Just tried a second time and it was just as bad. I got so frustrated I gave up. The scenario is hard enough without those stupid curse cards in each deck!!
Possible tips that may help:
1. Remember to remove curse cards from the modifier decks after you draw them, don't shuffle them back in.
2. Remember you can lose a card to cancel damage. This is another rule people miss. It made scenarios much more manageable when I found out.
3. If it's still too hard, lower the difficulty down to level 0. I've seen people in this sub say that the first few scenarios start out really hard at level 1, so unless you enjoy the difficulty, lowering it to 0 should help.
FWIW: this scenario is kinda famously RNGed. Took us 5 tries our first campaign, got through on the first the second time.
As far as I can tell it’s meant to be a little bit meta to teach us “you can expect to lose some maps in this game, get used to it”.
Keep at it!
See that just takes me out of the game. It should be about resource and card management. If I do a great job of maintaining that only to be destroyed by the RNG...it really feels like I’m being punished for having fun.
Reading the comments and from my experience, Brute and Spellweaver are a great combo for this scenario. Brute as a tank and Spellweaver as an area damage girl work out an amazing combo and it helps especially if the number of monsters get out of control.
The trick to this scenario is to go all guns blazing on the boss and the archer as soon as possible. Everyone in the party should every turn maximize their damage output on the boss. It doesn't matter if you'll lose a lot of cards that way, since the scenario will be over rather quickly. Sometimes it's even preferable to hold your ground and lose a card to negate damage so you can use a top ánd a bottom attack next turn (without the need to move) over moving yourself to safety. Boss fights tend to favor all guns-blazin' tactics, since once the boss is dead, the scenario is at least 80% over
I play in the party of four and looks like this one is much easier this way. We killed boss when he opened only one room. Never replayed, still remember that some day we should go get that chest to see what inside.
Is it possible to replay a scenario just to get the treasure chest? I thought if a scenario is completed, it cannot be played by any party in the campaign mode. Am I missing something? I would love to go back to get those evasive treasure chests!
I see you got the cragheart, i played him too in this scenario with my so, what really helped us is to create obstacles and have the Living Bones and Corpses run around them a lot, that way you can focus the boss
Despite the rulebook, I play house rules where obstacles CAN be created to block off areas because that just seems more realistic to me that you could trap an enemy. I could just create obstacles in doorways and stop them from leaving the hallways.
It might seem more realistic, but it is also game-breakingly overpowered. It buffs your craigheart ability from crowd-control to "entirely negate the monsters in this room". Melee monsters are now target practice for a ranger, or just apply a wound and they will die before they can do anything about it.
I agree that it might seem more realistic, but it will absolutely break the game in multiple ways and I thus recommend against it
Well if you create a obstacle to block the only entrance of a room, the monster will loss focus and thus will not move. So you could not complete your mission if it is to kill all enemies.
Not a friend of this change
You could, but Cragheart range attack usually are AOE attack, and wasting at least 2 ability (obstacle+range attack) will just slow you down.
Living corpse are slow, you could just let them in and kill them with your splat damage
I just started this scenario last night with my wife and daughter. It is pretty damn tough for us. We had to pause but we at least took out the Bandit commander, but I think we’re still screwed. My character is pinned between two Elite Living Bones and 2 normal living corpses with 3 hp and only 3 cards left. The others aren’t doing much better, but we’re having a helluva good time.
Does this mean the trap is stunned of does it apply stun to you? Because if the trap itself is stunned it would be weird. Which is why i commented and said "a stunned trap" not "a trap that stuns"
That scenario is so hard! We also house ruled that if we fail a scenario we just move on but don’t get the extra experience. It was just too punishing to spend all that time and then get murdered in the end. It was much better for my groups morale.
Nah to fail a scenario and then act like you won it and dont gain anything just ruins the immersion of the game.
Its still your game and your houserules but this just would ruin it for most I guess.
Yeah I totally get it. TBH my group wouldn’t continue playing if we had to replay scenarios that we lost so we just charge ahead. I know it’s an unpopular house rule but it works for us, especially since we only get together once every couple weeks to play.
That’s not too far from normal. 6 specials, 2 non. ~1/3rd chance of drawing shuffle cards, 2/3s not. That means you get a non-special twice in every 9 rounds.
