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Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion

Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion is a co-op game in which you lead a company of brave mercenaries ready to slay hordes of enemies and loot their corpses. The game is referred  by many as a little Gloomhaven. Mainly because it has less content and the campaign included in the game is something we can still finish in this lifetime.

This is exactly the problem I had with big Gloomhaven. I made a total of 2 attempts, 20 scenarios each. However, this threshold of 20 missions was always the moment for me when I said enough. I couldn’t stand the grind and doing the same thing all the time.

So I decided to invest my time in Jaws of the Lion. However, this is also where ‘Gloomhaven Fatigue’ caught up with me. This is a real disease proven by American Scientists. Its symptoms are easily noticeable, but unfortunately there is no cure. Only time can slightly mitigate its symptoms.

This is why it only took us three years to go through the entire Jaws of the Lion campaign. Completing the game was also my big resolution last year. I am glad that we succeeded. That’s why I invite you to a very late review, which should have been written years ago.

Why was it worth getting infected?

Euro combat

Gloomhaven simply has a great and low randomized combat system. It’s simple, but requires us to plan our moves quite carefully. Each hero has a certain number of action cards in his hand. In the planning phase, we will play 2 cards face down. Not only will this determine our initiative, but we will also be able to choose the action from the bottom of one card and the top action from the other card. Because, by the way, on each card we have 2 actions to choose from. As a rule, the bottom of the cards allows us to move in several ways. The top offers attacks or various support actions. The cards also have universal actions of attack and movement. I’ve simplified it a bit because believe me sometimes some actions are quite elaborate, but you’ll have to find out for yourself.

Once the cards have been played, they are revealed and the enemy action cards are revealed. This is also when we determine the initiative of all combatants. We will know who activates in what order.

The whole idea is that now we will be able to revise our plans a bit. Because, for example, we can attack, but if we don’t move we get a series of shots from the enemies. Then we change our plans and maybe choose different actions from cards. The best thing is that everything is countable and we know what our opponents will do. Some people call this system Eurohaven and I’m not surprised at all. It’s also quite friendly to Euro players who hate randomness. And there you have it dice!

However there is a certain randomness here

Because when we bring out an attack then to check its total damage we have to draw a card from our modifier deck. In most cases we will be happy with this. Although there are modifiers there to weaken our blows and there is even one miss. We can also modify this deck by removing, replacing and adding cards. Think of it as a 20 sided dice that we can upgrade ourselves in many ways. Simply sensational.

I also really like the fact that the cards in our hand are an indicator of fatigue. Because when we run out of cards or are left with 1 card in our hand we then have to rest. After resting we will return all our action cards except one, which will be lost for the duration of the scenario. Some of our attacks will be so strong that they will require us to lose a card. We must decide for ourselves whether this is worth doing. Because according to the ancient saying ‘a tired warrior is a dead warrior’. Therefore, we have to manipulate our fatigue all the time so that we remain fresh and ready for action for as long as possible.

It got quite technical, but I just wanted to express how much I enjoy the combat in Gloomhaven. I feel like I’m playing chess and I have to think about all my actions a few moves ahead. You could write all sorts of guides and poems about this combat system. I just love this.

Heroes without retirement

Another big plus of Jaws of the Lion is how diverse our heroes are. We have the Red Devil which chops up enemies from a distance and gives back damage to enemies. Mr Axe throws axes and then collects them to throw them again. The Gnome-like creature blows up everything around him, and the Sorceress manipulates the battlefield.

On our first attempt, we tried to finish the campaign with the Red Devil and the Demolisher. However, we decided to reboot our efforts and my wife took the helm of the Red Devil and I played the AxeMan. It was a very good duo. My wife blocked attacks and I hurled my blade to one-shot enemies. There were even some synergies between us. Because we could push back and pull enemies in several ways. It’s a shame we didn’t connect in elemental power, but I’ll come back to that.

Most importantly, each hero is different, with its own card pool and different mechanics. In theory, we can also develop our heroes in several ways. That is to say, Gosia could have more fun with her devil in moving enemies than tanking. Which would change our play style a bit. Additionally, at level 5 we will unlock something special. However, I will leave that for you to discover.

