Gloomhaven Review

I have always been interested in fantasy and D&D themes and games. The main problem with these types of games is that you usually need to have a general game master who creates and runs the entire game world. That's a lot of pressure. It can be helpful, but very distracting and difficult.

Gloomhaven promises a vast, expansive world that changes and grows along with your characters. The world is built, the heroes are ready and the world is completely open to you.

Will it bring?

Let's find out. Welcome to Gloomhaven.

Gloomhaven

For 1-4 players
60-120 minutes of play
The cooperative plays a tactical battle inspired by the euro

A brief overview of Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven is a huge legacy style board game. Don’t let the old part push you away, as you can easily reset the game with a pack of stickers sold separately. Even through the game, nothing is destroyed, but that’s a pretty small factor.

The big picture is the RPG (role playing) stylings of the game itself. This is a huge world in which it is easy to get lost.

Variations and extensions

Gloomhaven board game extensions - founders, forgotten circles, Frosthaven and stand-alone scenarios

I honestly thought this game couldn’t get any bigger, but there are still several versions and standalone games in the Gloomhaven world.

Jaws left

If your entire gaming party was having fun looking at the policy, you may want to start a little less.

Jaws of the Lion is a completely standalone game designed to test the experience from the original. It is designed to involve actors directly in action without a PhD. in tiles and mini-movement.

The rules have been simplified and streamlined to give you a unique Gloomhaven experience that will draw you and your group of players into the terrifying world of big Gloomhaven boxes.

Gloomhaven: Jaws left

It plays as a standalone game or as an extension to Gloomhaven
Cooperative game of tactical combat in ...
Players will take on the roles of 4 new seasoned mercenaries and ...

Gloomhaven: Forgotten Circles

Gloomhaven: Expanding forgotten circles

This is the first extension of Gloomhaven with twenty new ...
Players will delve into twenty new scenarios unfolding ...
The extension also includes seven new species of monsters (including three ...

The founders of Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven: The founders of Gloomhaven

The founders of Gloomhaven are competitive tiling, ...
In the Founders of Gloomhaven, players with action cards place ...
The game also contains an auction mechanism in which players vote ...

Gloomhaven: Standalone Scenarios

Test yourself in difficult, class-specific scenarios with rewards ...

Frosthaven

Unpacking Gloomhaven

Let’s see what’s really in this bad guy.

1 policy
1 scenario
1 City Book of Records
1 Map
18 mini characters
17 signboards
1700+ maps
236 monstrous standing
24 stands
35 character windows
6 discs with wooden elements
1 plate element
200 tokens
4 dial numbers
17 sign plates
1 party
3 sealed envelopes
4 sheets of stickers

I usually like to cite games as a simple reference for players watching the game. Sometimes you get a huge box with only a handful of actual components. I think of such Machi Koro and Splendor games , which are both games I like, but there is more air in the box than components.

Gloomhaven is just the opposite. I first saw a picture of a Gloomhaven box, just like everyone else, but when you actually get it in front of you, you realize what a rabbit hole you just fell into. It is, to put it mildly, huge.

There are thousands of cards , hundreds of chips, hundreds of cardboard monsters and miniatures for your characters. I’m honestly surprised the game is as cheap as it is. They certainly couldn’t make minis for every monster and I’m honestly glad they didn’t. I don’t have the budget to buy them, nor the budget to buy the inevitable storage unit to keep them.

I am very pleased with the quality of everything in the box.

How to play Gloomhaven

The amazing thing I’ve found about the most popular RPG games is that it’s really scary when you first open the box and look at it.

Gloomhaven is no exception, but after a few rounds it all becomes second nature. There are a lot of moving parts and bits to set up, but running down a board that beats thieves and monsters is actually pretty easy.

Gloomhaven is played in an episodic way. As you progress through the storybook, you will have a variety of scenarios that will align not only your characters but also the city of Gloomhaven. The world is actually changing according to your actions. It’s a bold claim that most video games can’t perform well (I’m watching you pool ).

Each episode contains a short story and then meeting settings. How well you do during a meeting depends on the amount of booty and the experience points you get. If you do really well in the mission, you will usually get more experience points and gold than if you could barely find yourself in life.

If you don’t want to devote tons of time to the story, you can also play one-off missions that give players randomly made missions by putting together a random map and filling it with bad guys.

Overall, this is a very ambitious task and it was mostly nailed down by the designers.

I want to introduce you to how the system works, but remember that it will be abbreviated.

Monsters

There are 47 different species of monsters and villains ripe for slaughter. This is a pretty fair variety - but what happens when your characters are leveled? Can you travel through the Schwarzeneggar style level? Actually no.

Each enemy card has 4 different pages that pose their problem. The statistics on each page increase according to the players and the scenario. If you play the first scenario with only two characters, fewer will be defeated, but if you play with a full table of 4 players , you will find that there are many more enemies than usual. This is a nice way to master the power curve that happens to extra heroes.

