Well, it must eventually happen. If you press too much, trying your capabilities and skills to the edge, you are bound to eventually hit the limit and fail. But if you do not do it, you will never know if you reached your maximum 🙂 That was true in the world of Gloomhaven, this is even more true in unforgiving areas of Frosthaven. So yes, we lost – definitely the most difficult, complicated but also exciting, interesting and surprising scenario so far. We had so much fun that we even did not pity too much on failed attempt. But let us start from the beginning…
Our Frosthaven Campaign in scenario order:
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
As you probably remember, not so far ago we decided to buy Sledges. That opened for us couple of interesting scenarios, including a side quest in Lurkers sub-campaign. What was important, this was a BOSS scenario! The plan was to get the full company and hit the unknown. Of course, playing on Hard Difficulty.
The Unknown we hit, but unfortunately the team was not in full strength as again there were only three of us:
- Blinkblade (me) – recently promoted to level 4
- Banner Spear (Kuba J) – level 3
- Geminate (Kuba G) – level 3
There is a saying in Polish: if you do not have what you like, you like what you have 🙂 So with high spirits we headed for the adventure!
Session report
So here you have our scenario:
Do you see those three, black dots below the adventure name? Good. That is the complexity of the scenario, on a scale of 1–3. Higher complexity scenarios will generally take longer and have more special rules. At the same time, they will be much more challenging.
This was the first adventure we played with such a high complexity level. When we finished it, we unanimously confirmed that the rating was correctly assigned. Such a number of twists and turns, special rules and surprises was a complete novelty to us. But what a fun it was. Let us see in picture-rich session report!
PS. Feel free to click on below images for full details.
Wow, that was intense. Scenario full of suspense with the fight till the end – this time, our end. Knowing what to expect will ease another attempt; still this first-time play was like reading a terrific book but being immersed in the story told. Excellent!
PS. There was no Outpost Phase, as we did not yet decide whether we come back to Frosthaven immediately.
Summary
Did we lose? Yes. Did we learn a lot, the hard way? Yes. Did Frosthaven proved to be a completely new game in comparison to Gloomhaven, bringing its own flavor, mechanics, stories and enormous suspense? Oh, definitely yes!
This was the best experience we had with that game so far. Losing such adventure was nothing when you compare to what we endured and what we saw. Still, there is one lingering question before next session… shall we immediately try it again or come back to Outpost? To be continued…
The Boardgames Chronicle 
That was a lesson for us, that Frosthaven is different than Gloomhaven, and rushing forward too quick, damaged, may be a huge mistake that game won’t forgive. we got little too cocky, trusting in our skills and experience. In Gloomhaven’s early scenario i rushed forward with my Spellweaver, leaving friends behind, and soon later the room got swarmed by skeltons summoned by the cultists, then we all almost exhausted, but won the game,. Here when Michal/Blinkblade went forward , we’ve barely survived the 2nd chamber(my bannerspear left that room with just 4 of 10 cards remaining, i burned few to cancel damage), completely not ready for what waited for us. Later rooms were just rushing forward(with some luck) and at the end we were close to beating the boss(if Kuba/Geminate didn’t get immobilized earlier), but we would still loose a game, as we wouldn’t survive till the end of round(surrounded by attacking opponents). Our 2nd attempt will surely be much easier, 2nd room should be much easier since we know its mechanics, but the boss still poses a big threat, summoning nasty snow imps every turn(at higher levels they get dangerous, can’t be killed with one hit, and in swarms their brittle causes lots of damage)
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Is this the final boss? My group just defeated this scenario and we can’t tell!
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Definitely not the final one!
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