Finally our merry company arrived here! After playing over 50 scenarios we in the end achieved it – we will face GLOOM! Poor guy, he had pretty complicated past, as Heil hinted, but we have not found enough pity for him to stop now. Enough to say – our team had an opportunity to end the corruption so we went for it! Believe me, this was not easy and we additionally hit some bad luck. How it finished – let us see?

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, #59 Forgotten Grove, #60 Alchemy Lab, #22 Temple of Elements, Solo Scenarios, #81 Temple of Eclipse, #24 Echo Chamber, #15 Shrine of Strength, #33 Savvas Armory, #32 Decrepit Wood, #43 Drake's Nest (#2), #23 Deep Ruins, #26 Ancient Cistern, #31 Plane of Night, #40 Ancient Defensive Network, #41 Timeworn Tomb, #38 Slave Pens, #39 Treacherous Divide, #19 Forgotten Crypt (#2), #48 Shadow Weald, #46 Nightmare Peak, #47 Lair of Unseeing Eye, #51 The Void

A reminder about a very versatile composition of our team:

  • me – playing level 9 Sawbone
  • Kuba G – playing level 9 Berserker
  • Kuba J – playing level 9 Quartermaster
  • Dominik – playing level 7 Sunkeeper

The scenario is very modest – three connected rooms, just a few overlay tiles and only 1 enemy, without any summons. What can be more beautiful than such unpretentious end top a fantastic campaign!

Let us have a look at the Gloom. He is resistant to all possible debuffs – Wound, Disarm, Muddle, Poison, Immobilize, Stun and Curse. We played on level 6 (Very Hard) which meant for us 200 Hit Points to deal with! With base attack of 8, it can be easily increased to 17 (!!!) with special one, or 9 plus Poison & Wound & Stun with Special 2.

When we first seen how Gloom looks like, what skills and abilities he has – we really lost hope that it will be possible to kill him. No way that two strong hits – like in our semi-finals – will open a way to victory. So a long, difficult and exciting session was in front of us – not necessarily a one with Happy End…

Let us see! Enjoy! (you can click on every picture to enlarge it).

As hinted by me earlier, the scenario is pretty straightforward – one big room, couple of overlays, 1 enemy and One Goal – kill the Gloom!.
In our previous 3 games with bosses – the so called “semi-finals” – Berserker Glass Hammer was dealing enormous amounts of damage, often drawing a “2x” modification. But all the luck ends at some time – when we saw this (cancel hit due to rolling modifier on “+1”) our hearts really fainted…
Kuba immediately tried again using “Resolute Stand” (as we all, hitting with whatever good cards we had) and this time a perfect roll hit the Gloom hard. By hard I mean around 20% of his hit-points… so not as impressive as with earlier bosses but good enough!
Gloom was teleporting himself from time to time and using the range attack (Special 2) was able to neutralize at least one of us with Stun.
One of many key moments of our game was the situation with Sunkeeper recovering a lost cards for Berserker. We really needed those as it allowed the “Glass Hammer” and Resolute Stand” to shine again!
That was a true dance with death – but we have won!

Summary

We did not expect for this to end well. Especially after initial attack of our Berserker and a complete miss. Still, we all bough blesses in sanctuary before the scenario which had huge impact on the strength of our further hits, allowing us to prevail in a long run. A perfect combination of Tank & Support (Sunkeeper), Damage-Dealer (Berserker), Support & Damage-Dealer (Sawbone) and Support (Quartermaster) worked perfectly together.

After finishing that scenario we felt strange emptiness. After 3 years of our campaign we reached it apex moment. True, you can play further, finishing the untraveled paths and bonus scenarios. But it will never be the same urge to defeat the Gloom.

PS. This is not everything about gloom. You may definitely count on a statistical summary for our campaign as well as a full review – I think the game deserves a thorough evaluation. Stay tuned!