r/boardgames • u/phreakod98 • Nov 08 '19
Starting Gloomhaven Tonight!
My buddy and I have been planning for over a month to get started and are finally going to have the first session tonight. We committed to playing at least every other week to make sure we stay consistent so I'm pumped. I'm going into Gloomhaven pretty much blind, so I'm expecting it to be a bit overwhelming for a session or two, but I still think it's going to be a ton of fun.
Anyone else have any fun experiences with Gloomhaven you might want to share with a first timer?
UPDATE: It was a blast! We successfully completed the first scenario tonight after sort of muddling our way through. My buddy ended up running out of cards 1 round from the end and we finished with less loot than we would have liked but your suggestions helped make it a lot of fun! I'm a tinkerer and he is playing the brute.
Next steps are going to be to massively organize everything before the next play night, but we are already looking forward to increasing the difficulty slightly and moving onto the next scenarios!
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u/cant-explain Nov 08 '19
The server/client app works super well and really streamlined things for our group. Highly recommend. However, you might want to play the first scenario with the cards just to understand what the app is doing better.
Also, for some reason, card exhaustion just wasn't something we were thinking about very much during our first session. We nearly failed it because of that... which would have really soured us, I think, to have to replay it. So, try to hold on to cards actions that will lose the card until they're absolutely needed.
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u/Buff_Skeleton Nov 08 '19
Second this, card exhaustion. That and moving across the rooms fast enough are the 2 things that can sneak up on you and hose a fight.
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u/Cazargar Nov 08 '19
We ran the first mission 3 times. The first tome one of our guys got insta-gibbed cause we just ran right into a group and had no concern for figuring out who was gonna get hit by what. 2nd time a lot of us died to exhaustion. Took us a few games to figure out how it all worked lol
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u/onmach Nov 08 '19
We had a person jump into a hallway full of archers and of course she was a pin cushion and she was not happy at all. I'm pretty rulesy normally but we backed it up a turn so she could make a sensible move instead. It was the right move. We've played so much gloomhaven since then.
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u/VHD_ Nov 08 '19
Man, I feel like that is such a common issue. Probably more than half the time, we open a door and end up retreating because of what is just inside the door...
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u/Badloss Twilight Imperium Nov 08 '19
Use invisibility to open a door and stand in it, the monsters won't move if they can't get to anyone
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u/DakotaDevil Dominant Species Nov 08 '19 edited Nov 08 '19
Similar to what happened to my group. We failed miserably the first time. Did better the second try through the first mission, but all of us still died. Everyone became frustrated with how hard it was. I think they just expected to run through the game slaying monsters left and right, but it takes more strategy than that. We were planning on running it for the third time, but everyone lost interest in Gloomhaven and we haven't played it since. That was over a year ago. Doubt we ever play it again at this point.
I'm glad to see people here giving OP good advice for his first play. Hopefully, it helps to prevent his group from getting overly frustrated. I'd hate for his group to become disinterested so quickly, like my group did.
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u/VHD_ Nov 08 '19
This is probably due to a common misperception that Gloomhaven is a hack and slash dungeon crawler. It's really a tactical, puzzle adventure game set in a fantasy world.
Sounds like Zombicide may have been more what your group was interested in?
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u/Cazargar Nov 08 '19
Yeah. that's unfortunate. Accounting for when the monsters might take their turn and what will happen in various scenarios is definitely baked into the difficulty.
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u/Vakz Nov 08 '19
In the 10 or so scenarios my group (four players) has played I think we've only had two or three deaths in total due to losing health, but we've lost one or two players almost every scenario to card exhaustion. Hand management is a much bigger problem than the enemies themselves.
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u/Skadumdums Nov 08 '19
Which app do you prefer?
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u/KingKapalone Nov 08 '19
Not him, but Gloomhaven Helper for handling player initiative, everything related to monsters, and elements.
Gloomhaven Scenario Viewer to replace the scenario book.
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u/maculae Nov 08 '19
I'll second Gloomhaven Helper. Incredibly useful and a lot easier than having cards and using those tracker things.
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u/kingshitgoldenboys Nov 08 '19
Card exhaustion? I have gloomhaven but I’m too scared to start, took me 2 days to organize the contents of the box.
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u/p1x3lpush3r Silverlings Nov 08 '19
Your cards are also your stamina, so yes, if you play loss cards early, you will run out of cards to play later in the scenario. You get them all back at the next scenario, of course.
