Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion - Ultimate Red Guard Guide

hey everybody welcome to my ultimate red guard guide in this guide i'm going to show you everything you need to know to take your game to the next level and to dominate jaws of the lion scenarios this is the hardest guide i've ever done no word of a lie and it's because of one card and that card is shield spikes and i spent hour after hour after hour testing things out playing reviewing all the cards thinking really really hard i should probably put a light bulb above my head here or something it was the hardest guide ever and i'm gonna dive deep into how shield spikes works whether you can use it what levels you should use it at etc so make sure you stick with me i think it's going to be really interesting for you redguard players and also spoiler wise i'm going to make sure that before i get to level 5 cards and above that i put a nice big spoiler transition so for you jaws of the lion players that haven't made it to those spoiler cards no need to worry you can just stop the video at level four and also one more thing this guide is going to be focused on playing the red guard in jaws of the lion the difference between playing the red guard in jaws of the lion versus gloomhaven is quite large larger i think than even the other classes and jaws of the lion so for this video's purposes it's going to be about playing in jaws of the lion okay let's go to starting cards shield of the desert at least that's what my notes say i spelled desert wrong even though i know how to spell it and didn't notice because you know it doesn't flag dessert's a real word i thought that was funny thought i'd share that with you so shield of the desert top very very good make sure you have fire up though if you can hit a couple of enemies and if you have light as well and you can add plus one you know that's a repeatable attack eight to two enemies and you can potentially push into a trap and you get one xp very very good level one card initiative at 10 is great as well and then the shield three uh this loss at on the bottom very powerful if you decide to play a shield spikes build and don't forget we're gonna talk about that in excruciating detail later in the video but if you do pair this with a top shield one you're gonna have shield four you're gonna be able to dish out some pretty good damage with shield spikes or you're just gonna be able to use it to be super tanky you know in a later room when the situation arises very good card don't leave home without it flame shroud the top is pretty good however you can almost never use it let me explain why the red guard struggles with movement especially at early levels this is our best move card and so despite flame shroud top actually being a pretty decent card because you can't waste the charges you can basically never use the top unless you're in the very last room and you don't need move anymore because this move for utility-wise is going to be essential for us and then if you are playing shield spikes you know having uh consuming fire and using the bottom to you know move forward and give yourself that shield very very good always take this card but pretty much always take it for the move swift strength top of this card pretty solid good utility attack two range two target two pull one you're rarely gonna be able to pull them into a trap but if you're trying to get enemies adjacent to you can be reasonably handy and if you're fighting monsters that don't have shield 4 damage at level 1 is pretty good initiative at 16 also good although it's actually only our fifth fastest card even at level one red guard's initiative is very good and i mean the class really needs that good initiative to excel so i understand why it's just it's kind of funny that 16 is the fifth best card initiative wise the bottom move to jump it's okay move two with jump they basically got to be right next to you for you to jump over somebody make sure you pair this with boots and then it's got a lot more functionality and the shield one is just a nice bonus overall very good card very useful you know nice solid utility desert knight top attack two disarm target one enemy within two hexes nice control really good for getting in there and taking care of that big elite you're going to need to pair it with something fast though so you make sure and go first before the monster because it does have initiative 90. it also produces ice and dark and it's clearly meant to be played before burn away the dark and the next turn you play burn away the dark and you convert that ice and dark into something useful for yourself fire and light really nice little combo there and then the bottom of this card i love this it's a situationally powerful ability for a loss so you play this card for the top through most of the scenario and then then at the end you play this bottom move six jump to you know go snag some treasure before your friends or catch up to your friends if you've been left behind it's going to be something that's going to be quite useful to you some of the time and those are some of the best cards that have a great half that you can reuse all the time and then something that's a loss that's situationally very powerful blinding sickle top is solid attack three is fine at level one it's range two okay that's a lot of redguard stuff range too and then immobilize really really good immobilize is almost as good as a stunner disarm on a melee enemy especially when you've got range makes it a lot easier to use so immobilize those melee enemies and then produce some light for yourself late initiative so you're probably going to want to pair it with something fast for the most part usually you want to immobilize early before they can get to you i mean depends on the situation but the great thing about this card is at 87 