freshfeeling | Entries tagged with gloomhaven

This update is a lengthy one. Among other reasons, I had said last time that I was compiling notes to write about several scenarios at once. I did my 15th through 20th this time, and I think I'll generally do five at a time moving forward.

The gameplay herein is from several play sessions between April 19th and April 27th.

15) Scenario #21: Infernal Throne

Heroes love killing demons.

Checking out the Infernal Throne scenario.

Given some of the tight squeezes we've had, fighting a Prime Demon might be a bit of a stretch. Oh well, we'll see.

The battle goals I was presented all seemed fairly achieveable, at least if victory was possible. The biggest stretch, I guess, is Black Mage having Protector... but I am going to be optimistic.

Two turns in, the team was feeling strong. I had Thief stand in the doorway, invisible, which wasn't planned but drew the Wind Demons and Night Demons closer. They happened to clump up and become sitting ducks for White Mage Jr's Flamethrower and Black Mage's Icy Blast.

I had picked up the Staff of Xorn for Black Mage at some point, figuring the Poison and Muddle bonus on a big AoE move like Icy Blast would be helpful. This battle though seems to be more about small numbers of beefy enemies (well... hopefully? So far?) so I ended up putting a ton of debuffs on one Night Demon all at once. He was not having a good day.

Black Mage used Icy Blast and put a lot of negative effects on enemies.

Just a couple of turns in, I was already able to swat at the Prime Demon's altar. Dark elemental was in play, and Thief was all set up to use Sinister Opportunity to deal some fairly heavy damage to the altar, assisted by the Ring of Skulls. Then, Knight took a shot at it, using one of his really strong burner attacks - and he happened to draw an Add Target mod to clobber an Ice Demon, too! It was an awesome turn.

Thief uses an extremely strong attack against the demon's altar.

Knight also smashes the altar, and a Frost Demon.

Unfortunately, the altar was going to move again, so this wasn't going to be easy.

Oh. Wait. The altar moved directly in front of Black Mage. Hm. Well, I got a few more shots at it.

Black Mage got to attack the altar with Impaling Explosion.

Things were going great, but next the altar was moved again, and that revealed the rest of the enemies. They were quite close to where my more fragile mages were standing.

All of the alert enemies, many of whom are close to the more vulernable characters.

On round 9, the altar had almost completed a full loop. It was down to 6 HP, especially since Thief intercepted it toward the top of the map. Then I did a move where Black Mage took damage and I burned Flame Strike to avoid it, not realizing Black Mage only had two non-burned cards, so she was effectively doomed in a turn or two. But I was fairly sure we could seal the deal soon, anyway.

Oh wait. One of the two cards Black Mage had left was Reviving Ether. I can't believe I hadn't used that yet. This really was going well. As long as she could pull that off, everything was rosy.

What a delightful surprise that Black Mage has Reviving Ether!

I had damaged a few Earth Demons considerably, but now they had been healing for three turns in a row.

Thief was about to straight-up win it - maybe - but the Flame Demons actually got initiative 3 and beat out Thief's 4 on Flanking Strike. The Flame Demon near Thief's position drew a null. Amazing.

Okay, Thief didn't seal the deal. But it was really close!

Round 12 started and the only thing that could undermine us, really, was some particularly low initiative from the enemies. And even then we'd win, but Black Mage might lose the bonus for Protector.

Thief deals the finishing blow to the altar.

Well, that didn't happen! We got all four battle goals.

This also happened to (finally) bring Gloomhaven up to wealth level 2.

Gloomhaven's city wealth goes up to level 2.

There was a lot of benefit going on for everyone at this point.

Knight sold the Weighted Net he got earlier, and gained the Outburst (+3) perk.
Thief still had a Minor Healing Potion and we had gained a couple of Major Healing Potions so we sold that. They were at 59/60 experience. Since we had an extra enchantment available, we added +1 attack to Sinister Opportunity.
White Mage Jr went from level 2 to 3. They gained Disorienting Flash but they won't be using it. They also gained a Consistency perk, and they added a Bless enchantment to Stamina Booster's heal.
Black Mage gained a Scorn (+1 and Curse) perk.

In a city event, a child offered us a challenge. Naturally, we said yes. That opened up the Harrower Hive as a location.

16) Scenario #20: Necromancer's Sanctum

Viewing the scenario info for Necromancer's Sanctum.

Okay, let's get back on track. We had a heroic quest to kill Jekserah the terrible necromancer and we may as well get that done. Also, having beaten the Prime Demon, we're pretty close to finishing Thief's Goliath Toppler personal quest, which involves beating four bosses.

On the way, we met some sick people. We have a fair bit of money and I thought it was better to just help them.

On turn 1, the enemies set Black Mage up for a heckuvan AoE Icy Blast.

Things were stable but it sure seemed like I needed a lot of cards to beat these enemies considering there was still a boss ahead.

On turn 3 or 4 the game froze. Huh. That's never happened to me before. Generally this game auto-saves every turn, I think, so that's not that big a deal. I restarted that round. This pause also let me re-think some things, and I decided I would have Thief open the next door on this turn and then run away. This was, as I expected, Jekserah's room.

Thief opened the door to Jekserah's room.

While the situation was a bit of a gambit, I realized that if Thief used the Ring of Skulls to summon a skeleton friend it would block the spot where the Cultist was going to summon another enemy. Genius?

We blocked any room for new Living Boneses.

On the next turn, she would ditch her skeleton buddy to grab the Skullbane Axe.

Well, this worked out. Spike damage tends to be one of our strengths, at least as long as we've got the turns to spare on a few burner attacks. Thief and Knight really focused on Jekserah and it paid off.

Knight and Thief ganged up on Jekserah pretty intensely.

We celebrate our victory against Jekserah.

This gave us plenty of rewards: some money, experience, and a prosperity boost for the city. It also opens up multiple new quests/scenarios.

Well, Thief had a heck of a run, but now she is ready to retire. If you're not super clear on Gloomhaven rules, you ought to know that retirement is not optional once you've earned it.

Thief finished the Goliath Toppler quest.

Thief's retirement... from... thievery..?

I'm going to have to come up with a new naming scheme eventually - maybe naming the characters after noteworthy knights, thieves, white mages and black mages - but for now Thief Jr is joining the team, with the personal quest of Elemental Samples. She's just level 2 to start, so our cards are obviously a little bit different. It is mostly a downgrade, but since enemy levels are based around ours, it will be fine. Plus, certain things like enchantments are staying on, since I'm in Campaign mode.

As well, Black Mage actually managed to attain level 6! She learns Living Torch and finally loses Freezing Nova. She also gets a Lacerate (+1 and Wound) perk, and we can afford adding a targetting hex to Cold Fire, which is cool.

