Tommy The Tank Engine

Heyo! This is my first deck guide I publish and I'm quite new to Arkham Horror, so please don't be too mean.

So to give you some context. Normally when my friends and I start a new campaign I just go on Arkham DB and look for a Deck that looks fun, give it some changes and that's about it. But that did not work for Tommy, for some reason. I kinda went down the rabbit hole searching for cards synergizing with Tommy's special ability and I think I found what I was looking for in Hunter's Armor.

Hunters Armor

At first I skipped over this card because it took up my beloved Body-Slot reserved for Bandolier, but than I noticed the beauty of the card being customizable. That said, an upgraded Hunter's Armor will end up costing 3 resources to play, can take 4 damage and 4 horror, that can also be assign damage dealt to investigators at Tommys location and to round it of, playing it does not provoke attack of opportunity and can be modified to take up an arcane slot instead of a Body-Slot. So speaking in Tommys language of investing, that means you need to invest 3 resources to play it and in a best case scenario get 8! resources (or ammo for Becky) out of it. That is a return of invest of over 200%. This enables Tommy to a point where one Hunter's Armor in the Opening Hand can be enough to fund playing his other assets and begin stacking ammunition on Becky, which is the second most important card in this deck (with all the upgrades coming her way). Because Tommy reshuffles defeated assets back into his deck, theoretically there is an infinite supply on Hunter's Armor in this deck, but drawing one can be quite a pain in the a**. This is where Tetsuo Mori comes into play, giving Tommy the ability to search his deck for an Item asset, but more about that later. Let's take a look at Becky first.

Becky

Becky is a very solid firearm asset, adding 2 Strength and +1 damage to every attack. The catch? Becky only comes with 2 ammo. Definitely not enough to plough through hordes of enemies. BUT! There is Tommy's special ability that let's him choose between gaining resources or ammo on Becky when one of his assets is defeated. And if played right this means, Becky has basically an infinite magazine, never running out of bullets and become deadly if we enhance dear Becky just right.

Upgrade Cards. Something I hadn't looked into very much because frankly firearms suck for most of the investigators in my opinion, but Becky is an exception, because with Tommy's special ability it gets rid of the biggest problem: Limited Ammunition. But to make Becky even stronger we can throw some upgrades on her making her deadly to the point where she can deal up to 5 damage with just one bullet. How you ask? Let's have a look at the upgrades

Upgrades for Becky

Custom Modifications, Custom Ammunition and Enchant Weapon. These cards transform Becky into one hell of a weapon. Let's look what they do one at a time:

Custom Modifications

Without any customizations this card only gives Tommy the ability to redraw a chaos token once per round while attacking with Becky. Neat, but nothing to crazy. But picking the Extended Stock and Quicksilver Bullets gives Tommy a (needed) +2 Strength to every attack done with Becky and if that check succeeds by 3 or more it deals an additional +1 damage. Which at this point is something that will not trigger reliably, but we get there I promise.

So after upgrading Becky with Custom Modifications it get a total of +4 Strength to every attack and if lucky, deals 3 total damage per shot. Neat. But not done.

Custom Ammunition

This one really depends on which campaign you are playing, because while it adds 2 ammo to Becky (which can be nice) the real value stems from the +1 damage to Monster enemies. If you are dealing with mostly Humanoids or Spectrals, this upgrade will probably be not worth it, but if you are facing a lot of monsters this is a very cheap and easy way to bring Becky to deal reliable 3 damage and at best 4 damage with Quicksilver Bullets.

4 damage is a lot but we are not done yet!

Enchant Weapon

The last and maybe most important upgrade. Not only because it gives us another +1 damage, pumping the maximum output to 5 damage per shot, but because of the way it helps trigger damage of Quicksilver Bullets. One per turn this card can be exhausted to add Tommys Resolve to this attack giving this attack another +3 (at least). So adding all the modifiers together we get a +2 Strength from Becky itself, +2 from extended Stock and a +3 from Enchant Weapon which gives us a +7 to this attack. Which is most of the time a guaranteed success by 3 or more, triggering the +1 damage of Quicksilver Bullets. And if we are fighting a monster enemy this means 5 damage for this bullet.

And lets not forget that Enchant Weapon adds the relic trait to Becky, which can be clutch when fighting some Spectral enemies, that can only be damaged by Spells or Relics.

Last Words for Becky

So to summarize, if we can get all the upgrades on Becky, we get a shot once per turn that has a +7 modifier and deals 4-5 damage. If that doesn't kill whatever is infront of us we still have two actions left to shoot. Those shots are made at a +4 modifier and deal 2-4 damage, which is not bad at all!

But here is the problem...we need to draw Becky and all the three upgrade Cards to get to this point. That seems rather unlikely, dont you think...But why don't we Stick to the Plan?

Stick to the Plan

This card is perfect for this deck because it gives us the ability to pick three cards with the Supply or Tatics keyword out of the deck and place it in a seperate deck and let us use them as if they were in our hand. Custom Modifications and Custom Ammunition both have the Supply Keyword and can therefore be placed under Stick to the Plan. Unfortunatly neither Enchant Weapon nor Becky have the Supply or Tactics Keyword, but we still have one Card to pick to go into the seperate deck. For me this card needs to be Prepared for the Worst, because it gives us a better chance to draw Becky quickly and play our upgrades in the first few rounds. I think Emergency Cache is also a valid option here, as it can be quite expensive at first when playing the assets and upgrades.

