Overview

Roland Banks is bringing the full force of a federal agency to Arkham Horror. Rather than get his hands dirty, he lets his allies handle the job. Roland's informant comes in early to connect Roland to the resources he needs. Once he's at the scene, trained sketch artists are available to work the site, and if things ever get hairy, well, there's the rest of the agency coming in hot.

If you're looking for a deck that can ignore the chaos bag to large degree, involves some deck manipulation, and feels a little bit like playing Pokemon, this is for you. I brewed this up while looking for a home for Agency Backup — and it's so fitting that The Fed's deck ended up being that place. I took Roland through The Forgotten Age on Hard and honestly breezed through it, with the help of Roland's bevy of allies. Playing this deck feels a lot like cheating because you not only ignore half, if not more, of the normal chaos bag pulls, but also do most of it at speed.

This deck plays as a generalist in multiplayer, and shines in solo. Due to the lack of Beat Cop and large guns, Roland can't achieve the 8 that a dedicated guardian can, and because he can't take Seeker level 3 cards, mass clueing is difficult for him. Low-clue counts like in solo or 2P work great for this deck (one cycle through the upgraded deck can net you 17 free clues, not including Roland's ). As clue counts get higher, Roland will have to share the spotlight with other cluevers.

Please enjoy!

Updates

July 7, 2022

A few thoughts about cards released in the past few years for this deck:

The Star is an interesting replacement for the Ace of Swords. That said, missing out on the bonus is tough, even if it does get you an extra activation on each side of Agency Backup.

Observed is a nice super-luxury addition, but that's true for every investigator.

Antiquary is an interesting consideration that could make the cut. It helps pay for Timeworn Brand, Disc of Itzamna, and Calling in Favors, which is pretty neat, and gives combat bonuses on other turns. Crafty is another consideration, but I think the pool of cards it affects makes it less exciting, and Bruiser is simply a worse Antiquary in this deck. I think you could cut David Renfield for Antiquary. They fill very similar roles. Do note this reduces your Calling in Favors targets by 1, and most of the time you'll be spending this on combat boosts (which you don't even necessarily need that often) as Dr. Elli Horowitz often picks up Disc of Itzamna for free.

Hiking Boots represents a way to get some more action economy out of your turn. The bonus is nothing to sneeze at either. That said, I think Pathfinder quickly makes Hiking Boots redundant, and so wouldn't include it.

September 2, 2020

Mysteries Remain, The Dirge of Reason → Roland's .38 Special, Cover Up. I think Cover Up ends up being an easier weakness to handle since The Dirge of Reason often ends up making you pitch three clues in the end anyway, if you can't pick up two clues fast enough. While Mysteries Remain is very strong as a third Working a Hunch, The Dirge of Reason can be punishing enough I think it's likely worth avoiding. That said, you should play around with each to see which you like — I don't feel the difference between the two is massive.

Playing the Deck

Gameplay Loop

I've broken this section up into Early Scenarios, which assume you have few, if any, of the necessary upgrades, and Late Scenarios, which assume you have all of the necessary upgrades, and some of the nice-to-have upgrades. But first, a few general notes:

1. Roland is efficient. Not needing to worry about failing tests cluing at high-shroud locations means you'll run through scenarios quite quickly. As a result, if you need to burn a few actions grabbing resources, drawing cards, dealing with weaknesses, etc., you shouldn't feel too bad. (That said, for weaknesses, if you can hang onto them for a few turns, you might consider waiting until your deck cycles, or simply holding onto them perpetually!)

2. Roland is weak to the encounter deck. While Roland does get up to 4 thanks to Hawk-Eye Folding Camera, the deck runs just 2 Take the Initiative and 2 Unexpected Courage (less in later scenarios). This means that you should expect to fail a lot of tests, and Terror cards in particular can be a pain as they stick around turn after turn. Luckily, constantly replaying allies means high amounts of horror (and damage) soak, and Logical Reasoning sits around waiting for a Terror to remove.

3. You should almost never grab an ally with Mr. "Rook" — it's much better to grab a Calling in Favors, return an exhausted and beat up Mr. "Rook" to your hand, and play Agency Backup at a discount.