you can go late or pair with something fast and you're you know 87 is quite late you're almost always gonna go last in that situation and then the bottom all adjacent enemies suffer one damage can be useful looting is also nice and we do produce light overall a good solid card warrior of the sun and the top of this is useful in a couple different ways first way i like to use it you go late in one turn you move into position you get adjacent to a bunch of enemies the next turn you go fast you mobilize everyone you move out of the way thereby controlling melee enemies preventing them from attacking the majority of the time and then you also get to produce some light that's pretty nice the second way you can play this is you can pair it with shield spikes of course right you play a bottom shield and you play a top shield to get yourself two shield and then what this does is if you move in and you shield one and immobilize get some of those ranged enemies with an immobilized that way they can't step back to avoid disadvantage they're going to be attacking you with disadvantage which is going to help push the damage down and they're also going to take damage from shield spikes if you've got it up because they can't move away to avoid it so useful in a couple different ways initiative 13 pretty good the bottom attack two plus one attack and muddle if you consume light also situationally quite useful so overall very good card i like to use it more for control uh than i do for the shield spikes thing and again we'll talk a lot about shield spikes coming up precision strike the top can be decent burst damage and doing seven attack and then if you consume fire having advantage at level one is let's call it mid or maybe slightly higher it's pretty conditional you got to have a negative condition and you have to consume fire so even though the potential damage is a little bit higher than average it's a bit of a pain initiative at 40. i could have put my own sound effect in there i guess without doing it myself but anyways you get the point 40 initiative sucks uh move two pull to range three decent utility that you can definitely get some things done with this you know move up and pull an enemy into a trap or you know reposition that sort of stuff that being said this is a card i probably don't take that often i usually leave it you know kind of in the sideboard twirling stabs top is a decent aoe attack make sure you add light attack three on all adjacent enemies is you know if you hit three that's worth nine damage repeatable that's pretty good initiative 38 not good we just had an initiative 4d card it's also not good neither of those are good the bottom attack too consume fire to wound that's nice wounding on a bottom attack is quite nice overall very good card blade dance i think blade dance is one of the most consistently undervalued cards of the red guard it can be very useful it's our only top move at this point trying so hard not to spoil things i'm not gonna do it okay let's move on it's our only top move at this point and this allows us a lot of flexibility so let's take one example strangling chains we can move in and immobilize all adjacent enemies with the bottom of strangling chains then we get to attack with blade dance hopefully we can attack somebody at range so we're not at disadvantage then we get to move away you can neutralize a bunch of melee enemies like this it requires no setup you don't have to you know get in position the turn before and then pull it off the next turn all in one turn you get to move immobilize do damage at range and you can consume light or fire to buff up the attack to get up to you know four to six damage sometimes uh with your modifier deck it's a very good card it's very useful i think people look at it and they're kind of like whatever but it's actually quite good and then the bottom the move four jump and then all enemies move through suffer one damage or you can consume light for two damage this is probably gonna get played in the last room if you've got enough cards it can you know output you throw some boots on there get a little bit more move maybe one of your friends helps you move or something like that you can get up you know say around 8 10 damage sometimes and it's gonna help you move and jump and i mean it's good it can be very useful later in scenarios is a good card i think i've said enough now i want to explain how undervalued it is i think it's undervalued it's kind of like a tinkerer uh complex let's call it i feel like things are undervalued so i want to talk about them more healing sands top is great if we're taking some damage heal four at level one self plus and xp for it is pretty darn good 32 initiative yeah not not great not the worst move three on the bottom though and then all attacks targeting you gain disadvantage this round this is very useful for you know when you're in there it's going to push your damage it's almost equivalent to let's call it shield one uh when they're when the monsters are attacking with disadvantage so overall very useful card because the red guard has such a limited movement especially early on i am 100 taking this card any scenario period flaming sickle pretty similar to our other sickle we've got attack three range to pull one create fire uh pull is worse than immobilized but fire is better than light so i guess they're pretty much the same initiative 63 no bueno uh the bottom all adjacent enemies suffer one damage that can be useful as well in looting two and also making fire so good solid card i don't always take both sickles it depends on exactly which cards i'm bringing with me but it's nice to be able to generate fire it really is so you'll probably bring it with you most of the time shocking advance attack re-immobilize with a potential shield 1 and an xp very good for the red guard i like to