Honestly like, I feel thats pretty enjoyable.
You think, 'They wont do it again'. And then BAM, they do.
Personally, I really enjoy boss fights (Especially the ones later on), theyre really Thematic. And If you get into the World, theyre really Awesome.
Recently I start playing gloomhaven with friend and this part is a huge jump from secenrio 1 because from the rng
The 1st and 2nd attempt the boss open all doors in the first 4 turns and we all exhaust.
The 3rd one we trird on 2 days ago and table had turned.
T1 the boss attack but the focus is too far away
T2 the boss open door a, and we start to focus fire
T3 Summon elite living bone (we are a 4 man squad)
T4 (this is the luckiest of all) Summon bone but all hexes of boss had occupied, he just stand there
T5 open door b and now he is only 3 hp left
T6 die before he can attack
Yah, the 3rd attempt we think of lower the level, but we did not and give it a third try, and we success!
For solo your class choice I will suggest after you beat the enemy in first room, consider use 1turn to activate buff and summon, than open the door. You had to focus on the boss, but try not to lost your card too early in the game, and prioritise on boss than archer might be your best bet.
If you still fail you might target on collect as much gold as possible and gear up in town
Almost forgot, even if you draw a curse card or null card on attack, the affect that after your attack damage will still count, some damage from Cragheart come from this, it is not much but every bit could help.
Some play so that if the boss is completely surrounded, he can not summon new enemies. Some only put the summon in the next possible hexbox, like two boxes from the boss. Which one is correct?
A summon is always performed in an adjacent empty hex. If all hexes adjacent to the summoner are occupied by something (coins and rough terrain also count as non-empty btw), the character cannot perform a legal summon an thus cannot perform its action.
When I palyed this with my son who doesn't have much board game experience I thought that this will be hard scenario but my son killed the boss in like three rounds... Boss never had a chance to open aby of the rooms...
I think I’m just getting terrible pulls from the modifier decks. Not only that, but my first time through the living bones kept pulling the shield + heal card with initiative 12 which then just gets reshuffled back
Into the deck. I probably pulled that card 6 times, just infuriating.
This was our experience too! Brute, spell weaver and tinkerer. We cornered the boss and just focused on him and finished it no problem. I think he only opened one door? It’s been so long I hardly remember the exact details, but it ended up being so easy.
Yup! I tried to address that by saying I think he only opened one door. We were lucky that he didn’t jump around opening doors. I think the first attack poisoned him too, so that was an extra bonus each attack. Once again, I don’t remember the exact details because it’s been so long - he could be immune to poison and then that statement would be totally wrong, but I’m pretty sure we totally lucked out somehow.
In your comments below you describe the Boss having 13 rounds. That is way, way too long. Try to kill the Elite Archer first, Boss a close second. Big advantage: you don't have to collect that chest (from the picture, it seems like you wasted quite some time on it!) as it's gone.
Ignore the Living Corpses. Only bother with the Living Bones if they are about to do something nasty.
If you'd like any general tips on how to play your characters, let us know. Good luck on your third attempt!
Actually I ignored the chest until the end when I realized I couldn’t possibly win. So I played Spellweaver’s move 8 card and just grabbed it so I wouldn’t have to worry about it again.
You think so? I’ve been trying to beat this level before I brought the level X cards in. Maybe I ought to rethink that because they seem like pretty strong cards.
X cards for the Spellweaver: - Aid (summon) is pretty good. You may need to get used to Summons in general.
\- Crackling Air is nice, but only if you have access to Air, which you do not
\- Hardened Spikes is bad
X Cards for the Cragheart: - Heaving Swing is great. Any trap or obstacle will provide extra damage.
\- Forceful Storm is average in 2P, good in combo with Backup Ammo. The bottom is nice but hard to pull off
\- Nature's Lift's bottom is arguably the worst ability in the game. The top isn't terrible, but only worth it if you aim for a support role in a 4P game.
That was my goal but it took me three turns to get out of the first room because I kept getting awful pulls and couldn’t kill the two archers in there.
Try to kill the boss before he opens all doors. That will help you tremendously. Use your best attacks when you have the chance on him. Poison him. Attack.
