Geared Up

Seems like Leo Anderson's ability to play an ally at the beginning of the turn is not lost since it is a reaction to the start of a turn. So with Geared up and Leo you could play an ally plus up to 4 items.

McV0id · 8
With Backpack and "Black Market" in theory it could be more than that. But be beware, that most guardian and rogue allies are not on the cheap side, so you would likely need somebody else to play a Schoffner's in advance to even come close playing 5 cards on your "Geared Up" turn, if you spend extra cash on an ally. — Susumu · 371
Snare Trap

This card may give much more actions to hammer at the enemy than you thought at first glance, when you think about the sequence of exhaustion and ready :

  • Round 1: Investigation Phase : Place Snare Trap and end the turn.
  • Round 1 : Enemy Phase : Nearby Hunter enemy moves in and enters the trapped location. You will not be attacked since it exhausts after Snare Trap changed from attaching to the location, to be attached on the enemy card.
  • Round 1 : Upkeep Phase : It cannot ready and Snare Trap is discarded instead. Supposed that if this card does not have "Instead," in the 2nd Forced text, it would still be useful as you have already benefit from escaping one Enemy Phase. (Similar to Hiding Spot in term of its longevity.)
  • Round 2 : Investigation Phase : You have got an enemy in rare state which it is exhausted even before you do anything, and likely you or your team is already there to pump actions to it with Retaliate disabled. Normally to fight the enemy you would have to spend an action to move in first, so you save both move and evade actions.
  • Round 2 : Enemy Phase : It still can't do anything, since exhaustion refreshes in the upcoming Upkeep Phase. If you cannot defeat it in 3 actions of Round 2 and decided to stay, you are still not receiving any damage. You can decide to leave in this round to not get the engagement.
  • Round 2 : Upkeep Phase : Now it readies and you choose the engagement.
  • Round 3 : You still can pump actions to finish it off, this time with Retaliate on.

You can get more attacks in Round 1, if one player is already engaging and the other player happened to draw Snare Trap. The other player can go first and put down Snare Trap nearby, then the engaged player maybe attack it a few times and sacrifice 1 AoO to move and drag it causing it to "enter" the location with Snare Trap.

5argon · 10753
But how many non-elite enemies are that dangerous? Why wouldn't you rather spend those 2 xp, a card, two resources and a play action on something that can kill it - rather than jump through hoops to exhaust it for two rounds? — olahren · 3476
Rules query in case you play this in 5U-21 aka Suzi, can she play this then after it had been attached to an enemy who fell into the trap, use her free Lightning Bolt ability to devour a an asset at her location before it will be discarded in the enemy phase? — Quantallar · 8
David Renfield

Though an official ruling of Taboo is that you cannot partially follow Taboo, per an investigator :

Investigators are not forced to adhere to the restrictions on this list, but if an investigator chooses to do so, they must do so in full (an investigator cannot pick and choose which restrictions to use).

The reasoning behind this card getting +3 Chained is that :

We’ve also taken the opportunity to chain everyone’s favorite Eschatologist, David Renfield (+3 experience); the reasoning behind this change is in anticipation of many of the new cards coming in The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion, which are likely to propel this already popular powerful card to new levels of power.

So I think it is quite fair if a player is selectively following Taboo for something like Dr. Milan Christopher, but not David Renfield if you don't have any Scarlet Keys cards in your deck, if you are just looking to play with doom the old school way. (Perhaps for Daisy Walker deck that could include both.)

5argon · 10753
I agree on that. Some cards are not broken in isolation, only as part of some crazy combo. If you're not gunning for that combo, you should feel free to disregard the taboo list. I'm kinda glad FFG is tabooing David, though. It would be silly if they should have take every old card into consideration when designing new ones. If a optional taboo on David is what it takes to introduce cards such as Sin-Eater, then be my guest. — olahren · 3476
If David wasn't taboo'ed now you only know the screeching to get him so would be intensifying by the day. — fiatluxia · 66
Ritual Candles

With 2022-08 taboo, Ritual Candles works with all symbol token. It means that with two Ritual Candles, the net-modifier of the token is 0. Now, we don't need to fear even if lots of are in the chaos bag. Double Candles help to overcome the main issue of the curse spell; it's hard to succeed the test when the is revealed. How to add in the bag? Here is Rite of Equilibrium, which is just 3xp to purchase.

elkeinkrad · 499
Since nobody talked about bless combos so far: Sacred Covenant allows you to put all of them back in the bag und still reap the +1 for each one from the Ritual Candles :) — AlderSign · 309