immobilize and then move out of the way if i've got a melee monster so that that melee monster is neutralized for the turn very effective tactic and then initiative 14 is is really good because you don't necessarily have to have another card with good initiative 14 is usually going to be good enough to get that immobilized off before the melee monster attacks and then we've got move three create light very very good utility redguard needs that move i'm never leaving home without this card and not just because of the move three but the move three can help us when we need to move and then we use the top when we want to you know neutralize a melee enemy okay i could do this shield spikes i spent like 10 hours on you i can do this what you haven't seen is that it went outside and ran around the house 10 times to get ready for this that's actually a lie but i wanted to i really wanted to but i do live in canada so it's cold right now this one is complicated so let's start with you can't really get much more than two shield you've got items but they're only one use and they're only for one attack you've got attack modifiers but you've only got a couple and you've got to take those perks so generally speaking you have two shield you play a shield one on the bottom you play a shield one on the top and some of the bottom ones like flame shroud you're gonna need to consume fire so you've got a plan for that as well however at level one it's actually reasonably effective because monsters have approximately two attack at scenario level one so you're not going to get yourself in trouble what happens is as you go up higher scenario levels let's say you're at scenario level four very tough to get more than two shield even at much higher levels i'm trying so hard again you're not the spoiler but even at higher levels much it's pretty hard to get above two shield consistently and so you start getting yourself in trouble because at scenario level four monsters attack around four and so you when you get exactly what you want and you surround yourself with monsters and you're dishing out damage because everyone's attacking you you're then putting yourself in extreme danger and so it's actually not that effective in mid scenario levels however and i won't spoiler anything spoiler anything with you know exact specifics but later on the build is totally viable and i won't say anymore on that particular part the next somewhat of an issue is that it doesn't feel like you're using your immobilizers to their full potential so let's take warrior of the sun we can immobilize everybody and get out of dodge so that we're effectively neutralizing all the melee enemies if we just immobilize them and then stay in the pocket the only benefit we're getting is we're keeping ranged enemies from moving away which is definitely useful and it's one of the problems with retaliate in gloomhaven and you know the redguard cards solve that problem so it is somewhat useful but i still think i'd rather immobilize and get away from the melee monsters versus using the immobilize to stay in the pocket and keep ranged monsters there at least up until very late levels when shield spikes becomes much more viable next issue disarms it doesn't feel like we're effectively using our disarms because our whole strategy is to move in shield up and then get attacked and dish back damage but if we're disarming monsters well they're not attacking us we're not dishing out damage our damage output goes down so really we would only use our disarms just to make sure that we're not gonna die which you know is a problem you want to use your disarms proactively to disarm a monster and stop them from attacking but use it proactively and not just as a oh no i've got too many enemies attacking me with my shield spike strategy now i'm gonna have to disarm somebody the next kind of problem is it doesn't really do enough damage until much later levels and so you're gonna kind of be stuck again like i said when you're you know mid here right your scenario level three or four stuff like that you're gonna have some problems it's not gonna be enough damage as well would you rather do two damage to each monster that attacked you or would you rather play something like shield of the desert you know consume a couple elements and go do 10 12 14 damage stuff like that you know use a bottom attack and add a few damage there you know i think it's just not quite as effective especially at mid levels as just running kind of a control slash tank once in a while slash let's do some damage quickly because the red guard has such good initiative so when is shield spikes good well it's good at very low levels because you're not going to get into a lot of trouble and you know outputting two damage per monster attack is actually going to be relatively decent and if you're not putting yourself in trouble by taking too much damage then you'll just be able to go in and shield up and dish out damage and do pretty well and then it's also good once you get to level 8 or higher um very viable at that point i won't go into exact specifics but very viable at that point and it's also extremely viable to run a shield spikes build in original gloomhaven because the items work differently because you've got armor like height armor and this is no spoilers this is a level one prosperity item in gloomhaven so anyone has access to it as soon as they start but you've got charges and so you've got much more shield from items in gloomhaven plus you've got much better party compositions to assist you in getting shield and so you can become a real monster and get you know double digit retaliating shields and yeah just go off so in original gloomhaven the shield spikes build it's really really good i hope that helped with shield spikes i cannot tell you how many hours i spent literally on this one card i have