Gloomhaven - Ultimate set up guide

so whether you're new to gloomhaven coming back to it after a long break or you're ready to transition to the big box after playing through jaws the lion i'll show you everything you need to know to start your campaign so let's get your party started just kidding it's empty [Music] the first thing you and each other player need to do is pick out a character now normally each player just picks out one character for a multiplayer game but if you're going to be playing solo then you get to pick out two exciting alright so even though there is a lot of characters in this box you can only choose from the starting six the rest of the characters are supposed to be a secret and don't get revealed until they get unlocked later in your campaign never fear though the six starting characters give you lots of good starting options and if you have jaws of the lion you can increase the number of starting characters to 10 since you can choose any of the four characters from jaws of the lion as well as any of the six starting characters from gloomhaven just remember that if you use any of the four characters from jaws of the lion they come over to gloomhaven reset as new characters without any items at level 1. items from jaws of the lion do not transfer to gloomhaven if you want to get an even better feel for each starting character you may want to check out the hit point level table and the character's hand size from the character mat obviously higher hit points usually equates to a more tanky character but in gloomhaven larger card hand size can increase a character's stamina as well aside from stamina i also recommend you flip through some of the characters ability cards to get a flavor of how the character will function in your scenarios so of course theme is also important in gloomhaven so check out the character class backstory on the flip side of the mat so let's look at the starting six characters from gloomhaven i just want to say first thanks to brandoncraft he did the great job of painting these up for me if you're playing solo there's lots of good character combos that you can explore i really like playing the brute and the spell weaver but i've also heard the brute and craig heart are really popular so i'd be interested to hear what's your favorite combo choosing a character is a long-term commitment so choose wisely and no you still cannot touch any of the other character class boxes no peeking i said no really no once you choose a character place your character mat on the table in front of you then separate out the level one cards and the ones marked with an x from the rest of the character ability cards these will be cards you can use when starting gloomhaven so it's recommended for at least your first scenario to start your character just using the level 1 cards but as you become more familiar with the basic actions from these cards you can substitute one or more of the more situational cards with the letter x on them for a level one card just make sure that your hand size equals the number as shown in the upper right corner of your character mat you get to look forward to using some higher level cards after you gain experience and level up your character but for now put all these cards and the unused level 1 or x cards back in your character box so the next thing you'll need to do is put together your standard attack modifier deck so the attack modifier cards that come in your character box can just remain sealed up for now those are the cards you'll unlock later that will improve your standard attack modifier deck so put those back in your character box and find the other attack modifier cards and separate these into 5 piles you should have decks with the numbers 1 2 3 and 4 on them and then another deck with the letter m each player will take a numbered stack shuffle these and place them near their character mat or if you're playing solo you need to grab a stack for each of your characters you can put any unused attack modifier stacks back in the box but leave the attack modifier deck marked with the letter m out on the table this is the monster attack modifier deck that you're going to use there's a couple more things you'll need to do to get your character ready punch out your five character tokens and place these next to the character mat take a hit point and experience tracker and set the hit point dial to match your level 1 maximum hit points as shown on your character mat then set the blue experience dial to zero now it's time to use one of your character sheets and choose a name for your character this is the sheet where you'll track things like gold items and other bonuses that you earn after completing scenarios and visiting gloomhaven to continue to build your character draw two personal quest cards look at both of these carefully then choose one and put the other one back the personal quest gives you a bit more backstory to your character and includes the requirements that you'll need to fulfill to complete your personal quest by the way when your character completes their quest your character must retire but this is really cool because nice things happen to you you get to unlock one of the secret characters from the box when you reach this point in the game see page 48 in the rulebook the other thing you'll need to fill out for your party is what they call a party sheet and this is where you're going to put your party name so come up with a good one but you'll track things on here like reputation and notes for your party so take care of that now next we have to make our rodent city event x for both of these decks sort out cards numbered 1 through 30 shuffle these and place each deck on the table put the other cards back in the box you'll continue to add more cards to these decks as your character's complete scenarios when your party is ready to start their campaign or when you're ready to start your solo campaign you'll need to start by reading the introductory text on page two of the scenario guide by the way i actually missed this in the scenario guide and just jumped into scenario one on my first game and by missing this i also missed equipping my characters with items which we'll talk about later so after reading through the section you're going to unlock a new location which is called black baro this is scenario one and you'll also unlock the global achievement city rule militaristic anytime you unlock scenarios or awarded global achievements you get to place stickers on the map board so right now place the black barrel location sticker on the map board at location g10 as noted [Music] and then place the city rule militaristic sticker in the location at the top of the map board as referenced by the global achievement sticker sheet now before you start the first scenario since