Gloomhaven - Tactical Combat in a persistent world!

We had a crazy second scenario. I’ll keep my comments generic so not to spoil anything.

When we revealed one of the rooms after the first, I thought it was going to be tough. Surprisingly we were able to take out the main threat within 4 rounds and thought it would be smooth sailing. I had 8 health left, along with a potion. We still had a fair amount of cards left.

Unfortunately, I was over confident about my health because one of the enemies could hit for 4 damage and also drew the 2X damage modifier card. I was now out of action…if I had only used my potion. My wife’s tinkerer has 4 enemies to deal with, 2 being elite. She was able to take one down but had to stay in range of one of the elites. She got hit and brought down to a single HP. She managed to heal herself and whittle away at the enemies. On her last turn she had an attack card that did 3 damage. Her last enemy had 3 health.

She just needed to draw any attack modifier except a negative one. And she did, so we limped out of there with a victory. The kicker also was that I achieved my battle goal because I needed to have 3 cards to less in my and and discard pile. When I became exhausted, my hand when to the ‘lost’ pile or whatever that one is called.

If I had only used my potion instead of saving it so I could get its full effect, it would have went much much more smoothly.

Just a reminder, you can always LOSE a card from your hand, or two from your discard pile, to avoid any one source of damage.

Ahh crap, I forgot about that rule!

That would definitely have helped. Thanks for the reminder!

First scenario with my new character, Moon and Eclipse box.

That glass of water you keep on the table is the most baller thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

Stuff breaks. People die. I’ve been at Humanity rating 1 for a while.

The guy with the glass of water did soak my Macao with ice tea once.

And you’re still letting him put his glass of water on the table???

That picture is like nails on a chalkboard for me!

-Tom

Accidents happen, what else is there to say? It’s not like he did it on purpose.

Do you wear a seatbelt in the car?

“Hey guys, let me get you a chair or a side table or something for your drinks because accidents happen”?

We’re superlax during boardgame night with the one exception that drinks can’t be put on the table. I even cringe at a bottle of soda with the lid on. I’m super uptight that way. But I have yet to lose a boardgame to an errant drink!

-Tom

We keep a few TV trays around the table for folks to keep their drinks on. Just in case.

Of course!

We do make an effort not to spill, though.

In case some of you are into antiquing: The table is over a hundred years old! Not the middle plate, though.

Okay, now you’re just trying to make me squirm even more at that picture of a drink on the table.

-Tom

Damn. I bet the lot of you are all those types- you know, the ones that sleeve their cards. Never could stomach that sort of behavior.

You go, @Jorn_Weines! Live on the edge!

Having ruined a brand new just received copy of Villains of the Multiverse pretty thoroughly by accidentally spilling my glass of water into the box full of cards, I don’t allow or place drinks on the table anymore. But sleeves? No.

Something like this for me as well - when we were first getting my son into board gaming we had a copy of the newest Space Hulk and he spilled orange juice on the table all over several map tiles and other bits. It was a pretty rough afternoon for everyone, so we have a firm “no drinks allowed on the table itself” rule, and we only snack on ‘safe’ foods like Twizzlers or something that doesn’t really leave a residue.

I am not one to sleeve my cards (I have $300 Magic cards that look like they’ve been retrieved from a rain gutter) but it’s not like I don’t understand the impulse to keep things nice, either.

I played the first scenario solo the other night, and kept forgetting this. I still won, but barely and it was pretty close (and exciting). Both my guys (Brute and Spellweaver) were down on HP and also nearly exhausted of cards, but they managed to win. I probably made errors along the way, but whatever. It was fun.

I still don’t quite get monster movement. For example, if the monster is an archer, do they stay in place if a good guy is in range? Or do they always move first?

I think next I’m going to play a random scenario just to get the hang of adventuring, and then launch full scale into the actual campaign.

By the way, I got these, and I’m sleeving as you go. I’ve never sleeved a game in my life, but I can see this game getting a lot of use.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0719TN8MB/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Good price, and they fit well.

A monster that is in optimal range to attack its focus (i.e. at melee range if they’re not ranged, within their range but not immediately adjacent if they are ranged) doesn’t generally move, no. If they have multiple targets on their attack, either by default or on that particular action card, they will move to use as many of those additional targets as they can and still attack their focus, though. (I think).

It’s one of the most complex elements of the game, so don’t feel too bad about not getting it right away. I’m dozens of scenarios in and I’m not sure I’m right about every possible edge case we’ve run into.

I’ve forgotten to pull curse cards from the deck several times now.

Just lost a random side scenario we got because my brute ran out of cards and my wife’s tinker got outnumbered by the last 4 enemies. There was a lot of ground to cover. Drawing 3 out of 4 curse cards while trying to take down one enemy on my own didn’t help.