Welcome, Investigators, to a new article from the Arkham Archives! After suffering 3 mental traumas, all of us, during the week due to the ravings of a quite famous shotgun, this week Jose premieres as blog writer talking about Finn (The Human) Edwards.
Before starting, remember that we dedicated him one chapter in our podcast, specifically the 16th episode of the first season (Spanish only). It can be found here.
To get started, let’s see his character card.
 |
 |
His 4s in Intellect and Agility, together with his capacity of doing a 4th action per turn (as long as it’s an evade action) make him a character greatly focused on gathering clues and passing from enemies while gathering those clues.
His deck building option include the possibility of adding up to 5 Seeker or Survivor, making it possible to add in his deck the Deduction card, and our favorite seeker card, the famous entomologist very well known in his house at dinner time, Dr Milan Christopher, who whispers you bugs stuff to your ear in his free time. Even if we include both the original as the tabooed version of him, he will allow us, besides providing a better investigation skill, to get more resources for the rest of the cards we are going to play.
 |
 |
Of course, Lone Wolf will also help us to get more resources in a passive way, specially at low player count, or if we deny having a dedicated clue gatherer, since we have facilities for dealing with monsters. Emergency Cache, Watch This!, Pickpocketing on its upgraded version, Burglary and lvl 2 Hot Streak will increase the size of our great rogue reserve.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
And what are we going to spend so many resources? On instaclues!!! At the beginning of the campaign, we can use Belly of the Beast using our evading ability, and Intel Report. In this last card, playing it at its maximum splendor will cost us 6 resources, but will allow us to get 2 clues in a near location where we don’t want to get back (like that 5 shroud location where we left that annoying non hunter enemy.)
 |
 |
Being more advanced in the campaign we’re playing, we can invest our cherished experience points in Charisma and Lola Santiago, along with our entomologist friend. The resources that we get from him are spent by her, leaving you with nice and fresh clues on the way. According to our tastes, during the match we can get many locations on low shroud locations, compressing as much as possible our economy, or few clues in high shroud locations if we are having difficulties in high difficulties and we can’t find our Intel Report in the deck.
 |
 |
When investigating normally, a couple of Flashlights in the deck will make it quite easy, specially in 2-shroud locations. This is quite useful in higher difficulties, where a -5 or -6 won’t be strange to us. One of the biggest pleasures of this character is to investigate a 2-shroud location with the Flashlight, Double or Nothing and taking a whopping 4 clues in one action, or a couple more if the arcane symbol comes up by the way. We could get a -8, but the double of 0 is still 0. We will only cry with the feared red tentacle.
 |
 |
 |
Eavesdrop will let us to get clues in places with aloof enemies, or in those places where we have evaded someone annoying. Winging It will allow us to investigate in an easier way, and it will give us an extra clue when played from the discard pile. Remember we have indicated that Finn has capacity for only 5 Rogue or Seeker cards, so you need to choose those cards very well. For having a better flexibility with those cards, spending 1 XP on Adaptable will help us to optimize those spaces if we have already played the campaign and know what’s coming for us.
 |
 |
 |
Special mention for Lockpicks, essential for investigating (once per turn) with a base value of 8, opening locks with all the swag. Another mention for Streetwise, that will give us more Intellect or Agility if needed. It’s also probable that we surpass the ability tests in several occasions so Lucky Cigarette Case will fill our hand, so we’ll have more cards for playing.
 |
 |
 |
And what happens with the big elephant in the room? This character has 1 in Willpower. Honestly, the only things that can save us from the Willpower skill tests is You Handle This! on Multiplayers. Even introducing in the deck Guts or Unexpected Courage, we’ll need to fit some hits in the chest in the mythos phase. Or ask Lola and our entomologist friend to stop some hits, which is another function of them. If we know we are going to find Terror treacheries that will stay in our play area, like Frozen in Fear, we’ll need to reserve a space for Logical Reasoning. It will also work for healing some horror in case said treacheries don’t appear in the scenario. Regarding annoying enemies, if we want to totally ignore them, Elusive will give us the opportunity to do our stuff in another place.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Regarding his personal cards, his weakness Caught Red Handed is not especially harmful, but we must remember that if there are hunter enemies near, we shouldn’t draw a card during our turn if we know the weakness is pending to be revealed. During upkeep phase it shouldn’t be annoying in most of the cases. His pistol, Finn’s Trusty .38, will come handy to take care of an enemy that needs to be defeated, and Smuggled Goods will allow us to search either our discard pile or our deck for an Illicit card (the said pistol or even the Lockpicks), with the added benefit of shuffling it back in the deck if you searched there.
 |
 |
 |
If you want to orient him to combat, or combat and clue gatherer hybrid (Why would you want, though? There are better investigators for that, take Leo Anderson or Jenny Barnes!) we have cards like Backstab, Sneak Attack, or Sleight of Hand, and firearms like Derringer .41, or the signature pistol, or high caliber weapons… Hello, upgraded Mr .45 Thompson! For trivialities, the Switchblade, both in its basic and upgraded versions, will give us what we need. But really, there are better investigators for that. Finn investigator, not fighter. And if you insist, add him a Peter Sylvestre for tanking the horror, since the match will go longer.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
And we have arrived until the end of the article for the best non yellow Seeker! There’s a poll on BGG about what color do Seekers are: a 67% say yellow, but I would say it’s more an ocher color. In any case, Finn is the green seeker that will give you confidence, a clue smuggler that will make the Act deck advance quickly, leaving the Great Old Ones minions confused or inside the encounter deck, the place where they should always be.
Gustavo.
Original: Finn, el Humano
