Gloomhaven

[Tourist]

Was thinking about this thread today. Was so hoping to play scenario two over the weekend because it's a long weekend in Japan but my wife invited her niece and nephew round so that's not going to happen unless I want them to destroy everything. Sigh. Maybe next weekend!

[womblingfree]

Any news when this is going to retail?

[Rikku]

1 hour ago, womblingfree said:

Any news when this is going to retail?

 

I think it's already hit retail and mostly sold out, there are some copies on Amazon from the designer but given the quality of the components that my game contained, I would be reluctant to recommend spending over £200 on a copy of this print run when it was retailing for £106 elsewhere.  (To counter that, I would say that Cephalofair Games are replacing all of my damaged components, but waiting for half of the punchboards to be replaced as well as some broken minis and the health and exp trackers means I haven't gotten it to the table as much as I would have liked!) I fully understand that I am likely in the minority with the extent of damaged components.

 

Meeplescorner are saying there is a possibility of a third print possibly due in July, no idea if that will be through a kickstarter or not.

[womblingfree]

Another Kickstarter would be great. The post Kickstarter market’s a jungle!

[Cosmic_Guru]

This game 

 

Turned out to be a Gloomhaven weekend with 3 scenarios completed and some significant events in the life of the Party.  Possible scenario spoilers I suppose if you don't have access to the book / haven't flipped through it yet (I don't name the unlocked classes since they are a nice surprise to have although you can guess many of them).

 

We started the weekend as

 

Jutson - Brute - level 6 - the Tank (needs one more boss fight)

Demetria - Spellweaver - level 5 - damage doer (needs Gloomhaven to reach level 4)

Finch - machinist - level 5 - support / healing / damage (just needed one location scenario at the beginning of the weekend)

Persephone - scoundrel - level 2 - damage doer (needs to complete a quest scenario)

 

We had power of enhancement and water wings (that was the toughest fight to date and the only one which needs returning to to grab the treasure).

Gloomhaven prosperity level 2

High rep party

Playing level 2 difficulty (easy - > normal as retirement happened)

 

We did 

Spoiler

1 - the scenario where you protect Hail as she moves 2 spaces toward the alter each time - pretty easy since J and P were able to hold the final door and all enemies were melee.  F and D mopped up the spawns to the rear.  This enabled Finch to hang up his boots after exploring the various regions, and I swapped in a Sun symbolist "Buffy" (unlocked from being Good) - who will be a long term member since she has to become exhausted 12 times ( ) .  We also raised GH prosperity to 3, which enabled more possibilities for enhancement, more goodies in the shop, and had level ups for D and P.  

 

2 - the follow up to 1 above where you have to protect Hail for 10 turns v the spawned demons.  Very easy to do since the rules are so clear as to enemy focus.  This led to an immediate enhancement bonanza  - 100 G each for that purpose.  Unfortunately, D is already at peak enhancement (she has this personal goal so has been prioritising this) so I decided to keep the funds in escrow for her until we reach prosperity 4 (at which point fireball + enhanced attack for 4 rounds will be a killer card).  The others got a major fillip and it makes sense to continue with these members rather than retire them asap.  I think I made a mistake with Buffy though - she has very low mobility and I wonder if she could step into J's shoes on the front line - she clearly benefits from being in close proximity to other team members and isn't a like for like replacement for Finch who was more of a back line player - there is a card which grants ongoing 1 shield which could have been increased to 2.  Oh well, need to grind the 100g needed.

 

3 - Vibrant Grotto - the trickiest of the bunch, even with the benefits obtained to date.  I don't tailor decks for individual scenarios once I've figured out a good role for each character and that might have been  mistake with this one since it required the loot ability rather than simply moving to certain points to pick up treasure, and my team only had 3 such abilities, 1 of which was single use, and all "bottom half" abilities.  We struggled along with D going right and the others left - P having no loot ability was the one designated to rush around and open doors and maybe get the odd kill (she was motivated to pick up coins), J went up north to stand firm against the bears and pick up the treasure in that room and D was left facing 3 earth demons unaided.  At that point I realised the earth demons could be kited to follow D as she backtracked anti-clockwise, leaving Buffy to open the final door and rush up to the treasure chest guarded by traps (using P to sacrifice herself if necessary to clear the way).  A good plan, but it didn't allow for the immobility of the demons, possibly the slowest in the game, and poor D really missed Finch giving her a second wind, so she exhausted herself, the first time for ages.  Anyway we got the job done in the end, a bit touch and go, but it was a cool scenario.

 

Also, Finch's retirement unlocked the Elementist .   Not exactly a starter class but will replace D.   I've also got Cragheart and not-mindflayer available (should have guessed this one  - it looks like the symbol for noxious cloud spell).  So I'm thinking J -> Cragheart but moving B to tank, P -> poison dude (well insect swarm ) but that would be like replacing a keen scalpel with a blunderbuss).  