never spent as much time on one card specifically in my entire life and i hope it helps you at this point if you could and if this video has been helpful to you please help me out and hit that like button and subscribe to my channel and turn on notifications so that when i publish new content you're notified i've also put out another video it's a stamina guide and it talks about when you should play lost cards and some of the math behind exhausting in gloomhaven i think especially for new players and maybe even some of you gloomhaven vets will learn something but especially for new players it's a really good resource i'm going to put a link up here go ahead and check it out and also it takes a lot of work to make these videos if you could please go ahead down in the description check out my recommended products i've got some cool stuff in there for gloomhaven jaws of the lion 3d printing etc and i think you're going to find it really interesting so please go ahead and take a look at level two we've got harvest sickle and we've got barbaric instincts harvest cycle top attack 4 range 2 create earth empower earth and power light trying to get my terminology right here pretty good salt attack especially at level 2 initiative awful the bottom though is a great situational loss so that you can hoover up a ton of loot at the end of a scenario so very very good for that i used it almost every scenario maybe a little too much ask my friends i like to i like to loot i'm a looter okay um and then we've got barbaric instincts this is pretty good if you have a shield spikes build but again it doesn't push that shield total over two you still have one shield top most of the time and one shield bottom so i i can't i don't know if i can recommend it but let's just go through it first so useful shield one pull one monster in at one at range two so you can you know move them adjacent to you all adjacent enemies suffer one damage it does produce fire though which is very useful to us and then the 12 initiative is also good and then the bottom move to attack one wound reasonable just some good utility if you want to move an attack if you've got light up or if you're already in position you can attack if you don't have the light i think i'm going harvesticle most of the time though although barbaric instincts is still good at level three we've got strangling chain and we've got warmth of the sun so strangling chain attack three immobilize and then all further attacks that round the target suffers one damage and then it goes up to two when you consume fire is ridiculously powerful this is going to help you so much against a tough elite or a boss to really dish out damage and you go nice and early in the round and then every time somebody attacks that target it suffers two damage this is really really powerful it's attack three immobilized it's just all good initiative at 19 also pretty solid and the bottom move for immobilized target all adjacent enemies this is also amazing if you've got a bunch of melee monsters you can move in immobilize them like i said before you can move out with the top of blade dance overall this is just an awesome awesome level 3 card and warmth of the sun is a pretty good card it's useful it's a loss but it can hit quite a few targets if you can pump it up by empowering light getting 4 damage and muddling on each target is going to be pretty nice initiative solid at 23 bottom heel for range one and empowering light is also quite useful i just cannot recommend anything other than strangling chains though 100 of the time i'm taking strangling chains at level 4 we've got burn away the dark and we've got radiant sickle burn away the dark top reasonably useful pretty pretty easy to hit a bunch of enemies with this and if you consume fire then you're going to be wounding them as well so reasonably useful 31 initiative not that great what i like though is the bottom moving and disarming in the same action is very very useful because you can still attack with your top you can position and you can disarm absolutely love it and then you can consume ice and dark to make fire and light this is really going to be helpful for you and then we've got radiant sickle top attack four range two all jason target suffer one damage this is easily gonna be worth one to two damage extra and they do suffer it so that's really nice 79 initiative relatively late so if you do want to go late it's a decent card for that and then move to heel two on the bottom good utility there always going to be useful to be able to move and heal i love being able to move and do an effect it's so useful because you always have to move and if you have an extra effect on top of that it's just gravy it's it's amazing i think though that most of the time i'm taking burn away the dark because i like to play the red guard as more of a control class in some ways and so yeah burn away the dark more often than not and if you've taken harvest sickle you probably don't need radiant sickle as well you've probably got enough attack but if you did take barbaric instincts at level two you can definitely take radiant sickle alright we're at level five if you've made it here and you don't want to hear any spoilers i suggest you hit pause very quickly and go at level five we've got sand devil the sand devil is awesome you cannot believe how much work this card is gonna do for you play it right away turn one if possible and then use it to reposition enemies push them into traps do a little bit of damage muddle them so that they do less damage to you i mean the possibilities are endless and move two it can keep up with you and because you get to control it and put it exactly where you need man i just cannot tell you how much i love this card it's got a move five on the bottom great [Laughter] i've never used the move five and that i mean literally