Our Gloomhaven Campaign in chronological order: 
#1 Black Barrow, #2 Barrow Lair, #3 Inox Encampment, #69 Well of the Unfortunate, #4 Crypt of the Damned, #5 Ruinous Crypt, #93 Sunken Vessel, #10 Plane of Elemental Power, #21 Infernal Throne, #14 Frozen Hollow, #19 Forgotten Crypt, #27 Ruinous Rift, #8 Gloomhaven Warehouse, #7 Vibrant Grotto, #20 Necromancer's Sanctum, #6 Decaying Crypt, #28 Outer Ritual Chamber, #94 Vermling Nest, #95 Payment Due, #13 Temple of the Seer, #16 Mountain Pass, #43 Drake's Nest, #18 Abandoned Sewers, #25 Icecrag Asent, #28 Outer Ritual Chamber (#3), #29 Sanctuary of Gloom, #55 Foggy Thicket, #56 Bandit's Wood, #72 Ozing Grove

 

So, yes, it has come to this. We are playing No 1 of Boargamegeek – Gloomhaven. The temptation was too much, the deal to get the game at the right price – only more irresistible.

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The game is simply overwhelming – the largest box I have ever seen for boardgame with weight of 10 kg. In this almost 100 scenarios which need form 75 hours (2 players) to 150 hours (4 players) to play all. The campaign mode, leveling-up of your character, unexpected twists and turns and that feeling “well, we are just finishing, just one more scenario please…”.

As I played only one scenario I am not even trying to write a full review – but I would like to share initial experiences and show you how did it go for us in our first scenario – and also some thoughts how we feel about game after that initial encounter.

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Finally, after some discussions, we ended up playing with three characters in following set-up:

  • me – playing Brute
  • Kuba J – playing Spellweaver
  • Kuba G – playing Tinkerer

Is it optimal races compositions? I do not know. Would I read long “who to”, “walk-through”, “best strategy” articles. Maybe some day. The idea was to look at the possibilities and have combination of front-line character (me, Brute), decent range-attack damage dealer (Kuba J, Spellweaver) and support (Kuba G – Tinkerer). Did it play well? Oh yes!

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So we started from City event – which was kind of amusing decision what to do with “Lurkers” – I will not share the conclusion, but we had more laugh then terror here.

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Who is “Lurker”???

Then there was a Road event and last but not least – the scenario itself. The beginning of scenario book is pretty simple and straightforward – everybody has to eat. Even mercenaries. So we were sent for a mission to recover some documents from unspecified thug. Easy, straightforward, brutal mission. SO we started.

The first scenario composes from 3 rooms – you do not see enemies in the room until you enter it. The first one was pretty densely packed up with cut-throats – but we dealt with them reasonably well:

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It was definitely more difficult in second room, where we had Elite bandit and elite archer – we had to summon two creatures to allow us get through this and spent some turns (each equals one action card less in our hand) before we cleared it up.

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The really interesting things started in last room – Living Bones. Yeas, it seems that  our theft was not so ordinary one and managed to get support of unholy supporters! Their defense position was really well placed and only thanks to range attacks of Spell-weaver and my Brute-charge we managed to get through them.

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So a victory in first scenario. I finished with 13 XP/2 gold, Kuba J (Spellweaver) with 9 XP/ 4 gold and Kuba G (Tinkerer) with 11 XP/6 gold. All in all quite fun and interesting introductory scenario!

Some thoughts

The game is really well-produced with decent quality of components and compelling story. There is element of leveling up and developing characters (still in front of us 🙂 ). We still do not know our characters well, but already have some ideas on combos to be used. There were difficult moments (I had health drooping to 2 HP two times) but in the end we managed to loot like half of coins and what is most important – the chest! Next scenario awaits!

Our Gloomhaven Campaign:
Scenario#1 => Scenario#2 => Scenario#3 => Scenario#69 => Scenario#4 
=> Scenario#5 => Scenario#93 => Scenario#10 => Scenario#21