It seemed like we were never going to get a Monday night game going again. Kids would have stuff to go to. There was car trouble. Calamities would happen. Last night, it was going to happen. It was GOING TO HAPPEN.
I have a Frosthaven shirt, btw.
We started, as one does, with Scenario #1: A Town in Flames. After the skirmish with the wolves in the tutorial mission, crossing a wintry mountain pass, we came out into a valley where the remote output of Frosthaven stood. It was a good new, bad news sort of thing.
Good news: We made it through the pass alive!
Bad news: We’re so tired we can barely keep hold of our weapons.
Good news: The town is just ahead, and there are plenty of villagers scurrying busily about!
Bad news: Because they are putting out all the fires.
Good news: At least there’s lots of folks coming in and out of the town!
Bad news: They are Algox, a formerly friendly people who decided to go crazy one day and start attacking the town.
The action starts outside the town, where a lone guardsman stands next to the door into the town, trying to keep even more Algox from entering. Luckily, when we come by, the Algox have someone new to bother. (WHY? We didn’t do anything!?)
The tutorial mission constrained us to a small subset of the available cards for our level. This scenario was the first one where we could really lean into the power of our class. My original plan was to load up on defensive actions and stand up front, and perhaps that’s what I should have done. I instead chose to drop into a support role. Which is fine, but someone has to tank.
This was made super clear when the Deathwalker opened the gate to the second half of the map, where guards were trying to hold back the Algox incursion by just standing still, which really worked pretty well for them. I did eventually drag the gate guard with me to take some additional hits elsewhere. They were super tanky for this scenario.
Anyway, Deathwalker opens gate, everything within range on the other side immediately attacks, she is forced to immediately discard three cards just to stay in the game. Blink Blade runs through next, gets attacked by the ones that didn’t get the Deathwalker in their sights. He loses a couple cards.
(Blink Blade: your basic rogue class. Deathwalker: drops shadow tokens that she then attacks through. My class is Banner Spear: tank and summons friends to help. The fourth was Boneshaper, a necromancer.)
Me, my scenario goal was to never get below half health. I did my best; came close a few times.
First scenarios in the Gloomhaven games can be tricky, as everyone figures out how their class works. My class, Banner Spear, requires enemies and friends to be positioned in particular ways in order to spit out an AE. I got a couple out, but they were less effective because the faster characters would be rushing around trying to die glorious deaths. I may swap out some cards for next time in order to emphasize more tanky tanky and less supporty. We’ll see.
Between Malifaux and Frosthaven, I sure have enough painting to do. I’m so terrible at it, but even a bad paint job brings color to the table. Even a bad paint job takes a lot of time. I am down in my painting bench so many nights…
We chose Scenario #2 for the next scenario: Algox Scouting. Should be fun. We get a new mob: Algox Scouts. I hope I get a chance to get more painting done.