i have literally never used the move five on this card i love the top play it for the top 100 of the time try this one again just to be really clear at level six we have fierce brilliance and we've got flying sickle i'm going to talk a lot about the top of fierce brilliance here because i think most people are probably not reading this card really closely and understanding the disarm rule so you're disarming a monster on their turn when you disarm like a bunch of other conditions the condition lasts until the end of next turn so because you're disarming a monster on their turn they're disarmed for two total turns this turn and the next turn and it completely changes the nature of this card each time you're going to disarm a monster for two turns and that is going to be really really good because it could potentially have wasted turns if it was only a one-term disarm let's say a monster moves in and they heal that would waste a charge but because it's two turns it completely changes the nature of the game i hope you found that helpful if you did please go ahead hit that like button i'm hoping that these little tidbits these tips are the reasons you come and watch these videos and i think like i said earlier most people are probably playing this card wrong and it's actually much better than it appears at first glance the cart also has initiative 22 and the bottom move to all json enemies suffer two damage quite good in its own right but i think if you're taking this card you're probably taking it for the top and then we've got flying sickle this is attack 5 range 4 pull 3 and create air very good card in its own right you can pull monsters through traps because it's got that good range and pull three and then if you do pull them through a trap you know five damage plus trap damage gonna be very good and then 91 initiative nice late initiative to help you when you need to go late and then the bottom attack to empower light or consume light sorry move to and then attack two very good when paired with strangling chain and you consume fire on strangling chain this turns into attack two suffer two potential move two with the light and then attack two suffer two so you're gonna be able to mow down elites with this card at this level and i love this it's such a good choice and it's gonna depend on how you're playing do you want some more control do you want to disarm some more you take fierce brilliance do you need a little bit more damage output you take flying sickle both are amazing in their own way and it's totally going to depend on what you need at this point in time at level 7 we have horns of the beast and we have vicious ballet horns of the beast top very good solid repeatable attack i don't know if you always want to push though i'm not i'm neutral on that but you can skip it if you want it does produce fire love that eight initiative very good bottom move two with a big shield is situationally quite powerful and with a shield spikes build it's like kind of a one turn you know big shield spikes combo so pretty good for that and then we've got vicious ballet the top has a lot of upside but it's pretty tough um i think most of the time you know you're two of your allies are not necessarily going to be within melee range i mean hatchet is very often in ranged like making ranged attacks demos usually in there so good for the demo and then voidwarden most of the time probably staying back and so you're rarely i think gonna have fire and light up and have two uh allies adjacent in melee position but if you can it's a repeatable nine damage and then when you add in their attack modifier decks like especially like demo and hatched up pretty good attack modifier decks it can be good 28 initiative okay verging on okay uh the bottom though is really good uh essentially it's a move for suffer three damage and it's got a lot of flexibility because of how it works you know softer move softer move softer so really really good card i like to take vicious ballet a little bit more just for that bottom because when you can move four and have some or multiple enemies suffer damage can be very very good but you really can't go wrong horns of the beast is also very good so this one it depends on how you're [Music] playing level eight and shield spikes becomes viable yes anyone who's been waiting to play shield spikes once you get to this level you're happy because we've got no fear and then we've got prismatic sickles so let's talk no fear i mean the top any time you're attacked this round gain shield x for the attack where x is the amount of adjacent enemies up to three fantastic this is what you want you want to be surrounded and you want to have a bunch of shield and you want to just dash out damage and take none yourself this card is ideal for that and at initiative one you're going first i think this is the fastest card of any character in any of the games someone correct me if i'm wrong i haven't gone through and you know written down every initiative but i don't remember any other one initiative cards the bottom of this card it doesn't exist absolutely useless you can waste heels so easy you're you're already full and you heal nothing happens and it's just too easy to waste it's not worth it at all yes you see heal 15 and think oh heal 15 for one card is good it's not dress me and then we've got prismatic sickle this card has so much utility it's going to power up all of your other abilities whether you use the top or bottom top you're going to do 4 damage at range 3 and produce 3 elements of any kind you want so you're going to help your friends you're going to help yourself too initiative 70 is not quite late enough but whatever you play it with another card because this card's so good and then loot to reusable and create an element that's really nice you're actually probably going to get some okay