How is that even possible? We tried to run past all the people in the third room, but the undead all died in like 1-2 rounds and we all died. I have no idea how we would approach this one differently.
I think now that we know its coming we could approach it more conservatively and maybe eke it out, but this scenario is ROUGH.
We played 12 instead, which is the mirror image of that one. That wasn't too bad due to Cragheart making some shortcuts and a plan of putting him / Brute on point and leaving the guards, Tinker, and Mindthief (plus rats) to do cleanup.
There are a couple for-real tanks once you have levels, and Brute is one of them. It helped considerably to just pocket him and throw rocks, with the NPCs to absorb hits.
I don't remember - do your allies just Move +0 Attack +0 all the time in that? The undead would be significantly worse than the City Guards were and the Guards harder, if so.
We played it that the allies act like normal monsters and still draw Attack cards from the monster modifier deck. We still had a ridiculously tough time because all the elite guards have Shield 2, which means we were doing almost no damage to them for every attack.
Not spoiling this as it's very general advice:
The best starting-dudes answers to heavy-Shield enemies are the various auto-damage effects Cragheart can whip out (which aren't Shielded / Retaliated since Shield works against attacks only) and Poisoning / Wounding / Retaliating (also not affected by Shield) against dudes, the latter of which remain relevant to people w/o a Cragheart. Pushing them into traps is also very effective where applicable.
Interesting thoughts on the craghart!! I may just change then. Considering the difficulties we've been having it seems prudent! You say brute is simple and streamlined? ok i can get behind that!
If you're going to try shuffling characters I'd sooner replace the Spellweaver on grounds of being difficult to play well, but it's your group!
The additional damage from the Craghart...should you be pulling cards for that? Like the 1 damage from massive bolder, or whatever to all adject enemies. We've only been pulling cards on the main damage, not the side jobs, is that right?
Finally managed to get together for our fourth session. The prospects for the story missions looked a little too daunting, so we took on a side quest. From the description it sounded pretty easy, then we did the setup and things looked horrifyingly hard, but we managed to just squeeze out a win before everyone collapsed from exhaustion. And I finally managed to complete a personal objective (only take long rests) so I got a check mark, woo!
Let me tell you, losing 2 hp per player due to your road event is rough when you start the mission facing two entire tiles full of enemies :X
We all advanced to level 2 though, which should hopefully make our next story mission significantly easier.
Had one (one!) elite cultist left. 4 cards left on my brute. Easy peasy. Cultist draws early initiative.... and summons an elite giant viper. Fffffuck. Killed the viper and ended up exhausted with 3 hp left on the cultist
As expected, being level 2 made a huge difference, taking a perk to get rid of two -1s from the deck does wonders for consistency. Having a little more gear certainly helped, too. We managed to pretty much clear the place out. A few of our players even had turns late in the scenario where they were like "well, we've pretty much got this won, so I guess I'll burn this lost card for some extra XP."
Our Tinkerer finally figured out that losing a card to allow an ally to recover a lost card is really good, when that card is the Spellweaver's card that lets them recover the entire rest of their deck. I expect that will allow the Spellweaver to go a little bit harder a little bit earlier, which should make life easier for the rest of the party.
Scenario 4:
Fuck that treasure chest that does damage and poison to the person who opens it. Fortunately it wasn't me opening a chest for once, but it was our slow-moving Brute who went that far into the room to loot a handicap, and then had to walk all the way back out.
+1
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
when that card is the Spellweaver's card that lets them recover the entire rest of their deck.
You can't recover that card. Look at the bottom right corner, it's not obvious what it means but that symbol is "use only once per scenario".
when that card is the Spellweaver's card that lets them recover the entire rest of their deck.
You can't recover that card. Look at the bottom right corner, it's not obvious what it means but that symbol is "use only once per scenario".
Ha ha, how about that. I thought that combo seemed a little too good. Well, now we know that for next time.
IIRC it's literally the only card with that symbol in any of the starters' card pools so it's super-easy to overlook. Plus the Tinkerer's card is in a similar situation, with only that specific combo making the distinction relevant.
Kind of like my cheating by mind-controlling a boss last week: it just isn't something you encounter often enough to be aware of it before you screw it up.
AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
0
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
Indeed. We first won Scenario 2 by keeping the Boss stun-locked, until we realized later the he's immune to Stun.
So we played again this weekend and we did WAY better. I dumped the craghart for the brute and am VERY grateful i did. We needed more dmg output. We also got the spellweaver to kick it up a notch too and he did much better with some guidance. We did however play on Easy just because we wanted to not face smash.