Black Mage gains access to Living Torch.

Finally before the next quest, we did an encounter in the city. A Quatryl is offering us food; if anime has taught me anything, the heroic thing to do is eat, right? This turned out to be a pretty good choice, I think.

With this blessing, a trip to the Temple of the Great Oak for Knight, and White Mage Jr's blessings we have a lot of crit chances in play.

17) Scenario #18: Abandoned Sewers

There aren't a lot of quests inside the city right now, and Thief Jr needs to collect samples from different areas. I decided to get Abandoned Sewers done.

Scenario info and battle goals for Abandoned Sewers.

Thief Jr's first battle goal choice ended up being between the unflattering Weakling and Masochist cards. I guess it's a weird form of optimism that made me pick Masochist.

Low enemy movement meant that Knight had an opportunity to Trample that made sense. He ended up opening the first door on turn 1, revealing a ton of relatively weak enemies.

There ended up being a few points where I had (brilliantly) managed the threat of tons of enemies by either immobilizing melee targets or inflicting other effects... but then had opportunities to wipe them out that were just too perfect. It feels weird working against myself sometimes. It was early in the scenario but it seemed like it was going really, really well. I guess the Ooze situation hadn't gotten out of control yet.

The Ooze situation is mostly under control.

Doing great against a big group of Oozes and Vermling Scouts.

Things did seem good, but I was sloppy with the final door and Thief Jr was attacked by five enemies. She didn't make it into turn 11.

Thief Jr met a gruesome fate in the final room.

Although the last room was a bit rougher, I was very pleased for Knight to get a Tremor Blade design! Finally, a sword!

We got a design to buy the sword... not an actual physical sword we can hold. Although that'll come soon.

Knights love swords, or so I hear. He exhausted on the next turn. Whoops.

This got desperate at the end, and then the Elite Oozes formed a perfect Cold Fire formation.

Knight is exhausted, leaving Black Mage and White Mage Jr.

Funny that Thief Jr didn't get the perk for "Your health at the end of the scenario is equal to 2 or less". I was sure that happened.

Victory! Even Knight, who exhausted, gained a perk point.

Doing this quest opens up some locations, including one that is only available if you've opened up a campaign-level ability to breathe underwater. This is roughly as deep into a campaign as I've ever gone, honestly: I don't remember ever actually unlocking the ability go to underwater.

We got some stuff!

I made sure to buy the Tremor Blade for Knight, even though it's fairly rare that I'll be able to make use of it. Knight attained level 6, learning Skirmishing Maneuver and unreadying Juggernaut. He also took the Stab perk.

White Mage Jr went from level 3 to 4, gaining Micro Bots and unreadying Enhancement Field. They gained the Intensify perk.

We did a city encounter where we attended a wedding! I can't really picture my crew doing that. Oh well. We brought an expensive gift, losing 20 gold with no apparent benefit.

Scenario #76: Harrower Hive

A sidequest seems like a fun diversion, and it'll allow Thief Jr to get more elemental samples. We got a road event featuring red berries. Hm. I have the vaguest memories of seeing this before, but I forget whether these are a blessing or a Ralph Wiggum situation. I'm pretty sure they were a blessing. Maybe there are two versions of the same event? Whatever, I'm going for it.

It tastes like... burning.

D'oh.

Ah, I kind of forgot that sometimes you have to smash walls instead of opening doors. I really shouldn't have chosen that Explorer battle goal for Knight.

We have to break walls here, and also discard cards to start.

Oh, it turns out it counts. Cool. I mismanaged Reviving Ether and needed to start the scenario over pretty early.

This scenario straight-up sucks, really. Due to bad plays, I'll admit I rewound rounds twice (after the one total false start), and was still coming up pretty short. Playing with the class-based characters is interesting in a way, and they embody the roles and that's fun, but they're super unoptimized and this scenario wasn't feeling super possible as I went through, without even having all rooms revealed yet (I'd later learn there were two rooms remaining when I was calling quits in my mind). Each time a bunch of skeletons healed back to full HP I thought luck could be working against me, but I can't blame luck alone.

Early in the scenario, before I messed up too badly.

Also, how come my characters run out of stamina but the enemies never do?

I think I have to abandon this one... but I may as well try to get the chest at least, I thought.

We all died, and that was after two resets.

Not even close. If this weren't a "defeat all enemies" scenario, this would be a possibility, but I don't think it can swing by enough for me.

Hm, one more try? The new approach will be more carefully finishing each room fully before opening another. In a lot of scenarios, this isn't necessary or even useful; some are sort of speed-based, after all. But the thing that really seemed to be working against me was the amount of healing that most of these enemies do, so we'll try to counteract that.

Black Mage used Staff of Xorn on an attack that hit the first two Harrowers, which was really nice when they drew a Heal 5 on the next turn. Well, that's one minor problem solved.

Honestly, this try went so much better through the first three rooms. Then I mismanaged Reviving Ether yet again on turn 8. Dammit.

Okay. One more try.

This one is better than the first, but worse than the last one so far... other than the one really bad part of the last one. It could be viable. I wonder why this wall is being targetted..?

Oh my goodness. I did it again. I left Black Mage exhaust at the end of turn 10. The scenario effect of discarding cards at the beginning is ruining me.

Let's just... get out of here. I've been playing this map for probably over 2 hours. Maybe we'll come back another time.

18) Scenario #19: Forgotten Crypt

Keeping Hail alive sounds like a relatively easy task for our team, especially since we've got an actual healer even though that's widely considered suboptimal.

On the road, we encountered what appeared to be a man pooping. I really have no idea how this could go wrong, but surely it can. I'll just be lawful good again and see what happens...

Ah. Nothing at all. That makes sense.

The game crashed early on in the scenario.

Another crash happened here. I had left the game running while I left for dinner so it had been on for quite a while, for what that's worth.

Now maybe it's because of the interruptions but... I didn't feel myself making mistakes in this scenario. Despite that, I'm not winning.

We're surviving and defeating enemies well, but not winning.

Hail actually never moved from her starting position, which I believe to be actually correct but bothersome AI: if an NPC wants to move, they need to identify a path to their target, which is the altar. If any enemy is standing in a doorway, Hail holds still. This didn't work for me on this occasion.

Hail is still all the way at the beginning.

Something I've been observing with crashes and resets is that every so often my enhancements disappear from my cards - never on the first run at a scenario. Like, Cold Fire, for example, loses its extra hex. It didn't seem to have its extra hex in practice, either.

For some reason, Cold Fire appears here without its extra hex from enhancement.

Okay. We've sucked bigtime at two scenarios. Disappointing. Let's regroup.