4. Roland is efficient enough and resilient enough that he can get all the victory points. The combination of soak and action efficiency means that Roland can be extremely greedy when it comes to finding victory points. Victory points tend to be locked behind locations with conditionals to make investigating harder. Luckily, Roland can ignore all of that, and so can grab all the victory points he can find. You could even consider making room for On the Hunt to help find encounter deck victory points. This is also very important due to how much experience this deck takes to get off the ground. That said, Roland will also speed through later scenarios as you fill out your deck and have no use for additional victory points.

Early Scenarios

You'll generally open scenarios by playing Mr. "Rook", pulling a weakness, Astounding Revelation, and card of choice out of the top nine. Action two and action three will be some selection of playing Hawk-Eye Folding Camera, playing Machete, playing Prepared for the Worst, and moving to a clue location to set up a Working a Hunch + Crack the Case.

In early scenarios, lean on Art Student, Working a Hunch, and Mysteries Remain for high-shroud locations to get your Hawk-Eye Folding Camera off the ground, then use your 4 to grab clues off the remaining 1- and 2-shroud locations. This isn't the most reliable method of taking tests, but in 1–2P, you won't have to succeed very many times, and in 3–4P, you can leave your seeker to that job while you tackle higher-shroud locations.

Because you won't have Agency Backup to play, Calling in Favors should usually be saved for Art Student over Mr. "Rook". Not having Charisma means that you will often have an ally clobber another ally, but also means you can freely use allies as damage and (particularly) horror soak. This tends to remain true as you approach later scenarios as well. There is a little tension in how you use Calling in Favors: each Art Student you pick up is an additional clue, but each Mr. "Rook" means you're cycling your deck that much quicker, and so replaying Mysteries Remain and Working a Hunch that much faster. Due to the lack of Laboratory Assistant, you tend only to cycle through the deck about once per scenario.

Note that resources will not be a problem in early scenarios, as before Timeworn Brand and Agency Backup, the average card cost is 0.9, which means that you can expect to play every card in your opening hand with your starting resources, and that's before accounting for Astounding Revelation, Emergency Cache, and Crack the Case!

Late Scenarios

In later scenarios, your first action will tend to be playing Ever Vigilant to play out either a Timeworn Brand or Disc of Itzamna, either Agency Backup or Mr. "Rook", and perhaps one other asset, maybe Pathfinder, or Hawk-Eye Folding Camera. Agency Backup and Timeworn Brand end up being too expensive to play off Ever Vigilant, requiring three resources beyond what you start with, so if that is your opener, you can lead with Emergency Cache instead.

This deck can and should get off the ground fast, aggressively using Agency Backup to hoover clues, and giving priority to Calling in Favors off of Mr. "Rook" pulls to replay Agency Backup. Note that Agency Backup is not unique so you are able to have two in play at once. In later scenarios, this deck is able to pick up many clues in a single turn, because you can:

1. Use Agency Backup's
2. Use Calling in Favors to find another Agency Backup or Art Student
3. Play a Working a Hunch or Mysteries Remain
4. Find an additional Working a Hunch or Mysteries Remain with Mr. "Rook"
5. Replay Agency Backup and use its again.

In general, while you have not yet played Calling in Favors or found all your Astounding Revelation, you don't want to take the card draw action, to keep the number of hits for your searches high. Once you have played both though, using the draw action is great, as it thins your deck and brings you closer to cycling it. For this reason, I've considered bringing Dream-Enhancing Serum and Laboratory Assistant simply to hold extra cards in hand to make finding hits after your first deck cycle easier. I didn't find them rewarding though, as even in later scenarios, this deck tends only to cycle once, if only because it doesn't need to cycle more than that: finding 30+ testless clues over two deck runthroughs tends to be enough to end a scenario.

Multiplayer and Unique Cards

One upshot of the deck is that it uses very few unique cards. The only crucial note is that you will be hogging Mr. "Rook" — David Renfield, Dr. Elli Horowitz, and Disc of Itzamna are all negotiable within the deck, but the deck won't function even half as well without Mr. "Rook" consistently slimming your deck and pulling exactly what you need for the occasion. This will make your seeker sad, unfortunately. You can also try to time your Mr. "Rook" play with your seekers', as you can call Mr. "Rook" back to hand in time for your seeker to play theirs.