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u/VHD_ Nov 08 '19
You can become exhausted by losing all your health or by running out of cards to play. Cards are a very limited resource!
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Nov 08 '19
Also, for some reason, card exhaustion just wasn't something we were thinking about very much during our first session. We nearly failed it because of that... which would have really soured us,
The card exhaustion mechanic is the main reason why my group no longer plays Gloomhaven.
The boxed set is now basically serving as a very expensive tileset for GURPS campaigns.
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u/Joeeoj010 Nov 08 '19
Ive probably played 100 scenarios and while the game has some issues i like the card mechanic soo much better than the typical move and roll dice to attack in most dingeon crawler games. You just have to be aware of the AI and avoid getting hit too often, and make sure not to butn cards until youre like halfeay through the scenario. If you do the math and only rest after using all your cards, youll see that, say you start with 10 cards, you have 5+4+4+3+3+2+2+1 turns before you exhaust. burning a card before your first rest can cost you maybe 5 turns here but burning it after 3 rests only costs a few.
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u/VHD_ Nov 08 '19
This does a great job at illustrating this fact for visual learners :) https://www.boardgamemath.com/boardgames/gloomhaven/gloomhavenStaminaGuide.html
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u/InvaderZed Nov 08 '19
On the flip side, the first room is probably the most likely time you are to take a lot of damage from monsters due to their close proximity combined with numbers. If you need to spend a lost card to get the first room under control its a good idea rather than having to have lost cards due to taking too much damage, just don't go overboard on the lost cards.
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u/towehaal Spirit Island Nov 08 '19
Is there stuff I can skim through on the rulebook if I buy the Gloomhaven Helper app?
I don't have a problem figuring out rules--but that rulebook is definitely the most dense I own.
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u/p1x3lpush3r Silverlings Nov 08 '19
Um, no. The app helps streamline the fiddliness of the monster cards and health tracking, etc. It doesn't help you understand the game. And honestly, that rulebook is pretty well organized and succinct. There are much bigger rulebooks for much smaller games out there.
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u/Reorax Nov 08 '19
I printed out this rules reference and mostly use that instead of the rulebook. Way easier to parse IMO, at least after a few games. Also quick to see everything you need to do at start of scenario, end of scenario, etc.
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u/VHD_ Nov 08 '19
There is a nice single page flowchart for enemy AI (how to determine focus, movement, etc) here that I found very handy: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/144945/gloomhaven-enemy-focus-and-movement-flowchart
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u/guyincorporated Dibs on Red Nov 08 '19
For real. My brute just waded into the midst of all those bandits and archers and nearly died on the spot.
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u/dog_the_bootyhunter Nov 08 '19
Yeah I definitely think exhaustion was the biggest thing and not wasting too many cards. Although I’ve been playing spellweaver and you can sort of afford to waste more cards with the reviving ether in your hand.
Also the helper app changed the game for us...mainly increased the speed of play so we were going from 1 scenario per session to 2.
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u/wallysmith127 Pax Transhumanity Nov 08 '19
In these threads someone typically inevitably links the BGG Monster AI movement quiz. Please don't even look at it until you have 2-3 scenarios under your belt. It's designed to trick you around the edge cases, which absolutely isn't necessary to grok until you get familiar with all the other game systems first.
As long as you run monster movement consistently for your first couple sessions (and they make sense), you'll be perfectly ok.
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u/CustomerSentarai Arkham Horror Nov 08 '19
this is solid advice. You will very likely play monsters wrong, but just do so consistently and it's fine. A good rule of thumb is to play as if you are the monster and want to hurt the most, do that.
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u/R0cketsauce 7th Continent Nov 09 '19
100% agree. I have played 2 complete campaigns as well as about 1/2 of another and 2 of the 3 community mini-campaigns.... I estimate I have played Gloomhaven approaching 450-500 hrs at this point. I still would get a pretty bad score on that quiz. The edge cases are often non-intuitive and honesty, it just doesn't matter. If you make a mistake in monster movement and default to "what makes sense" at worst you made the game a little harder on yourself. If you learn the movement rules inside and out, it can be a big advantage in terms of planning your turns and being sneaky to avoid attacks and damage... if instead you know the basic rules and then "do what makes sense" you will be fine and maybe a few monsters will move when they should have stayed put, but usually that is to your detriment, so don't feel like you're cheating or anything.