I went back to Gloomhaven and checked my status. Thief Jr and Black Mage both levelled at the very least.

Like her predecessor, Thief Jr unreadied Thief's Knack and gained Duelist's Advance, and got a Consistency perk. I used some of the money she'd picked up for a Ring of Skulls, too, which is useful when you want an adjacent ally out of nowhere.

Black Mage went from 6 to 7. I don't believe I've literally ever had a character exceed level 6 before. She gains Stone Fists, but won't actually be using it. She also gained a Blind perk that adds Stun.

Since we were back in the city again, we did another city encounter. There was a thing where Lurkers from the depths approached the docks. Even though JRPG heroes tend to just kill everything they encounter (except in some cases where it has a bright or elaborate hairstyle), it seemed wrong for my heroic party to attack, so we tried to parley. This was a substantial reputation boost.

We got a big boost to reputation, which is sort of like alignment.

It happened to push us over 10 reputation, in fact, opening up the sun class.

Anyway... what was going to help us out of our rut? I really didn't want to flip to easier difficulty modes as I had done near the beginning. I figured I'd donate some money to the Great Oak.

Not completing these scenarios at all was not sitting well with me, so in addition to the bit of extra preparation, I did reduce the difficulty by one (to Easy) and returned to Forgotten Crypt. This meant there was another road encounter, but it was nothing important. I am going to be very careful to manage enemies in doorways this time.

The scenario is going better this time, with Hail making some progress.

This was going well... although I mismanaged Reviving Ether yet again here.

Oops, Black Mage the Spellweaver is down again.

Later, having gone on a dog walk for a break mid-scenario, I realized the mistake I keep making: I think I have one more turn to play cards when I can recover the burners, but when I plan that out I can't burn the cards, since I need one to discard. Hopefully I can be more mindful of this going forward. I do, in fact, know the rules of the game, more-or-less... I am just really forgetful and absentminded.

On turn 17, Thief Jr used Venom Shiv on a Living Bones, poisoning it. She drew a null modifier, which sucked... but I was grateful for the poison anyway since the Living Boneses were healing that turn. White Mage Jr also put a Harmless Contraption in the way of the pursuing Living Bones that helped more than that ability generally does.

The Harmless Contraption was pretty useful!

Well, we won. Eventually. It wasn't the best performance ever in terms of battle goals.

We earned 0 of 4 perk points from battle goals.

This unlocked Ruinous Rift, and also put Knight a partial step into completing his personal quest, and that opened the Fading Lookout.

We opened up Fading Lookout as part of Knight's personal quest.

White Mage Jr gained level 5, learning Noxious Vials and unreadying Stun Shot. They also gained a Power perk.

It is unclear why this is a White Mage-y ability, but I trust the analysis!

While I was in town, I got a few characters to pray at the temple and bought a little bit of gear to fill slots, but nothing I expected to be game-changing. Knight is sitting on 159 coins right now, and I'm leaving it because I'd really like to add another +1 shield to Shield Bash before he retires.

Our city encounter gave us the opportunity to either fix the lamps in the pub or use the darkness to steal valuables, so naturally we did the former. This gave us a little Reputation boost.

Since I had failed at Harrower Hive, and I've since prepared a little more and scaled the difficulty down (temporarily, I hope!), I thought I'd try it again.

19) Scenario #76: Harrower Hive

Along the way back to the Harrower Hive, I heard chanting from a nearby forest. I figured I'd investigate. We gained experience and lost a perk point, which I guess isn't too big of a deal.

Thief Jr's battle goal choices for the start of the scenario.

Thief's battle goal choices were Plunderer and Aggressor. I am pretty sure Aggressor is literally impossible in this scenario because of the first room.

In the first turn, an Add Target popping up allowed Knight to destroy two walls. I would've rather compartmentalized my approach to avoid the type of situation I encountered on my first attempt, but it's hard to say no to free damage. This ends up making the battle look very... busy.

There is a LOT going on here at the start of round 2.

Things were going generally really well. I opened that room near the back and... were there always TWO of these elite Harrowers in here..?

The are two Elite Harrower Infesters at the end!

Fighting Elite Harrower Infesters. White Mage Jr has used Flamethrower.

I eventually got the chest, which was also Thief Jr's battle goal. 20 gold? In such a challenging sidequest I kind of thought this would be something quite a bit more noteworthy.

We won!

I think I've got to slide the difficulty from easy back to normal. It really does make a rather radical difference.

Knight gained level 7, earning the Crippling Offensive card. He is finally unreadying Balanced Measure. He gained a Thrust perk, too.

Knight gained the useful Crippling Offensive ability.

Black Mage gained level 8, earning Cold Front. Based on how things were defined at the beginning, she loses Icy Blast for this. I guess it's a worthy trade.

She also gained a Hobble perk. Some of these perks have a small chance of working against us in niche scenarios, but I guess it'll be beneficial more often than not.

Having donated to the Great Oak so much lately, I put more money into that to finally gain devotion level 2. This gives a prosperity point and seemingly nothing else for now.

We did a city encounter, which was actually laying foundation for the Sanctuary of the Great Oak. It only makes sense that we would help with this.

We helped lay foundation for a Sanctuary of the Great Oak and got some goodies.

This happened to push the city up the wealth level 3, granting us some new items. Given that Knight is saving up and the other characters have been donating so much, it didn't make sense to do any shopping right now.

Wealth level 3 got us some new item unlocks.

We also got to hear some Gloomhaven sociology from Dominic.

As much as I like the idea of finishing Knight's personal quest, I really want him to get enough money for the extra shield point on Shield Bash. Why? Shield Bash is one of his lowest initative cards, and a shield rating of 3 can allow Knight (or future knights) to sponge up a whole turn of damage. He has 168 gold and we need 175, I believe. Let's do a side quest and make sure he picks up at least 7 coins.

20) Scenario #93: Sunken Vessel

The Sunken Vessel from earlier speaks of untold riches!

"Find out what 'untold riches' await..."

It feels almost ironic coming to a place full of inherently armor-piercing Lurkers when trying to improve my defenses.

I had changed the difficulty back but this scenario seemed far, far easier than some of the other recent ones. I figured, as I worked through room 2 barely taking damage, that it might be a long one where stamina management was the important aspect. Thankfully, White Mage Jr has a good handful of ways to get cards back in play for other characters.

This scenario feels a lot easier than the prior two!

On round 5, Thief Jr dealt a sweet 12 damage to a Frost Demon with a default attack after having applied the bottom buffs from both Single Out (which I barely ever use!) and Duelist's Advance.

Doing well at the end of the scenario, mostly.

