I Finally Played Gloomhaven! (First Impressions)

As you may or may not know, one of the hottest board games of the past 2-3 years has been Gloomhaven designed by Isaac Childres. No matter what list you look at: top selling board games, top 100 board games of all time, hardest board game to dead lift, Gloomhaven is high on that list, if not #1 on it. This board game takes a standard “trope” of board games, which is the “go into a dungeon, fight a bunch of monsters, complete some quests” style, or “dungeon crawl” game and do something unique that makes the game feel truly different.

For years, I’ve seen the hype around Gloomhaven and knew that it was a game that I needed to try at some point. There’s miniatures, an evolving story, and an in-depth setting that just screams “PLAY ME”. Yet, the game is a big burden to play: at $100-150, it is an expensive game to purchase. Especially if you dont already have a group dedicated to play it. Several groups have offered to start a Gloomhaven campaign, but nothing ended up panning out. Fast forward to Pax Unplugged last year, when Frosthaven was announced. This game is going to be huge, and I knew I wanted to talk to Isaac about the game on the podcast, so I managed to get a review copy of the game and told myself I’d play through the game solo so that I could 100% make sure that it would get played.

Note: Some minor spoilers of the first scenario ahead.

Cool, so I’ve gotten a copy of the game. Next hurdle: THERE’S SO MUCH STUFF IN HERE! I sat down to do the cardboard punch outs and pulled out a stack of boards 6” thick, which filled up my living room floor with various chits. On a related note: it’s really hard to keep cats out of giant stacks of cardboard. Somehow, I managed to get everything back in the box and I shoved it back on the shelf, a tad bit anxious to play the game without having some way of organizing all the pieces. I took to the internet and looked at all the various organizers. In my head canon, this is what caused Daedalus Productions to close because they literally announced it a couple of days after I looked at their listing for the Gloomhaven insert. While there are a couple of good low cost options on BGG, I ended up going with The Broken Token insert. They have done well for me in the past, so I knew it would help me tackle this beast.

After the multi hour ordeal that was building the insert and sorting the pieces, I was finally read to play this game. I set up the first scenario, Black Barrow, and got ready to play. Looking through the 6 starter classes, I decided to go with the Tinkerer and the Spellweaver, as they seemed like the coolest classes to me (Don’t hate me now for my choices, just keep reading). Watching a few rules videos on YouTube, I was ready to tackle this beast. I started in the first room, using my characters cards to take out the 3 enemies. Knowing that there were 3 total rooms in this scenario, I made sure not to burn a bunch of powerful cards up front, using the cards that would come back to my hand when I rested.

The Tinkerer didn’t last long though. Once I finished the first room and barged into the second room, they were quickly demolished by the people in that room (Spoiler: I tried the scenario again and had my first character die in the exact same place). The situation looked pretty dire, but I decided to keep pressing onward to see how far I could go. Amazingly, I was able to use the Spellweaver’s abilities to crowd control the remaining enemies and keep going into the final room. I even did a huge flip over everyone to get to the treasure at the back of the room. However, not long after that the Spellweaver felt as well and I left my first play of Gloomhaven in shame…

Only to look online and see that this is a very common experience. After attempting the scenario again, this time with the Brute and Spellweaver, I can definitely see where I’m having some difficulty. I am tackling the game in the way that my D&D party would, clearing each room then moving into the next one. From what I’ve seen/read, it seems like the best idea is to open up the doors ahead of time and manage the crowds and let them come to you instead of barging into the group. So I’m hopefully that my 3rd attempt will be more productive.

But what do I think of the game? Man this game is a table hog. I set it up on a folding table in the studio, then realized the game would work best if I left it out. However, I remembered my experiences with the cats and piles of cardboard, so I had to scoot the table into my tiny library where my shelves of games live. Now I have a huge table taking up most of the space in that room. This is not a “kitchen table” game, more like a “dining room table” type of game. I can also see why it would work well as a digital version, as the app can take care of a lot of the management pieces for you (and even if you have a supercomputer, takes up far less space).

At this point, its hard for me to give a good first impression of the game. While I’ve gotten the experience of playing through the mechanics, the best pieces of the game (advancing the story/characters/etc) I haven’t fully experienced yet. I am definitely intrigued, and once I get my brain wrapped around how to actually win in this game I’m hopeful I will be able to get to those more exciting bits.

Have you played Gloomhaven? Do you have any tips that would help me in future plays? Let me know in the comments below, or send me a message on Twitter or Facebook.