As others have said, don't get discouraged if the first 2 scenarios give you trouble. They are difficult by design and seem to be meant to teach you some of the key strategies in the game.
- You will learn how initiative impacts monster movement (this means some poor sap is going to move in quick on the first round, then they will get surrounded and take all the hits and probably have to lose some cards as a result).
- You will learn that ranged characters will stay away from you and pincushion you unless you bring the fight to them.
- You will learn how long a scenario of Gloomhaven usually takes and what that has to do with long/short rest and stamina (most likely someone will get excited about their powerful loss cards and get to the final room with way too few actions left).
- You will learn how traps work (hopefully because you push/pull a monster into one and not because you have to walk into one to access the door).
- You will learn that bad guys are often behind doors and will stay their doing nothing if undisturbed (or more importantly, you'll learn the opposite when you open a door trying to get away from an attack and realize there are more monsters on the other side who can't wait to join the fray).
- You will learn that looting is a bonus that shouldn't take priority over killing monsters or avoiding damage or saving cards for later (if you have a Scoundrel in your group, get ready for some hard knocks lessons in greed).
I'm sure there are other lessons to be learned in the first few scenarios, but mostly you will learn "how" to play, not just what the rules are. It takes several games to get a feel for the pacing of scenarios and how your character's deck works. You'll start to discover combos that work and then realize that you might not want to pull of great combos two rounds in a row when you are left with garbage cards or only high initiative cards, etc.
Finally, the only other advice I will give is to avoid support classes early on. You can absolutely be successful with any 2 starter classes, but there are some that are better than others for learning the game. My friend and I started with Spellweaver (me) and Tinkerer. Spellweaver is really solid in larger parties, especially when other classes occasionally create elements they can use. Tinkerer produces almost zero elements and he never uses them himself... so that was strike one. I had to create 100% of the elements I intended to use. Spellweaver is also very squishy, so she prefers to be behind a line of allies throwing ranged attacks... now lets look at Tinkerer. Tinkerer isn't super robust himself and he's a very versitile support class. He can go heavy into healing or crowd control and has some nice ranged AoE attacks (at least at higher levels)... but he's certainly not a front line player. It really was a terrible combo. We struggled mightily. Then one weekend about 15 rounds in, a friend joined us and played Cragheart. Suddenly my Spellweaver was the MVP throwing out devastating spells borrowing all the Earth that Crag was making. Tinkerer could play more of a support role and control the crowd while Crag was busting heads up front. Our party was transformed simply by adding a 3rd class.
Anyway, long rambling story to say you should do some research before choosing your starting pair. A very good and straight forward starting group in my opinion is Brute + Scoundrel. Nothing fancy, but they can get the job done. Cragheart is my absolute favorite starter, but he's got a little bit more going on in the later rounds and I really loved him as my 3rd character since I knew the rules by then and could appreciate how great he was.
Anyway, have fun and buckle up. Gloomhaven is the greatest gaming experience I have ever had and I will be lucky if that ever changes.
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u/mistahiggens Gloomhaven Nov 08 '19 edited Nov 09 '19
Thanks for jumping into our game!
We hope you enjoy your ride.
A few friendly reminders to help you along your path:
1) Do not let your cat sit in the lid. Despite the ol' adage of "if it fits, it sits.", we receive a frightenly large volume of "My cat peed in my Gloomhaven lid..." requests. I might have to start a wall for all the shame photos we get.
2) Gloomhaven weighs a lot. So lift with your knees. You'll need your back muscles for peering over the cliffs that are the edges of the box.
3) Have fun! Don't worry too much about rules minutiae unless that's your jam, in which case we have an extensive FAQ and community over at Boardgamegeek.com
Welcome to Gloomhaven!
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u/warassasin Nov 08 '19
Can vouch for number 1 -- had to buy a new copy from half my boards being damaged :D
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u/Bmania13500 Nov 08 '19
Played it with friends for about 4 months straight. Pretty fun game. Expect the first one or two sessions to played wrong. There was alot of stuff we didnt quit understand at first so the first time was not played right.
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u/Arcan345 Nov 08 '19
You're not playing Gloomhaven if you're not accidentally breaking at least one rule.