This really was easy, in the end. I had a couple of minor unfortunate situations that undermined Black Mage's and Thief Jr's battle goals right before the end, which was a drag. As well, Thief Jr needing to burn discarded cards to avoid damage from something that had pretty low odds of ever happening meant we had victory on her last possible turn.

Right at the end of the scenario, Thief Jr had to burn cards to survive.

The prize ended up being 20 XP instead of any treasure at all... although the Doomed Compass that we looted is pretty awesome.

Victory and stats for the end of the scenario.

Thief Jr advances from level 3 to 4, (re?)gaining Gruesome Advantage and losing access to Trickster's Reversal - which is almost too bad, I had finally used that card effectively a few times. She gained a second Consistency perk.

White Mage Jr advances from level 5 to 6, gaining Auto Turret and losing our trusty Net Shooter. They also gained the Outburst perk.

Knight finally had the cash on hand to enchant Shield Bash with an additional point of shield. It's potent! I hope I'll be able to use it effectively. Given that Knight might retire soon and I'll end up with a much lower-level knight, I expect I'll be grateful for it.

Adding an additional +1 shield to Shield Bash, for 3 Shield total.

Before wrapping up, I figured I'd do a city encounter. A Vermling offered us trash for 10 gold. I am pretty sure I've been ripped off by this before. I am going to say "no".

The Gloomhaven area map, with lots of quests available.

What will we do next? Probably Fading Lookout.

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I had played a fair bit of this game in May and June of 2024, and then at the end of June I got distracted by Summer pursuits, like swimming and making a PICO-8 game. I had said when I was starting up my recent Final Fantasy II playthrough that I had considered coming back to this, and recently, I did.

A funny thing with this playthrough though is that I realized even last year that if I wrote a journal update for every occasion I played this game - often just one or two scenarios - it would take a ton of posts on here for the whole playthrough... so I started keeping notes in a file. I would then compile these notes into an entry on this site when I had like three to five scenarios ready to discuss. Thus, the first part of this entry is based on notes I wrote about a year ago. You'll have to forgive any lack of detail.

The campaign is still fairly young! As of our last update, I had completed ten scenarios. This included doing something to locate Jekserah but I hadn't killed her.

Knight and Black Mage proceeded to level 4.

Knight goes to level 4 and learned Unstoppable Charge.

Black Mage goes to level 4 and learns Flashing Burst.

At this point, Black Mage's black mage-iest ability available was, surprisingly, Flashing Burst, and just barely, meaning she'll only be using it until her next level up.

We added an "Add Any Element" to Reviving Ether's movement.

She was also able to afford an "Any Element" enhancement on Reviving Ether's movement, which can be pretty helpful. This is a movement card she uses a lot, and that movement can be used to elementally empower a few of her other cards.

I decided to do Temple of the Seer. I really wanted to chase Jekserah, but that's not why I picked this quest. There are other ways to find Jekserah, but I wanted to do this because it opens up a few other possibilities, and it becomes unavailable once you've followed through with Jekserah. May as well.

We got bit by wolves on the way.

11) Scenario #13: Temple of the Seer

This is a pretty tough one; I recall having a hard time with the back room when I played this on an actual tabletop with friends a few years ago.

The last room full of drakes in the Temple of the Seer.

I don't recall the specifics of why this didn't go well - besides the general difficulty - but it didn't.

I guess I'm burning Unstoppable Charge..?

One thing that is incredibly annoying, actually, is that once you select a card when it asks if you'd like to burn a card, there's no way to escape that screen. Literally no exit at all. You can't change your mind about burning the card, or change your mind about which card to burn. This only added to an already terrible situation. It was inevitable after his big move, but he exhausted at the start of round 5.

There came a point where - largely because of Knight's early departure - I had acknowledged this win wasn't happening on this try. Consequently, I did more looting and experience-yielding loss cards than I normally might. All things considered though, we didn't do too badly. There were only four enemies left at the end.

We are losing and White Mage Jr is the last one standing.

It probably goes without saying that attempt #2 went much better. Much, much better.

Look how much better we're doing on attempt #2!

Check out Thief the Scoundrel's damage!

12) Scenario #17: Lost Island
It went well. We got the chest. All good.

There are bears on this Lost Island. I wonder if they know they're lost.

I am still really bad at letting the Spellweaver accidentally drop Reviving Ether.

It ain't often that everyone makes it through alive.

Black Mage actually beat Thief's damage here!

13) Scenario #68: Toxic Moor

This is where I picked up in April of 2025 after not playing for 10 months or so. Seeing information about a tree with healing properties grabbed my attention, so I stopped paying attention to matters of Jekserah.

Along the way, I saw Human guards from Gloomhaven fighting some Inox. While I didn't want to assume, I recalled that my party generally leans toward lawful good and the society of Gloomhaven vaguely aligns to that, so I went with the Humans. I am not sure whether this was the best choice or not; in my experience, a fair number of event cards have both options being negative.

The flavour text of Toxic Moor mentioned drakes really quickly, and I immediately regretted this quest choice. It turns out these aren't the flying drakes, so maybe that's not that bad... but the majority of these enemies can inflict either wound or poison.

Black Mage picked Agoraphobe, because using items is nice.

I really hate the Agoraphobe battle goal. I simply never remember that it's active. I'm not sure I've ever done it successfully.

Near the start of the Toxic Moor scenario.

It was a fair bit into the scenario when I realized the sacred tree was taking damage every turn! While it was a nice idea to have a white mage for the occasion, White Mage Jr has abysmal movement options. I ended up sending Thief into the room at the end... which wasn't the worst idea ever, but it was a challenge.

As always, my forgetfulness and bad reading comprehension worked against me in this very strategic game. For example, I had entirely forgotten that characters who have poison status take damage whenever they walk in this map's hazardous water tiles. The poison status was pretty ubiquitous, too. Eventually, I sort of gave up on healing and more-or-less went all out. We took the drakes down soon enough and then just had to mop up the other enemies.

This ended up having quite an exciting finale, really. Thief went down first, followed by White Mage Jr. Honestly, I don't really know how or why White Mage Jr suddenly died mid-turn while they still had a card left; it's possible I walked on a water tile or something.

The team isn't doing too hot. Thief and White Mage Jr are down.

I carefully managed cards and Knight and Black Mage took out the final elite Black Imp with literally our second-last possible action. I still looted the chest, too.

It seemed kind of close, but we won!

An additional prize her is some Major Healing Potions. Knight and Black Mage each gained a level, and Thief earned a perk from battle goals. For level 5, Knight gains Devastating Hack and unreadies Leaping Cleave, and then gains an Add Target perk. Black Mage gains Chromatic Explosion and unreadies Flashing Burst, and then gains a Dust perk. Thief added an additional Heighten perk. Level 5 also enables the third small item slot for those characters.