A map to my heart

We will play out all the scenarios on the map-book. This solution is AMAZING!!! I would even write it in triple caps if I could. It speeds up the setup and means that I don’t have to search for tile 401 and attach it at an odd angle to number 305. I wish more games would use this.

I’ll guide you by the hand

I left the most important plus of Jaws of the Lion for the very end. I’m referring to the tutorial that this game serves us. From the very beginning, the game takes us by the hand, teaching us how to walk and operate the game. Later, we switch to a tricycle to learn about leveling and the power of the elements. At the very end, however, it pushes us down the hill to teach us how to brake. Truly this Gloomhaven has one of the better tutorials I’ve seen in games.

Progressive Gloomhaven disease provided me with these symptoms

Untold story

To the plot of Jaws of the Lion, we say no. It’s not that we don’t have one. It’s there, but it doesn’t make me want to know the story of the game. It mainly relies on the fact that there is this evil guy. He’s evil because he is, and we have to make him squirm just like that. The end. The story of the game just didn’t draw me in. I didn’t feel the excitement when learning about further doings of the main bad guy.

Although I did like the idea that when we returned to the city we would pick an event card. It served us a short story in which we could choose one of the outcomes. It was much more interesting than the whole plot of Jaws of the Lion.

Hit and kill and repeat

Little Gloomhaven suffers from what its Big Daddy suffers from. I mean all the scenarios were about just exterminating enemies. Kill everything that moves and that’s it. When I won a mission I knew that in a while I would have to do it again, only that on a different map. This greatly deepened my Gloomhaven Fatigue.

This monotony is also influenced by overly similar enemies. Each enemy maybe has its own deck of attacks or different stats. I, however, didn’t feel too much of a difference between a rat, a zombie and the odd blood creature. For me, they were all just the number of HP’s and the number of damage they could serve us. In addition, the fight against the numerous hideous monsters were not epic. There were also too few interesting boss battles. I would have added at least one more to what the game offered me.

Items too single-scenario

Another downside for me is the item acquisition system. New equipment will rarely fall into our hands. Because in most cases we will have to buy it for ourselves with the coins we collect. My biggest issue with this is that most items can only be used once per scenario. You have a cool piece of armour that works for one round and that’s it. The items we have available at the beginning of the game are also much more useful than the ones we acquired later. At one point it didn’t even make sense for us to collect coins from defeated enemies.

Delayed elements

The system of different elements that can enhance our attacks and movement is very cool. However, I would prefer if I created an element then I could use it right away. Because most of the time I had to wait a whole round to use it to boost my action. Sometimes I didn’t even have time to do it. Because, for example, I didn’t have a card that would benefit from it. There were also literally no synergies between our characters in terms of elements. A great pity.

The box close enough

The box of this game is stuffed to the brim. This stuffing sometimes meant that we had trouble closing it. We had to cram everything in well so that the lid didn’t stick out a few centimeters. However, that was not the worst of it. The biggest nightmare is the stand holders, which destroyed the graphics on the enemies. Visually it hurt my heart.

Summary

I will immediately apologise to you for such a long text. I simply wanted to show you everything this game has to offer.

My adventure with Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion had 3 stages:

The first was the excitement of starting a new campaign game with an awesome tutorial introducing me to the world of Gloomhaven.
The next was the fascination with the combat system and the development of our heroes.
The final stage was the ‘Gloomhaven fatigue’ I mentioned earlier.

However, this disease won with us and it was only through strong determination that we managed to finish this game. However, Jaws of the Lion is not bad. I even think it is the perfect game to introduce someone to the world of dungeon crawlers. It’s just that if the game’s storyline and enemies had been more engaging we probably would have had a better time.

Final verdict: We played the game, but our jaws didn’t drop

Pros

  • Great euro combat
  • Card play system
  • Diverse heroes
  • Map-book
  • Excellent tutorial

Cons

  • Boring story
  • Hit and kill and repeat
  • Items too single-scenario
  • Late elements
  • How to pack it in here?
  • Gloomhaven Fatigue

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