You’ll also notice that Gloomhaven has attached sheets for each enemy card that not only look nice, but also obscure other lines you don’t use.

Ah, shape and function ... my favorite.

Heroes

Gloomhaven Heroes are not necessarily a typical thief-warrior-wizard fantasy . The tropics are there, but they are named somewhat differently. Everyone has a different style of play in which they are better, but each character still feels like a solid member of the team. No class is absolutely necessary to win the game.

fight

The problem with large box RPGs is that they will always be compared to Pen & Paper RPGs. Gloomhaven’s answer to this is a simple card mechanic that allows for a lot of flexibility.

Each character is equipped with a custom deck of cards that represent their actions or a bag of tricks they can perform. There is actually a lot of information on each card that communicates to the players all the different options that the card offers during the turn.

During the player's move, they will choose two cards to perform the action. Each card is divided in half (top and bottom). You will need to execute the top half of one card and the bottom half of the other. This gives players a chance to move and attack, move twice or really cry over the bad guys. Which depends on the cards you have on your deck.

Experience

The system of experience in Gloomhaven is quite impressive. Of course, when you think of the dungeon-spider or RPG system you think, "If I can kill him, I get XP." This is not necessarily the case here.

If everyone just got XP for the murders, then this would no longer be a cooperative game . Everyone would tackle the shooting and damage without worrying about other party members. Instead, each player will have certain cards, which in addition to the implementation of the campaign will also share experience, if certain criteria are met.

This way, players can perform actions that make sense within their characters, and still get XP. You wouldn’t run a wizard on the forehead of a knife to get XP, would you?

Gloomhaven is far from a static world. The city of Gloomhaven will grow during the campaign. As the client completes missions and helps the city, they will find that better equipment and facilities will be available to them, and their reputation will affect how the city responds to them. After all, heroes get a discount in stores.

Retirement

But it’s something a little weird that I didn’t quite come to terms with. As the players continue on their way, there comes a moment when the adventurer deepens all the dungeons and rescues all the women he can deal with ... by retiring.

After each character takes advantage of their experience, they will retire. You will then need to start a new character, but there will also be some general campaign bonuses available after retirement.

Your first Gloomhaven game

The first game is that all the questions will arise. After that, you will be an expert on Gloomhaven. With some board games, you’ll really need to get into Game 4 or 5 before you feel like you know what’s going on, but Gloomhaven is great for you.

For your first mission, everyone will choose one of the standard characters and create a fun adventure for the adventurers. From there, they all get 30 golds that they can spend in the city and upgrade their characters with things. Everyone loves prey, right? Since this is just the beginning, you will only have access to the lowest level of equipment in stores.

Scenario 1 sets the game apart and lovingly pushes adventurers before the rather standard call of adventure. The only thing he really misses is “killing some rats” in the basement mission. Instead, they pay you to kill some bandits who stole some goods. It seems pretty standard ... until it is.

You will only use 3 different types of enemies for this first round and this is a nice introduction to the game. The first mission is simple and challenging without being insanely surprising.

Advantages disadvantages

Advantages:

Great, perfect RPG experience
Resettable abandoned game

Weaknesses:

Scary at first
It can be a long time to shoot off the shelf
Price?

As with most big box games, the intimidating factor itself can deter many people. There is a lot to ask unless you are truly committed. This is definitely not a game I would have ruled out if I didn’t know that my players are also serious about board games or serious about fantasy. Personally, I think these two interests overlap.

Because the world is so massive and full of imaginative goodness, it’s available in a really big box. That’s fine, but it can be impractical. Gloomhaven just won’t hit the table if you have some time to kill with friends and want to play a board game. Gloomhaven is an event where you invite friends to play and order pizza.

We’re hugely committed not only to playing, but also to setting up and demolishing, especially if you don’t organize everything carefully. This can be a real shutdown for a lot of people and a real shame if you actually put it on the table.

Once it gets on the table, it’s fantastic, but it’s hard to get there.

TL; DR

Gloomhaven is an epic fantasy game with big boxes. The average campaign execution is about 70+ missions and the whole campaign will not cover everything in the box. There is an insane amount of gameplay.

It’s expensive, but you get a lot for the price.

The only real problem I’ve seen is that it’s hard to get a group committed to playing because of setting up and tearing down the game.

Conclusion: a verdict?

I’ve been very excited since I first heard of Gloomhaven and (no surprise) can’t wait to get my hands on this big box of goodies.

The price is a bit steep, but this is a game to play with a band. That doesn’t just mean it ’s bad because it’s pretty good. I just think that the game is best played with a group of teammates over the months. If the price is divided into a dedicated group of games, it is much easier to swallow. These are also hours and hours of play.

Is it worth the money?

Definitely. It is also understandable, however, that a player with a budget will need to save a bit before he can trigger the trigger.

Gloomhaven