We do not stop in our adventure inside the word of Frosthaven! And with each consecutive scenario we appreciate more and more how well this game is designed from the script perspective – some paths open, some closes, unexpected things start to happen. This was exactly the case in our latest scenario, fatefully called Heart of Ice. Gloomhaven did not prepared us for such a perverse finale. Intrigued? You should be! But rest assured, your curiosity will be soon satisfied!

Our Frosthaven Campaign in chronological order: 
#1 Town in Flames
#2 Algox Scouting
#4 Heart of Ice

Some interesting materials about Frosthaven World:
Frosthaven – first look – starting characters (1/2)
Frosthaven – first look – starting characters (2/2)
Frosthaven – monsters analysis & strategies – Lurkers
Frosthaven – monsters analysis & strategies – Unfettered

Scenario #4 is forcibly linked with scenario #2, i.e. once you finish #2, you have to immediately start #4, without possibility to come back to the Outpost. Well, we can take it – and also were ok, that if you follow scenario #2 path, the #3 is permanently closed. Hm, seems Mr. Childres was trying to add some replayability to the campaign. Good!

We gathered our merry company – details below – and headed into our first Boss adventure! Yup, already in third scenario we face a potent enemy!

  • Blinkblade (me) – still level 1
  • Banner Spear (Kuba J) – level 1
  • Geminate (Kuba G) – level 1
  • Drifter (Konrad) – level 1

A note here – experience in Frosthaven is gained much slower than in Gloomhaven. If you look at third scenario from previous campaign, after it my Brute was already promoted. Not here. It takes much mroe time.

Session report

With the preparations finished we approached Scenario #4:

Again, it takes place in Copperneck Mountains. Depending on which scenario you finished – #2 (Algox Scouting) or #3 (Algox Offensive) you start it from the different entrance (cool)! And then it only gets more and more interesting! Let us see!

Set-up of Scenario #4 IF you finished Scenario#2
Five enemies, even if mostly Elite, is not a problem for such a formidable group as ours! However, the issue is that once the last enemy is killed…
…the doors to next room immediately opens! And there we encounter Snowdancer (our ally from Scenario #2) and Frozen Fist, in deadly embrace.
That close-up shows what a formidable opponents those are. And they are enemies to each other and also to our group!
Here you can see how deadly they can attack. The victory conditions are pretty perverse (now you will see what I was referring to in first paragraph of the article). Scenario ends in success when ONE of the Bosses is dead and we dealt at least 50% of the damage to it!
That was pretty problematic task. When entering room, we were closer to Snowdancer whom we wanted to save; so we had to maneuver around and focus on Frozen Fist. It worked but believe me, we had to do some creative moves!

Two bosses fighting each other was a complete novelty. But the fact that the one we supported becomes unlocked class even more surprising. I told you, the game gets very good in story telling!

Outpost

Ok, so we managed to get rid of our first boss, on top of this unlock one class and path to three new scenarios – 5, 7 and 8. We will have a lot of choices, whether to follow on Algox journey (blue path), to focus on Lurkers (purple path) or maybe mysterious, Metal Machines (green path)?

Frosthaven comes with a cool diagram, showing which scenarios are available and which not; also, thanks to color-coding we see the particular branches of our campaign.

The game has a very elaborate and interesting outpost phase, where we develop our settlement. Every time we can upgrade / construct one building – this time we decided on Logging Camp in order to bring more precious resources to our outpost:

All our buildings upgraded / constructed so far

Conclusion

Honestly, that was easier scenario than expected – probably because we played again on Normal difficulty. I think we are proficient enough to move the bar up and since the next adventure, it will be level hard only. In Gloomhaven, after like 10-15 scenarios, once we knew the game better, we permanently moved to Very Hard difficulty level – hope to reach that here too!

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