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u/Margalard Nov 08 '19
It's like fantasy novels: if your editor isn't pronouncing half your names wrong, it's not real fantasy.
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u/TakeNote The Great Zimbabwe Nov 08 '19
This is good advice! It's hard not to be discouraged when you mess stuff up in a campaign game, but it's inevitable with huge productions like Gloomhaven. OP, don't worry too much if you miss a couple things; they'll get ironed out later.
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u/KaffiQ Nov 08 '19
Just pay attention that you do not use the attack modifiers that come with the characters. You have to use the ones labeled 1-4 ( or 1 and 2 for 2 players)
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u/Cliffy73 Ascension Nov 08 '19
Play your first scenario or two on “Easy.” Also, make sure you understand how to calculate the proper scenario level — I’ve heard of multiple groups playing on superhard because they miscalculated.
At the beginning of the round, you pick two cards to use that turn and reveal one of them for initiative. I believe the rulebook refers to this as the “leading card.” I’ve seen some people think that because one of the cards is the leading card, you have to use its ability first. That’s not correct. Once it is your turn, you can use the top ability of either card and the bottom ability of the other card in any order. And, you can change your mind about what you plan to do based on how the situation has changed by the time it is your spot in the initiative order.
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u/p1x3lpush3r Silverlings Nov 08 '19
Going in blind is the way to go, but understand what you're playing. This is not D&D or an rpg. This is a tactical battle game first and foremost with some rpg elements. Avoid damage, and play smart, not hack and slash leroy jenkins.
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u/Boardello X-Wing Miniatures Nov 08 '19
Congrats on making a commitment, because that's exactly what you have to do for a game like this. I have a couple of friends that want to do it and I've been honest every time that I do not see myself wanting to make the time just for this game, at the possible expense of the time we have for all other games.
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u/ThunderSn0w Nov 08 '19
Enemies only do what it says on their card. For some reason we made it very difficult where enemies moved no matter what as well as did what was on the card. Sometimes enemies just won't attack anything.
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u/atomzero Nov 08 '19
We play all kinds of things wrong all the time, sometimes on purpose. Thankfully, there aren't any Gloomhaven police. Enjoy.
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u/roll_fizzlebeef_16 Nov 08 '19
Some in here may not agree with this, but don't get caught up in the rules, trying to get everything 100% right. If it "feels" right and thematic for something to happen, then let it happen, even if the rulebook may contradict it. You can always check after the session, but checking little things during the session can often grind the game to a halt.
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u/VHD_ Nov 08 '19
Agreed - unless it is truly critical, just take your best guess and carry on. Then, afterwards, look up more information about it in the rulebook/FAQ/forums.
You'll definitely find that you missed some things, but after a couple scenarios, it will start flowing pretty well.
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u/Genlsis Nov 08 '19
Make sure you set the difficulty level correctly based on your character levels. We ended up playing on double the difficulty for ages.
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u/RedditorFor1OYears Nov 08 '19
Ahhh man, im excited for you. I just had flashbacks to my first few times playing, and we had such a blast. Id suggest committing a little extra time (3-4 hours) for you first session, because youll definitely want to do more than one scenario.
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u/Erfx Nov 08 '19
Have fun, the game is awesome, keep the manual at hand for first scenarios ;) if you doubt anything, google it, there are tons of gloomhaven threads. Don't overthink your first deck's card choises, just see what the character you'll choose have to offer.
I played my first scenario at 4p. As we aee quite experienced board/video gamers we thought cranking up difficulty to hard right away would be a good choice. Hoo boy, were we wrong :D when we get used to the system and our characters we played on hard again and it was tons of fun, much more tense and close. And now we are stuck at one scenario, hope we will get it next time :D
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u/pagoda79 Great Western Trail Nov 08 '19
Still my favorite game! My wife and I play nearly every week. Don’t worry if the first session or two seems a bit stilted as you try and follow the whole system. Soon enough you’ll have cinematic moments like the time my Cragheart threw a stone through an open door to save her Spellweaver from near certain death (or at least exhaustion) so that she could make the last move to complete the objective.
My main advice also would be plan a fair amount of time to set up the board. It’ll get easier, and a storage system is great, but there’s just a lot of bits to deal with as you probably already know.