your party is still in the city of gloomhaven you have the option to resolve one city card and the option to go shopping each time your party is in gloomhaven you have the option to resolve one city card so to resolve a city card for your party draw one from the deck and then read the flavor text remember since this game is theme heavy flavor text is so important to this game after you read the flavor text then choose either option a or b flip the card over to find out what the outcome it was for whichever option you chose then resolve the effect generally city cards have more favorable outcomes than road cards so each time your party's in gloomhaven that's one thing your party can do if you so choose now the other thing you can do in gloomhaven before traveling to your first scenario is go shopping in the market to buy items for your character or characters if you're playing solo when you start the game the market will consist of items numbered 1 through 14 and you also place all copies of those items out in the market each character starts out with 30 gold pieces that a player can spend on them when buying items from the market take into consideration that your character can only equip one item for each equipped slot so just imagine your character has one equipped slot for head body legs and two hands you can equip two one-handed items or one two-handed item you also have one equipped slot for a small item the number of small items you can carry is equal to half of your level rounded up so when you're at level one like when you're starting the game you can only carry one small item the last stipulation on items is that you can only own one copy of an item card equipped items get placed below your character mat and if you're looking for some recommendations of what items to buy for your character check out the bottom of page 2 in the scenario guide for some tips when you first start your campaign in gloomhaven you'll start with the first scenario called black barrow but later on in your campaign your party many times will have more than one scenario to choose from which makes things quite interesting for now we'll get ready to set up the scenario black baro but during the setup i'll give you the information that will help you set up just about any other scenario in the scenario guide one thing to note however is that when your party's ready to start your first scenario you're going to be traveling from gloomhaven to the scenario anytime you travel to a new scenario from gloomhaven or travel to a new scenario that isn't linked which i'll talk about later your party will have to encounter and resolve a road card unlike the city card this is not optional resolving a road card is the same as resolving a city card except the outcome of a road card isn't usually as favorable as a city card by the way if you see this broken card icon on either a road card or city card this means that the card is removed from the game after it's resolved and if you encounter this card stack icon then put the card on the bottom of the deck after it's resolved find the elemental infusion table and place this off to the side of your table take your six element tokens and place them in the inert column so as a quick recap of what you need to do after your party is created is to read page two of the scenario guide add stickers to your map board while your party's still in gloomhaven you may resolve one city card and each character may go shopping for items when you're finished in gloomhaven then travel to your first scenario by traveling your party must encounter a road card after that begin the scenario so now let's focus on the scenario before you set up any scenario you have to determine what the scenario level is going to be once you figure out your level then you'll be able to use the table on page 15 to determine what level monsters you'll encounter how much damage the traps do how much experience to award etc to figure out your normal scenario level take the average level of the characters in the party divide that by two and round up so your party has the option to adjust this up to make the difficulty harder or adjust down to take your party to an easier level this is a decision for you and your group however and keep in mind that the harder the level difficulty for the scenarios the more gold and experience you'll be awarded after successfully completing the scenario the easier your level for the scenario the less gold and less experience your party's gonna earn from the scenario when you start your campaign all characters will be level one so use level one for your scenario for a different example maybe later in your campaign you might have two level 3 characters and a level 4 character the average level for those characters would be 3.33 which i then divide by 2 which is 1.66 and that would round up to 2. so 2 would be my normal scenario level for this more experienced group once you figure out scenario level again the table on page 15 gives you the stats you'll need to start setting up the scenario the last thing to note on scenario level is if you're playing a solo campaign then bump your monster level and trap damage up by one from the chart on page 15. the thought here is that since there's no hidden information between your characters your normal level for monsters and damage from traps would be too easy now we're going to set up for the first scenario black baro but i'm going to make sure that you're ready to set up just about any other scenario you'll encounter in this scenario guide so let's start by getting familiar with the scenario page so at the top of the scenario page you have the scenario number and a check box that your party can use to check off the scenario upon successful completion by the way in campaign mode you can only successfully complete a scenario one time however you can always tackle the scenario again in a casual mode if you're interested in casual mode see page 34 in the rulebook for more information on replaying a scenario over to the right you have the coordinates of where that scenario is located on your map board then we have the title of the scenario and over to the right you can see if any other scenarios are linked to this one so a side note about the importance of linking is you can avoid encountering a road card if your party goes directly to the linked scenario after successfully completing the current scenario now if the next scenario you encounter is not linked or if your party decides to stop backing gloomhaven then you must encounter a road card as you will thematically be traveling to your next scenario so below this we see the requirements like achievements or artifacts that you'll need to fulfill before attempting the scenario usually you get those from the previous scenario or a scenario that you've