We also did a city event where we bought a map to a Sunken Vessel.

Here is a weird screenshot that happens to show Black Mage's abilities and the newly-available Sunken Ship scenario.

I bought White Mage Jr some Boots of Striding since their movement had been so frustrating.

13) Scenario #10: Plane of Elemental Power

It seemed like we got to pick between exploring the rift to plane of elemental power, or sealing it off. I wasn't honestly sure which option was more heroic and Final Fantasy-ish... but sealing a rift isn't something I recalled from that sort of property. Let's abuse the power instead.

On the way to the Plane of Elemental Power.

But first, a road event! Somehow opting to leave this man alone gave us a curse. Stupid.

The final room of the Plane of Elemental Power.

I ended up putting Knight and White Mage Jr in a few stupid situations. It's weird, because overall I thought I was really smart through most of the scenario. Thief and Black Mage still had tons of stamina (in the form of cards) when the others went down... and there were just three Flame Demons left. Despite the pressure, Thief scooped a Scroll of Healing from the chest.

White Mage Jr gets walloped by Flame Demons.

Just a few elemental demons left against Thief and Black Mage.

Piercing the Shield stat of Flame Demons isn't easy with the cards I have. Frankly, Knight and White Mage are best suited to it, with Trample and Flame Thrower respectively! But it was possible for Thief to set it up with Open Wound... as long as the target was standing beside Black Mage. We went through 3 or 4 turns of setup to get this exact thing to happen when Black Mage took out the final Flame Demon Elite with an arbitrary potshot that rolled well.

Almost done cleaning up the Flame Demons.

Victory at the Elemental Plane of Power!

With that, we opened up Infernal Throne and (or?) Temple of the Elements. White Mage Jr gained level 3, but we can't complete that before returning to town.
I think heroes like us are more likely to want to defeat the elemental lord than do his bidding.

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It may be worth a note here, relatively early in documenting this playthrough, that Gloomhaven's creator and community are very guarded about spoilers. While I intend to document things as I play, and I don't intend to ruin everything about the game, there will be some info a new player wouldn't generally have access to. One thing I should say is that, in a playthrough, you will not experience everything: this is a part of the game's design. Because of both randomness and the impact of decisions the players make, it is rare that different playthroughs would feel similar. Each playthrough feels personal, like it belongs to you. This kicks in more after the first few scenarios.

Well, that's the territory we're getting into here! If you're uninitiated on Gloomhaven I would gently suggest you go experience it for yourself, ideally with a friend or two or three. There are spoilers here! And they continue henceforth in this playthrough.

The three scenarios described here were played on June 23, 2024. While I've played the start of a Gloomhaven campaign four times previously, there's a lot I don't remember, and a lot I haven't experienced. I know that sometimes when someone offers to sell you something, it's just straight-up garbage. That's already happened to me once in this playthrough! But nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I bought something during a city encounter and ended up with a Curious Gear.

I thought this might be some kind of quest item or something but I guess not; White Mage paid for it (since they may be retiring soon) and I gave it to Black Mage since they had an open small item slot.

I think that may have been a good choice altogether, since Black Mage only has one other way to get around traps. It would've been handy in the Noxious Cellar!

Anyway, onto the Crypt Basement. We're beelining this for the sake of White Mage's impending early retirement.

We got a road encounter on the way where I chose to fight a bunch of thieves and thus started with significant damage. The good news (?) is that I forgot to change the difficulty back after the Noxious Cellar.

8) Scenario #53: Crypt Basement
Although you may not get the sense of it from the images, there were multiple occasions where I had really clever push or pull setups ready for Knight the Brute but then he happened to draw really strong modifiers and kill the enemy before I could use positioning against them.

A miscalculation in round 7 led to Black Mage the Spellweaver exhausting. I was really nervous that I wasn't going to pull through!

Black Mage the Spellweaver dissolves into dust.

But I bunched my team together, took opportunities to push and stun, and barely made it through. We all did our battle goals, which is nice, but we didn't manage to loot the chest.

Thief the Scoundrel barely made it through.

We got a city encounter where we did what was obviously the right thing, even though the negative outcome was incredibly obvious. It's actually kind of funny to me that you lose reputation for this one; I thought negative reputation was more associated with evilness.

Being anti-capitalist in this game often works against you.

Isn't reputation associated with alignment in this game..?

Onto the Palace of Ice!
Again, there was a road encounter where it seemed like the right thing to do would have a negative effect... and it was a nasty one.

Discarding 2 cards is like losing a turn of being alive.

9) Scenario #54: Palace of Ice
This looked simple. We started by fighting some bears. We actually blew past them sort of quickly, which ended up being an asset for someone's battle goal.

Thief the Scoundrel had a few stand-out moments here, manipulating enemies onto traps, disarming others, looting the chest, and dealing enormous damage to a Living Spirit using Trickster's Reversal.

Although I read the text about the Harrowers being immune to most characters, it didn't fully register with me, I guess. Luckily it ended up that there was a situation where the two Harrowers and the remaining Ice Elemental all ended up perfectly in the AoE of White Mage's Flamethrower, resulting in them getting the wound status effect. From there I knew we could win.

We used a White Magey Flamethrower on these three enemies.

There was a cool point not pictured where the two Harrower Infesters had 4-5 status effects each because of the effects of Flamethrower, Net Shooter, Staff of Xorn and whatever the other characters were doing.

We collected money and experience at the end of the battle.

With that, White Mage the Tinkerer gracefully retired and was promptly replaced in the party by White Mage Jr

White Mage the Tinkerer retired to a relaxing life of being a god of plague or something..?

But White Mage Jr the Tinkerer showed up.

Thief the Scoundrel gained level 3 and with it, the excellent Duelist's Advance card. The oddity in this is that Thief's Knack isn't thief-y enough - at least by Final Fantasy standards - and thus Thief has very little capacity to deal with traps now. We've still got Sinister Opportunity though.

Thief the Scoundrel got Duelist's Advance.

Recalling the whole thing about Jekserah being a terrible necromancer, I decided to deal with her. I vaguely remember the details of events involving Jekserah - including two different possibilities - and I figured taking her down was the proper thing to do. It was the only real thread I remember being on, so Knight the Brute, Thief the Scoudrel, White Mage Jr the Tinkerer and Black Mage the Spellweaver went to the Gloomhaven Warehouse. This time, I remembered to flip the difficulty back to normal.

10) Scenario #8: Gloomhaven Warehouse
This scenario was fine. It's three different rooms with three different "feels" - a bunch of weak enemies in clusters in the first room, narrow passages with slow-moving enemies in the second, and then a "boss" in the third. The second room is interesting because as long as your characters have means to jump during their movement - which mine mostly do - there are many ways to approach it.