 

 

I really like all the "wash up" in this between scenarios - thinking about how to develop the characters, which cards to enhance, or items to buy, which roles members should play,  codifying your individual house rules etc.    One slight oddity is with enemies such as shamen which heal as their principal role - it doesn't  make sense for them to move toward a melee attack focus, so I'm tweaking that to have them move toward their injured brethren.

 

Curious to know if you tailor your decks each time or stick with one?  

Also, do you start new characters at level 1 or at the highest permissible level?  I fancy level 1 for new classes since you don't know how they will fit in best always, but if starting a familiar one you might as well jump in at higher level.

 

Also a few questions for those playing in MP, do you keep scenario objectives secret from each other and does this lead to conflict / failure?  How much do you co-ordinate, given the strict instructions not to do so at any level of detail?.  How do you choose where to go next?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scottcr]

I don't bother tailoring my deck for scenarios...  I'm quite happy with mine just now.

 

We co-ordinate by basically saying whether or not we'll be going quickly or slowly... we all know each others capabilities, but we don't say what we're doing.  Quite often that has meant that you end up having to change your plan or, more often than not, falling back to the move 2 attack 2... which when you get to higher levels with more powerful cards is *REALLY FUCKING ANNOYING*.

 

The wash-up between scenarios typically takes us about 10 minutes.  Pick a perk if required and check the loot.  I think we're almost burned out on the game... we enjoy it when we play it but it's been almost every week since release (with gaps for holidays and stuff).  So we're gunning for the end quest to see it out of the way.

 

 I've kind of lost track of what's going on other than 'go to this cave/dungeon whatever  and kills all the things'.

[Cosmic_Guru]

Oh yeah, usually wash-up is brief, it just so happened that between scenarios 1 and 2 on Saturday we (the Party) had a flurry of excitement with a retirement - > new class unlock, increase in prosperity and a couple of level ups all happening simultaneously, followed one scenario later by the 100G enhancement bounty.  

[scottcr]

Great game of this last night... right down to the draw of my last attack modifier. Got a 2x and killed the boss. An eye thing with a mouth instead of an iris that lived under water.

[Cosmic_Guru]

Something of a Red Letter Day in Gloomhaven recently - the last two of the original party members said their farewells as we trounced J---------- and thereby also reached Prosperity Level 4, thus achieving two career goals simultaneously.  Opening up some of the more specialised classes is a bit , thinking how they could be combined, and what items would be best for them, and maybe introducing 2 at once is a bit challenging.  

 

We had an unforeseen opportunity to road test the new group (spoilers for new classes)

 

Spoiler

Sun keeper L2 - front line damage / buff team / tank to an extent, but nowhere near as effective as Brute on that front

Scoundral L4 - does her own thing with very high mobility and potential for huge dps with a very tight attack deck

Elementist  L1- NEW - ranged attack, upgrade on spell waver

Plague weaver L1 - NEW - debuff and damage

 

I've also got Cragheart, Summoner and Doomstalker unlocked and not yet tested.

 

as a result of updating the town record, so off we went.  It was a bit hairy to be honest (even back at level 1) since this scenario has no doors to open and features a lot of Ooze.  Ooze are annoying since one of their attacks is a summons (thinking about it I think this should have been a fission with each sharing the original's HP, but there you go, you can't get everything perfect), and things can quickly get out of control.......  You need the markers to indicate which are summons since those don't drop a coin on death, and can run out of single point damage tokens, but a happy draw can eliminate several at once as in this case.  Anyway, we will go back to Treasure (Lost) Island next for a bit of coin collection, and more practice with this new group.  There is likely to be a decent stretch now with no major milestones passed although I cheated a bit and swapped out the SK's objective since it was counter-intuitive to her role in the party.  My scoundral has the easiest exit route but she's very useful to retain as we try to bed the others in.

 

 

[scottcr]

Popped up on my Facebook memories from last year today - a picture of us playing Gloomhaven.

 

and we’re still playing it. 

 

Must admit, I’ve no idea whatsoever what’s going on in the story

[Cosmic_Guru]

On 4/18/2018 at 12:54, scottcr said:

Must admit, I’ve no idea whatsoever what’s going on in the story

 

It's easy to lose sight of for sure.  There is a sort of main quest line featuring a necro, a dragon, an artifact, yadda yadda, with seemingly a couple of branching points, but also lengthy diversions to pursue enhancement and water wings if you are so minded (which I was since I had a career goal which necessitated that achievement and a random underwater scenario to complete), not to mention higher numbered non-story scenarios to explore, Lost Island to grind for gold and that's before attempting any random room set-ups.  It's very easy to lose track.

