GloomTactics | Gloomhaven strategy and tactics

In the world of GloomHaven, one of the biggest dangers to the health of your party is lurking behind those mysterious doors. Learning effective techniques to "kick doors" will help you avoid death. I'll be using Scenario 1 as example [Scenario 1 spoilers if you haven't played yet]. This is a more tactically complex topic and may take multiple posts to cover.

Minor Scenario 2 spoilers towards the end of this post. Even before the nitty gritty tactics, there's some planning & strategy you can do at Scenario Setup to help you win. When setting up a new scenario, the first step is to look in the scenario book to set up the map tiles and prepare all the monster types you will be fighting. Then read the introduction text and apply any negative scenario effects from the “Special Rules” section. Next, two battle goals should be dealt to each player, one of which will be discarded. Players can then decide which items they would like to equip from the collection of items they own (adding in -1 cards to their attack modifier decks when applicable). Next, players should decide which ability cards they would like to put in their hand, choosing from the pool of those available to them. A player must select a number of cards equal to his or her character’s hand size...  ...After players select their hand, any effects of a preceding road eve

[Minor Prosperity 2 spoilers ahead. Stop reading now if you want to avoid] . . . Gloomhaven does magic in a very original and unique way. The cost of Magic in most games are mechanically represented by a separate resource, like a Mana value. Once you run out of Mana you can't use your magic powers anymore.

Welcome to initiative management 101 or better known as " How to not die as Scoundrel ". Isaac's design of this game is real neat.  Because of the way enemies focus players by proximity, melee characters naturally suffer the most pain. To deal with this, each melee class either has a large HP pool (ie brute), or is has cards with impressive initiative numbers (scoundrel, mind theif). Cool a psychic rat ! Wait it starts with how much HP? 6?! One trap new players fall into is they optimize their move by how much damage they can do or how many enemies they can hit without considering initiative values. This leads to some melee classes taking damage they cannot afford to take. For example Scoundrel says "Woah that archer is totally on her own, I should move fast next round and get my bonus damage on it!". When this is done carelessly, soft melee characters end up taking alot more damage than they should be.

For my first post I'm going to talk about evaluating cards! If you've drafted Magic: the Gathering or Hearthstone Arena, you'll understand some of these concepts. Fancy & Powerful One common mistake new players make is they evaluate cards by what looks cool & powerful rather than what looks consistent and useful. Take the Tinkerer for example The flamethrower is real fancy isn't it? A 3 target AOE (area of effect) for a potential of 9 ATK and 3 wound markers! Generates fire and 2 exp to boot! It also has a worthless bottom (mid initiative shield with no movement means you wont get the shield before enemies attack half the time).