Gloomhaven - Gaming Rules! - How to Play Video

[Music] hi my name is Paul Grogan and welcome to the second in a two-part series of gaming rules videos where I'm going to be helping you learn how to play gloom Haven a fantastic cooperative adventure game of linked scenarios and an evolving game world in this video I'm going to be covering how a scenario works in detail and the way that your character uses ability cards to engage in combat for details of how the campaign setting works and how the world evolves between games please check out the other video by clicking on the link here during this video you're going to see some painting minis these were painted by Jason trout from painting Nights see the show notes for more details on Jason once you have chosen which scenario to play the first step is to set up the play area in this video I'm going to be using the black Barrow scenario which is the first one you'll play in the campaign each player places they're carried to Matt on the table and marks their current hit points which is based on their level our character is just starting out at level one so the marker is placed here also place the experience tracker on the bottom of the experience track note that these character maps are the pre-production copies and the final versions of them hold these markers better each character needs its own hand of ability cards at the start of a scenario this must be the exact number of cards shown here on the character map for your first game use only the level 1 cards but as your character levels up between scenarios you'll be able to replace these cards in your hand with other more powerful cards at the beginning of each scenario each character received to battle goal cards at random and chooses want to keep this card gives you a specific goal to complete during the scenario and rewards you with either one or two check marks which can be used to improve your character once the scenario is over your battle goal should be kept secret from the other players each character also needs their own attack modifier a deck which of the start of the campaign is made up of a fixed twenty cards as the campaign progresses you'll be able to make changes to this deck too and finally place all equipment that our character has below their character map I'll explain the use of equipment later on next build the map as depicted in the scenario book placing any door tiles needed any other overlay tiles in the scenario should only be placed in the first room leave the other rooms empty for now so in this case we don't place any other tiles as the only thing in the first room is the bad guys when playing each scenario you can customize the difficulty setting either making it easier harder or much harder this difficulty setting will affect the level of the monsters the amount of damage that the traps will deal you and the amount of golden experience points you'll earn for completing the adventure for a starting group of level 1 characters the default scenario level is 1 I'm going to play on Normal difficulty so that means the scenario level is 1 looking at this table I can see that the enemies will be level one any money tokens I collect are worth two gold each any damage traps will deal three damage and I'll get six experience points for successfully completing the scenario check to see what enemies you'll be fighting in this scenario and gather the required components for each monster type take the monster start cards the ability cards understand DS for each type of enemy take the monster stack card and rotate it to the right level and insert it into one of the sleeves this shows all the stats for the normal monster on the left and the elite monster on the right on the sleeve itself is space to track the amount of damage that has been dealt to each monster shuffle each of the decks of ability cards and place them nearby this scenario uses guards archers and living bones the monsters collectively share an attack modifier deck which is comprised of the same twenty fixed cards that the characters start with this deck is shuffled and placed on the table then check to see what enemies are placed in the first room by looking in the corners of each monster heggs shown in the scenario book with two characters look in the top left of the heck's three characters look in the top right and four characters look at the bottom if the bar is black there's no monster if it's white it's a normal monster and if it's gold it's an elite monster so for our two-player setup I need to place two normal guards and one elite guard just in front of the door normal monsters use the white stuns and elite monsters you yellow each stun D has a number on it which will become important later on when choosing which dandies to use take them at random then the heroes are placed on any of the spaces indicated here in the scenario book place the elements in fusion table nearby and place all elements in the leftmost column to indicate that they start off inert this completes the setup and you're now ready to play the scenario a scenario consists of playing one round after another until either the group succeeds or fails some scenarios contain a limit on the number of rounds that you have to succeed this is tracked on the top of the element in fusion table each round consists of four phases which is summarized on each of the character mats at the start of around each character must choose from their hand two of their ability cards to play and place them face down in front of them with the leading card being placed on top of the other choosing the right two cards is essential to the success of the group but to simulate the heat of battle players are only allowed to communicate with each other in general terms for example you could say I'm going to move over here early on in the round and I'm going to blow up these enemies you could not say I'm going to act on initiative value 17 and I'm going to deal 5 damage to these two bandits each character then reveals their leading card announcing the initiative number on it which will determine the order of play for the round lowest number first so in our game the scoundrel is going on initiative 33 and the brute is going on initiative 18 then the top card from each of the monster ability decks is revealed for those monsters currently in play in our game were currently only facing guards so we reveal the top card from the guard deck they're going