Signature + Weakness

This deck runs Roland's replacement signature and weakness. While Roland's .38 Special is a nice weapon, it doesn't do enough relative to how crippling Cover Up can be. That said, Cover Up is less crippling in this deck than normal because Mr. "Rook" ensures you will pull it early in the scenario, giving you lots of time to handle it, and there is an abundance of testless clue discovery, which makes covering up your dirty deeds easy. On the flip side, Mysteries Remain flows well with the decks overall goal, functioning as a third Working a Hunch, but The Dirge of Reason is worse than it normally is because Mr. "Rook" pulls it up so often, before you some clues on hand. Due to this I don't think there's a strictly superior signature/weakness pair for this deck!

Mulligans

Mulligans are of course a very important part of the game, and are crucial for deck consistency. Here's a rough guide for what to look for on the mulligan. The cards are sorted into three sections - priority, conditional, and never - and are also ordered within each section for what to keep and what not to keep.

Key

(2): Usually you only want a single copy of any given card, and will mulligan duplicates away. Cards denoted by a (2) are exceptions, and can be kept in pairs. This is also generic advice, and not scenario-specific!

*: These are cards which you'll find with Stick to the Plan, and so normally won't need to worry about on the mulligan. They're included for before you get it!

Priority

These cards enable the core gameplay loop of the deck. You should almost never mulligan these cards away, and want to draw into these cards on the second pull of the mulligan.

Mr. "Rook" - The star of the show. Mr. "Rook" on face gives you three draws out of your deck, but in reality, he pulls more than double-duty, often pulling seven cards from your deck: three cards you select, two weaknesses, and two Astounding Revelations. Use Mr. "Rook" to fill whatever gap your starting hand is missing: cluing, resources, fighting, or treachery protection.

Disc of Itzamna - It seems strange to want Disc of Itzamna as a Guardian, especially one with Timeworn Brand in the deck, but this provides a one-action way to dispose of encounter deck enemies, all without taking a test, while Timeworn Brand can take multiple swings to deal with a mook. You can also save it for a higher-health enemy, and take on Rats yourself, as they are normally one-action enemies. It's also great for aloof enemies, though Whippoorwill usually won't concern you anyway. Of course, using this does mean you won't get to proc Roland's , but you've got some for the 1-shroud locations and testless cluing for higher-shroud locations anyway.

Crack the Case (2) - This is your primary resource generation outside of Astounding Revelation. Try your best to use it on 3+ shroud locations but it's fine on 2-shroud locations as well, in a pinch. Early assets quickly deplete your resource pool but Crack the Case will resupply you in time for your next ally or Calling in Favors.

Timeworn Brand / Machete - This is your bread-and-butter combat weapon. They get you to 5 and 6 which is good enough for small mooks, but needs a boost for bigger enemies. You're not expecting to attack much over the course of a scenario, so these could reasonably be replaced with guns, but it's a pain to replace them since you want your resources to go towards your allies.

Agency Backup - The late-campaign bread-and-butter of the deck. Agency Backup provides soak, testless damage, and testless clues - and it's not even unique! It ends up being a little low on the keep-list simply because it will eat all your early-game resources without a Crack the Case to replenish. That said, it will get you off to a very early start. If you're keeping an Agency Backup, a Crack the Case and Disc of Itzamna are probably what you will want to combo the card with, as it's a little expensive to play both Agency Backup and Timeworn Brand from the get-go.

Prepared for the Worst - Only keep this card if you don't find a weapon on your first go. Even then, Mr. "Rook" can often be enough. This can also proc Astounding Revelation which is nice, so even if you miss on a weapon, it's not all bad.

Ace of Swords - A nice "slotless" boost to get you to 7 . 8 is usually a sweet spot, and so you might want Beat Cop, or a Reliable, but that speaks more to deck construction than mulligan strategy. Keen Eye will usually fill this gap in anyway.

Conditional

These cards aren't great enough to keep on your first draw, but you shouldn't be too upset to see them post-mulligan. These all come in handy at varying points in the scenario, and the goal is to snap them up with Mr. "Rook" when they are needed.

Art Student - Art Student soaks horror, finds clues, and synergizes with Crack the Case for early resources. It's a really great card that, pre-Agency Backup, could make the priority list.

