Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion - Your First Gloomhaven

if there's one thing that we absolutely 120% stupendously fantastic Oracle II excel at as a board gaming community it's hyperbole take almost any game and it's already epic by default even though some of them are self admittedly tiny and obviously not at all epic but you know normal however when it comes to gloom Haven I can for once rest easy and feel not an ounce of doubt in my mind when I proclaim this isn't just a game this is a phenomenon originally published in 2017 it skyrocketed from obscurity to not only board game geeks highest ranked game a title it has held on to since but universal acclaim and topped many reviewers list as their favorite game guess what we're one of those reviewers so what is gloom Haven what makes it so special it's definitely not because it's a dungeon crawler so many of those get made every year that I'm beginning to worry that there will soon be more dungeon crawlers than people gloom Haven is gargantuan in scope offering nearly a hundred unique scenarios and sixteen playable characters it's so big that by now it is my most played game and I still haven't finished it and some people would point to its scope as the source of its popularity but I would say that bigger games have coming on and Google Haven still reigns supreme others might point to its legacy and evolving campaign aspects you don't just pick a character for the entire game you give them a personal quest they completed and retire and you unlock a new secret character that was previously hiding behind a symbol you sticker a map with new locations you unlocked your grade cards that permanently change the character not just for you but for anyone else who plays your copy you reside in a living breathing world and it reacts to you so I wouldn't blame you if you thought huh maybe that's the source of its success but actually I disagree I think gloom Haven is so ubiquitous because it's just a damn fine game and it's about to get better it's impossible for me to continue this video without addressing a little issue of bias that I have towards gloom Haven when we made our very first gloomy Haven video we mentioned that the designer of the game Isaac Childress has been supportive towards our very first crowdfunding campaign he has continued to be supportive throughout the years and actually now I wouldn't hesitate calling Isaac my friend which as a board game reviewer puts me in an awkward position and the risk of sounding a little bit pretentious when I am facing a moral and ethical quandary as a reviewer I look towards the greats in the other genres so for example when they look at Mark Kermode I'm very well aware that not only is his favorite film The Exorcist but also his great friends with William freaking the director and has never shied away from reviewing his other films because his bias is clearly one on his sleeve so let's consider this video not so much a review because let's face it I'm not trying to sell you on buying gloomy Haven I'm just trying to tell you why I love it and let's call it a love letter instead first whilst we're clearing up cobwebs let's answer an important question what exactly is jaws of the line is it a sequel is it an expansion is it both is it neither well the answer to that is that it's sort of a standalone not sequel that can be used an expansion to the original game or the sequel so I think that clears it up for everyone here's the timeline first there was gloom Haven then there was founders of gloom Haven an unrelated game that shed the thematic universe and was also a bit rubbish then there was forgotten circles and expansion to gloom Haven but the problem with that is that it required you to have finished the original gloom Haven game which only have on good authority no one has ever done so no one's really played that and knows what like then there was frost Haven or should I say there will be frost Haven a standalone sequel that when on Kickstarter promising perhaps an even bigger game frost Haven hasn't even been released yet but it's already become the highest-grossing Kickstarter board game project ever collecting 30 million dollars which is a number I would normally make up as a joke but this is just real and now this jaws of the lion a smaller more compact once again standalone game that can be integrated with either gloom Haven or Frost Haven when it eventually does appear on your doorstep so what's different well first of all scope instead of 16 characters we only have four instead of 95 scenarios we only have 25 which might seem like a downgrade until you take into account that most dungeon crawlers have less than that to begin with but it's not just volume that's different it's also ethos we're no longer on the multi-generational spanning ROM no characters will retire no sticker zone cards nothing will be torn up will simply go on another adventure and to borrow some words from Bilbo I am quite ready for it which all might seem like a downgrade but what's important to recognize is that gloom Haven has very different aims from its small baby brother I say baby but gloom Haven is the end all and be all to those unintimidated that they'll spend a hundred and fifty bucks on cardboard that has the potential to figuratively and literally swallow them whole jaws of the lion wants to break barriers instead it wants to be a taste of that phenomenon for those yet unfamiliar all for those who don't want to devote the next two years of their life to a single board game this box requires devotion whereas this one you can just pay and I suspect that for many who just didn't have the willpower all the interest in Big Daddy G this will be the bomb that's moves them in but first let's have a look at what this game actually is I was just about to say that Haven is simple it isn't but it's not complicated to explain either each scenario presents you with a location on the map some monsters a goal you're trying to complete and whatever rewards you might get for doing that often these rewards will unlock new scenarios which a stick is you'll get to glue on your map unpeeling a layer of reality from an ethereal white cosmic sheet of locations and pasting it into your world see I told you hyperbole each turn you will simultaneously with the other players select two cards and then reveal them to each other each card has a top action and a bottom action normally top actions relate to attacking and bottom actions relate to moving your bottom but there's frequent exceptions on your turn you will select and perform either one of the two top actions or one of the two bottom actions if you selected a top action first then on the other card you must