1584

Cragheart, mindthief, scoundrel, all good. Tinkerer okay. Spellweaver, brute not so good early on, but the spellweaver will become very powerful on leveling in a large party. Brute always seems to be the worst choice.

1585

The thing I absolutely cannot do is protect Hail for 10 turns with two characters. Two demons spawn per turn, and they often have multitargeting and high move rates, so there’s no way to kill them fast enough even with instant-kill abilities or block off Hail from being attacked. Control powers like stun and immobilize are even worse than kill powers because they’re temporary. And the characters can’t just ignore their own health while fighting or they’ll be defeated themselves before Hail is.

1586

Oh, but I did defeat the Gloom. Mid-level Nightshroud basically soloed him because my high-level Sawbones got wiped out early.

1587

Yeah, this is a tough one. I bounced off a couple of times but eventually managed it with the Lightning Bolt and… someone. Took fortuitous timing, luck, and a well-applied item. Second time through, with Sun and Saw, was actually pretty straightforward, though.

Angry Face vs the Gloom is deadly.

1588

Oof, I came to this point before Christmas and decided to take a break. I almost didn’t go back to the game, but just now I managed to beat it with my Level 5 Scoundrel and Brute. However, I had to cheat wildly to do so. I restarted every round when I saw what attacks the demons were going to use. Not good, but after 5 tries I wasn’t seeing a way through.

Happy to get it over with. I guess I could have added a third character, but I’m kind of locked in to a 2-character playthrough.

1589

A few quests are pure bullshit. It was true of the physical version and they copied the physical version accurately.

The odds of hitting one of them with 2 characters is pretty high since the odds of you having the specific tool you need is lower.

1590

Yeah, I think that that mission was designed for a party of four. Very tense scenario even then, but much more doable. Especially with low level heroes, and thus low level monsters. I found that the Spellweaver was the perfect tool – at level one, she has two AOE spells, each of which can be cast twice. That’s a pretty high proportion of the 10 rounds (actually 8 because the first couple rounds do not require any heavy lifting). And Cragheart was able to utilize his Backup Ammunition four times, which is especially great if you Massive Bolder a high HP demon directly and then get a point of pure damage through the shields of adjacent shielded-low HP demons, which comes up a lot in that crowded space.

I think that for all the problems of that mission, the biggest thing working for you is that you can use burn cards freely, and short rest often so as to use your best other cards practically every turn.

1591

Finally, I managed to beat the first mission in the PC game. I failed, like 6 times. I already know how to play (due to JotL etc), but it was still tough. I thought there were only two rooms, so I burned all my cards running for loot. So that was my 1st fail. Then I ran out of cards in the 3rd room very early… and so it went on and on. Not much room for ineffective turns. Also, I roll way too many negative modifiers like -1 or the cancel attack modifier.

I finally succeeded, replaying the digital version is actually quite fun. Setup is fast etc… I just don’t noticed why my Craigheart ran out of cards so fast. I think I used the loss-cards too early.

1592

That’s definitely something to bear in mind going forward, thanks. I could definitely see myself butting heads with a scenario where I didn’t have the tools.

The two week break didn’t do me any favours either, as I struggled getting back into the mindset. I failed a couple of scenarios after that too, but am getting back into it now. Great game; the only issue I have is there is almost too much content. I haven’t even retired a character yet - Scoundrel is closest at 12/15 perk points but I probably wasn’t focusing on perk points as I prioritised scenario completion.

@newbrof - Yeah, conserving your burn cards is king for those first few scenarios :)

1593

This post is about the tabletop versions. I had owned the original game since 2018 and had played about one quarter of the campaign (with two characters) when I simply ran out of motivation to keep going. Yet I always told myself I would get back to it. The game sat, taking up space, daring me to return.

Finally, last month, I found a local boardgamer interested in it, so I swapped GH for 7th Continent and an expansion. Then I found another guy selling Jaws of the Lion, barely used, for $15 locally. Both deals were done in person, so no shipping costs.

So now I have JoTL to play a tighter campaign on a table, 7th Continent as well, and of course the digital version of the original game. Thus I have down-sized (right-sized?) my Gloomhaven experience.

1594

Don’t feel bad. I failed that one a couple times and I’ve finished the board game campaign with my wife while only failing a small number of missions the entire campaign. I think I’ve won 6 now in the digital version and have only won half on my first try.