on initiative 70 after both of our heroes characters and monsters then take their turns in initiative order and after that there's an end of round face on your turn you get to perform the top action of one of your two cards and the bottom action of the other the leading card that determined your initiative has no bearing on this decision every card in the game is different and contains a wealth of information which may seem overwhelming at first but you soon get used to it now I'm not going to cover everything in this video but I am going to cover some of the basic effects when it comes to performing the action on the top half of a card you can instead choose to just use it for an attack of two and similarly instead of using the bottom action of a card you can use it for two movement once a card is resolved it's normally placed in your discard pile to the left of your character mat however some cards which are generally more powerful contain this icon which means the card is lost and placed to the right of your character mat instead all the cards have a lasting effect and they are placed in your active area above your character mat this shield bash for example if I play it for the bottom part of the card it stays in play until the end of the round giving me a shield of 1 and then at the end of the round it's placed in the discard pile some cards have a persistent effect which are also placed in the active area for example when this card is played it has an effect the next six times that damage is dealt to you and you place one of your character tokens on it to track the uses note that you gain an experience point when the token leaves a space with the XP icon you can get cards back from your discard pile by resting which I'll explain later on cards that are in your lost pile however are much harder to get back and in fact you can only do so through the use of specific other cards management of your cards is really important and if you don't have two cards in your hand at the start of the round and you're unable to rest then your character becomes exhausted your figure is removed from the board and you take no further part in the scenario so you must try to avoid this happening if you can many cards give you an amount of movement allowing you to move your figure on the map up to a number of hexes equal to the move value you can move through allies but not end your movement in the same space as them you cannot move through enemies unless your movement also includes the word jump or fly some rooms will contain traps or other features which have a negative effect on you you move on to the hex unless you are jumping or flying at any point in your movement if you move on to a space with the door it's opened and the next room is immediately revealed place all enemies and tile overlays on the board in the new room opening a door costs no additional movement points if there are any new monsters that do not have an ability card yet for the current round reveal the top card of the appropriate deck in our case we've just come across an archer so we need to draw a new card for him the two new guards we have found use the existing guard card then if the active player had any remaining movement left they can complete their turn reacting to whatever is in the room as soon as that player's turn is over look at the initiative value on the monster ability cards for any monsters in the new room if they are lower than the active player then those monsters activate immediately otherwise they just act in the normal order of initiative so when you're opening a door you need to be really careful because whatever's on the other side is going to get to take a turn this round the basic attack ability has this icon attack X allows you to deal X damage to an enemy adjacent to you if the attack also has the word ranged the attack can be performed against an enemy up to a distance of the number shown the only thing that blocked line-of-sight is walls this basic attack value can be modified in a number of different ways from other ability cards or items held by the attacker and/or defensive abilities the target may have such as this shield effect which reduces all damage done to this enemy when attacked by one also every time you make an attack you must draw one card from your attack modifier deck your attack value is modified by this card so if my base attack was three I would only deal two damage if I drew this card one of the cards in each deck does double damage and another card means that the attack does no damage if either of these cards are drawn then your deck is shuffled at the end of the round indicated by this icon for example the brute is adjacent to the living bones and wants to attack it he plays provoking raw performing the top action of the card attack two and a disarm he has no other modifiers so he a card from his deck getting a plus-one that's three damage however the living bones has shield one so that reduces the damage to two checking the standee this is living bones number three so we place two damage onto the monster envelope along with a disarm counter that the provoking rule caused some cards our area effect attacks that allow you to target multiple enemies with one attack this card for example allows the brute to hit two adjacent enemies if you target multiple enemies with one attack you draw one of your attack modified cards individually for each target so they may take different amounts of damage if a card with an area effect on it has range such as the net shooter from the tinkerer you only need range to one of the hexes in the pattern some game effects will give you either advantage or disadvantage when attacking for example when you use a ranged attack against an adjacent enemy you have disadvantage if you have disadvantage you have to draw two attacked modifier cards and take the worst if you have advantage you draw two cards and take the best so if the scoundrel were to use her throwing knives and target these two enemies here only one modifier card would be drawn for this enemy but two would be drawn for this one and she would need to take the worst the - - ouch some attacks also produce other effects along with the damage we saw the disarm effect earlier but there's also pushing stunning etc these are all explained on the handy reference cards with full details in the rulebook many abilities show one of the 6 elemental affinity icons on them such as this