select and perform a bottom action and vice versa bottom action for example if hatchets player plays close cuts and sent a mass they can get hatchet to either move free spaces push one of the enemies away into a trap and then follow up with a double attack alternatively they could attack the verm link next to them move away and then pepper that same verbling with a bow mmm firm link a bob tastes a bit like chicken if chicken could viciously murder you what you're not taking into account is that enemies fight back and boy does it sometimes sting whilst you're selecting your two cards you're looking at a static battlefield making plans creating connections between your abilities but you have no idea when the enemies will activate and what there going to do their turn your two cards also determine initiative they have a number in the middle and you can choose which of those two cards will be your initiative value and after you and your friends have revealed your two card choices the enemies reveal their plans in this case the vermin except to decide to make a ranged attack against me so my close cuts isn't going to cut it as a bottom option and this crowd entirely dispersed so it's not gonna be very useful as a top version either like all good cooperative games gloom Haven makes you feel empowered by making your plans momentous no in a thematic way I don't feel like I'm casting a what is this freeze this so I don't feel like I'm freezing a verbling soul but I do feel like I found just the right tool in a very convoluted bag of tricks but then it slips windows you to make things unpredictable and exciting the trick is to balance the variance where it doesn't feel frustrating but also gives you enough tools for plans B C and D should plan a fail and show sometimes you're stuck with plan Z and that's not particularly exciting but for each low there is a high a surprise of fortune each time you attack an enemy you have to draw a card from your attack modifier deck this could be as mundane as a zero meaning the attack happens as it was or maybe a nice little bonus or maybe an outright miss oh hey what up double damage is this deck just a tie yes but it's a die you can modify as your character grows so does their attack modify a deck and you choose how to shape it with perks maybe you'll take out all the zeros great now your deck is 8c so maybe you'll add bonuses that also powerup elements maybe you'll remove all the - cards to make your deck as consistent as possible this is really neat not only because it gives you a new layer of ownership over your character but also because it's just another different way of rewarding you I think one of the things that sets glue Haven apart from other dungeon crawlers is the steady trickle of there rewards after each adventure there's something around the corner maybe and you item and you perk a level up but it always feels fresh because it always feels a little different this game never leaves you one thing and that's true whether you're talking about gloom daddy-o or jaws of the lion speaking of which it's time to tell you why this particular version is so special I've lost count how many times people have told me I played the first scenario of gloom Haven it was very dull we died now playing it again and honestly I don't blame those people because the first time I played gloom Haven wasn't so hard on you either not only is it harder than a dumbbell strapped to a tractor but also it's about as exciting as a tractor you got some arches you've got some skeletons go kill them but honestly they're probably gonna kill you first the key mistake that the scenario design that original taste gloom Haven makes is that it hides all the subtlety and then forces you to figure it out by making mistakes and that's just not fun for a lot of people jaws of the lion on the other hand does a complete 180 first it strips out about two-thirds of the rules of the game and then it just gives you a couple of verbal eggs to kill that could be taken out by a sloth with cataracts and the whole thing is over in 15 minutes then one scenario two comes along you being told extra rules it's a little harder and teaches you about pacing and card conservation I haven't yet told you the coolest rule in the game and that's because I didn't need to you don't lose the game when you run out of Health technically you lose the game when you run out of cards I mean you still lose the game when you run out of Health otherwise health will be pointless each time you get walloped you can reduce your health or choose to lose a card why is that important well each time you play cards normally they go to your discard pile when your hand is empty you can take a rest and pick up all your cars back bar one which is lost forever this cycle continues until you win or until you can no longer play two cards and that see you out of the game so then this rule of losing a card to negate damage is actually empowering you would you lose a card to prevent for damaged if that means you would have less turns in the game maybe what if it was six damage so now imagine that you're playing bloomer here and for the first time you just read a fifty page manual and you're jumping straight into a punishing scenario that doesn't hold your hand and feels rather mundane will you even remember that rule about negating damage probably not where is in Jaws of the lion all you have to do is read like five pages then you get to have a bash eat some Vermeulen kabob and then it'll teach you some subtlety again scenario freak comes along and teaches you more things what about colors you can choose to lose so instead of doing free damage I could do six and potentially take out this wermeling in one shot if I draw the right attack modifier so what's the catch if I play that card and goes into my loss pile and once again I'm reducing the number of turns I'm going to get if I do it on saying my first turn each subsequent rest I have less and less turns the impact of losing a card early reverberates throughout the entire adventure being parachuted into gloom Haven can feel as disorienting and easing as a long night in a barnyard disco providing a soft hay bed to land on is the kindest thing Joseph the lion can do it's the most welcoming to new players and I am here for it and anyway after scenario five it's still balls-to-the-wall gloom Haven so don't worry about it why would you play this stripped-down version when you could have a whole evolving world with branching storylines and potentially limitless replayability okay that's fair but I have played over 30 games of gloom Haven now and if you asked me what this story in that game was I would say I think my point is that sometimes less is more by