We opened the second room before finishing the first.

In the first room there was a point where I did the move where Thief the Scoundrel used the Ring of Skulls to summon a weak skeleton ally to provide a bonus to Thief's attacks. The skeleton ally also took out another enemy, so it was actually fairly useful.

The bosses ended up being kind of hard. I didn't really manage the team's positioning well enough to get them into the final room, which meant we were fighting from the narrow passages. There are a few spots where the big fellas can target the team at range and this ended up being rather harmful to Black Mage the Spellweaver. She ended up low on cards and even had to burn Reviving Ether.

Our card situation while facing these big Inox guys.

I knew her last turn was imminent but she actually got some great damage in on her way out, blasting both enemies with Impaling Eruption and taking one out.

White Mage Jr wasn't doing so great at this point either, having to burn a couple of cards to stay alive. They were going to be able to rest, but could we win in time for them to make it through?

Thief the Scoundrel was left with a lone enemy, so I enabled Single Out and let Thief and Knight go to town. Thief even used her lossy Backstab for (I think) the first time.

With these strong tactics from the frontliners, we won! But White Mage Jr did indeed exhaust just before the end of their first scenario.

This allowed a couple of things for us to do in town - someone gained a level - but I had to stop playing fairly quickly so I'll do that next time. We might pursue Jekserah, or maybe we'll get pulled in some other direction.

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These next couple of scenarios were played between June 12th and June 15th, 2024.
To start, embarrassed of my difficulty choice, I decided to rank the difficulty up to medium.

I had a road encounter where a criminal escaped from transport. I decided the right thing to do was chase him down, which had fairly favorable results.

5) Scenario #14: Frozen Hollow

I think the enemy level may have gone up, but the gold piles weren't any better. Furthermore, I think I was noticing our reduced HP. The first turn against the small cluster of Hounds did not treat us well.

This scenario didn't go excellently, but considering the sudden rise in difficulty and our suboptimal builds, it was pretty good. Knight the Brute took a lot of damage, and White Mage the Tinkerer's healing ended up being quite an asset. Perhaps my biggest misplay was using White Mage's Harmless Contraption early where the only effective thing it did was take a single hit from a Hound in the first room... after which it constantly moved in the way of my characters.

Perhaps partly because of this - as well as White Mage's battle goal - White Mage burned a lot of cards very early on and was the closest to exhausting at the end of the scenario. The final room didn't feel dangerous, per se, but there was somewhat of a race for Thief the Scoundrel to get to the final treasure chest before either someone defeated the last living spirit or the team exhausted - where although White Mage was most at-risk, everyone would've been in a tight spot in 1-2 more turns.

Card status late in the scenario - with White Mage running out of options.

It happened that I had Thief walk onto the trap in front of the treasure chest without realizing it was a stun trap, and thus wasted a full turn... during which someone vanquished our last opponent and ended the scenario. D'oh.

Anyway... we unlocked the enchantress, and enchanted a few of our low-level cards in useful ways.

Added a Jump to Flanking Strike's movement.

White Mage's character quest is to complete four "crypt" scenarios, and I have done three already. I figured that heading for retirement would probably be a good idea for the benefits that brings to the game at large, but White Mage wasn't able to afford an enhancement yet. I realized if I sold most of White Mage's things, I'd be able to give a little enhancement like a Strengthen or a Bless to a healing card... so I did that. So we'll go into our original White Mage's final scenarios a bit lighter on items.

Added a Strengthen to Revigorating Elixir.

To the Decaying Crypt! We got a nice little bonus by watching some deer.

6) Scenario #6: Decaying Crypt
The Decaying Crypt was good. We had a lot of curse cards, but also a few blesses from watching deer, so it felt like the luck balanced out. I had never seen the weird battle goal that Black Mage got, and it was hard to be mindful of. Ultimately I failed that, but I got all of the other ones.

I had one great turn where Thief and Black Mage entered the second room, wrecked a bunch of starting enemies in there, and then both used their Cloaks of Invisibility to hide until the end of the next turn.

Black Mage may have been the MVP, although there was a long part where White Mage was sort of handling the Living Corpses in the first room by themself.

Everyone else ditched White Mage, but they're doing fine!

We won, and then we were asked to kill Jekserah... which is probably the Light Warrior-ish thing to do.

White Mage has now completed four crypt-based scenarios. Seeing as I've prepared for this somewhat, I figured I should follow that through to its conclusion. We got a city encounter that opened some other quest but we'll table that for now.

7) Scenario #52: Noxious Cellar
I had never played Noxious Cellar before. By the look of it, I thought it might not be super fun. The enemies are a handful compared to the few scenarios we had done so far, and the objective is a weird one.

Everyone is in separate, monster-filled rooms.

It turns out that the four characters are all starting in completely different little zones, seemingly with no way to reach each other. This may not bode well for some of us, like, say, White Mage.

I figured that for some characters, we could use jump to just rush the end of the scenario. My only character without any way to jump? White Mage.

It ended up that the only character who really struggled here was Black Mage. We were poisoned pretty consistently by the nature of the enemies here, and thus had little means to mitigate damage, even with a round of cleverly-timed invisibility.

At the start of round 7, after being pounded and while standing on the ornate chest we needed to loot, Knight the Brute ended up exhausted. We had a situation where he had to burn multiple cards to negate damage twice. This meant we lost.

I actually forgot the rules around what happens when you lose a scenario, and I don't know at what point the game makes the scenario "end". I figured I may as well try to gain as much experience and loot as much gold as possible with the other characters regardless.

The defeat was flagged at the end of the turn. It was pretty annoying that in the same turn, all of the oozes that had been bullying Knight died by attempting to multiply.

I decided to retry. For attempt #2, I wanted to make the difficulty easier again, actually, but the obvious "retry" option immediately restarts the scenario and thus doesn't allow you to change the difficulty. I figured we would see how this goes regardless. The second attempt was better, with everyone cleanly getting their chest with turns to spare other than White Mage... who has very little offence and is generally pretty hopeless on their own.

This time, I left entirely to find a way to get White Mage some Winged Boots. Since we left the scenario, it also turned out that Knight levelled up, so we went through with that and got Hook and Chain, replacing Spare Dagger.

For attempt #3, I didn't adjust the difficulty after all: I really thought Winged Boots would make the difference. Well, it turns out Knight reaching level 3 boosted enemy levels further. Uh oh.

While the Winged Boots certainly helped the Tinkerer, overall this third attempt was waaay worse... mostly on account of the terrible barrage of unmitigable status effects. It wasn't long before I said the F-word aloud and decided to exit, drop the difficulty, and try again.