one which has the fire icon by using such an ability you infuse the battlefield with that element and the corresponding marker is moved to the strong column on the elemental infusion table these elements have no direct impact on the game itself but there are other ability cards that can consume these elements to make them more powerful for example if you perform the top effect of the flame strike ability when the battlefield is infused with fire you can consume that fire moving the marker to the inert column to place a wound token on your target at the end of the round all elements on the infusion table decrease one step it's important to note that an element cannot be consumed on the same turn as it's created but if an element was created earlier in the round by another character for example then that's okay once your character levels up and gains perks your attack modifier deck can be improved some of the cards you add have rolling modifiers when you perform an attack and you draw a card with a rolling modifier you do what the card says and then draw another card as well for example if the cry card performs an attack and draws this card he infuses the battlefield with earth energy then he draws another card another rolling modifier this time he pushes his enemy back to spaces and finally he draws +1 damage nice many of the ability cards grant you experience points when you use them such as this one which gives you an attack of two pushes your target three spaces away and then gets you one XP track any XP gained during a scenario by moving your marker or on the experience track if you get to ten take a 10 XP token and then reset the marker back to zero at the end of a scenario whether you succeed or fail all experience points gained in this way will be transferred to your character sheet as well as experience points every good fantasy adventure game needs a way for the characters to get gold and gloom Haven is no exception each time an enemy is defeated it drops a Money token onto its hex and each token is worth an amount of gold based on the level of the scenario you want to try to collect as much gold as possible because then when you return to town you can visit the market and buy some new shiny gear one way to pick up gold is at the end of your turn if there are any money tokens or treasure tiles in your hex you can pick them up freely also some ability cards have the loot action which allows you to pick up every money token and treasure tile within the range of the ability all monsters of the same type take their turn at the initiative value listed on the ability card that was revealed for them at the start of the round within each group elite monsters activate first in ascending order and then all normal monsters in ascending order so when this group of bandits activates the elite one goes first followed by bandit number one and then bandit number three when a monster activates it will focus on the character that it can reach with the fewest number of movements if two characters are at the same distance the monster will focus on the one which acted earlier in the initiative order so in our example when the elite bandit guard activates it will focus on the brute as will guard number one but when guard number three activates both the brute and the scoundrel are the same distance so we need to look at who acted earlier in the round the brute acted on initiative 27 but the scoundrel went on initiative 10 so the guard will focus on her the actions the monster then takes is determined by the ability card and it performs each of these actions in the order shown on this card for example the monster moves its base movement value minus 1 so the elite bandit guard we normally has a movement of two will only move one hex if a monster has a melee attack such as the guard it will move towards its focused character and then try to hit them with its attack if the monster has a ranged attack it will only move to within range of its target and in fact if it's within melee range if it's in adjacent hex then it will actually move one hex away because if you remember earlier if you used a ranged attack against an enemy in an adjacent hex you will have disadvantage if a monster ability card shows an attack then the monster will attack the focused character using its base attack value modified by the value on the ability card monster attacks function in the same way as character attacks and an attack modifier card is drawn from the monster the deck for example the bandit guard is attacking the brute his basic attack is 3 but the ability card shows that he's attacking with a +1 then he draws a card from the attack modifier deck and gets double damage oh dear that's 8 damage luckily you have a few options when your character takes damage whenever you take any amount of damage you can either reach your hit points trucker by that amount or you can reduce the damage to zero by either moving two cards from your discard pile to your lost pile or one card from your hand to your lost pile I'll talk later about what happens when you drop to zero hit points but for now let's take a look at some other monster ability cards now I know this might sound silly but if the card doesn't say move the monster does not actually move and if it doesn't say attack the monster doesn't attack some of the cards do however contain other special abilities which makes every type of monster work in very different ways for example if the guards draw this card it means that they don't move or attack that turn but from initiative value 15 onwards they gain a shield of 1 for that round and any melee attacks against them causes them to retaliate back remember that you see these monster ability cards after you've chosen your two cards for the round but before you've specifically decided what to do so you should look at the monster ability cards carefully work out what the monsters are going to do and then act accordingly two cards in each monster ability deck have this icon this means that you reshuffle that deck at the end of the round so how do you get the cards back from your discard pile back into your hand this is done by resting there are two types of rest assure rest and a long rest to do either of them you need to have at least two cards in your discard pile you can perform a short rest at the end of any round to do so shuffle all of the cards together from your discard pile and pick one at random that card