shedding this heavy coat of rhizomatic branching suddenly we have a story that's a lot more focused and clear from the get-go I know who the villain is I know what they're about and I know why I'm doing what I'm doing and yet there's still enough mystery to make me feel like I'm plucking at the strings of a chicken that's bound to get upset and come back and bite me right in the plucker jaws of the line preserves the best storytelling element from big G city events little narrative tidbits you read between adventures that are ask you to make a choice without telling you what the outcome is but now they are somehow better by being more mundane that's right and I think what sets them apart is verisimilitude in a game where you're constantly hacking slashing Blanc's ting and killing what you don't want is more of the same in narrative side adventures when I say mundane I don't mean boring these are anything but they are light-hearted humorous deadpan and sometimes even I'm not hyperbolized laugh out loud funny they show us a more regular side of our characters and that makes them feel more relatable and real don't get me wrong Joseph the line still falls into the same trap of pedestrian fantasy that so many board games find themselves in it's not revolutionary it's not about anything to say but when it does speak it does so with style and aplomb when I think of transformative board game narratives and I think of games like legacy of Dragon hold or coma notes this isn't that but it's a big step up from its predecessor and for a hack-and-slash deterministic puzzle it suits me just fine Joseph the line is obviously aimed at new players trying to discover this phenomenon for themselves but that doesn't mean that the characters in these boxes are any less exciting I imagine that character art is going to make people immediately reach for the demolitionist the answer to the question of what happens when fist meets wall turns out it's a quick trip to the hospital with broken bones but not for you for your enemies because the militia nist casually smashes boulders with his hands just to get himself amped up before hitting a chaos demon in the face or whatever a chaos demon has instead of the face so now you're asking me Africa how can you top that well let me introduce you to hatch it not only is he a horned hulking mass of muscles dressed like Humphrey Bogart but he defines himself by his proficiency and throwing you a friendly axe okay so he's a ranged damage dealer right almost he's a cool ranged damage dealer hatchet has a car called the favorite as part of his kit once he plays it he can whilst throwing a hatchet put a favorite token onto the enemy does that now make them best buds no no no that's not his favorite enemy that's his favorite axe hatchet will deal and extra free damage as part of that attack and then he has cards they deal extra damage to enemies that have his favorite lodged inside of them does that make this the hunters quarry version of gloom Haven well imagine that you're racing down a corridor and you're being chased by zealots with one good shot hatchet could probably take out one of the zealots but here's the problem they are behind you you need to go forward and if there's El it holding your favorite token dies then it just drops it on the floor and you are never getting it back unless you go and directly sit your hiney on it this way you're given the tools to be very effective but everything comes at a cost speaking of cost how about a healer that actively hurts her allies yes say hello to the void warden of course there's a character drawing on the powers of a black hole to try and fix the situation why wouldn't there be well yet again the void warden is more an exercise in opportunity would you like a character that could heal a whopping five health and not even lose the card for the benefit fantastic except it also poisons the target of your healing but wait there's yet another card that heals multiple allies and if it just happens by chance to remove poison it also gives them a bless which is basically an extra critical hit shuffled into that players attack modifier deck we might not know much about black holes but I think we all learned that if you lick them good things might happen and finally there's the red guard a defensive character that pulls in enemies with a sickle strapped to a chain but you can find out more about the red guard yourself I'll maintain some mystery but above all this one improvement that makes me look at frost Haven with slight trepidation and a wish that it was just a second box of this because if all of gloom Haven versions had this scenario booklet I could finally do this say hello to gloom Haven that you could set up in five minutes three minutes if your friends are helping you out what wizardry is this you might ask the wizardry of pre-printed maps in a ring bound book doesn't that make for very small maps you might ask say hello to the wizardry of an additional ring bound book magic I've not really got much else to say apart from hey guess what if you make gloom Haven easier to set up I'm gonna play it a lot more often who could have predicted that by making things easier we're also making them better and guess what because we don't have to build this map out of generic tiles be on it actually you represents what's happening in the scenario thematically my only wish is that this box was a little bit bigger if you gave gloom Haven a fair shake and still bounce right off I doubt there's anything in this version to entice you back in it's still the same game just faster leaner and not meaner but if you've never played gloom Haven before and stared curiously through the restaurant window and the people gorging themselves on gourmet cardboard then my friends it's time to put your bib on because this card restaurant is finally open for everyone and for me I just have to figure out what it means that gloom Haven is my favorite game of all time and I like this one better Hey look I'm wearing an open included shirt where could you get the shirt well there's a link down below and if you hurry up cuz there's like six days left you could get one of these and you should because eight they're awesome and B once they're gone they're gone and you know what if you just just saying just putting it out there if you happen to join our patreon you would even get a discount on the shirt will not be nice you'd be supporting us you'd be getting yourself the cheaper shirt it would be the same price because you have to pay to join a patreon but you know you're gonna be doing a good thing and I think you should do that because if you do that we'll make more of these videos and let's face it that's what you want bye

