bag with Curse tokens (ideally while having cards to take advantage of them), but they're not normally my cup of tea.
Dawn Star gives the opportunity for those Curse tokens to make themselves useful for those who aren't adding them to the bag - turning off their negative modifiers, and doing chip damage to enemies at your location. Notably, not to enemies you're engaged with, and not by attacking them, so Aloof and/or Elusive enemies are as vulnerable to the damage as your average Cultist. The likes of Whippoorwill had better watch out, as well as a number of the Elusive enemies from Hemlock Vale.
This is definitely a situational card, so don't expect to see it appear in every deck - at the very least, either you need to be generating Curse tokens to power it, or someone in your group does. No Curse tokens, no need for this card.
When you choose to play it is also going to be situational, as there are a couple of reasons to do so. Firstly, turning off revealed Curse tokens from a skill test can help you pass a test you would otherwise fail, which is handy regardless of the damage that you may or may not end up doing. If the test is important enough, turning off even one Curse token could be a worthwhile play. The other side of things is when you want to turn the Curse tokens off - even if you would've passed the test - because the damage you can get from this card is going to be handy, either weakening enemies for someone else to finish off, or to clear out low health (but problematic) enemies from your location.
Dawn Star is the sort of card I like to see in Neutral - handy in the right situation, but not going to appear in every deck "just in case".
Occult Reliquary: Dubious Source (XP: 3)
I'm not entirely sure which dubious source in the world of Arkham Horror supplied this Occult Reliquary, but I'm glad they did. It brings a nice mix of flexibility and restriction to the "additional slot" style of Permanent upgrade - while you can use it get an additional Accessory, Arcane or Hand slot, you can only populate that slot with Blessed or Cursed cards. It's the first Neutral Permanent to give more Arcane or Hand slots, and you're not locked into using it for a given combination when you add the card.
As with the other cards we've looked at here, this is situational, but I do think it will prove to be quite handy. After poking ArkhamDB for a bit, it looks like there are 10 Blessed and 9 Cursed Accessory assets; 5 Blessed and 8 Cursed Arcane assets; and 8 Blessed and 11 Cursed Hand assets. Some cards may feature on both the Blessed and Cursed side of those totals, as there are a few which feature both keywords.
Kohaku is obviously going to be a big fan of this card, and I can see Father Mateo considering it, depending on how heavily he has leaned into Blessed cards that fit in these slots. Parallel Rex Murphy might also consider it, depending on how Cursed he is feeling. Outside of those three, whose deckbuilding encourage the use of Blessed and Cursed cards, how useful this is for you will very much depend on your deck - and with Neutral cards, that's what I like to see.
Broken Diadem: Crown of Dying Light (XP: 5)
The Broken Diadem is probably the jewel in the crown of the Mask cards introduced in Hemlock Vale. While expensive in terms of XP, it has a low resource cost to play, but is a bit tricky to transform from its basic form to the Twilight Diadem. If you can get the Mask to transform, then it's really powerful, allowing you to transform Bless or Curse tokens into the Elder Sign.
The problem, as I see it, is the need to have three skill tests at your location reveal both a Bless token and a Curse token, as that's the condition to build up the offerings needed to transform from Broken to Twilight. Your deck - or the decks from your group, in multiplayer - need to be generating enough Bless and Curse tokens to give you a reasonable chance of seeing checks revealing both types of token.
Running Favor of the Moon and/or Favor of the Sun can help with the reliability side of things, but then things are starting to turn into a bit of a Rube Goldberg machine with the multiple components you're going to need to get into play to get the Diadem working. I like the concept of the Diadem, and I think you do get a lot of power for a 5XP card, but getting it to work seems just that little bit too difficult.
Basic Weakness
Back Injury & Maimed Hand
I'm pairing the new weaknesses together, given they work the same, just affecting different slots. In the case of Back Injury and Maimed Hand, they will both present you with the option of filling a Body or Hand slot, or taking 1 damage to shuffle the weakness back into your deck. If you choose to fill one of your slots, your Health is reduced by 1 while the weakness is in play, but you can then discard the weakness via a double action.
I like the design of these weaknesses, as how you'll choose to deal with them will vary depending on what is in your deck, and what you've seen of your deck when you draw them. Not running any assets that fit your Body? Then you can let Back Injury sit in that slot until you can spare the actions to discard it. Not got any crucial Hand assets in play yet? Well, the same is true for Maimed Hand - but, at some point, you're likely to have to make the call on whether to discard something or to take more damage.
The Silver Moth & Vow of Drzytelech
The Silver Moth and Vow of Drzytelech are similar to Back Injury and Maimed Hand, but rather than dealing damage or reducing Health, they deal Horror or reduce your Sanity. Rather than taking up Body or Hand slots, they fill an Accessory or Arcane slot instead.
Again, depending on your deck and when they show up, how the play out is likely to be quite different. While I don't have any hard numbers for this, I imagine more decks have a spare Arcane slot than have a spare Accessory slot, so The Silver Moth is likely to be more problematic - though I wouldn't want to have Vow as my random basic weakness in your typical Mystic deck.
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