Mysteries Remain - Also a fine card to see in your opening hand. It's fast, which is wonderful, but doesn't get picked up by Calling in Favors. You'll almost never use this for the place-a-clue side of the card, though it's not the worst on a clueless location for Hawk-Eye Folding Camera if there's already an enemy present.

Working a Hunch - Similar to Art Student. Like Mysteries Remain, it doesn't take an action, but also doesn't get picked up by Calling in Favors. You'll probably want to use Art Student first as it provides soak and can be picked up, while Working a Hunch is better for when you need to pick up a clue and don't have the action handy.

Hawk-Eye Folding Camera - This is generally best to play early in the scenario to give you some encounter deck protection, and an easier time clearing 1-shroud locations with several clues on them. That said, it's also fine to play later on as the primary benefit from it comes at the 1-resource (+1 ) level.

Take the Initiative / Unexpected Courage - These cards are your method of surviving the encounter deck, or the occasional high-fight enemy or evade check you need to perform. Really great cards, but you usually don't need to worry about this right out of the gates, as usually you can afford to tank a treachery or two, especially with Mr. "Rook" around to soak for you.

Pathfinder - While on the subject of testless, sometimes actionless clues, Pathfinder makes scenario movement very easy as well. It also has the side-benefit of making it easier to end your turns on a location with a clue, in case you draw an enemy.

Emergency Cache* - Just a solid resource-generation card. Early on it's not quite as good as Crack the Case but it's still worth including, especially once it goes under Stick to the Plan.

Shortcut* - A really great card to stick under Stick to the Plan. Before that, it's a one-time-use Pathfinder which can also bring enemies you're engaged with to locations with clues. Once you upgrade it, it's great to stick on a central location, so Shortcut (2) gets the most value when played on a central location early in the scenario. That said, that's not every scenario - there are many scenarios where you might only get one use out of even Shortcut (2).

David Renfield - Once you pick up Versatile, David Renfield is an amazing resource generating card, especially since you can always pick him up with Calling in Favors once the doom gets to be too much. His position on the list varies: in scenarios with many low-doom threshold agendas, David Renfield is a low priority as he represents one resource every three or so turns, while in scenarios with few high-doom threshold agendas, he shines if you can play him early in the agenda, as you can get 2-4 turns with him on 2-3 doom, netting you 5-6 resources on average, after subtracting out the cost to play him.

Dr. Elli Horowitz - Another way of pulling Astounding Revelation out of your deck. Beyond that, Dr. Elli Horowitz finds you a missing Timeworn Brand or Disc of Itzamna, effectively replacing Prepared for the Worst, while also providing you one horror's worth of soak. Unfortunately, it can be hard to pick her back up, as you do lose the attached item when that happens - it's generally better just to have the item in play. One fun chain is using Calling in Favors to play Dr. Elli Horowitz finding Disc of Itzamna, grabbing two Astounding Revelations along the way. Finding Disc of Itzamna with Dr. Elli Horowitz is particularly rewarding as you can discard her or play Calling in Favors once the Disc of Itzamna is used. In general, it is better to take Disc of Itzamna over Timeworn Brand with Dr. Elli Horowitz as she will not hog an ally slot permanently once the Disc of Itzamna is used.

Well-Maintained - You'll never want to keep this card in your hand without Disc of Itzamna, which is the primary combo. It's effectively Calling in Favors but for Disc of Itzamna.

Vicious Blow - You can leverage this to kill off a 2-health enemy before you find your Machete / Timeworn Brand, and after you find it, it's great to kill off odd-health enemies.

Never

Ideally you'll never see these in your post-mulligan opener, and they're easy throwbacks.

Logical Reasoning - Usually not needed until mid-scenario. This is a concession to Roland's susceptibility to Terror cards like Frozen in Fear, Unhallowed Country, and Realm of Torment, as he can't easily rid himself of them otherwise.

Overpower - This might fill a gap where you don't have a weapon, but it's just better to have Machete or Prepared for the Worst since this is only going to help out for one test.

Astounding Revelation - You always want to see this in your searches, and it's useless in your hand. I'm not exaggerating either - it's only good for the occasional treachery that tests or as discard fodder, because Roland plans to never take a investigate test if he can avoid it.