Channel: No Pun Included

Views: 95,234

Rating: 4.9178843 out of 5

Keywords: no pun included, board game, review, npi, boardgames, boardgamegeeks, brettspiel, brettspiele, jeuxdesociete, tabletop, games, juego de mesa, gamenight, gloomhaven, jaws of the lion, 2020, frosthaven, isaac childres, cephalofair, new, expansion

Id: DyfEWPGvDFw

Length: 22min 34sec (1354 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 22 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I feel like I'm the only one who hasn't released a Jaws of the Lion video over the last 24 hours. My man I.C. hittin' that PR with a fierceness.

[u/MrGurbic]

Forget the game, How about that GogolBordello record in the background!

[u/Meerel]

in germany we have to wait till november......like seriously

[u/NCFishGuy]

Sold out at every target in my area

[u/qwertytarr]

My roomies and I have finished gloomhaven and are currently playing through Forbidden Circles. Once we are done we'll probably grab this and I'm quite looking forward to it. FC has been a bit too much for my tastes, each scenario is like 3 hours minimum (which I get, it's a smaller expansion and you want to get your moneys worth) but I just want something a bit simpler.

Also the map being part of the rulebook looks like a godsend!

[u/HappyLittleFirefly]

Alright, alright already, I'll pre-order it! Sheesh, twist my arm!

[u/ChimBlade]

Man... I didn't think I would want this but now I really want this (I love Gloomhaven and am 30-40 scenarios in to the original game).

[u/Chichipamogli]

WTF I never though of playing with the book maps, my group always passed on GH because of how tedious it was to set the maps, it's a game changer for me, even if it was super obvious lol

[u/OceanBlue765]

I'm that person in the video who looked at Gloomhaven through a restaurant window wondering what that gourmet dish would have tasted like but feeling gatekept by the price and prestige. This video convinced me to make a preorder for the next print run.

Thanks for the great video! I'm hoping the short setup and nice pitch (that expensive Gloomhaven game we saw the shop but for people who don't breathe and eat board games!) will convince my friends who were kinda wary of the original to try this out with me.