Aquinnosene: Your New Favourite Jank

There’s a reason Aquinnah’s subtitle is “The Forgotten Daughter”. She doesn’t get much play, and is often overshadowed by the other very strong choices for the ally spot.

Not anymore. The beautiful jank of Aquinnosene is here to shoot Aquinnah up to the top of allies you’re going to want to run.

How Aquinnosene works

So, the two cards in question are Aquinnah (preferably level 3 over the significantly worse level 1 version), and Kerosene. However, after you read what Aquinnosene does, you’ll see that there are other cards that work instead of Kerosene (such as “If it bleeds…”) but Kerosene is the coolest and the most reliable. The ideal Aquinnosene round goes as follows:

-The investigator does something useful while being engaged with an enemy and having Aquinnah(3) up, prompting an attack of opportunity.

-Aquinnah(3) takes 1 horror, is exhausted, and the damage from the attack can be redirected to the enemy that just attacked, or to another enemy at the location.

-The enemy is dead. If it’s not dead, it probably has only a little bit of health left and can be dead soon.

-An action is spent to use Kerosene, which heals the horror Aquinnah had to take to kill the enemy.

The end benefits are the following:

-Doesn’t rely on testing to pull off. Deal a pile of testless damage over and over to enemies, killing a lot of them without testing Fight. Aquinnah also works on Elites, which can help you out in a pinch!

-Get action economy by triggering Aquinnah with attacks of opportunity that allow you to, say, investigate, while simultaneously beating up or killing smaller enemies. (Since Aquinnah can hit Aloof enemies, you can also potentially save actions for engagements as well.)

-Allow Kerosene to be used, which heals the horror off Aquinnah, allowing you to spam this combo over and over again.

The downsides are the following:

-Healing at all is often viewed as action inefficient. This entire combo depends on healing not even your investigator but an Ally.

-Both Aquinnah and Kerosene are costly cards, both in terms of resources and experience.

-The ally slot is highly competitive. Locking into Aquinnosene may deny you access to other strong allies.

-Frankly, this entire combo is janky as hell and you should know that before you tempt fate with this.

 

 

What other cards benefit Aquinnosene?

Anything that heals horror or soaks horror is good for Aquinnosene, because you actually don’t want to be using Aquinnah as your normal soak. Healing horror off of allies is a really rare effect, so her sanity is precious. If things get ugly enough, you may be forced to – she does have 4 sanity, after all. But, you want to save her horror so she can explode fools instead with her reaction ability. That’s why “If it bleeds…” works pretty well, since it allows you to heal horror off an enemy being defeated (which Aquinnah will do for you), which will help you out if you start piling horror on your investigator.

But, the number one card for Aquinnosene is unquestionably Inspiring Presence. Inspiring Presence basically undoes the entire cost of triggering Aquinnah by both healing her 1 horror and readying her. With Inspiring Presence, you can use Aquinnah twice in one turn!

Another good choice is Calling In Favors. The fact is, Aquinnah is pretty expensive resource-wise. Calling In Favors helps you protect your investment. Let’s say Aquinnah has 3 horror on her. Call in a favor to return Aquinnah safely back to your hand, and potentially put a new Aquinnah onto the field. If you can’t find another Aquinnah, since Aquinnah is already 5r or 4r, whatever other ally you can find will probably be able to be played for free.

Finally, if you are very desperate to get her out, you can Flare in your Aquinnah, saving you the cost of having to play her!

 

Who wants to run Aquinnosene?

Aquinnosene will typically be run in multiplayer, with one player taking Aquinnah and the other player taking Kerosene. This allows the actions required to play this to be spread out, but the bigger reason is because very few people can run both Aquinnah and Kerosene in one deck.

Here are some good teams for Aquinnosene:

PETE AND CAROLYN

This is by far the best Aquinnosene combo. Carolyn, of course, throws money at people when they heal horror. Her Elder Sign ability, while rare, will also allow her to do some healing on Aquinnah as well.

Meanwhile, Pete can ready Aquinnah by discarding a card, which allows him to spam her attacks over and over again. He can kill many enemies by just taking one or two attacks of opportunity with Aquinnah, and if he doesn’t kill ’em, then Duke probably can deal the last 2 damage. A little healing from Carolyn’s Kerosene and Aquinnah will be able to do this over and over again.

YORICK AND ROLAND

Yorick can take both the Kerosene and Aquinnah. But, with Roland around, he doesn’t have to. Both investigators synergize off of killing enemies at their location. If an enemy is left at low health by Aquinnah, you can decide who gets to take the last shot on it. Also, Yorick can put a defeated Aquinnah back into play with his recursion abilities. Both investigators also benefit off of having the horror healing available as an option, especially if Roland’s Cover Up triggers over the course of the campaign.

SOLO LOLA

One of the best parts about Aquinnosene is it’s one of the only combos involving two different classes of cards that Lola can actually pull off with her limiting role mechanics! Use Aquinnah while a Survivor, and then switch to Guardian to use the Kerosene. Furthermore, Lola loves Calling in Favors as a neutral event, which can save your Aquinnah from being defeated if she drops low.

SOLO YORICK

As previously stated, Yorick can take Kerosene and Aquinnah, but also basically every card that synergizes with Aquinnosene as a combo. You can use Aquinnah to trigger your recursion, putting out soak items such as Cherished Keepsake. When the timing is right, use your Inspiring Presence and your Kerosene to top Aquinnah’s sanity back up to full. And, again, if your Aquinnah ever dies, you can just fetch her back with your ability and start the process all over again!

 

Conclusion

So what do you think? Do you dare run Aquinnosene in your next campaign? If you do, let me know how it goes in the comments! I’m excited to hear about all of Aquinnah’s arsonist adventures.