Upgrades

Roland takes a lot of experience to get off the ground, but also needs relatively little experience to complete the deck, despite taking Versatile. The deck struggles to add anything beyond 51 experience, and only 42 of that experience truly feels impactful. When set against mystic decks which seemingly can find 75, 100, or more points of upgrades, Roland seems pretty easy to max out. By the last scenario of The Forgotten Age, I had ~15 experience left unused. You should easily complete this deck in the latter half of Carcosa and The Circle Undone, and complete the deck around the end of Dunwich.

That said, your first purchases are real kneebreakers. Timeworn Brand, Agency Backup, and Stick to the Plan are all huge chunks of experience, and you really want Charisma on top of that. This means if you are playing multiplayer, you might feel left behind as your friends are getting lots of flashy purchases each time, where you're only adding one card...but don't worry! The base deck is so functional that you'll have plenty of flashy cards to show off without upgrades anyway.

Below, the cards are sorted into necessary, nice-to-have, and luxury upgrades. Within each category, the cards are also sorted in the order I recommend you should upgrade them.

Necessary

Charisma should always be your first upgrade. This allows you to discover clues with Art Student without having to clear out Mr. "Rook" first, and gives significant flexibility with Calling in Favors choices.

2x Machete → 2x Timeworn Brand is an important combat quality-of-life upgrade. Your resources are going towards ally recursion, so it's better to have a weapon you can use repeatedly, instead of having to worry about replenishing its supplies. That said, if you prefer, you can add in two big guns instead for fewer, easier tests, and just plan to recur them by cycling your deck.

2x Vicious Blow → 2x Agency Backup is probably the most exciting upgrade you'll get. Realistically, any of the cards which don't appear in the final decklist could be replaced, but I find that Agency Backup does a good roleplay of Vicious Blow thanks to its first ability. Each Agency Backup you grab increases the number of testless clues you get per deck cycle by 7!

Charisma #2 can be picked up at your leisure. It feels extremely nice to have but is not as urgent as other upgrades, and certainly shouldn't be picked up before your first Agency Backup.

Nice-to-Have

Stick to the Plan is terrific to get, and in this deck, serves as a start-of-scenario resource boost, fetching out Ever Vigilant, Emergency Cache, and Shortcut. Before you grab Ever Vigilant, you should select Prepared for the Worst. Additionally, it qualifies as a search of your deck which pulls you a Astounding Revelation, starting you off at 7 resources. While I recommend getting this upgrade later, if you do feel pinched on resources, you can grab this sooner than later. Note that it doesn't actually increase the resources you net in a scenario - it just frontloads them.

Prepared for the Worst → Ever Vigilant should ideally be upgraded in the same breath as Stick to the Plan. Ever Vigilant is action compression and Emergency Cache all in one if you can line up the right turn - but using it to play Mr. "Rook" and Art Student turn one is fine enough as it nets you an action and two resources!

Logical Reasoning → Ace of Swords is a toss-in upgrade when you have the spare experience. This deck mulligans aggressively so it's not uncommon to see this card in your opener. It helps create a larger margin to safely take down 1- and 2-fight enemies, while creating a little more safety for when you do end up needing to fight larger monsters.

Overpower, Prepared for the Worst → 2x Disc of Itzamna is a very nice quality of life boost as well. Playing Disc of Itzamna early means that you can ignore the first enemy you draw - investing an action and three resources now to avoid one to three tests later is well-worth it. I've toyed with the idea of switching the upgrade order of Disc of Itzamna and Timeworn Brand, but ultimately because these do nothing for you when drawn post hoc, Timeworn Brand still wins out. You could upgrade this before Stick to the Plan if you don't feel a resource crunch. It is worth noting that this is a nonbo with Roland's , but there are so many ways to grab clues testlessly in the deck already that it is not a huge loss. It isn't uncommon to end your turn on a clueless location simply because you cleared it out on your turn already.

Luxury

Versatile is an add-on to grab late. It expands your decksize, which is unwelcome due to Calling in Favors, but does let you include some additional goodies in your deck. It's not strictly necessary. When you pick this up, grab David Renfield, two Dr. Elli Horowitz, and whatever two other cards you find useful. Try not to grab cards which draw you cards without searching because it risks stranding an Astounding Revelation in your hand.

