Gloomhaven Quick Review (NO SPOILERS)

In this Shelfside Quick Review, we review Isaac Childres' dungeon crawler behemoth Gloomhaven, which is the number one board game on Board Game Geek as of March 2020. We also don't give away any of the locked characters, campaign paths, story text, and anything that isn't immediately accessible to new players. As such, we feature lots of the Brute, Scoundrel, Mindthief, Spellweaver, Tinkerer, and Cragheart classes.

This BGG favorite is a legacy styled tabletop board game with Euro-styled card-based combat, where players role-play as adventurers and mercenaries in the grim fantasy world of Gloomhaven. While drawing some resemblance to normal roleplaying rpg games like Dungeons and Dragons (Dnd) with its character roleplaying, classes, and leveling up, the game differs heavily in utilizing hand management during combat. Being a board game, its plot trees are much more limited, making Daniel sometimes wish he was playing Baldur's Gate or Divinity: Original Sin. Having played Heroquest and Descent, Ashton draws comparisons to those two games.

Here at Shelfside, we're currently about 12 playthroughs in, and started using Gloomhaven helper about 5-6 scenarios in to speed up the process. Plano boxes also definitely helped with organization, if you're looking for a simpler fix, something like the Broken Token organizers will work great. Once we complete our campaign, we'll drop the bigger, in depth Shelfside Review.

Disclaimer: This was filmed before the 2020 Covid-19 shelter-in-place we ain't dumb lmao

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Intro: 0:00
How to Play: 1:19
Review Thoughts: 4:22
Tentative Scoring: 9:14

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#Boardgames #Review #Gloomhaven

[Shelfside]

We just noticed that at 9:24 it says "Ashton's Tentative Score" when it should just say "Tentative Score" LOL
-Daniel

[nevets]

OMG the double sided tiles!!! Could not agree more, and I absolutely love this game!

[SmallTarkus]

Can't wait to see what you think of the game when you get further in!

[RageBadgerGaming]

Definitely would like to see more coverage of Gloomhaven, we're obviously huge fans of the game. I do like your take on other games and I your humor videos on Gloomhaven have been a blast.

[adastra]

I absolutely need a video for Lightning class

[WatchingYoutubeVid]

This board game channel is one of a kind, I have the same exact games that you guys have also. Keep uploading my asian brothers!

[brockmckelvey]

Having just gotten into Gloomhaven (we're like 7 scenarios in, I think), I 100% agree with Daniel's "why isn't this just a video game" note. My friend got the (I think recently released) video game version of Gloomhaven, and after playing that a little bit I think I would much rather spend the $60 on that than buying the whole board game for myself if I wanted to play on my own time.

[MG-ojrr]

Best review of this game, we bought, we played, we seen this review :) wished that 1st, had seen this review... Seems like this game is 9/10 for ppl who havent played much of mmorpgs or rpgs in general on pc.

[DoctorJack]

Awesome review. Thanks! Liked and subscribed!

[crushingit]

I love love the combat. Best there is in a dungeon crawler. Also I like all the Legacy components that pop up. "Oh do an random event and now it's a story branch! Add a sticker or a card to the deck"

One thing though is that I find this game to be bloated. You could probably remove half the components in the box and still get the same game. All those environmental tokens and monster types weren't needed.

Sad thing is that #1 complaint from gloomhaven fans is how much stuff there is and how long it takes to pack and unpack. But I guarantee they still want the next gloomhaven to be a giant 20lb box with a bunch of unnecessary crap

[trevorhachenberger]

For me, it's such a fun game to play with people who don't really play video games. If you have the pieces organized and just one person is proficient at the set up/take down of the game, you can teach other people how to play pretty quickly. The combat is one of those "easy to learn difficult to master" systems. I have some nerdy friends that love board games but D&D is a bridge too far. This fits perfectly in that slot.

[mpd]

Heroquest is the best game ever made, anyone who says otherwise is wrong. The best thing about Heroquest is the Dwarf.

[ItsLarsGjo]

Does anyone know where to find the fan-made Appendix mentioned in the video? I found the FAQ on BoardGameGeek but not the Appendix. Thanks!

[rainerquintela]

Have you continued playing the campaign? I started to play it with my group in February, but then when the pandemic broke out we stopped for like a month, then we find the way to continue everyone from their own home (of course I can let you or anyone know how if you are interested). Btw, I only needed 3 Plano 23600-01 boxes to organize all the inserts and I use the gloomhaven Helper (web and app) and the Android's Campaign tracker app, which is fantastic. Great review and videos guys, I think you are not getting the views you deserve, I'll be sharing this channel with my acquaintances.

[Vinnybamboom]

i think you guys said that you come from a video game background. as do i. some games are just better digital though i always prefer board games over locking myself in a room. However.... this is one I rather play digital port when its done. It addresses many of the issues you mention and you can just focus on the gameplay... which is superb. I personally dont enjoy the manual accounting beyond a certain point in games. Digital fixes all that.

[christianjordan]

Hi i know this video is a bit old but i'd really like to know what product(s) you guys used for storage, I just picked up the game but attempting to store everything is a daunting task

[ignitedxblaze]

On your houserule about loosing cards: I think rules as written is great. Sometimes they are tough choices, and getting punished for loosing an important card on random is also good design. After all versatility is design space.


Board games tend to have built in clunky-ness, and its not surprising that a few popular video games picked up these prinicples (as compared to smooth gameflow).

[Radekbossboss]

Oy Daniel speak slower dude, or clearer