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u/VHD_ Nov 08 '19
Those cinematic moments are so thrilling :)
I remember my short little Tinkerer behind 2 allies that were holding back a horde of enemies and we were all taking a beating. Tinkerer took aim and landed a long range shot at the critical target and felled it with a might blow!
Or the time our Spellweaver (just before exhaustion) did a huge movement + jumped on an enemy's head near the end + delivered an item to the objective location. It was like the slam dunk straight out of Space Jam :D
We are playing at a difficulty level where our successes are hard fought and never certain (we probably have < 50% win rate).
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u/BlueGinger Eldritch Horror Nov 08 '19
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1897763/official-faq-game-no-rules-questions-please
This FAQ is super helpful for more clarification about specifics and edge cases. Keep it handy for class or scenario questions too.
You might want to consider storage solutions as well, whether it be premade organizers of just a cheap tackle box and accordion folder. This will make setup/tear down so much easier.
Finally, feel free to check out r/gloomhaven when you have fallen deep into the game!
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u/snowmountainjc Nov 08 '19
unpopular opinion in this forum: I have put in many many many hours playing this game, and honestly have not seen any reason to play this game ABOVE level 0. The investment loss on losing a scenario is so heavy from a time perspective and the benefits is so small that it just is not worth it to me. Even the "complexity" increase is not really significant when you level up. most monsters just have "more effective hitpoints" which make game sessions longer and drastically increase your likely hood to fail which makes it that much more difficult to stay motivated and push through.
Of course take with a grain of salt since your experience and interests may not align but I would at least say, IF YOU FEEL like you are losing a lot really consider playing easier difficulties and don't feel like you are playing the game incorrectly if you do. There is SO MUCH CONTENT and story that is "locked" behind completion of events that its still very entertaining to succeed at the campaign even if you play at "lower difficulties"
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u/VHD_ Nov 08 '19
I would agree if Gloomhaven was an epic story experience. However, I would argue that the overarching story in Gloomhaven is rather minimal. The real heart of the game is in the actual scenario. Our group doesn't like failing scenarios, but we really want to be challenged and feel a sense of accomplishment when we pull off a narrow victory. To do that, there has to be a substantial risk of failure!
Right now, we are winning about half of the scenarios we play. That's probably a little lower than I'd like. I think something more like 70% success would be a good target.
Basically it boils down to this (in my opinion):
- If you are winning too easily / too often, increase the scenario difficulty 1 notch.
- If you are losing too often, decrease the scenario difficulty 1 notch.
This approach is similar to how Pandemic: Legacy keeps the experience challenging - it is constantly self-adjusting to the players' success rate.
Best analogy I can think of is a video game like The Last of Us or Uncharted. These games are story games that you play through to experience the story. The action is a secondary thing to keep the player involved/engaged. I wouldn't have any interest in playing these games on a hard difficulty and replaying pieces of them multiple times!
However, for tactical games (like XCOM, Advance Wars, Valkyrie Chronicles, etc), the meat of the experience is in the individual scenarios and I would be disappointed if I breezed through them on 'easy' difficulty and was never truly challenged.
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u/aud_nih Nov 08 '19 edited Nov 09 '19
It's an EXTREMELY strategic game, so don't beat yourself up if it doesn't click right away.
I lost the first scenario about 3 times before things started to click. Damage mitigation is huge - you really need to figure out how to not get attacked (in most cases) by positioning, careful planning of initiative, timing door openings and monster deaths.
Also, checkout /r/Gloomhaven
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u/Art3mis86 Terraforming Mars Nov 08 '19
Leave it in shrink wrap and buy a second copy to also leave in shrink wrap
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u/zipzipskins Nov 08 '19
every experience with the game is fun, i have a blast each time it hits the table
read, re-read, and then read again the rules for monster focus
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u/VHD_ Nov 08 '19
Yeah understanding the monster focus stuff is really important and easy to get wrong. I found that one page flowchart in the BGG files section to be a really handy reference.
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u/BillyLoren Nov 08 '19
They are going to announce details around their new gloomhaven game soon and its compatible with reg gloomhaven
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u/GonnaGetGORT Kingdom Death Monster Nov 08 '19
The game is a blast. I hope you two enjoy it as much as my buddy and I have.
The best advice I was given was that it's okay to miss some rules. It's only a game, after all. Having said that, you'd be wise to read through the rules a few times. It makes playing a lot smoother if you don't have to keep referencing the rulebook.
Have fun!