It might be worth a reminding note here that although we've got some constraints in play, I'm not calling this a "challenge" playthrough. I'm not going to keep banging my head against this scenario that my team clearly isn't designed for - not for too long, anyway, and not when we've got options. This is part of why I prefer to use the term "variant playthrough", or "themed playthrough".

Attempt 4, lower difficulty. I find myself no longer having fun here, but at least I'm not setting up tokens on a physical board game for the same scenario repeatedly. It went well, if its still fair to say that... and this time White Mage made it to their chest several turns before our now barefoot Black Mage.

Black Mage took ages to get to their chest.

Let's not split the party anymore.

Black Mage the Spellweaver and White Mage the Tinkerer both levelled up again. Black Mage earned the excellent Cold Fire card, and by the analysis we started with, unfortunately, they need to drop the ever-useful Mana Bolt.

White Mage's white mage-iest card available is the level 2 Disorienting Flash, but, by the numbers, it's not white mage-ier than anything else they have, so their hand will stay the same.

White Mage the Tinkerer didn't really benefit much.

Putting the characters in separate rooms was nasty. These very role-based characters are not built for it. I hope we don't have to do anything like that again. The harder monsters aren't so bad when we can benefit from teamwork!

The one thing that felt novel about Noxious Cellar that I didn't completely hate is that since all characters are operating independently, initiative matters less. Initiative plays into order, but not enemy targeting/focus, so you really want to go for low initiative almost all of the time. Perhaps there's something to say for that.

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Okay, this might seem a bit strange. I think a bit of background might be in order, but I'll give the short version first:

I like Gloomhaven. When I decided to play this, it was really just because I felt like playing Gloomhaven and thought I may as well apply a little rule set on top of it - not because I thought this was super entertaining, super merited, or truly in the spirit of what I've done with other "Classic Jobs" playthroughs. And I will be the first to admit my approaches haven't been consistent!
In brief though, yeah: I just wanted to play Gloomhaven.

Background

My experience with Gloomhaven began in 2020, when people were first starting to get together in small groups (we said "bubbles") in the wake of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of my friends had purchased it, I hadn't even heard of it, but three friends and I got together roughly weekly to play. In a time of so little socialization, meeting to play Gloomhaven quickly became one of my favourite things. Beyond the game table I would often drink deeply of the rulebook and spec out build options for my first character: a Scoundrel.

We played regularly, but my friends and I were fairly spread out geographically... and then two of us moved even further away in the next two years. We started playing Gloomhaven via Tabletop Simulator. The friend who originally bought the game set up the Gloomhaven mod to almost precisely the state our campaign had been in, and we kept going. I even started a second campaign using this on my own, just because I thought it was so fun.

Then, in late 2021, the Steam version of Gloomhaven launched out of early access. We all started using that instead, necessitating starting an entirely new campaign. I was impressed at how good an adaptation it was! I played one campaign with friends and another just on my own... which means I had now started four campaigns within two years, none of which went beyond about a dozen scenarios.

A funny thing about playing the Steam version of Gloomhaven: I - like many players - found it very unusually hard compared to when my friends and I were managing it manually. I think we underestimated the impact of conscious house rules (like taking revealed coin piles at the end of the scenario if the enemies were dead) and other judgment calls when things seemed unclear. I also wonder how often we had done refreshes improperly, allowed someone to take a turn with a single action card remaining, and things like that. Once we weren't the referees, the game was harder. I note this difference about challenge because I have come to consider myself pretty bad at this game and it's going to inform a bit of what I'm doing here.

Analysis Part 1: Class Selection

The way I was going to make my trope-like "classic party" with a Final Fantasy-styled knight, thief, white mage and black mage was by identifying the classes, and then creating a full build for them based around what embodied the tropes best.

Knight: From my prior experience, there were only two classes I would seriously consider for the Knight: Brute and Sun. Both are melee-oriented tanking classes, but Sun features most elemental dependence, and I also considered it a minus that it was a sealed class. So I went with Brute.

Thief: Scoundrel. Next!

White Mage: This one I wasn't sure about: Sun, Saw, Spellweaver and Tinkerer are all functional as healers, and a lot of classes have some kind of minor healing available. Furthermore, healers as a build are generally considered a poor use of resources in Gloomhaven, with some folks saying things like, "Healing is for when mistakes happen; if you don't make mistakes, you don't need healing". It makes sense; an average heal really only negates one major attack, if that, and if anything else gave you the ability to control or manipulate that attack obviously that's better for an action economy-oriented game. Saw seemed like it might be the choice early on since healing is a serious focus for them, but it is all short-ranged and uses an unusual mechanic that didn't seem very mage-like. Cruising various forums and Reddit and such, I seemed to find consensus eventually that Tinkerer is the best healer... as bad an idea as it is.

Black Mage: I haven't seen every class in this game, but the most natural fit seemed to be Spellweaver. Spellweaver specializes in AoE damage and elemental manipulations and it seemed a natural fit, so I went with that. The one rider I needed on this decision was that I consider a Spellweaver without Reviving Ether to be pretty useless, so I decided I would force that in somehow.

With that, we've got our classes. And they end up being four of the most common and generic default classes possible. Exciting.

Analysis Part 2: Card Selection

Having established my classes, I came up with the essential criteria for each. What made an action "knightly", or "thiefy", or "white mage-like"?

Knight: Knights are all about attacking and defending, really. There was a significant plus for having Shield on a card's action and a similar one for Attack values, that kept rising for higher attack values. Final Fantasy-esque knights do not attack at range, so that was considered a negative. Anything that specifically changes a target or otherwise draws aggro gets a big bonus. I decided a knight should be slow, so Initiative over 60 was a minor point. To minimize loss cards somewhat, those were all given a -2.

In the end, the 10 knightliest action cards a Brute has access to ended up being: Crippling Offensive, Frenzied Onslaught, Unstoppable Charge, Devastating Hack, Skirmishing Maneuver, Trample, Immovable Phalanx, Overwhelming Assault, Warding Strength, and Shield Bash. 5 of these are also in the Brute's starting hand.

Thief: Final Fantasy thieves are about speed and stealing. Unfortunately for Gloomhaven, certain things they might do like spontaneously turning invisible or manipulating a trap don't really weigh in. Emphasis was put on high movement, loot, and especially low and especially high initiative values, plus, as a support character that is fairly helpless on their own, a bonus for anything that benefits from adjacency with allies. Again, loss cards get a -2.