is lost and placed in your lost pile the others are returned to your hand if you really don't like the card that you lost randomly you can so for one point of damage and lose a different random card instead a long rest is something that you must declare at the start of the round and you take a long rest instead of playing two cards when performing a long rest you still lose one of the cards from your discard pile but you get to choose which one also you recover to hit points and any spent items that have been turned sideways may now be turned upright again if you don't have two cards in your hand at the start of the round then you must declare a long rest and if you don't have two cards in your discard pile then you are unable to rest when this happens you're exhausted and your figure is removed from the board you play no further part in the scenario however not all is lost the rest of the players carry on playing the scenario and most scenarios are only failed if all of the characters become exhausted and also even if you are exhausted you will still gain any experience points in gold that you collected up to that point also note that exhaustion is what happens when you drop to zero hit points unless you're playing with the game variant of perma death for details on this variant see the rulebook when you start adventuring you will have some gold with wheat to buy your starting equipment and when you've collected some more gold you can return to gloom Haven to buy even more equipment there are three main types of item ones with a permanent effect such as the iron helmet or the item could only be used once per scenario such as this potion or the item could be turned sideways to use it like these boots of striding if you remember back to when I explained about a long rest that's how you can recover your spent items so it's likely that you'll be able to use these items multiple times during a scenario as your character takes damage during the scenario you're probably going to look at wanting to heal those wounds before you drop to zero hit points now there's a few ways to heal wounds during the game one of them I've already mentioned the long rest restores two hit points but there are also many ability cards which provide healing some of them just affect yourself others can be used on any target within range and some of them affect everybody adjacent to you some monster ability cards also include healing some ability card or even equipment will allow you to summon other figures onto the board there are also some monster ability cards that also includes summoning such as evil cultists raising the bodies of the dead for example a summoned figure is placed in an adjacent empty hex and is represented by a colored summon token in case there are multiple summoned creatures at the same time you can try which is which with the corresponding small tokens summoned creatures do not take a turn in the rounder that they are summoned but in all following rounds they take a turn immediately before the character who summoned them now summon creatures are not controlled by anyone they follow the same rules for monster movement and attacks as if they were working to an ability card which was moved plus zero attack plus zero the various starts for summons are shown on the card which summon them each scenario will contain a number of different overlay tiles and I'm going to talk about some of them here sometimes our obstacles they block normal movement but they can be jumped over or flown over they also do not block line of sight for ranged attacks there's also a number of different types of trap and the scenario will describe what each trap does some of them just deal damage and some of them have other effects a trap is triggered by any one character or monster moving onto the hex unless they have the flying or jumping ability for example in this scenario these are damaged traps and if the crank heart moves on to this space while using normal movement he takes damage according to the level of the scenario for a level one scenario this is three damage the trap is then removed monsters that cannot fly consider tiles with negative effects such as traps to be classed as obstacles when determining carry to focus and movements so for example even though the Tinker is closer this living bones will focus on the spell Weaver instead because it can reach her with a melee attack the exception to this is if the spell Weaver were not there in this case moving on to the trap is the only way for the living bones to reach an enemy so it will move on to the trap a scenario can end in one of two ways either success or failure to succeed in a scenario you have to meet the goal of the scenario which is listed in the scenario itself to fail the scenario well most scenarios are failed when all characters are exhausted but there can be some exceptions to this win or lose each character gets the experience points that they have earned and any money tokens they've collected are converted to actual gold according to the level of the scenario if the group succeeded in the scenario they earn the bonus experience according to the level of the scenario and if you managed to complete your personal battle goal you're awarded one or two check marks which you record on your character sheet once you have three check marks your character gains a perk which I mentioned in the other video and also if a scenario is successful additional campaign text will be read out and other scenarios will then be unlocked leading you on to greater adventures now I've not covered all of the rules of gloom Haven here there's a whole host of other stuff that I haven't mentioned poison disarming stunning hazardous terrain boss monsters all details can be found in the rulebook I hope you found this video useful in learning how to play gloom Haven if you've got any questions feel free to ask and if you liked this video and want to see any more of my work please consider subscribing to the channel until next time take care and thanks for watching you

Channel: Gaming Rules!

Views: 840,613

Keywords: Instructional, Gloomhaven, Board game, How to Play, Gloomhaven How to Play, Rules video, Gloomhaven rules video, runthrough

Id: pSWMvXT6jCw

Length: 25min 3sec (1503 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 15 2016

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Thanks for posting these. Glad people are finding them useful.