However, the main problem we found out we had...? We weren't starting the game with a full deck. The way we played, each round you draw up to 4 cards. I don't know where we picked that up at, but it's wrong. You get your whole deck into your hand. MY GOD, that makes this a MUCH different game. We'll be moving forward on normal now that we understand THAT important little tid bit. Might even try hard eventually...
All told, we had a much better time with the game, having changed a few class things, and got the rules a little closer to correct. I doubt we ever get it perfect cause there's just so much, but i don't feel like it's insurmountable anymore...
That is a... um... impressive mistake to make. Never would have guessed. Just to clarify, though, what do you mean when you say you draw 4 cards "each round?" Do you mean each rest or each turn or each scenario or?
Let me give you an example, the Craghart gets 11 cards to build his "deck". At level 1 you can use the cards marked 1 and X to make this deck. We would start the game with 4 cards from that shuffled deck, then play 2 each round, draw back to 4 at the begining of each round. Rests would refill deck based on resting rules (loseing a card basically), but you could only ever have 4 cards in your hand at a time.
It was, brutal...i don't even know how we made that assumption. I remember someone asking at one point and we collectively said yea that's the rule, but we were all wrong...
First read through I thought the same thing. It's the term Deck instead of Hand. Deck you naturally think face down stack of cards which you draw a hand from.
Thankfully I was the only person at the table that made that mistake and was quickly corrected. Though I did play several scenarios before I realized the spell-weaver's Ether card regained Lost cards, not Discard cards.
Ah I see. I was worried you might have the rest rules off as well but that doesn't seem to be the case. That sounds really brutal I agree. I can sort of understand how you'd make that mistake; it is a little unusual to start with your whole deck in your hand. I bet the game feels a LOT easier now huh?
0
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
Also, no shuffling. You have complete control over the cards you choose to play each turn, which allows you to set up combos.
Also, no shuffling. You have complete control over the cards you choose to play each turn, which allows you to set up combos.
For a game with as little randomness as Gloomhaven has, the one* random mechanic it does have is all the more irritating. I understand why the combat decks exist, but man those things have ruined more plans than it has saved. I added three rolling muddles to mine, but from now on I'm spending perks on cleaning out the crap in there.
*Not counting random rewards and events. Those are just background randomness. I do like the unpredictability of the monster action cards though.
AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
+1
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
I know there are all sorts of combat deckbuilding strategies out there on the Intertron, but I always remove the 'Minus Damage' cards first before spending perks on other things, with the significant exception of the "Immune from Scenario Effects" and "Immune from Equipment Effects" perks, which should always be taken as soon as possible.
Yeah I windmill-slammed "immune to scenario effects" when I hit Lv2. The fact that I got there after we beat Scenario 2 just made it more apparent; that's some nice game design there.
AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
Yea i haven't even started looking at perks yet, i need to i guess now that we looking to actually get a few games a week in.
But yea it was brutal, not only to have 4 cards in "hand" but that they are randomly choosen for you. It does feel MUCH easier now. But we did drop the difficulty to easy instead of normal, so...We'll see after we put it back to normal on how hard it is, i'm expecting it to be playable if not almost too easy now...
0
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
By the time I had a party full of Level 2's, Normal rarely challenged me unless I was running one of those gimmicky side scenarios.
My group is starting to run into some minor rules questions and have found conflicting information in FAQs that were supposedly official.
What’s the gold standard for rules, errata and FAQs for this game?
There's an official FAQ pdf that has spoiler tags and everything. Covers both editions. You should be able to find it via BGG (on mobile; linking hard).
AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
I know that retirement is compulsory when you return to Gloomhaven, and you meet the requirements, but I can I sell off all my items and enhance some cards before I do?
I know that retirement is compulsory when you return to Gloomhaven, and you meet the requirements, but I can I sell off all my items and enhance some cards before I do?
Yeah. Cashing out is allowed. So is delaying retirement very slightly via linked missions.
Speaking of rep, does it really matter? so far we haven't earned any good rep. Other than making items cost more, is this going to be a problem later?
The book tells you that there are certain things that unlock when your party reaches +10, +20, -10, and -20 reputation. So that's one way to unlock certain boxes.
Was not expecting to get Power of Enhancement so soon, but now my Scurry is Move 4 so yay.
Having a lot of problems keeping reputation up. We lose one, we gain two, we gain one, we lose two... Stupid events keep jerking us around.
One of my parties has taken an explicit "treasure above EVERYTHING else" mentality, and it's hilarious. To the point where the Scoundrel of the group will intentionally kill or exhaust herself as long as she gets the treasure. It's actually really funny and leads to some great situations.