The 9 thiefiest action cards a Scoundrel has access to ended up being: Backstab, Flanking Strike, Gruesome Advantage, Open Wound, Sinister Opportunity, Duelist's Advance, Flurry of Blades, Long Con, and Cull the Weak. Only 3 of these are in the starting hand. Notably, Smoke Bomb didn't rank well for a thief, which is an incredibly useful card, and essential for a lot of builds.

White Mage: Now this is freaky. Contrary to nearly every fantasy roleplaying-inspired property ever, there's no real designated healer, and it's quite possible to build a tinkerer with a focus on AoE attacks. But this tinkerer is a white mage! They gain points for cards without Attack or Loot actions, for cards that grant or consume the light element, for things with range, and for Heals (obviously) where higher values count for more. Hand size relating to stamina also meant there was a lighter bonus for any card that restored other cards. Sadly, the tinkerer doesn't really do a lot of bestowing positive status but there are some minor buffing effects and those were counted somewhat.

The Tinkerer has a lot of cards! The 12 white mage-iest cards available ended up being: Curative Aerosol, Stamina Booster, Restorative Mist, Reviving Shock, Micro Bots, Reinvigorating Elixir, Energizing Tonic, Volatile Concoction, Chimeric Formula, Auto Turret, Flamethrower and Noxious Vials. The last three probably don't seem like they belong but somehow they met a few of the criteria when a lot of other cards didn't. Six of these twelve cards are in the Tinkerer's starting hand.

Black Mage: First things first: I gave a large, arbitrary bonus to Reviving Ether because I didn't really want to play without it. Cheap. Right. The rest of the bonuses were for high Attack values, high Range, having AoE, granting or consuming elements, or inflicting negative status effects. Healing was considered a negative. I set up these criteria and then, well, I wasn't thrilled with the results.

The Spellweaver's 8 black mage-iest cards ended up being: Reviving Ether (forced), Living Torch, Inferno, Cold Front, Chromatic Explosion, Cold Fire, Fire Orbs, and Impaling Eruption. Only 3 of these 8 are in her starting hand.

This analysis is, in my opinion, resulting in pretty bad builds... and I guess that's sort of the point. It's a strange sort of analysis because each of these cards are being considered in a vacuum without any regard for other cards, items, scenarios, or anything that could be synergistic. I already wrote above that I am bad at this game, right?

Consequently, when I started, I wimped out and picked house rules that mostly favoured me, the easiest difficulty to start, and I also gave my team 100 gold each to start (mimicking the 400 GP you start with in Final Fantasy). I've played the start of a campaign 4 times previously and I just want to sail along for a bit; this is not a "pure" playthrough.

Gameplay!

I generated my mercs... named Knight, Thief, White Mage, and Black Mage. I bought some items (but really not that many... so we've saving some gold) and did my first city encounter. I gave some consideration to how my team was going to play from a roleplaying perspective; it's true that Gloomhaven rewards a party that is either good or evil, and not in between. I decided since these are the Final Fantasy-esque light warriors we were going to be as good aligned as possible where the choice was clear.

There would be some cases, like this first one, where it would cost us.
First City Encounter!

1) Scenario #1: Black Barrow
Despite all the study, I remain fairly bad at this game. I did well at the first scenario (which, again, I've played several times) but every so often I would still mentally prepare myself to take two top actions or something stupid like that.

I opened both doors here pretty quickly. No real problems. I had some kind of flashy way of using an enemy to set off one of the traps. Later, the archers would lay a few more but not enough to get in my way.

And we won! That was all I played on day 1. Next, I went directly to the Barrow Lair since shopping wasn't going to benefit me at all.

2) Scenario #2: Barrow Lair

I didn't take any more screenshots of the Barrow Lair scenario, but it wasn't too hard. I really wanted to pummel the Bandit Captain because I remember my first time playing this and him opening all of the doors and flooding the room with beefy monsters. He only managed to open one door. That's great, really, except that it means I didn't get one early treasure chest here.

I decided in terms of quests I was going to beeline unlocking the Enchantress. It's important to me to have access to enhancements because I expect to have to retire my characters repeatedly as I play and enhancements will be nice to carry through - a way I can spend early money to make things a little nicer and easier in the future. With that, for my third scenario, I headed to the Crypt of the Damned after forming a union or something.

3) Scenario #4: Crypt of the Damned
The Crypt of the Damned was a nice place. The first room went very well. I realized the alternate skins available for all four of my characters made them feel a little closer to the class they were supposed to be acting as.

Mosty cleared the first room without issue.

This scenario has a bit of an easy feeling to it in the first two rooms, but I think that's because it's sort of long. There are three doors/four rooms and some new-for-my-team elemental enemies that can be a bit tricky. I revealed and fled from the Earth Elementals to focus on the Air Elementals, which was great.

I don't think I was being super strategic, but there's something to be said for having opposite elementals active at the same time. Sometimes their elements that are active can sort of counteract each other. Anyway, the Earth Elementals slowly wandered over right around the time we were done in the larger room, and it worked out great. Thief the Scoundrel looted both chests... one of which was a trap.

I noticed that the Victory! screen at the end of the scenario really told a story. Thief and Knight are dealing a lot of damage and White Mage is dominating the healing game.

Finally, for now - although really I've been doing like one scenario per day when I can play - I did the Ruinous Crypt. One of my characters has a personal quest of completing four crypt scenarios so they may be retiring a bit early! When that happens I'll just make a new instance of the same class. I won a pie eating contest, which is pretty good. I've done quite well with perks thus far.

4) Scenario #5: Ruinous Crypt
I made my dumbest play to date here, with the Spellweaver approaching the left room and taking damage from multiple Living Bones that gave her 5 damage with 1 HP left... when her only remaining card was Reviving Ether. Yuck! I had to burn it. Regardless, she made it through the rest of the scenario although she hardly held the spotlight. I had White Mage restore her discarded cards for some extra stamina and she had a few long rests. It was a bit of a close call but it worked out.

Black Mage Spellweaver Running out of Cards Image 1

Black Mage Spellweaver Running out of Cards Image 2

We got the chests here, too, but they were just money. And we won!

The next place I intend to take the team is the Frozen Hollow. It's not a linked quest, so I needed to go back to town.

It turns out that Knight, White Mage, and Black Mage all levelled up!

Knight the Brute has gained Juggernaut, and will stop using Skewer.

White Mage the Tinkerer has gained Stamina Booster, and will stop using Toxic Bolt.

Black Mage the Spellweaver has gained Icy Blast - one of my absolute favourites. She will stop using Frost Armor.

Gloomhaven is a thing that has come and gone for me a few times over the last few years. I wasn't planning on streaming this or making videos, just idly playing when I feel like it. Consequently, updates may be irregular, or, um, non-existent. We'll see!

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