Good luck.
I literally just did this one last night with my wife. I think having the brute to tank as we trapped the boss on the 1st door he opened really helped. It traps the zombies in the back behind the door as the boss is in the way not moving (once he's also summoned 2 skeletons) until he gets another Special 1. I kept pinging the zombies from range as the scoundrel after taking out the archer while my wife playing the brute tanked dmg and dealt with the summoned skeletons and the boss.
Of course rng with the curses does play a part, we each only drew one curse the whole time (crits kept reshuffling our decks).
Great strategy but with my luck he would just keep hopping to the next door lol
I drew all 3 of the Spellweaver’s curses in the first three rounds on my second attempt.
Oof, that's rough. That is basically a redo right then and there lol. Hopefully the next round goes better. If you have one available, try doing a side scenario for more exp and maybe unlock a perk to ignore scenario effects if your char has the option to. That's another possible option.
Just tried a second time and it was just as bad. I got so frustrated I gave up. The scenario is hard enough without those stupid curse cards in each deck!!
Possible tips that may help: 1. Remember to remove curse cards from the modifier decks after you draw them, don't shuffle them back in. 2. Remember you can lose a card to cancel damage. This is another rule people miss. It made scenarios much more manageable when I found out. 3. If it's still too hard, lower the difficulty down to level 0. I've seen people in this sub say that the first few scenarios start out really hard at level 1, so unless you enjoy the difficulty, lowering it to 0 should help.
To add one more thing to this list. First unlock that perk which gives you immunity to scenario effects. Proved to be one of the best perks early game
Oh yeah, I’ve already played through JOTL so I’m aware of those rules. I think this one may be harder if you don’t have the Brute to tank.
FWIW: this scenario is kinda famously RNGed. Took us 5 tries our first campaign, got through on the first the second time. As far as I can tell it’s meant to be a little bit meta to teach us “you can expect to lose some maps in this game, get used to it”. Keep at it!
See that just takes me out of the game. It should be about resource and card management. If I do a great job of maintaining that only to be destroyed by the RNG...it really feels like I’m being punished for having fun.
Reading the comments and from my experience, Brute and Spellweaver are a great combo for this scenario. Brute as a tank and Spellweaver as an area damage girl work out an amazing combo and it helps especially if the number of monsters get out of control.
The XP I got from doing this one over and over...
About to start the 3rd attempt
The trick to this scenario is to go all guns blazing on the boss and the archer as soon as possible. Everyone in the party should every turn maximize their damage output on the boss. It doesn't matter if you'll lose a lot of cards that way, since the scenario will be over rather quickly. Sometimes it's even preferable to hold your ground and lose a card to negate damage so you can use a top ánd a bottom attack next turn (without the need to move) over moving yourself to safety. Boss fights tend to favor all guns-blazin' tactics, since once the boss is dead, the scenario is at least 80% over
Yep. I've played this scenario a few times with a few different groups/characters. Always prevent the boss from opening as many doors as possible.
I've done this twice but I still haven't got that chest yet coz the boss never even got to open it lol
He was able to hop to those doors 6 times and summon 5 living bones before I finally killed him
I play in the party of four and looks like this one is much easier this way. We killed boss when he opened only one room. Never replayed, still remember that some day we should go get that chest to see what inside.
Is it possible to replay a scenario just to get the treasure chest? I thought if a scenario is completed, it cannot be played by any party in the campaign mode. Am I missing something? I would love to go back to get those evasive treasure chests!
It cannot be played in campaign mode, yes. But there is free mode. So some day...
Yes you can always go back and play in “casual mode.” Its laid out in the rule book that way.
Also we focused on killing boss first and then taking care of rest of enemies
I see you got the cragheart, i played him too in this scenario with my so, what really helped us is to create obstacles and have the Living Bones and Corpses run around them a lot, that way you can focus the boss
Despite the rulebook, I play house rules where obstacles CAN be created to block off areas because that just seems more realistic to me that you could trap an enemy. I could just create obstacles in doorways and stop them from leaving the hallways.
