Inox Encampment success

After the last unsuccessful attempt at discovering what’s behind the Inox Encampment, the party went back to Gloomhaven for some rest and for Brutus to level up.

While in the city, the party managed to stop a mob from hanging a Vermling thief, gaining another Prosperity point for Gloomhaven.

On the road back to the Inox Encampment, the party, still doing their lawful deeds, helped to protect a large caravan by traveling with them. Could have attacked the caravan for more gold, but that’s not the way of the Solo Bunch.

In this attempt at the scenario, the party took a more cautious approach, pushing some of the Guards back and taking on the remaining enemies from the left flank. This time, Weaver survived long enough to take out the Elite Shaman, achieving her Battle Goal for the scenario.

The party also made a tactical choice to ignore all the other doors, focusing on getting to the cave, and trying to hang back to allow the Guards to enter the room, just so that they can achieve the goal of killing 15 enemies.

The Mystic Ally summoned by Weaver played a big part too. Luck was on its side when an attack on an Inox Archer was a critical 2x hit.

After clearing out the many Inox Guards who kept appearing out of the cave, Weaver ran towards the entrance. She managed to reveal the enemies inside but was both Immobilized and Disarmed. Meaning that she has to just stand by the entrance, blocking the way for the party to enter the cave to confront the enemies.

The party finally entered the cave but Weaver ended up being exhausted and had to leave the last 2 enemies to Tinder and Brutus. The final blow to the last Inox Shaman was a Toxic Bolt to its head.


With that, the Inox Encampment was completed... after 3.5 hours...

Beaten in the Inox Encampment

Tinder the Tinkerer has joined the party. His dream is to join the Merchant Class, hoping to gather enough treasure and open up a shop when he retires. For now, he adventures with the Solo Bunch.

In Gloomhaven, the party helped to repel an attack, gaining some experience in the process.

But on the journey to Dagger Forest, Tinder found a puppy and decided to bring it back to Gloomhaven to find a home. Too bad that this caused him to be distracted during his adventure with additional negative Attack Modifiers added into his deck.

Everything went quite well, until the untimely exhaustion of Weaver. Leaving the 2 remaining heroes to battle the scenario. This scenario is tough for two reasons:

- The spawning Inox Guards coming from the cave right at the back.

- Having to kill 15 enemies for completion of the scenario.

I think if Weaver had not left the battlefield so early on, the party may have had a chance at success.

With only two heroes in play, the party had to think of some interesting strategy to deal with the obstacles ahead. So using the Summoned Decoy, the trap  leading into the cave was disabled, clearing the way for Brutus to enter.

Brutus was able to move quickly into the cave, and pushed the Inox Shaman into the trap set by Tinder for a quick kill.

The party was very close to succeeding. Very very close. Only one enemy left, but they eventually ran out of steam. Brutus was too far away to help to defeat the remaining Inox Shaman, and so here ends the scenario.

The good thing is that Brutus has gained enough XP to head back to Gloomhaven to get some rest and to level up. 

 

Down the Barrow Lair again

After the defeat last time round, the Solo Bunch entered the Barrow Lair again. This time, with an intense focus on killing the Bandit Commander first before he can summon too many skeletons or open too many doors.

This time round, Brutus timed his move and did a huge combo attack using Leaping Cleave and Balanced Measure, and augmented that with wearing the Boots of Striding. This power move was enough to kill the Bandit Commander, just after he opened the second door. Not too shabby.

All that is left is to clean up the remaining Living Bones and Living Corpses.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. The Living Bones drew self-heal a couple of times, making it tough to kill. And with the Elite Living Corpse lumbering towards Brutus, he was almost on the brink of exhaustion and was Immobilized and Muddled, losing precious time.

Eventually, a Shield Bash stunned the Elite Living Corpse. And subsequently his demise.

Still, the remaining Living Bones’ luck held out. Two self-heal in a row meant that it was a tough opponent. With Brutus eventually getting exhausted and was out of the fight.

Thankfully, Weaver had her Frost Armour on and was able to absorb damage and also did a Flame Strike to finish it off.

With that the party limped out of the Lair, and back to Gloomhaven.

Next stop... the Inox Encampment in the Dagger Forest. But first... Weaver can level up... and perhaps a new member can join the Solo Bunch?

