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Gloomhaven


Brick Bungalow

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Is there a Glloomhaven thread already? I didn't see one. 

Anyway, no time for a full review now but it's an amazing game and a pretty unprecedented concept as far as I know. Pretty decent modular dungeon crawling mechanic that would score it a seven or so on its own. Of course the real hook is that you level up and unlock new areas, new gear, new equipment, story elements et cetera, et cetera as you play. 

I heard it was being played at the clubhouse. I'd love to hear further notes. 

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A little more information:

The scenarios will evoke exploration games like heroquest. Interactions are more strategic and less random. There are no dice.

The driving mechanic is stamina which is represented by a small deck of cards. Ordinary actions require you to temporarily discard. More effective actions require you sacrifice the card. Resting recovers all but one of your discards. You can (as I did) burst into a scenario and execute a flurry of combo attacks and clear the first couple tiles very quickly but you will run out of cards. The trick is to compose and utilize your deck in a way that makes it last for the entire encounter. Each character has unique ways to do this. Your stamina deck dwindles every turn no matter what you do so it's important to plan the encounter efficiently. We left a significant amount of treasure unclaimed because we didn't have enough spare actions to collect it all. 

The cards also represent initiative. Your characters initiative is not fixed but is represented by the average value on the cards of your stamina deck. Its very important to coordinate with team mates in order to execute actions in the most effective order. Two actions may work well in conjunction but only if they occur in the right order. This would be easy enough but it's complicated by the fact that enemy actions occur in an order not under player control. Enemies will frequently disrupt the players attempts to coordinate attacks. Shades of robo rally. 

I think it will appeal greatly to folks who like both board games and role playing games. It's the most effective hybrid of the two that I've ever encountered. 

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