2x Unexpected Courage → 2x Well-Maintained lets you reuse Disc of Itzamna at just about the cheapest cost that you can find. You can eventually cycle your deck sufficiently such that Timeworn Brand ends up sitting around waiting for an Elite monster to spawn. This upgrade does hurt your encounter deck protection, which means you'll have to lean a little more heavily on Take the Initiative as well as random Dr. Elli Horowitz, Logical Reasoning, and Hawk-Eye Folding Camera you have lying around for commits.

Shortcut (0) → Shortcut (2) makes for great early-scenario action compression if there is a central location you will visit often. It's an absolute life-saver in some, and worse than Shortcut (0) in others.

2x ?? → Pathfinder should replace whatever additional two cards you added in from Versatile. The action compression of Pathfinder makes it invaluable as you traverse a scenario, and helps you end your turns on clue locations to set up enemy draws.

Emergency Cache (0) → Emergency Cache (2) is a nice resource boost to grab when filling your deck out. You might consider Emergency Cache instead, as it doesn't risk pulling an Astounding Revelation, but I generally do like the extra card over the extra resource.

Keen Eye is one of the last upgrades to grab. You'll find yourself with some resources to spare, and so may find some use from it in fighting end-of-campaign baddies which tend to have 4–6 .

Campaigns (Spoilers Ahead!)

I playtested this deck through a solo run of TFA, and plan to take it through Dunwich and Carcosa next, though I suspect that those campaigns will not present as difficult a time as TFA, given that I admittedly had to make a handful of suspect evade checks to survive TFA. I have not played through the Dream Eaters yet, so have no thoughts on that campaign. Here are my thoughts on the deck's suitability to each given campaign:

Night of the Zealot: There's just not enough scenarios or experience for this deck to get off the ground. This deck is probably not suitable for NotZ as a result.

Dunwich: Logical Reasoning goes up in value in this campaign, and you'll really enjoy having multiple allies for damage and horror soak. There will be tough spots in the campaign, but nothing unmanageable, and for every scenario that is made more difficult due to the deck's composition, there is one or more that is made almost trivial.

Carcosa: Nothing really crazy in this campaign – you'll mostly zoom around collecting clues. It's an easy campaign to begin with and Roland will only make it easier. That said, the first scenario will be a little harder than usual for Roland, keeping two Logical Reasoning could be warranted, and there are a few more fight or investigate checks you'll have to take beyond normal, depending on how you progress, so keeping some extra or symbols handy tends to be useful. Fine Clothes can also come in handy early on. Dream-Enhancing Serum and Laboratory Assistant look a little better as this campaign does play with your hand size a bit.

The Forgotten Age: Due to his 2 , Roland can struggle early on, and Disc of Itzamna & Well-Maintained become higher-priority upgrades, even over Timeworn Brand. You'll probably end up keeping Unexpected Courage around for longer to survive exploration and for evading. Pathfinder also goes up in value! While this is a hard campaign for Roland, it is still manageable, and getting testless clues helps with numerous locations which punish investigating.

The Circle Undone: Beyond investing in some Handcuffs, a Beat Cop isn't unwarranted, as there is a significant amount of fighting in this campaign you can't avoid. Timeworn Brand ends up looking particularly good, as do Pathfinder and Shortcut (2). I don't see this campaign as being a particular struggle as this deck is enough of a generalist that it won't be unduly punished.

Campaigns (Finer Detail, Heavy Spoilers Ahead!)

I'll be discussing scenario minutiae in this section so if you have not played these campaigns, I recommend that you don't read ahead! Unlike the above, this is a disorganized set of campaign-specific optimizations you might be interested in.

Night of the Zealot

Midnight Masks asks for more clues than you can reasonably get without an Agency Backup and the final scenario doesn't particularly require cluing as you can just gear up for the big fight. You'll probably want a Beat Cop instead of Art Student by the end since, again, you only care about fighting, and could even bring a big gun in place of Timeworn Brand because you only need to get a few good hits off. Overall this campaign is just a mismatch for the deck.

