Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion: Finished.

It took us a little over two years to play through the twenty-five scenarios of Jaws of the Lion. But we enjoyed every single one of those twenty five.

Covid, real life, and the occasional other game (mostly Terraforming Mars) got in the way of finishing this prequel to Gloomhaven in any reasonable amount of time. Sometimes, months would go by between plays. But we always came back. Our time with Gloomhaven and Jaws of the Lion gave us a reason to come together and just lose ourselves in a world where certain doom seemed to lurk around every new scenario.

Toward the end of our Gloomhaven playthrough, I’d started 3D printing the various terrain and furniture that decorated the dungeons. My plan was to print EVERYTHING in Jaws of the Lion, set up completely printed dioramas for each mission.

That didn’t last long at all. The printed scenario books are really just too handy, so I just settled for random bits of stuff, and painting the minis my partner printed on his 3D resin printer.

My painting skills went from “terrible” to “sometimes acceptable”. In the picture above, the face on the boss (the dude in red cape and orange tabard) is a lot more fully featured than the one of the Void Warden, the woman in the green dress. I hadn’t learned to paint faces when I painted her. Also, the minis my partner prints are way more detailed than the ones that came with the game, a persistent problem with Gloomhaven minis.

In those twenty five scenarios, we marveled at how for most every scenario, it was absolutely unknown if we would fail the mission or somehow succeed. Many times we were one move from losing, and some lucky draw would win the day. Gloomhaven rules prevent players from collaborating with each other when planning moves, but you can talk generally about what your plans are. Without knowing precisely who would go when, a lot of carefully planned combos went up in smoke as the monster someone needed to be THERE was now suddenly OVER THERE instead.

By the end, we knew our jobs. My Void Warden would find a good place to plant her butt and then start mind controlling the monsters and the other players with massive buffing and debuffing. My partner’s Hatchet would set up precise combos and execute them perfectly. My daughter’s demolitionist would get the monsters near the walls or destructible terrain, explode them, then hop into her mech to hammer them to death. My son’s Red Guard would set up massive damage and do most of the healing.

It’s like having the perfect group in an MMO. The one you play with all the time. You get a rhythm and everyone inhabits their character to such an extent that you don’t really even need to explain to everyone else at the table your plans. If you say you’re going to lock down those monsters there, they know those monsters are being locked down and to do other things.

With my son getting engaged now and moving away in a few months, there won’t be a lot more chances to come together and play board games as a family. Maybe we’ll try Tabletop Simulator. But we have THIS time together, these last few years, the next few months. They’re precious.

And Jaws of the Lion gets a bunch of the credit for giving us a fun reason to get together.