Spawnbroker on
Steam: Spawnbroker
+1
AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
Completed the Vengeance retirement mission, clearing my Scary Face guy, last weekend. I'm now back on Cragheart and taking a different smashing-based approach. Should be fun to use my stickers and some of the late-game items in a push to unlock the last few boxes.
Posts
Not spoiling this as it's very general advice:
The best starting-dudes answers to heavy-Shield enemies are the various auto-damage effects Cragheart can whip out (which aren't Shielded / Retaliated since Shield works against attacks only) and Poisoning / Wounding / Retaliating (also not affected by Shield) against dudes, the latter of which remain relevant to people w/o a Cragheart. Pushing them into traps is also very effective where applicable.
If you're going to try shuffling characters I'd sooner replace the Spellweaver on grounds of being difficult to play well, but it's your group!
Let me tell you, losing 2 hp per player due to your road event is rough when you start the mission facing two entire tiles full of enemies :X
We all advanced to level 2 though, which should hopefully make our next story mission significantly easier.
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
As expected, being level 2 made a huge difference, taking a perk to get rid of two -1s from the deck does wonders for consistency. Having a little more gear certainly helped, too. We managed to pretty much clear the place out. A few of our players even had turns late in the scenario where they were like "well, we've pretty much got this won, so I guess I'll burn this lost card for some extra XP."
Our Tinkerer finally figured out that losing a card to allow an ally to recover a lost card is really good, when that card is the Spellweaver's card that lets them recover the entire rest of their deck. I expect that will allow the Spellweaver to go a little bit harder a little bit earlier, which should make life easier for the rest of the party.
Scenario 4:
You can't recover that card. Look at the bottom right corner, it's not obvious what it means but that symbol is "use only once per scenario".
Ha ha, how about that. I thought that combo seemed a little too good. Well, now we know that for next time.
IIRC it's literally the only card with that symbol in any of the starters' card pools so it's super-easy to overlook. Plus the Tinkerer's card is in a similar situation, with only that specific combo making the distinction relevant.
Kind of like my cheating by mind-controlling a boss last week: it just isn't something you encounter often enough to be aware of it before you screw it up.
Oops.
It's still a real good card for people's big wipe-a-room card, of course.
However, the main problem we found out we had...? We weren't starting the game with a full deck. The way we played, each round you draw up to 4 cards. I don't know where we picked that up at, but it's wrong. You get your whole deck into your hand. MY GOD, that makes this a MUCH different game. We'll be moving forward on normal now that we understand THAT important little tid bit. Might even try hard eventually...
All told, we had a much better time with the game, having changed a few class things, and got the rules a little closer to correct. I doubt we ever get it perfect cause there's just so much, but i don't feel like it's insurmountable anymore...
Thanks to everyone who gave tips!
We should be resuming our group soon, yay!
It was, brutal...i don't even know how we made that assumption. I remember someone asking at one point and we collectively said yea that's the rule, but we were all wrong...
Thankfully I was the only person at the table that made that mistake and was quickly corrected. Though I did play several scenarios before I realized the spell-weaver's Ether card regained Lost cards, not Discard cards.
For a game with as little randomness as Gloomhaven has, the one* random mechanic it does have is all the more irritating. I understand why the combat decks exist, but man those things have ruined more plans than it has saved. I added three rolling muddles to mine, but from now on I'm spending perks on cleaning out the crap in there.
*Not counting random rewards and events. Those are just background randomness. I do like the unpredictability of the monster action cards though.
But yea it was brutal, not only to have 4 cards in "hand" but that they are randomly choosen for you. It does feel MUCH easier now. But we did drop the difficulty to easy instead of normal, so...We'll see after we put it back to normal on how hard it is, i'm expecting it to be playable if not almost too easy now...
What’s the gold standard for rules, errata and FAQs for this game?
There's an official FAQ pdf that has spoiler tags and everything. Covers both editions. You should be able to find it via BGG (on mobile; linking hard).
Yeah. Cashing out is allowed. So is delaying retirement very slightly via linked missions.
Having a lot of problems keeping reputation up. We lose one, we gain two, we gain one, we lose two... Stupid events keep jerking us around.
The book tells you that there are certain things that unlock when your party reaches +10, +20, -10, and -20 reputation. So that's one way to unlock certain boxes.
One of my parties has taken an explicit "treasure above EVERYTHING else" mentality, and it's hilarious. To the point where the Scoundrel of the group will intentionally kill or exhaust herself as long as she gets the treasure. It's actually really funny and leads to some great situations.
I love this game.
Was it a ring? I might know the one you mean!
It was NOT a ring!