 

Retiring characters, raising prosperity and reading the Town Record puts another level of depth onto things though.  I've just spotted another inadvertent house rule - apparently as you raise prosperity you can raise current party member levels to match - I haven't been doing that.  Also, I generally start L1 each time but with Cragheart decided to make an exception since he has to amass 200 gold - might as well give him a head-start on that and I don't really fancy the class.

 

Yesterday, after a really satisfying Alchemical Lab scenario which needed a fair bit of planning, I opened envelope chi .  Not what I was expecting!  

[Faded]

I just played the first scenario of this yesterday. (After purchasing it from an amazon marketplace seller at a ridiculous mark up.)

 

I really really like it. I tried Brute as I traditionally play tanks in mmos and so forth. My wife took the Spellweaver and we stormed into that burrow and got our asses well and truly handed to us by a bunch of level one bandits. 

 

Can’t wait to try again, until then behold my poverty organisation system. 

[Faded]

Went back in with a slightly better understanding of what we were doing and emerged victorious. 

 

Major plus point is wife actually enjoys playing this with me so I’m not destined to solo the whole thing myself when she visits her mum.  Plan to smash scenario 2 tomorrow. 

 

[Jamin]

I'm playing this on Friday evening, and then Monday lunchtime. Double BH weekend session GET!

 

Our party of Cragheart, Spellweaker, Scoundrel and Tinkerer have undertaken around 8 scenarios, successfully completing 5 of them. My char (Cragheart) is literally one scenario away from completing his personal objective, and (presumably, newbie here!) I'll take a new character. Will be sad to let the big man go though, I have come to love his adaptability.

 

Fantastic game though, easily the best legacy game I've ever played. Fully deserving of it's rep.

[Cosmic_Guru]

44 minutes ago, Jamin said:

I'm playing this on Friday evening, and then Monday lunchtime. Double BH weekend session GET!

 

Our party of Cragheart, Spellweaker, Scoundrel and Tinkerer have undertaken around 8 scenarios, successfully completing 5 of them. My char (Cragheart) is literally one scenario away from completing his personal objective, and (presumably, newbie here!) I'll take a new character. Will be sad to let the big man go though, I have come to love his adaptability.

 

Fantastic game though, easily the best legacy game I've ever played. Fully deserving of it's rep.

 

It's absolutely brilliant isn't it?  The Cragheart is a fun character, the only problem (when I use him anyway) is that the "single use" abilities are just so good - like the one where you can rampage through obstacles and traps for about 5 hexes destroying them all - so stamina can be a problem.  Also, he then gets a bit exposed up front by himself (I'm being very skinflint with items for him mind, since he as to accumulate 200 gold), unlike the scoundrel he replaced who was a real lone wolf.

 

So, yes a new character for you, although you can always return to a new higher level Cragheart later.  

 

[Jamin]

That's great to hear I might get him back later

 

Aye I completely agree that all his best abilities are throwaway ones, I seem to be one of the few in our group who can manage cards effectively - every scenario so far I have been alive by the end in terms of exhaustion. Agreed re: exposure at the front, especially as we're not rolling with a Brute... I tend to try and make sure I do my heroic dash into rooms when I'm at full health and/or with a shield buff from myself or the Tinkerer, and/or where I use my multiple disarm attack.

 

It is truly fantastic though, even just on the combar: every character brings something different to the table, and I love the multiple ways in which enemies can be defeat (attacks, multiple AOE attacks, pulls, pushes, status effects, etc). Since we started it Pandemic Legacy hasn't had a look in, and that's a damn fine game in itself (except that Asia is a complete zombie write-off, perhaps that's why we're all ignoring it ). The game has even caused a minor schism in our group, in that we started without one of my mates (who allegedly was promised a spot by the owner) but who is notoriously unavailable, and yet he seems oblivious to this fact. So he's having a massive sulk as a result, who knew gaming could get this serious 

 

Where is anyone else's group up to with it? We're on the cusp of levelling up to Level 3.

[Cosmic_Guru]

1 hour ago, Jamin said:

That's great to hear I might get him back later

 

Aye I completely agree that all his best abilities are throwaway ones, I seem to be one of the few in our group who can manage cards effectively - every scenario so far I have been alive by the end in terms of exhaustion. Agreed re: exposure at the front, especially as we're not rolling with a Brute... I tend to try and make sure I do my heroic dash into rooms when I'm at full health and/or with a shield buff from myself or the Tinkerer, and/or where I use my multiple disarm attack.

