This question could result in years of debate. I’m not
here for that, however, I’d like to throw out some ideas I’ve had to try to
answer this question.
I think we need to ask the question first, what makes a good solo investigator? Is it the class? The deck building requirements? The stat lines? We could talk for hours about all of these too! So I’ll talk about a couple of things which I feel are really important to solo play and which investigators are best suited to take advantage of this.
In Arkham Horror, the most valuable resources in my honest opinion are Actions and actual Resources. In solo play, you don’t have tag team partners to rely on should your turn not go according to plan or even to pick up from where your turn leaves you. So actions are more valuable than any asset in solo play, unless that asset gets you more actions of course. The more actions you have in your turn, the more you can do, whether that is combat or investigating.
Now actual resources are just a step behind in value, resources get you the tools you need to get you where you need to be. Whether that’s buying allies or whether that’s purchasing assets. Resources can help boost stats or even allow you to avoid testing altogether.
Once you’ve established that you need actions / money to get by in the game, I would always say it makes the class choice all the more easy, for me this leads me nicely to the Rogue class. I know what you’re thinking, I always talk about how Rogue is my favourite class in Arkham Horror LCG, but please hear me out. The Rogue class has become a lot more prominent in terms of being able to investigate, especially with cards like Lock Picks, Lola Santiago and Intel Report to name but three. Since this stat is one of the two main stats in the game, this faction more than holds its own in the modern card pool.
The other main stat of course being combat, which of
course Rogue’s have their own stockpile of ass kickery which they bring to the
table varying from the 38” Derringer,
Lupara and Chicago Typewriter. The Rogues are able to bring a good deal of
combat skill to the game should they need to especially with tactics such as
Sleight of Hand, allowing some of these weapons to slip in as a fast action,
let off their ammo and then return to hand to be used again later. Rogues are
tricky and sly if nothing else.
Rogues also get cards like Hot Streak, Faustian Bargain and Pay Day, which gives them a huge resource advantage. As already mentioned, these cards allow you to play those investigation and combat assets notes above. Whoever said money won’t solve your problems, never played this game I can tell you.
Actions are a Rogue’s best friend, no other class can get these extra actions in the same way. Let’s start with Leo De Luca, this ally asset grants you an extra action each turn, what more is there to say. Once you start gaining experience points, this progresses further with cards such as Fence, which gives any Illicit card either a -1 cost reduction or the Fast trait, which means it won’t cost you an action to play it. Ace in the Hole, grants you a one off bonus of three extra actions.
Yet one of the most consistent ways of getting extra
actions is with the Rogue’s own abilities. Tony allows a combat or engage
action, provided they are on his bounty list. Skids can simply buy another
action with two resources and Finn can only use his extra action for evading.
Still these are great options in all cases. Although lets ignore Tony for now,
his investigation stats aren’t much to be desired when playing solo.
This leaves us with Skids O’Toole, Jenny Barnes and Finn Edwards. Let’s look at Skids first. He has a solid stat line with 3 combat and 3 investigation, which will be fine early campaign I’d imagine with the support which is available at that time for you. His deck building allows him to play up to level 2 Guardian cards. This does give you access to some action gaining cards like Police Badge, which also boosts Skid’s pretty poor Willpower stat and even some nice investigation support too, with cards such as Scene of the Crime, allowing up to two clues to be grabbed from a location. His ability to pay two resources to gain an action once per turn is also pretty useful in itself. You may not need this ability each turn but will be incredibly useful when its needed and cards such as Leo De Luca to hand will mean Skids can get an impressive five actions a turn with little effort.
Skid’s weak point is his Willpower stat, at only two it brings terrible peril when facing the mythos. However Guardian do provide some skills which can help buffer this though, so I guess it’s a risk going into the campaign. If the deck is built to truly utilise the actions, you can mitigate this weakness by being able to get through the actual scenario much quicker, therefore, lowering your exposure to the mythos.