Overwhelmed in the Barrow Lair

The Solo Bunch is ready to descent into the Barrow Lair.

Things started quite well, with the duo dispatching the two Bandit Archers pretty easily. But little did they know the overwhelming odds that laid ahead. The Bandit Commander’s special ability to summon Living Bones led to increasing numbers of enemies entering the lair.

The original battle plan was quite sensible. To go for the Bandit Commander first, eliminating the threat that he posed. Brutus went ahead to perform the Skewer and Balanced Measure combo, hoping to strike hard. Unfortunately, the 3 Curses that were in the Ability Deck made an appearance, meaning that the combo missed. What a disaster!

In one of the early rounds, the Elite Bandit Archer created a trap near the Party. Brutus made a clever move by moving around the trap, attacked the enemy and used the Push ability again, this time making the Elite fall into her own trap.

The scenario didn’t end well. The Bandit Commander summoned so many enemies that everyone was crowded into a small room. Although immobilized, Weaver managed to target the Bandit Commander and killed him. But it was too little too late. Even with the summoned Mystic Ally to aid in the fight, the Party was overwhelmed. With the odds against them, Weaver put her last action, causing an Impaling Eruption which strike 6 enemies, gaining quite a handful of experience in the process.

Although the scenario was a failure, there was still a silver lining. They managed to loot the treasure, gaining 10 gold, and gained experience... enough to head into the Barrow Lair for a second try.

Black Barrow

The party embarked on their journey to the Black Barrow... along the way, the earth started trembling and there’s the danger of falling rocks. Being new adventurers, the party decided to play it safe and ran to an open clearing. They were safe, but suffered 2 damage. This is going to affect them in their exploration into the Black Barrow.

With the two points damage taken from the road event, this was going to be a tough start. In fact, it took me three tries before the party got past the first few rounds without Brutus getting exhausted. No point going further when one of your guys has to be taken out of the fight in the first room. 

With reduced HP from the start, I quickly discovered that I could not go in head-on to face the 3 bandits in the room. Even with the difficulty on Normal and choosing not to apply the solo variant rules, this adventure was tough.

Eventually, I decided to take a risk. Ignore the 3 bandits and focus on healing the two characters at the entrance. That allowed me to survive and continue on the battle. It helped that the enemy was not able to make any attacks in the first round.

Some memorable events in this scenario:

- Brutus went into the second room, did a Push on the Bandit Guard. Which led to the enemy falling back into the 2 traps... instant kill!

- In the third (and final) room, Weaver rode the wind and jumped pass the enemies, and landed herself on the treasure chest to open a new Random scenario.

- At the corner of the room, Weaver could perform a number of range attacks which helped to weaken the enemies.

- Brutus went forward to deal a Sweeping Blow attack on the two Living Bones hoping to take them out once and for all. The first Living Bones fell, but Brutus’ attack missed the second completely!

- Brutus moved into the room and did some clever maneuvering to do some area strikes on the enemies.

It was a close fight in the final room. Brutus was down to 2 HP and Weaver 3 HP. The final Living Bones were dispatched by Brutus at the last minute, leaving me breathless at the close call.

With this, the party rested and continue on their journey into the Barrow Lair in pursuit of the thief...

So this is the state of the world after the first scenario. Managed to unlock the Well of the Unfortunate scenario, but will have to save that for another day.

Gloomhaven- the tale begins

It took me a little while. But months after acquiring the massive Gloomhaven, I’m finally getting this to the table. With the TowerRex insert all built, tokens and tiles all sorted, essential cards sleeved, I’m finally ready to jump in.

 

Reading and learning the rules took a full 2 days. That included watching some playthroughs on Youtube to familiarize with all that is going on in the game.

So get ready to join the Solo Bunch (that’s the party name) in this epic quest.

In the party are Brutus the Brute and Weaver the Spellweaver. From the Personal Quest cards, Brutus wants to be a Battle Legend while Weaver is actually a worshipper of Xorn. I guess Brutus just wants fame while Weaver has a secret dark side.

Starting out in the city of Gloomhaven, the two characters got ready to take on the first quest, i.e. going to the Black Barrow to catch a thief.

Before heading off, the party saw the Sanctuary of the Great Oak being constructed and decided to help. That gained them some reputation and it seems a like a good start to the campaign, although they ended up being slightly exhausted. No big deal, since it’s still the start of the adventure.