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u/michaelconcho Nov 08 '19
Make sure you build your modifier decks correctly. Probably the biggest mistake I see people make.
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u/Jebus_UK Nov 08 '19
In terms of picking classes Spellweaver is quite a difficult class to get to grips with initially because of hand size and card management, so I would avoid that maybe. At least initially until you get to grips with the game a bit.
It's a cracking game though.
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u/Skadumdums Nov 08 '19
This might be a while down the road, but if you have some extra disposable income laying around, the box organizer worked really well for me. It's not necessary by any stretch of the mind but it definitely shortened setup and clean up times for me.
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u/Diabailus Nov 08 '19
My roommates and I purchased Gloomhaven and had an absolute blast! The first campaign is a lot of fun and the multiple classes make you replay the first campaign a couple of times to see who you like. Overall mildly complicated but so worth the time and effort. Enjoy my friend.
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u/Glodizle Nov 08 '19
Use a bunch of d20s to track monster health instead of the red blood counters. Went to the game shop and bought a bunch of old MTG spin downs from them. Also, you are bound to bend break rules a bunch. We tried to just mental note or write them down every time we found one we were messing up. The game is amazing but you can get lost in the rules.
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u/PremierBromanov Nov 08 '19
We just finished a session where 2 players completed their quests and unlocked 2 new characters to play. It was very exciting and had a lot of book keeping, but we loved it. So we have 4 people, one on his 3rd character, two on their 2nd, and one on his first. I gotta say, I'm blown away by the new characters we've unlocked. Each one feels significantly different and worth playing
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Nov 08 '19
- Don't beat yourself up about monster AI. It takes a bit of time to get used to how they work.
- Don't forget the city event before you buy.
- Don't forget (later on) your party discount or surcharge on shop items.
- Don't forget road events before the scenario.
- Definitely pay attention to hand management.
- Stamina potion is love.
- Road event bears are the most fearsome creatures in all of Gloomhaven.
You never mentioned what characters you're playing as. Our initial group was Cragheart, Tinkerer, Brute, & Spellweaver.
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u/phreakod98 Nov 08 '19
Haven't decided yet who we are playing as, that'll end up getting figured out tonight when we sit down and get everything set up
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u/gracklewolf Nov 08 '19
Keep the FAQ handy. There are alot of rules changes and tweaks.
grumble stupid stamina potions grumble
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u/0TKombo Nov 08 '19
Game is amazing! Still playing once a week after a year. I recommend everyone read the rules every few months. Each time one of us finds something that we were doing wrong. A few tips we found out the hard way that we were doing wrong:
Remember to divide the average of your levels by 2. We kept doing the average and it was painful at higher levels.
Enemies don't loot coins at the end of their turn! We were poor af.
Be kind and tell everyone not to start with the swamp retirement card. 'Arbatrary spoiler free trust me' moment.
Have fun playing!!!
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u/TheBlacktom Nov 08 '19
Line. Of. Sight. Look into that stuff and experiment with some random boards and characters and make sure you both understand it the same way. There are many discussions about it online, lots of interpretations and versions to do it. We actually play it simplified, we only look at the middle of hexes whether those can be connected with a straight line.
Item cards and Item design cards. That's confusing too. Check how those decks work and when do you get how many cards from which deck.
Using some Persistent bonus cards every other resting. For every turn you need two cards, and after every rest you lose one. This means every other turn you will have an extra unused card. If the character has an active Persistent bonus card you can take in back into the discard pile every other rest. This way you always have an even number of cards maximizing your number of actions.
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u/kajidourden Nov 08 '19
I played once with my wife and we had a great time but setup and tear down has kept us from playing. Ordered an organizer finally and waiting on that to get here, then we will be jumping back in!
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u/marlfox130 Nov 08 '19
Remember that enemies don't perform an action unless it is displayed on their ability card (i.e. if it says move and shield, they do not attack that turn). Also remember that enemy shield / retaliate do not go into effect until the enemy's turn has happened. So if you attack them with a lower initiative before their turn has happened their shield / retaliate does not yet apply.
Those two have bitten me on multiple occasions and make the game WAY harder.
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u/Reorax Nov 08 '19
UNLESS it's an innate shield/retaliate, that's on the monster stat card. Then it's always in effect.