completed prior to this one below that is a goal that must be met to successfully complete the scenario then below that you of course have the introduction that you're going to read all the players in your campaign sometimes this is followed by special rules so if you see a numbered section header in the text section this is text that you'll read when a character enters a door with the matching number on the map board then you have the conclusion text that is read when the scenario is successfully completed each scenario has either a new location that's unlocked and some have an achievement or reward that's awarded upon successful completion near the map tile layout for the scenario is a list of the map tiles you'll need to gather unlike jaws of the lion where your characters use the map printed in the scenario guide gloomhaven uses map tiles that create a large board where the scenario will play out so for black barrow we'll need tiles l1a g1b and j1b the alphanumeric map tile id can be seen in a corner of each map tile and as far as i can tell the logic of the id works something like this the first letter like the capital a is assigned to a distinct map tile shape the number is used to notate the different map tiles like 1 2 3 and 4 of the same shape and then the third lowercase letter lets you know which side of the tile faces up like a or b as one side is marked with a lowercase a and then the other side's marked with a lowercase b so let's put these together [Music] next find the legend that shows what enemies you'll encounter and the number of treasures traps and obstacles that you'll need for the scenario gather the tokens for the traps treasures and obstacles now and just place the ones that are shown in the starting room on the map and put the rest aside to determine the starting room look for the group of icons that look like a card with an arrow pointing toward it those icons let you know the possibilities of where your party's characters can be placed and also designate the starting room then place any door tiles on the map as shown in the scenario guide door tiles are oriented in two different configurations so use the ones that align with your layout now it's time to set up the monsters for the first room only then as characters enter new rooms during the scenario those rooms get populated with monsters treasures traps and obstacles as shown in the scenario guide by the way monster icons work a bit differently in gloomhaven as compared to jaws of the lion so pay close attention to this next part to set up monster icons in gloomhaven look at each monster and you'll see that these have these color bars like white black and yellow on the left right and bottom of the starting hexes the left color bar is the monster designation for two players or if you're playing solo the right color bar is a monster designation for three players and if you're playing with four players use the bottom color bar if the bar is black that means there's no monster for your scenario if the color bar is white then place a normal monster with a white standy base on the map in that position for your scenario and then if the color bar is yellow place an elite monster with a yellow standy base on the map in that position again for your scenario sometimes you'll see monster type icons look like this depending on the map tile layout these work the same way as what we just talked about it's just the shape of the symbol is a little different for example if i set up black baro for two players i'll set up only these two normal monsters and then one elite monster between them and no monster for these other four icons since they have the black bar in that upper left side when placing your monsters on map tiles make sure that the monsters are selected randomly as they each have a unique number on them and this will make a difference with your initiative order when you activate monsters so now that you have all your tokens placed for the first room find the big square monster stat card for the monster type and put this in the monster stat sleeve with a number at the top matching the monster level on the table on page 15. so i'm using the big square monster stat card for this scenario for the bandit guards so if your party is just starting the campaign then your monster level will be level one now if you're playing solo remember again things are a little easier so you have to bump your monster level up by one so you're gonna have a level two monster so shuffle and place the matching monster ability deck next to your monster stat sleeve by the way the monster ability deck doesn't always have the exact same name as the monster but it's going to have a part of that name for instance if your scenario uses bandit guards you'll want to find the guard monster ability deck it's not bandit guards it's just guard next take your monster attack modifier deck of 20 cards and these are the cards that have this m listed on them and place those next to the monster stat card now that the scenario's ready to go the party then places their character miniatures on any of the starting spaces we talked about earlier sometimes a quick party discussion is needed to figure out who wants to start where so before the scenario each character then draws two battle goal cards she chooses one and places it face down next to her player mat and discards the other if the character fulfills a requirement on the battle goal and the scenario is successfully completed then the player can add check marks to her character sheet which can unlock perks that we'll talk about in another video by the way you can substitute the battle goal cards from jaws of the lion in place of the gloomhaven battle gold cards or optionally you can combine the two decks but if you do you'll have to find and remove eight duplicated cards that are found in each deck before round one always read the scenario introduction and then the special conditions for the scenario to the group you'll see for some scenarios there's things that your party has to do like maybe add three curse cards to each character's attack modifier deck sometimes there's other things that are circumstantial to that scenario that you're going to have to do before you play and now it's time for round one so good luck all right so if you're looking for more gloomhaven i'll have a link here to the next video once it's ready and of course a link to all the videos in the series of gloomhaven over here should be on this end screen so see in the next one take care

Channel: Modern Cardboard

Views: 78,441

Keywords: GH- Party start, GH-broll, Reuse, GH- storage solution, jaws of the lion assets, creator pack v2, gloomhaven assets, scenario book, monsters

Id: 9mjjqs-uMws

Length: 22min 12sec (1332 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 06 2020