We already introduced you to the game Gloomhaven during its early access. Since its official release, the studio has made many updates and released a new DLC some time ago: Jaws of the Lion. You should know that as for the basic game, it comes from the game of the same name which, on the other hand in the board game, is a standalone version (playable without the basic game).
Return to Nighthaven!
To introduce a little Gloomhaven, know that you play as a team of mercenaries which can be composed between two and four unique mercenaries. It will only be possible to initially use the 6 classes of the base game as well as the four additional ones of the DLC. Each class has a unique role representative of classic role-playing (mage, warrior, support, …). In addition to the narrative framework of the campaign, each of your characters will have a secret quest that will allow them to retire when it is completed, allowing you to unlock bonuses for your team and especially new playable classes. These quests have quite diverse and varied objectives ranging from buying different types of items to killing
To go on a quest for adventure, like any good role-playing game, you will have to accept exploration and extermination quests that will allow you to earn gold to buy equipment and/or improve your characters. thanks to bonuses on their sets of cards (unlockable after a certain time of play). However, by wandering from place to place, you will sometimes trigger impromptu events that will affect your mercenaries whether it is permanent or only for the next mission. They can be either positive or negative, so you will have to be careful about the choice you are going to make so as not to find yourself in a bad position.
Gloomhaven is a game that will require a lot of time to understand the game mechanics, but especially to face its difficulty even in the easiest mode. You should know that the enemies hurt enough and the margins of error are low enough not to lose. It will therefore be necessary to be patient at the beginning to fully understand the game and perhaps repeat the said scenario several times to learn from past mistakes.
Each of your characters will have their own deck with for each of the cards an initiative value (at the top of the card) as well as an action at the top and bottom of the card. On each of your turns, you can choose two cards from your mercenaries' deck. The first card selected for your mercenary will be used to know his order in the turn between your mercenaries and the enemies (their initiative value is known after selecting your cards). Then, and during the turn of one of your characters, you will be able to choose the actions of the cards that you have previously selected with the only constraint that you can only use the upper part of a card and the lower part of the other. In the majority of cases, actions at the top of a card are more damage oriented, while the bottom will be movement or condition/support oriented.
Content playable with the base game
If you already own the base game, the DLC brings a lot of new content for the campaign with 25 additional scenarios (allow 1 hour per scenario) and where you will be drawn around a dark story in the capital of Nighthaven. The majority of the other content of the game is also enriched with new city events, merchant objects or new combat objectives.
The most important content, however, will remain the four new base classes that will allow you to have new team formations throughout your adventure. These characters are quite unique in their gameplay as for the other characters:
- Demolitionist : using somewhat wacky inventions, she is a melee character who can hit quite hard in one turn. It remains on the other hand quite weak and will have to be protected effectively under penalty of perishing quickly. Interestingly, she excels in destroying obstacles which is quite rare in Gloomhaven characters.
- Hatchet : ranged character throwing axes, he also hits very hard especially if he targets a particular target with his axes. Thanks to a very specific card, he will be able to increase his damage on a target but will have to find his axes on the ground afterwards to benefit from this bonus again.
- Red Guard : a real Swiss army knife, the Red Guard will be able to control opponents for a while by performing control actions or taking a lot of damage thanks to its high base life points.
- Voidwarden : mastering the power of nothingness (like the character in the base game expansion Forgotten Circles), she can perform healing or damage actions from a distance. It will also be possible if you need to have many cards that can inflict status alterations on your opponents (confusion, wounds, etc.). By adding certain bonuses to very specific cards, it quickly becomes very formidable.
Conclusion
As I said previously, Gloomhaven is an adaptation of the board game of the same name which requires a certain rigor as well as knowing that we will be confronted with a significant difficulty. The game has the advantage of being immersive and completely translated even for non-English speaking people, which is a real good point, it must be said in our time. If you want to complete the base campaign, you will need many hours (count fifty hours without too much unemployment).
For the Jaws of the Lion expansion, the various additions, whether for the universe itself or the characters, are really significant, especially since the four new classes really bring actions that are little or not represented in the game. which will allow you to perform new actions during your scenario/map explorations. Attention, it is necessary that all players in the game, if you play in multiplayer, have the extension to take advantage of the new content.