Dunwich

I would recommend starting with The House Always Wins and then move to Extracurricular Activity, with the intent of saving the students and avoiding the Experiment. You should have a particularly easy time in the House Always Wins for having an early ally to discard. Miskatonic Museum could prove annoying as you don't have a good way of shaking off the snake, but Essex County Express should be a breeze. Blood on the Altar is terrifying due to Kidnapped!, but getting to the best resolution shouldn't be terribly difficult. Undimensioned and Unseen may prove difficult, though if you don't care about experience, you might get lucky with Disc of Itzamna. Finally, going up the hill can be a pain as you have to succeed on investigation checks to discover locations, but navigating the world beyond won't be too terrible beyond survivng Vast Expanse.

9 health and multiple allies means that Roland can actually survive a Beyond the Veil, which is mandatory since the deck has no way to cancel or remove it, and expects to cycle roughly once a scenario — you could consider picking up Deny Existence with Versatile over David Renfield. Frozen in Fear and Unhallowed Country are extremely annoying for this deck, and so keeping two Logical Reasoning is probably a good idea. There are a number of victory point enemies in the encounter deck, so On the Hunt is probably worthwhile, possibly over Disc of Itzamna, substituting Well-Maintained for Beat Cop (2).

Carcosa

You definitely won't want to take your time on Curtain Call as dealing with the respawning beast is a real pain, as you simply don't have enough to handle it on a recurring basis. Fine Clothes is mandatory for The Last King, and Mr. "Rook" can help you find it. You'll almost certainly want to go in and kill everyone afterward, just to not deal with the host of annoying enemies in future scenarios. After that, regular cluing is easy enough.

David Renfield is a little interesting when you want to get aggressive with the agenda, and in A Phantom of Truth, depending on the route you take, can generate an absurd number of resources. Due to the number of hidden cards, it can be nice to have a Dream-Enhancing Serum to offset. Straitjacket is quite annoying for your Timeworn Brand, and makes Disc of Itzamna look better just for The Unspeakable Oath.

Unfortunately, Mr. "Rook" will almost always find you a weakness due to the number of weaknesses this campaign hands out, but on the other hand, it also means that the number of weaknesses Carcosa gives end up being less annoying as you will draw them in your upkeep less than normal. Overall it shouldn't be a difficult experience.

The Forgotten Age

As mentioned above, Disc of Itzamna is crucial to avoiding Vengeance as you can discard each Vengeance enemy you find. Before you find your Disc of Itzamna, you might have to take some sketchy evasion tests, but luckily Take the Initiative or doubling up on Unexpected Courage gets you to an acceptable margin.

I find David Renfield increases in value relative to other campaigns as The Forgotten Age features many agendas with high doom counts. This allows you to keep David Renfield around for longer, move him to higher doom counts, and gives you more time to kill him off or find Calling in Favors. It also lets you benefit from his boost for longer as well.

If you don't care about the final scenario, going Ichtaca's route can be very rewarding - especially since the additional experience you accrue from forging your own path ends up being fairly useless.

Arrows from the Trees ends up being an extremely annoying Treachery for Roland to handle, as are the various tests in the exploration decks. Lost in the Wilds can be a lot to handle before you get Charisma. Related, once you get the Expedition Journal, I recommend using Mr. "Rook" to fish it out ASAP as it will save you 5—10 actions over the course of the scenario.

That said, Roland has a much easier time on The Boundary Beyond than normal, and gets off the ground in the City of Archives much more quickly as well, because he doesn't need to test early investigations. I recommend taking a Pendant for the City of Archives, or if you don't, pick up Versatile just before so you can add in either Laboratory Assistant or Dream-Enhancing Serum for the final act.

As a final note, the trauma the campaign happily hands out ends up not being too large of a deal for Roland because of the soak he has built in. You can bring an "I've had worse…" if it ends up being too much to handle, though.

The Circle Undone

I don't have a ton of in-depth thoughts here. Centuries of Secrets ends up being fairly annoying as it kills off Art Student and tends to be an auto-fail for you. As mentioned above, there is a lot of built-in fighting in the campaign, so skewing your assets towards that and away from avoiding fighting is likely the way to go. Haunted will probably end up as empty text as you can laugh to the bank with testless clues, and it also means that The Wages of Sin will be slightly easier than normal (definitely bring Pathfinder and Shortcut (2) for this one). Static stat boosts will also help significantly in Union and Disillusion, and you'll definitely want to get the puzzle box to be able to ignore a brazier.