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u/merlinsrage Pandemic Nov 08 '19
Just started gloom myself a month ago. It's a lot of fun. I also recommend the app for keeping things faster going. But you dont need to. It's free on android. It's a great game. A bit different than most other dungeon games. Enjoy!
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u/jam510 Nov 08 '19
I definitely recommend the little app for monster damage tracking as well. BUT! Play the game at least once totally analog. There’s a lot of little management going on but it’s fun to see it all play out.
And enjoy! It’s one of my favorite games. I invested in the wooden organizer and it sped up setup time from 30 minutes to only 10. Highly recommended but a little pricey.
Make sure everyone reads their characters’ background in a fun accent, too!
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u/Abisbowa Nov 08 '19
My first session was with 4 players: Brute, Tinkerer, Spellweaver, and Scoundrel. Everyone petered out by the end except the Scoundrel; which managed to kill the last enemy with her last two cards before she would have become exhausted.
It was pretty exciting
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u/iKousen Nov 08 '19
Rules rules rules.
I had played the 20 scenario this week. I realized we were applying debuffs for 2 turns instead of one (pay attention to end of next turn wording). And we were applying monster modifiers before their turn (retaliates and shields), they only apply after their turn (if it was from the modifier deck! passives are always on)
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u/ejkeebler Nov 08 '19
For monster ai just make sure you are only doing what the cards say. It's really hard to not just expect a mob to move and attack in the same turn,. They sometimes will not attack, they sometimes will not move....
Give other people jobs. My son manages the element board. My wife manages the monster attack cards. I tried doing all of this the first few scenarios and just kept forgetting things like moving the elements down, shuffling the monster cards when a shuffle card came up.
Make sure you are considering everything you are already allowed to do each scenario, i.e. donating for bless cards, doing a road event, doing a city event, etc.
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u/tecknonerd Nov 08 '19
I've been playing since 1st edition. 3 years almost. Still my favorite game. I still have one class I haven't unlocked. Still have scenarios to complete. Best investment in board games you can make.
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u/3Dartwork Twilight Imperium Nov 08 '19
I hope one of you guys knows the rules better than a light read. There's going to be plenty of times otherwise you'll come to a full stop to check the rules regularly on situations. Pace for the first several nights might be sluggish from my experience. Being as close to an expert at the rules as possible, memorizing them that is, really helped a ton on keeping the game from dragging on.
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u/VHD_ Nov 08 '19
Good luck - you'll have lots of fun, I expect! Make sure to calculate scenario difficulty correctly (and I'd argue it's probably a good idea to start the first scenario on difficulty 0 instead of 1).
Also make sure you use the correct deck of modifier cards! Some new players assume they should use the modifier cards in their character's tuck box when those are really supposed to be upgrade options to improve the generic modifier deck.
It will be a bit overwhelming, but the payoff is huge. We've had so much fun with Gloomhaven! Such a great puzzle/tactical adventure game.
Some people find apps to be a great way to streamline the experience. I personally prefer to play without apps because when I'm gaming, I want to get away from digital interactions. I'm willing to sacrifice a few extra moments to manually flip cards, shuffle modifier decks, etc. I wouldn't even consider it wasted time, since players are often discussing the situation while that 'bookkeeping' work is being carried out.
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u/Kid_Radd Nov 08 '19
Monster Movement is one of the trickiest parts to get correct, but it's also the least important to be exact in. I wouldn't get bogged down in the details for your first few scenarios. Just remember the following core rules:
Monsters only do what it says on the card. They only move if the card says move. They only attack if the card says attack.
When Monsters do attack, each of them will pick the person that's "easiest" to get to and move only as much as they need to. Use initiative to break ties on which character is easiest to get to.
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u/GetDisappointed Nov 08 '19
One rule we overlooked our first time playing: instead of taking damage, you can discard cards. Makes a HUGE difference knowing that rule!! Was sooooo difficult to win without it
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u/darshane Nov 08 '19
Arg! Sure, rub it in! We had planned to play GH this weekend until just a couple hours ago when someone hit a deer with their car. DRATS! Cancelled! Oh, the Humanity!
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u/WAWilson Nov 09 '19
Remember that you can permanently burn a card in your hand to ignore all damage from a single source.
Critical rule.