His fight stat allows you to be reasonable in combat if needed, but his four evasion stat means he gets a boost when using Lock-picks and can evade consistently. These evasions can allow you to trigger cards like Pickpocket, which being illicit could be played as a fast action under Fence and when you evade allows you to draw a card, so again, utilising that action efficiency to get a free card draw. All these triggers, free actions allow you to take a real advantage during the game and can result in a much quicker win.
Now of course that leaves Finn, who’s use of the Illicit cards can really work towards good action economy when combined with Fence and because he can access a limited number of survivor or seeker cards, he can also gain some action economy.
Finn’s ability is a useful one for enemy management, as he can evade for free once per turn, which maybe a great way of saving combat actions for when they really needed. His dual stat line of four on evasion and intellect mean he can really work the evade angle and the Lock-picks card, by investigating at a total value of eight when using this card. His signature cards are all Illicit so can work with Fence to be either reduced in cost or made to be a fast action, making them free.
Sadly his Willpower is really low at a stat of one and won’t be helping you no matter what skills you pack in your deck. So you might as well focus on doing the rest well. If you went with the Survivor splash you could include Lucky, Look What I Found or similar card to take advantage of those failed tests to try and succeed instead. However, I think I’d rather go with a Seeker splash and use Working a Hunch and Field Work to sure up my action economy. Working a Hunch allows you to get a free clue with its ability and Field Work triggers when you enter a location and gives you +2 to a stat of your choice for the next skill test you make. Both of these give you stuff for what is essentially free of charge outside of their own resource cost or initial action cost in the case of Field Work.
Very similar to Skid’s Finn can fight if he needs to, but the evasion maybe the better part of valour when dealing with enemies and can also get the effect from Pickpocket if in play, so gets that extra card. Finn with Pay Day can draft a massive amount of resources should he have a great turn. Between his own free action, his standard three actions, a free illicit action from Fence, a potential sneaky free Working a Hunch and a Leo De Luca bonus action, giving a total of seven potential actions. If Pay Day was that free Fence action, you’d get 7 resources, for just playing your turn and I don’t think anyone would complain about that.
So Jenny Barnes, at first look she doesn’t seem like the perfect solo investigator. She has a three stat line across the board and doesn’t scream a specific route to play. However, that makes her unbelievably flexible. Her ability means you get an extra resource each turn which is action saving if nothing else, so like Preston she can gain a good resource pool quicker than most investigators. She can also play up to five level zero cards from any other faction in her deck as part of her deck building requirements. Some useful contenders would be Dr. Milan Christopher, he gives you that extra intellect and allows you to gain a resource when you successfully investigate a location. Of course you lose Leo De Luca in the process, but the resources and be levied against tests in the game to provide a substitute to the extra action.
Cards such as Lucky from the survivor class are an option, as they can sure up her rather bland stat line, but truth be told the potential is endless for those five splash cards. Arcane Studies from the Mystic class allows her to boost her non Hard Knocks stats (Intellect and Willpower) using your resources too and was a choice I went with when I made her for a solo campaign. Between cards like Dr Milan, Lone Wolf, her own ability and other resource generating cards, she can get herself a good resource pool. Then adding the standard array of Rogue upgrades, she can get massive stock piles of cash to use as she wishes and additional actions to make them more effective.
Throw in the Rogue cards which give you bonuses for having lots of resources, these include Money Talks and Well Connected which give you better benefits the more cash you have. So, although she doesn’t get the standard extra free action the other two offerings have, she makes up for it with having the highest Willpower to tackle the Mythos and being able to generate an insane number of resources, should you get the engine going.
I think outside of the Survivor class and Ursela Downs,
you’d be hard pressed to find a better solo play investigator, than from these
Rogue class heroes. With their action generating cards and resource generating
cards in abundance, they allow for tremendous economy in solo and multiplayer
games. However, in solo, where this is even more critical, it shines the brightest.
I’m Big Boss…. I’m Out…. Peace