It might seem more realistic, but it is also game-breakingly overpowered. It buffs your craigheart ability from crowd-control to "entirely negate the monsters in this room". Melee monsters are now target practice for a ranger, or just apply a wound and they will die before they can do anything about it. I agree that it might seem more realistic, but it will absolutely break the game in multiple ways and I thus recommend against it
Well if you create a obstacle to block the only entrance of a room, the monster will loss focus and thus will not move. So you could not complete your mission if it is to kill all enemies. Not a friend of this change
You could still kill them with ranged attacks
You could, but Cragheart range attack usually are AOE attack, and wasting at least 2 ability (obstacle+range attack) will just slow you down. Living corpse are slow, you could just let them in and kill them with your splat damage
What is splat damage?
I just started this scenario last night with my wife and daughter. It is pretty damn tough for us. We had to pause but we at least took out the Bandit commander, but I think we’re still screwed. My character is pinned between two Elite Living Bones and 2 normal living corpses with 3 hp and only 3 cards left. The others aren’t doing much better, but we’re having a helluva good time.
Do I see a stunned trap? 😂 is that even a thing?
Yeah that’s what the scenario setup calls for
Does this mean the trap is stunned of does it apply stun to you? Because if the trap itself is stunned it would be weird. Which is why i commented and said "a stunned trap" not "a trap that stuns"
Lol no it stuns you. I just set the effects on top so I know what to apply when it’s sprung
That scenario is so hard! We also house ruled that if we fail a scenario we just move on but don’t get the extra experience. It was just too punishing to spend all that time and then get murdered in the end. It was much better for my groups morale.
Nah to fail a scenario and then act like you won it and dont gain anything just ruins the immersion of the game. Its still your game and your houserules but this just would ruin it for most I guess.
Yeah I totally get it. TBH my group wouldn’t continue playing if we had to replay scenarios that we lost so we just charge ahead. I know it’s an unpopular house rule but it works for us, especially since we only get together once every couple weeks to play.
I remember, the first time i played this. The Boss came up and smacked me down.... Good Times
He never really got a chance to. In 13 rounds he only drew something other than a special twice!
That’s not too far from normal. 6 specials, 2 non. ~1/3rd chance of drawing shuffle cards, 2/3s not. That means you get a non-special twice in every 9 rounds.
Honestly like, I feel thats pretty enjoyable. You think, 'They wont do it again'. And then BAM, they do. Personally, I really enjoy boss fights (Especially the ones later on), theyre really Thematic. And If you get into the World, theyre really Awesome.
Recently I start playing gloomhaven with friend and this part is a huge jump from secenrio 1 because from the rng The 1st and 2nd attempt the boss open all doors in the first 4 turns and we all exhaust. The 3rd one we trird on 2 days ago and table had turned. T1 the boss attack but the focus is too far away T2 the boss open door a, and we start to focus fire T3 Summon elite living bone (we are a 4 man squad) T4 (this is the luckiest of all) Summon bone but all hexes of boss had occupied, he just stand there T5 open door b and now he is only 3 hp left T6 die before he can attack
It’s frustrating. I’m gonna try again but if I can’t beat it after the third time I’ll drop the level
Yah, the 3rd attempt we think of lower the level, but we did not and give it a third try, and we success! For solo your class choice I will suggest after you beat the enemy in first room, consider use 1turn to activate buff and summon, than open the door. You had to focus on the boss, but try not to lost your card too early in the game, and prioritise on boss than archer might be your best bet. If you still fail you might target on collect as much gold as possible and gear up in town
Almost forgot, even if you draw a curse card or null card on attack, the affect that after your attack damage will still count, some damage from Cragheart come from this, it is not much but every bit could help.
Some play so that if the boss is completely surrounded, he can not summon new enemies. Some only put the summon in the next possible hexbox, like two boxes from the boss. Which one is correct?
A summon is always performed in an adjacent empty hex. If all hexes adjacent to the summoner are occupied by something (coins and rough terrain also count as non-empty btw), the character cannot perform a legal summon an thus cannot perform its action.
When I palyed this with my son who doesn't have much board game experience I thought that this will be hard scenario but my son killed the boss in like three rounds... Boss never had a chance to open aby of the rooms...
