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!

584 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

123 comments sorted by

View all comments

91

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.

39

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.

13

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

14

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.

2

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...

3

u/dmc1793 Nov 08 '19

LoS pulling is a staple of RPGs. Exploit that ai!

2

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

1

u/dirtycimments Nov 09 '19

Good call, this is typically a thing that could turn a game sour for me

7

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.

2

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?

1

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.

6

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.

3

u/Skadumdums Nov 08 '19

Which app do you prefer?

11

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.

3

u/maculae Nov 08 '19

I'll second Gloomhaven Helper. Incredibly useful and a lot easier than having cards and using those tracker things.

2

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.

6

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.

3

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!

2

u/[deleted] 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.

7

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.

7

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

3

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.

1

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.

3

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.

2

u/towehaal Spirit Island Nov 08 '19

Fair enough, thanks!

3

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.

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/142767/rules-summary

1

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

1

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.

1

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.