Okay! So we are guaranteed to have 2 of our 4 needed cards in the opening hand and a good chance to successfully fish for Becky with Prepared for the Worst. But what if we don't get Becky with Prepared for the Worst and what about Hunter's Armor. What if we don't have one in the opening hand? Look no further than Tetsuo Mori.

Tetsuo Mori

Hunter's Armor isn't the only damage soak this deck has to offer. Similar to the customized Armor Tetsuo Mori is able to take damage and horror dealt to investigators at Tommy's location, but the real value of this card comes from it's ability. After Tetsuo Mori is defeated we can trigger his ability to search the top 9 cards of the deck for an Item asset. This is huge because our most important cards are both Items. Becky and Hunter's Armor (also Bandolier and Survival Knife). This makes drawing those cards much more reliable and because a defeated assets gets shuffled back into the deck via Tommy's ability, Tetsuo Mori and his ability can be reshuffled many times. With this card costing 3 resources to play and having 2 damage and 2 horror soak it is a solid investment and is enough to stall until Tommy has his all mighty Hunter's Armor in play.

Honourable Mentions - Cards

The cards mentioned above are without a doubt the most important cards in the whole deck, but there are some cards I want to point out and explain why I choose them to be in this deck or in the upgrade path.

Safeguard

With this deck I want Tommy to be a meat shield for the whole party. That's why I want the upgrade on Hunter's Armor that allows Tommy to put damage from investigator at his locations to put damage and horror on it, but that is of no use if Tommy is not with his fellow investigators. To save actions and ensure that Tommy is almost always at the same location as at least one other investigator Safeguard is just amazing. Moving for free always feels amazing and with Tommy dealing with all enemies it can be difficult to spend actions to move along with the party. So Safeguard is a No-Brainer for me.

In the Thick of It

The starting 3XP that In the Thick of It grants, is essential for this deck, because we need the first upgrade on Hunter's Armor for this deck to work. This first upgrade means, making the Armor take an arcane slot instead of a Body-Slot, enabling Bandolier which enables Survival Knife and also making it 1 resource cheaper and playable without taking attack of opportunities.

Survival Knife

Out of all weapons, why Survival Knife. Because I never want to attack with it! See the plan of this deck is to get Becky out quick and stack ammunition on it making Becky our reliable damage output. So we don't need another Weapon, but still Survival Knife is worth it. The ability of this card just fits perfectly in this decks game plan. Enemys do still attack and deal damage and horror, giving us the opportunity to sacrifice assets to gain resources or ammunition, but also passivly deal damage without sacrificing actions to do so. So the best case scenario for the use of Survival Knife would be if the damage dealt by an enemy defeats one of our assets, granting us resources or ammunition and than the 2 damage of Survival Knife kills off the attacking enemy saving us valuable ammunition and actions on the next turn.

Enough with the Cards. What's the plan?

Alright let's break the game plan down into three phases. Mulligan, early game and end game.

Mulligan | Opening Hand

I think doing this is done easiest if we rank our cards based on how important they are to us in the early stage of a scenario, so they can carry us into the end game.

1.Hunter's Armor 2.Becky 3.Tetsuo Mori 4.Enchant Weapon 5.Safeguard 6.Bandolier 7.Survival Knife

On the first draw of the opening hand I suggest looking for either Hunter's Armor or Tetsuo Mori as they give us good damage soak and in case of Tetsuo Mori the ability to search our deck for what we are missing. Becky is obviously always a most keep, but not having her in the opening hand while having Tetsuo Mori is not too bad. Safeguard can save us a lot of actions if we draw it early so it is almost always a must keep. Of the once not listed above I think having Emergency Cache or First Watch or any Skill is not to bad either. In a perfect scenario we want to start with at least one damage soak (Hunter's Armor or Tetsuo Mori), Becky and Safeguard. With a opening hand like this it is almost guaranteed that we can quickly stack ammo on Becky while still being tanky!

Early Game

If we are lucky and have Becky in the Opening Hand I like to play her immediately, making us ready for the first wave of encounter cards. If not I like to directly take my chances with Prepared for the Worst that we have ready beneath Stick to the Plan. If that doesn't give us Becky follow up by playing a damage soak card and end the round by giving you another resource. The next rounds we want to get damage and horror onto Tetsuo Mori if able to trigger his ability to get another shot at getting Becky, Hunter's Armor or Bandolier (whatever you need). Early Game for Tommy ends if he controls Becky, at least one Hunters Armor, Tetsuo Mori and either Bandolier + Survival Knife or Safeguard. This setup gives Tommy the needed tankiness and damage while providing the resources and assets with each defeated Hunter's Armor or Tetsuo Mori.

End Game

Up until this point we would probably want to use Tommy's ability to gain resources to play our important cards and get us equipped. But with the most important cards in our play area we can switch to stacking ammo on #Becky. With the passive resources through Upkeep and the occasional Emergency Cache we should be more than fine regarding resources, so each defeated Assets should be used to load our infinite Becky Magazine! This is also the time where we play our Upgrade assets one by one from beneath Stick to the Plan and hope to draw one of our Enchant Weapon cards to finish our deadly Becky build.

Final Words

Yeah. That's about it. I hope this guide was somewhat helpful and understandable. Feel free to make suggestions for improvements or ask questions if something seems unclear or straight up wrong.

Here the link to the upgraded 37XP deck: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/6270722

Cheers!