Boardgaming in 2017!

We made it through the first scenario despite a nasty road event on the way. Played it at 0 level though as I didn’t want to discourage anyone! It was a definite hit though and can’t wait for round two.

So the “legacy” element of Gloomhaven scared me away from their Kickstarter, but if Hepcat likes it as a solo game…maybe I need to look into this again. However, is it a KS or nothing type purchase? I am not seeing anything other than sold out or pre-order listings.

@rowe33- hah, we started the first scenario all Poisoned from a road event. Slowed our start a bit.

@Chaplin - that’s pretty much the situation. I myself lucked into a copy- I heard tentative good things in January, and placed a pre-order through Amazon (free Prime Shipping!). Shortly after, it blew up, it turns out retailers (online and local) placed orders for 24,000 copies and there were… 2400. Tons pf people who’d preordered through game shops and online stored were shorted. So the aftermarket is insane right now.

That said, you might keep your eyes open for a ‘slightly used’ copy in the near future. If you can look past them, the Legacy stickers and whatnot are somewhat easily reversed, but are probably going to be hugely devalued.

With those kinds of numbers is a proper printing planned? It’s times like these that I think Kickstarter is both the savior and the death of board gaming since it really is a pre-order with no retail market for most items.

Yes, but when and how are still up in the air. Probably not going to see store shelves this year, would be my guess. It’s just been way more popular than anticipated.

You had me totally excited until I realized you were talking about the expansion for Manhattan Project. I really can’t stand Manhattan Project. I think there are at least a dozen worker placement games I’d rather play.

EDIT: Wait, now I’m back to maybe being excited again. So this isn’t the add-on to Manhattan Project? Why does it say Manhattan Project on the cover???

EDIT EDIT: Goddammit, having looked into this, now I think I want to get it. But it’s out of stock at Coolstuff and a full-on $50+ at Amazon.

-Tom

Well, yes, but those numbers should probably be explained. The 24k is obviously not actual customer preorders of any kind- I’m sure well over half of it was retailers hoping to move a hyped product… He also put a ton of content into the box. Even with minis only for PCs, there’s a huge amount of stuff. I don’t say this too often, but the $120 retail I paid actually seems legit in this case. The people who got in on the KS got a heck of a deal. Whatever the next KS is, it’ll be a lot more expensive than the first.

It’s really good! You should get it! :)

It’s suppose to be good, but I’m having real difficulty overlooking the “Manhattan Project” logo on the front.

I haven’t played Manhattan Project. My understanding is Energy Empire is somewhat similar, but it replaced ways to attack each other with some other mechanics. I guess the goal was to make it a franchise? It feels like mistake to put that name on the box because it confused me too and I ended up ignoring it until just recently.

I’m hoping it comes back in stock soon because I’m looking for a copy as well.

Dang, I finally got my email that my Gloomhaven retail pre-order isn’t being honored. Will have to try tempering that excitement for a while.

A designer’s diary re: Gloomhaven
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/62743/designer-diary-gloomhaven-or-trying-fit-full-rpg-w

We played again tonight, having finally bumped up to scenario level 2, and tackling our third boss encounter. We were despairing of actually getting close enough to fight the boss since a wall of minions was in the way and the boss summoned more on most actions, but our Tinkerer made a desperate suicide play to open up some room for the rest of the party to close, and between a couple of lucky crits on one shot actions and the Brute’s generally solid damage output, we actually finished the boss off not too long thereafter. (The flip side to the lucky crit draws was that I had a turn with a strong one shot ranged action again and drew a miss, then used a 1-damage ranged stun on a minion and drew the crit immediately afterwards.)

That a fair amount of info in accessible amount of text. So is Gloomhaven the kind of game that requires a consistent and constant play group then? He talks about getting that RPG feel in a board game plus the campaign, and aside from the absurd amount of prep work RPGs require, that constant and consistent game group is a challenge for us… but we can do a 3-4 hour stint fairly easily.

You could have multiple concurrent groups exploring Gloomhaven or players that can’t make it to every session, but it’s a long haul game in its primary mode. That said, if you just wanted to mess around with the class design and tactical combat (which is phenomenal), you could just run random dungeons and have plenty of fun, I’m sure.

It’s the one thing I feel I’m really missing from our rotation. We have the Pathfinder Card Game which is easy to learn and readily accessible. Zombicide is close but it’s not fantasy. I could really use a fantasy / dungeon crawler. I still have Heroquest which is fun, although every time I roll dice for it I will chuckle a little… now.

Pretty much @malkav11 said. It isn’t as locked-into a set group of players as other Legacy games are, but it’s abig game. 90+ scenarios, 50 or so of which are designated as ‘main’ plot, though some get blocked off by choices you make. So probably 40 for the core campaign. Then there’s the other 40+ side quests. They say a game to completion is probably ~70 scenarios.

Knowing this, I’m actively trying to have multiple groups participate. I’d like to someday get to the end, and I know that’s impossible for just one set of players in my group. I started one set a few days ago, and expected to start another tonight, but they had to cancel. I’m also running a neat Trello board to help all the players keep track of the goings-on in the world.

But what you talk about an RPG needing a lot of prep and a consistent play group is precisely why I picked up Gloomhaven. It seems to scratch those classic DnD dungeon bash itches, all in a box- just open and play.

Thanks. I’ll keep an eye out for it. I really wish it it was 5 not 4, but I might be able to work that in.

It’s not recommended, but a semi-official hack to bring it up to 5 is to adjust the scenario difficulty by +2 over the base for your average party level (so if your party level average is 1-2, play scenarios on difficulty level 4), for trap damage and monster level only.

Oh that’s promising. A bit of flexibility is welcomed. I guess now all I have to do is wait for the darn thing to get in stock. I am patient though. I have at least 5 games we haven’t played yet, 2 of them birthday presents courtesy of the group.

me and my daughter are playing Yomi most of the time recently… If you do not know Yomi, it is a fighting game based on Rock/Paper/Scissors translated to Attack, Block, Throw and Dodge. You play with character decks containing 52 cards (2-10, JQK and Aces), some cards come with special abilities. We love it! It has bluffing, strategy and tense fights. Your super moves are on the aces, so you are trying to “read” your opponent before you play them and it works.
There are 20 character decks available… it is really “addictive” meaning we always want to play a couple of games (each takes around 20 min)… There is a steam client, if anyone from here is around there, we could play …