1595

It reminds me of Dark Souls, where you have to fight a boss at the start of the game, he will kill you many times until you have improved. It is a strange design choice, to start with a really huge obstacle, before letting you into the game.

That GH got so popular, is kind of surprising. I know that in the physical version I would have not played the first mission 6 times…

1596

Loss cards are bad, m’kay? Just don’t use them unless a) you absolutely have to, b) you’re confident you know the scenario is winnable, or c) you’re playing the spellweaver (and even then, you have to be careful).

1597

Yeah, I think those first two missions represent a strange design decision.

Mission one, you need a plan, and how is a newcomer to the game going to have a plan? Maybe room one is supposed to teach you the importance of status effects like stun and immobilize, and rooms two and three are supposed to teach you the importance of high movement points combined with jump? And the ability to push/pull opponents? If you don’t have those tools along, it’s a tough slog.

Then mission two, it turns around and teaches you that sometimes RNG is critical, regardless of a plan. :)

But my view for anyone starting out is not to worry about losing a mission. Just be sure to get the gold. Early on, for better equipment, a few missions in for card enhancement. And if there is a second consideration, it is meeting retirement requirements, not all of which require winning missions. These two things are WAY more important than XP. In fact, leveling up without gold and progressing retirement requirements, I sometimes think is a loss rather than a win. (Perk points are also a lot more important than XP, but you do have to win the mission to get them.)

1598

I’d agree that the main lesson of Gloomhaven mission 1 is “You still progress even if you don’t win” and that’s important to understand for Gloomhaven.

I picked up the digital game over the holiday break and felt like as a pro with a of experience it would be a cakewalk. But I never actually did mission 1 in the boardgame, as I joined a group that had already beaten it (after 2 tries), so mission 1 kicked my butt as well. I adapted rapidly, earned some level-ups from failed attempts, and once I got rolling it was just win after win. But the beginning of the game is tough.

1599

That sounds ideal. I was so happy with the digital game that I ordered JoTL as a Christmas gift for someone, before realising it might be a bit much for a family boardgame (it would only get played at Christmas, basically). So I kept it for myself (also not a boardgamer) and I’ll break it out sometime later in the year.

1600

This is the big thing.

The problem Gloomhaven has early is that you don’t have the perks or skills to do a lot.
It feels very much like the game assumes you’re going to start on Easy (which if you’re playing Tabletop, you probably are doing for the first few missions).
Once you get a perk or two and a couple levels Normal difficulty seems right (barring “fuck you” quests).

But before that? It feels like you’re being punched repeatedly in the crotch.

1601

Just retired my Scoundrel; was surprised to see that she outkilled my Brute by a significant margin - 177 to 139 enemies killed.

The retirement coincided with the conclusion of the first major quest line, so that was really cool. I’ve replaced her with a (level 3) Spellweaver, so it’s a whole new game!

1602

Finally decided to dive in properly. I did a couple of the tutorials, but then saw there were 11 total. Unless there is some sort of carryover into the real campaign, I’ll probably ignore these.

Took a Scoundrel and Cragheart into my first dungeon. Thought I was doing great and cleared out the two room dungeon, burning a few cards to keep my health up just in case. Only kill off the final monster in the second room and then discover there is a fucking door on the side of the hallway that you can’t really see. So my Soundrel is now exhausted and my Cragheart only has like 6 total cards left. Anyway, I lose to the group in the third room quickly, restart and on the way back to the dungeon do some sidequest thing that immediately gives me 10 gold…but made me discard 2 cards per character. Sooooo, it already seems to be cutting it super close to finish the first dungeon with all my cards, much less -2 cards.

The good: I enjoyed the game and was understanding it much better then the minimal time I spent with it a few months back. I’m looking forward to seeing how my campaign unfolds.

The bad: restarts suck, and the first dungeon sure seems to be very tough to finish without failing thru it a few times and building up characters.

So is Scou/Crag a good starting pair? I know you add more chars pretty quickly after this first dungeon so just getting a pair of heroes that can get thru it would be greeeeeaaaaat.

1603

That’s only 2 cards discarded, not two cards lost. It equates to exactly one turn off your total endurance.

I haven’t failed the first mission, but I’ve also not tried it with two characters (I just prefer the 4-player gameplay). Scoundrel and Cragheart sounds like a solid enough pairing.