Broke "Ashcan" Pete TC/WJB Dunwich duo V3

Ideas

• Using passive enhancements (Dark Horse, Magnifying Glass, Peter Sylvestre) to boost both Pete and Duke. Give Duke 6 to investigate and 5 for combat. Gives Pete 5 Willpower, 4 Intellect, 3 combat and 4 agility.

• Use Allies for passive bonus, special effects and as damage soaks to mitigate Pete's relatively low health and Sanity. At least one Charisma needed as an early upgrade. Calling in Favors is there to both reduce costs and ensure that Ally's are brought into play early.

• Ensure Pete remains viable without Duke! The passive enhancements benefit both but Fire Axe is exclusively for Pete when needed and has potential for big hits when resources are used when high attack enemies are encountered. Flare is also strong card for late scenario enemies.

• Using Dark Horse means limiting resources where possible. This is a low costs deck especially with Calling in Favors helping Ally's to be played for free or 1 resource. The starting resources should be enough to get started and with flexibility through Emergency Cache and/or Madame Labranche costs should be manageable. Once the assets are set use Dark Horse to avoid accumulating resources although depending on which events are in hand and that rounds plan it may be wise to run a one (for Lucky! or Calling in Favors) or two (For Flare) resource knowing that if used then Dark Horse will immediately come into effect too for that skill test.

Key Cards & combo's

• Dark Horse and Duke are the obvious ones. Adding Magnifying Glass for intellect (effecting both Pete and Duke) is a good early add as are any of the ally's, each having a static bonus and each also having useful abilities.

• Fire Axe is a safety blanket for Pete but also helps with action economy allowing both Pete and Duke to be effective in attack and potentially preparing for a big attack or two if needed. You will need to think ahead for those to ensure you have resources in hand at the right time.

• Events are all good with Calling in Favors ensuring you consistently get one or two ally's out early and also managing the cost.. Beware though to ensure you have a resource in hand if using this looking for Peter Sylvestre as he costs 1 more than the other ally's. Lucky! is obviously awesome, Flare and Emergency Cache for emergencies. Note Resourceful can be used to retrieve any survivor card but most often it will be Lucky! being recalled to hand although it can be situational.

• The deck is skill heavy as it needs to run with very little resource once set up. Inspiring Presence has yet to prove itself but in theory works well with Duke or Madame Labranche. Resourceful helps get you best events back in hand, #Deduction helps in clue heavy scenarios and the three skill boosts both help pass skill tests and cycle your deck.

Initial hand and Mulligan options

Ideal first hand - Dark Horse, Calling in Favors, Fire Axe, an ally, Emergency Cache (so you can play all the assets).

The deck has worked in quite a few configurations so Mulligan can be difficult and depending on how much you know about what you will face may be tailored.

• In all cases Calling in Favors is a key card (unless you draw all the allies in you initial hand). Ditch any other events or skills to go looking for it if you don't have it. Any duplicate assets can also be ditched as can Rabbit's Foot which I am yet to be convinced by.
• For scenarios where you don't know what you are facing try for Dark Horse (Which benefits everything) and Madame Labranche who's flexibility with resource/cards/Health and Sanity is helpful.
• For Clue heavy scenarios - Dark Horse and Magnifying Glass will be most effective.
• For combat heavy scenarios - Dark Horse, Dr. Francis Morgan and Fire Axe are most effective.

Upgrades

Some key upgrades in a rough order of priority:

• 2 x Charisma - Probably just one to start with, adding the second later when XP are more abundant (he said hopefully!). Its permanent so a guaranteed improvement and invariably at least one extra slot needed for all those Allies.

• 2 x Lucky! - replacing Lucky, an already great card got better.. A no brainer for most upgrade paths.

• 2 x Flare - Although it gets Exiled, its very strong and yet another way to find allies when you need them. High up my list for upgrades although I wont be using it unless I have to so hopefully once I have 2 in my deck I wont be replacing every scenario. R1 of the inspiring presence with these.

• Stroke of Luck - Another Exile card but again useful in a tight spot

• Devil's Luck - exile - One of only but could save you in a key situation...

• Scrapper - Another permanent card, on the surface not that useful in a low resource deck but it does provide a place to dump resource if you need to and in a fight dumping that 1 resource could give you +1 from scrapper and another +1 from Dark Horse coming on line.

• Peter Sylvestre - More passive enhancements and the ever useful sanity soak although with so many Allies I am not wholly convinced Pete is going to need someone who can heal Sanity every turn so I may bump Peter further down the upgrade pecking order.

Performance to date

There are plenty of other options and I expect to change my mind as I see how Pete performs... 3 scenarios in to Dunwich at the moment.

• Fragile in 'The house always win' lost Duke and ran out of health so now carrying a point of Trauma. But gained 3xp and Dr. Francis Morgan.
• Strolled through 'Extracurricular Activities' and 'Miskatonic Museum' Ally rich and although it was never easy (on Standard difficulty) Pete was never at risk of being defeated and felt strong throughout.

As always your comments will be welcome and indeed the only real point of publishing is to see what suggestions other people can come up and hopefully improve everyones decks and enjoyment of the game.