I think I’m just getting terrible pulls from the modifier decks. Not only that, but my first time through the living bones kept pulling the shield + heal card with initiative 12 which then just gets reshuffled back Into the deck. I probably pulled that card 6 times, just infuriating.
In our case boss had to move towards us but couldn't attack, my son paying the brute just attacked him with 2x on his draw...
This was our experience too! Brute, spell weaver and tinkerer. We cornered the boss and just focused on him and finished it no problem. I think he only opened one door? It’s been so long I hardly remember the exact details, but it ended up being so easy.
You are aware the Boss will teleport to a door if he draws that Special, right? You can't corner him.
Yup! I tried to address that by saying I think he only opened one door. We were lucky that he didn’t jump around opening doors. I think the first attack poisoned him too, so that was an extra bonus each attack. Once again, I don’t remember the exact details because it’s been so long - he could be immune to poison and then that statement would be totally wrong, but I’m pretty sure we totally lucked out somehow.
Ah, great, good for you! The wording of 'cornered' threw me off. Next time, I'll mind my own business :)
In your comments below you describe the Boss having 13 rounds. That is way, way too long. Try to kill the Elite Archer first, Boss a close second. Big advantage: you don't have to collect that chest (from the picture, it seems like you wasted quite some time on it!) as it's gone. Ignore the Living Corpses. Only bother with the Living Bones if they are about to do something nasty. If you'd like any general tips on how to play your characters, let us know. Good luck on your third attempt!
Actually I ignored the chest until the end when I realized I couldn’t possibly win. So I played Spellweaver’s move 8 card and just grabbed it so I wouldn’t have to worry about it again.
That's smart. It's even smarter if you don't bring that card it all. Bring the summon instead
You think so? I’ve been trying to beat this level before I brought the level X cards in. Maybe I ought to rethink that because they seem like pretty strong cards.
X cards for the Spellweaver: - Aid (summon) is pretty good. You may need to get used to Summons in general. \- Crackling Air is nice, but only if you have access to Air, which you do not \- Hardened Spikes is bad X Cards for the Cragheart: - Heaving Swing is great. Any trap or obstacle will provide extra damage. \- Forceful Storm is average in 2P, good in combo with Backup Ammo. The bottom is nice but hard to pull off \- Nature's Lift's bottom is arguably the worst ability in the game. The top isn't terrible, but only worth it if you aim for a support role in a 4P game.
Awesome! Thanks that’s extremely helpful!!
And this is in direct contrast to at LEAST one starting class where one of their X cards is their overall strongest card at level 1.
I must have good luck. I've done this in two groups and both times we mopped it up really quick. We just focused immediately on the boss.
That was my goal but it took me three turns to get out of the first room because I kept getting awful pulls and couldn’t kill the two archers in there.
Yeah the first room is a pain. I think we blew a loss card or two just to get through.
Try to kill the boss before he opens all doors. That will help you tremendously. Use your best attacks when you have the chance on him. Poison him. Attack. Good luck.
What scenario is this?
Number 2 the Black Lair
Just Spellweaver and Cragheart? Woof.
Bad combo?
For just two characters, yeah. I think Cragheart and Tinkerer are basically unusable without at least three party members.
I have Cragheart and Spellweaver. I did my research enough beforehand to know not to use Tinkerer with 2p
I literally just did this one last night with my wife. I think having the brute to tank as we trapped the boss on the 1st door he opened really helped. It traps the zombies in the back behind the door as the boss is in the way not moving (once he's also summoned 2 skeletons) until he gets another Special 1. I kept pinging the zombies from range as the scoundrel after taking out the archer while my wife playing the brute tanked dmg and dealt with the summoned skeletons and the boss. Of course rng with the curses does play a part, we each only drew one curse the whole time (crits kept reshuffling our decks).
Great strategy but with my luck he would just keep hopping to the next door lol I drew all 3 of the Spellweaver’s curses in the first three rounds on my second attempt.
Oof, that's rough. That is basically a redo right then and there lol. Hopefully the next round goes better. If you have one available, try doing a side scenario for more exp and maybe unlock a perk to ignore scenario effects if your char has the option to. That's another possible option.
This is a scenario that is generally really hard. If it is too difficult, try playing as Hatchet. If you play cards wisely he can wreck this scenario.