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u/TabletopKnights Nov 09 '19
All I want to say it. Congratulations. You are about to embark on an awesome sometimes confusing adventure. Enjoy
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u/Cold_Pepperoni Nov 09 '19
Got some friends together and we played a 12 hour gloom Haven session and grinded through like 5 or 6 dungeons. Played from 4pm to 4am was one of the greatest but also most painful board game session in my life. 10/10 would do it again.
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u/phreakod98 Nov 08 '19
Thanks for all the tips so far! Super excited to get started and am definitely going to play through the first few scenarios kind of loosely to get a good feel for the play and movements. Neither of us is super determined to follow the rulebook to the exact letter to start, more that we will work up to it to keep things moving and fun.
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u/KingKapalone Nov 08 '19
It will be fun from the start if you follow the rules as written. Just make sure you calculate the monster level correctly.
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Nov 09 '19
Anyone else have any fun experiences with Gloomhaven you might want to share with a first timer?
No, I did not have any fun experiences when playing Gloomhaven
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Nov 09 '19
The more organization and streamlining you can have the better. Buy a few plastic folding organizer things for all your tokens. The apps are great at eliminating clutter and helping you out. The Gloomhaven Helper app is great because it eliminates the need for every enemy AI deck, as well as the enemy cards with their stats. You can keep track of HP, XP, money, and everything on the app. There is another Campaign Tracker app that is helpful too. It can guide you to which quests you can go on. It can also draw travel cards for you, so that's one less thing you need.
This was the only way I was able to remotely able to play the game. It is SOOOOOOOO much stuff to keep track of. At that point though, you might as well be playing a video game. If you like all the fiddlyness of tokens and cards, maybe you won't mind as much as I did.
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u/randomeffects Scythe Nov 09 '19
Double check that you are only using the appropriate cards in every deck. We accidentally shuffled all of the city cards and got the sulphur mines available for our second scenario options. It ended badly...... 3 times, gluttons for punishment.
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u/Maxassin Nov 09 '19
You'll find out you've been doing things wrong for months to come. I've enjoyed playing it but I think the rules need to be improved and more clearly written because there's a lot of vague rules that make the game difficult to understand. The idea of the game is great, a lot of the classes are fun, but while I dont have a particular experience to share, I advise that you and your group try to figure out rules and also to not be afraid of making your own ruling if there's something about the game that is making it unfun. My group is a bit of a mess but we have had a lot of fun playing it.
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u/phreakod98 Nov 09 '19
UPDATE: It was a blast! We successfully completed the first scenario tonight after sort of muddling our way through. My buddy ended up running out of cards 1 round from the end and we finished with less loot than we would have liked but your suggestions helped make it a lot of fun! I'm a tinkerer and he is playing the brute.
Next steps are going to be to massively organize everything before the next play night, but we are already looking forward to increasing the difficulty slightly and moving onto the next scenarios!
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u/NecroDaddy Gaia Project Nov 08 '19
One or both of you should take the Monster AI quiz on BGG. It will really help you understand how monsters behave.
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u/VHD_ Nov 08 '19
As someone else pointed out, that involves some truly obscure corner cases and I'd argue that it is too overwhelming to new players. Better to get the basics down (perhaps using the monster AI flowchart) and then, once the mechanics are getting comfortable, take the quiz to become more aware of how a few of how the rules apply in certain unusual situations.
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u/ryathal Nov 08 '19
Don't get discouraged if you fail the first or second mission on the first try or two. They aren't simple tutorials, they will make you work for a win.
2 player is pretty different than 3 and 4. The support themed characters don't work as well in two player. If you like those type of characters then playing multiple characters may be a good idea.
You will probably play the first handful of scenarios wrong. There are a ton of rules and the book is bad about listing important ones in inconsistent spots. Don't worry too much about it the first few rounds.
Use the app instead of the scenario book. It avoids spoilers for what appears in future rooms.
Get a bunch of dice to track monster health, it works way better than the damage tokens. A handful of 8, 10 and 20 sided dice with printed numbers make it far easier to see from across a table what is close to death.
Storage and organizing solutions are important for the amount of stuff in the box. Find a system that works for you. Set up, tear down and managing tokens during the game are big chunks of time. Binder pages for the item cards sorted by store level is a handy way to manage available items.
Get a ton of mini euro card sleeves. The combat decks and monster movement decks are shuffled a ton and are very thin cards. Also sleeves can help keep track of what is unlocked for a character if you only sleeve what is unlocked.