work out of that and loot 2 is going to annoy your friends a lot so if you enjoy that you can definitely take prismatic sickle so it depends on what you're looking for here i think a lot of people really want to use shield spikes and if you've waited this long it's pretty tough to pass up no fear for that top at level 9 we've got honorable fury and we've got soaring shield honorable fury top is a mid mid-tier top for a level nine card pretty decent damage can add some range if you consume and add some damage and some effects like metal and all adjacent targets suffer one damage this card's probably gonna be worth you know seven to ten damage let's say right so decent but not amazing initiative nice and late that's going to be helpful and then the bottom empower light to move three and then all adjacent enemies suffer three damage suffering three damage on a move is is gonna be pretty good and then we've got soaring shield uh the top is one of those cards that you're gonna use situationally and this is the card i was trying not to talk about earlier it does have a top move as well even though it is a lost card so you know it's not gonna be useful to move with a top like blade dances anyways it's move three jump attack four target all adjacent enemies stun and fire this is going to win you scenarios in the last room you're going to go in and stun everybody you're going to do 4 damage just make sure that you wait a turn for the monsters to group up you don't want to just kick the door down and run in and try and use this because you're probably not getting more than two monsters you gotta let them move and kind of group up because they're focusing on like the same thing most of the time initiative 11 also very good then the bottom move three jump shield two this is so good when combined with the top of no fear shield six you've got shield spikes out shield six essentially retaliate six dish six damage out to each adjacent enemy to be very very powerful really fun to use and for all of us people that want to use shield spike so badly and haven't been able to use it in the mid levels the you know this is a great card i'm pretty much taking soaring shield every time not every time let me just preface that some i say 100 i'm gonna say most of the time soaring shield just because it is so good even if you don't have a shield spike spilled moving jumping and shielding two to three is amazing i almost didn't do enhancements for this video but just in case anyone is playing in an original gloomhaven and watching this video you can enhance it uh jaw's the lion players i'll go through it quickly because you can't enhance if you've only got jaws of the lion and you're playing red guard you know in jaws of the lion just enhance warrior of the sun plus windshield and swift strength plus one shield and it's gonna make your shield spikes build much more viable okay let's talk perks and if you've watched my other videos i almost always recommend getting rid of negative ones first because negative ones ruin your life because they always you know pop up when you need exactly three damage to kill someone or whatever the damage is and then it's minus one and the monster is left with one hit point however because fire and light are so important to the red guard i'm flipping the script on this one first go with add one plus one fire or light then replace one plus one with a plus two fire then repla replace one plus one with a plus two light then remove the negative ones then do whatever you want okay let's talk some item recommendations one always take a minor stab at a potion you want to use shield of the desert twice in one rest cycle you're gonna need a stamina potion don't think of it as you know extending your longevity although make sure you do use it on a turn when you have an odd amount of cards let's say if you have seven cards that's only three turns of longevity but if you have a minor stem that becomes eight cards right use one over twice and then you get four turns of longevity so make sure you use it on an odd turn and then you want to take some armor of course if you are running shield spikes you want that shield you want you know the armor that gives you shield and uh one in disadvantage and then also if you are getting attacked a lot you can take that helmet the iron helmet that stops you from getting times twos on you and this will really help you with survivability if you're throwing yourself into packs of monsters you know with shield and trying to you know use the shield spikes build so that they don't get that times two and overwhelm your shields even more i need your help i need your support it takes a lot of work to produce these videos and i love it but i also need your support so make sure you're checking out my recommended products page for glue maven for jaws of the lion for 3d printing stuff like that i'm adding to it all the time it's really really important and also if you could share the message of this channel with your board game friends you don't have to tell your grandma that's not really going to help the youtube algorithm although it is appreciated thanks grandma for watching but tell your board game friends and thank you so much for watching the video

Channel: Neural Net Games

Views: 15,296

Keywords: board games, table top games, Jaws of the lion, Red Guard, gloomhaven: jaws of the lion, gloomhaven jaws of the lion, gloomhaven, most popular board games, gloomhaven jaws of the lion review, jaws of the lion review, jaws of the lion gloomhaven, best jaws of the lion class, gloomhaven jaws of the lion board game, gloomhaven jaws of the lion classes, jaws of the lion watch it played, jaws of the lion hard, jaws of the lion best class, gloomhaven jaws of the lion playthrough

Id: o55VnYKAFFs

Length: 38min 37sec (2317 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 07 2021