 

It is truly fantastic though, even just on the combar: every character brings something different to the table, and I love the multiple ways in which enemies can be defeat (attacks, multiple AOE attacks, pulls, pushes, status effects, etc). Since we started it Pandemic Legacy hasn't had a look in, and that's a damn fine game in itself (except that Asia is a complete zombie write-off, perhaps that's why we're all ignoring it ). The game has even caused a minor schism in our group, in that we started without one of my mates (who allegedly was promised a spot by the owner) but who is notoriously unavailable, and yet he seems oblivious to this fact. So he's having a massive sulk as a result, who knew gaming could get this serious 

 

Where is anyone else's group up to with it? We're on the cusp of levelling up to Level 3.

 

You can always get your absent mate to create a character from one of the classes not in play and play when someone else in the group can't make a session - it's totally drop in and drop out so far as party members are concerned.  

 

You really notice when your party get's a bit unbalanced e.g an absence of push/pull, or any way of deactivating traps (not a problem with the big green guy around).  Even the highly specialised classes need one or two other tricks up their sleeves at times/.

 

I'm currently rocking scenarios at L3 (which is par unless you believe I should be playing +1 monster level for solo play). except for Lost Island at L4 for the additional cash per token at that level.  My party members have tended to retire at L6 or 7 after rising from L1 (with the exception of the aforementioned Cragheart who jumped () in at L5 because I realised he would start with half the necessary gold that way, and the mind thief whom I retired early after creating the perfect poison because I got fed up with him through my own positional inadequacies).  Two of my characters, currently L 4 and 5 have a long way to go to reach their career goals so they could end up being my highest levelled characters to date (I don't want to spell out their classes since that would be a major spoiler, in my book at least).  

 

 

[Tourist]

I still haven't got beyond the first mission. Embarrassed smiley. 

 

I have been looking at the latest community missions through squinted eyes. 

 

But! Founders of Gloomhaven is due to arrive soon, so I really have no excuses now. 

 

Posting this here for no other reason than to provide an outlet for my internal monologue...

[Faded]

Attempted #3 for our first 3 player game. Unfortunately I made some bad decisions near the start and the crucially forgot that I could lose two cards from my discard pile to avoid damage as I didn’t have any in my hand at that point. 

 

So brute was down relatively early and mindthief and spellweaver carried on respectably for a while but the numbers were against them. 

 

On the plus side I hit level two and I’ve got the money to go back in with armour on. 

 

My my wife and I will probably attempt other scenarios and leave that one until we can attempt it as a three piece again. 

 

Even in failure its its an enjoyable experience. 

[Tourist]

My copy of founders of gloomhaven just turned up, yippee!

[watusi]

9 hours ago, Tourist said:

My copy of founders of gloomhaven just turned up, yippee!

 

Oo, I didn’t realise these were shipping. From a quick check on Kickstarter a lot of people

are missing the influence tokens though. Might be worth checking. 

[Tourist]

Yep mine are missing too. Not too huge a problem though, and they already seem to be on top of the issue.

[Cosmic_Guru]

If you are after this, https://www.boardgameguru.co.uk/gloomhaven-2nd-printing-44454-p.asp is a bargain compared to other sites (this is where I sourced my from).

[womblingfree]

Gloomhaven 3rd printing is up for pre-order in very limited numbers, for those of us who’ve been waiting aeons to get our hands on a copy.

 

https://www.board-game.co.uk/product/gloomhaven/

 

Finally bagged one. 

 

 

[womblingfree]

£35 cheaper here:

 

https://www.boardgameguru.co.uk/gloomhaven-3rd-printing-44454-p.asp

[Cosmic_Guru]

17 hours ago, womblingfree said:

£35 cheaper here:

 

https://www.boardgameguru.co.uk/gloomhaven-3rd-printing-44454-p.asp

 

Now sold out, unsurprisingly at that price.  7 in stock though at Firestorm for £130,  http://firestormcards.co.uk/Gloomhaven?utm_source=BoardGamePrices.co.uk&utm_medium=pricecomparison&utm_campaign=bgp

[idespair]

If anyone is still after a copy, Dark Sphere currently has 20+ copies in.

 

£112 + P&P: http://www.darksphere.co.uk/p.php?p=86843

 

 

[scottcr]

I think I've overdosed on this - we've 4 adventures to go and struggling to get the enthusiasm up to do it.  

 

It would have benefited from a much shorter, tighter focussed campaign with more branches and decisions - less 'side quests'.

 

Enjoyed it though.  We've got our moneys worth out of it... 

[watusi]

Do I need this? I feel I want it but have hardly played the other games I have - doom, imperial assault. 

 

Is there barrier to playing? Would an 8 year old cope with it? 

[scottcr]

1 hour ago, watusi said:

Do I need this? I feel I want it but have hardly played the other games I have - doom, imperial assault. 

 

Is there barrier to playing? Would an 8 year old cope with it? 

 

I'd say it's too complex to play wiht an 8 year old.. and you'd have to do a *lot* of busy work.

 

You don't need it - but it's worth playing if you can get the chance.