minihaven

an ongoing diminutive report of a tiny adventure in the world of *haven the past this Summer, as I was going to spend a couple of days in a Spanish village, I wanted to restart the campaign again (let’s call it Campaing #1). there is not much more to do and the game is easy to carry and set up. I was already playing in May 2024 (last year), but Scenario #5 became very challenging. also, a bunch of other things started happening, so it ended slipping my mind (well, mostly my schedule). so, let’s say the adventure started some time ago, but it was left in limbo, my tiny adventurer stuck in the paused period of time that exists between books, series, climbing sessions and many other games. now, instead of resuming their journey, the adventurer travels in time and the adventure commences again. now Scenario #1 Mazacote, a bruiser, got engaged into a very simple fight (Scenario #1) right after getting shrunk when trying to visit the Crooked Bone to visit Hail in search of fame. (I suspect characters and places would be more recognisable if I had played Gloomhaven fully, but I have only been playing JotL until now, even if I had plan for a long campaign for last Winter… anyway…) Scenario #1 is simple enough, and I followed the tutorial again to remind myself of the rules and what’s available vs what is not. set it at home while having coffee and just had fun with it. very simple and satisfactory victory, with minimum HP loss. I messed up a bit during the only short rest, because I didn’t realise it applies to any card you might still have in your hand as well. but it was not a big problem. Scenario #2 moving on to Scenario #2, there is a bit more variety of foes. it makes it a bit more logistically complex but paying attention to what’s happening is rewarding on its own. with a bit of an overkill, Mazacote tried to finish off the two closest foes by pushing them onto traps and getting close and personal to the archers, while keeping some distance from the last archer. this worked quite well although he ended up with pretty low health. it was rushing and dropping all the hits as fast as possible that worked. \column Scenario #4 this is the first scenario skip, with Mazacote’s traits taking the lead, so he just rushes in (no sneaking around for my bruiser). attempt #1 with the ability to use items, after meeting the Collector, there is a bit more of nuance and choices to make. on the one hand this is a higher level scenario and Mazacote also levelled up. on the other, there are different effects to apply (or not) and experimentation is needed. the first go at Scenario #4 was almost successful. at the end, there was a single enemy left but it got the initiative and managed to hit consuming all the remaining HP. it was an archer adjacent to Mazacote (who was planning on dropping heavily on them), but move away to lose the disadvantage. I don’t remember if the first time around it was an easy win or not (I suspect not). it is here that the puzzle aspect of Gloomhaven BnB starts to become apparent, and some strategy is required in order to maximise the chances of success. while reviewing the rules (did I do everything correctly? did I cheat or missed anything inadvertently?), I discovered that the original rule booklet (and the Living Rules I copied as a PDF in 2024) has been deprecated a bit. mainly in the section about advantage and disadvantage (or at least that’s the part I found about). it was a calm game in the small park of the village, while my cousin and his family, as well as other kids, started to make the most out of the colder part of the day (the Sun was stil up). very quick set up and storage, no pieces lost, and lots of silence (at most the murmur of the local folk talking about today’s electricity cuts and some other matters). attempt #2 a different day and a cooler one at that. had coffee in the patio, chose a different set of items and action cards. it was a quite fast attempt, and I did better regarding advantages and disadvantages, but ended in a similar fashion as last time: a foe with too much health left and Mazacote with one good hit away from failing. can you guess what happened? exactly that. \page I had to retcon part of one round because I was applying shields from foe’s actions similarly to element infusions (and that is not what the rule says). I might have also moved the enemies in a (to me) intelligent manner, that might go against the rules, by moving into a trap to be able to melee attack. so, a 15/20 minute game with some learnings and fun. therefore successful even if Mazacote didn’t progress further. at night, I found the promo scenarios, which I will not play now, but try to print for playing on the next campaign. 2029 perhaps? nah, I’ll try to have a few sessions per week to progress with this one (and other limboed adventures as well). attempt #3 [2026-06-23, evening] it is just too hot (we are in the middle of yet another heatwave), and I’ve been carrying around the BnB box on many trips since the last time, without finding time to play. lately I’ve been telling myself that it was a good time to give it another try to this game (after almost 2 years?) and others (I am trying to detox from the PS4). so it was time to read the rules again, to quickly refresh my knowledge. I prepared the scenario again, with Mazacote ready to brawl, but this time I paid closer attention to item and card selection. I upgraded to get Immoveable Phalanx, mainly thinking on the retaliate bonus and benefitting from the Run Through infused attack. after a failed go where I mixed the kinds of enemies (so an archer and a bandit played each other roles almost from the beginning), I restarted. it was a rewarding run where I was somewhat lucky and got one of the bandit archers locked in place by running towards them. they were the only enemy that damaged Mazacote on the first round, so narratively also makes sense. this mean that, this time, range attackers didn’t move much, and also ended up forming a nice line at some point. also, some initial permanent shields meant Mazacote didn’t take much damage early on, enough to provide some survivability and deal some damage, bringing most enemies to the single attack threshold. on this attempt there was only one short rest, with an archer left to go (an improvement compared to the exhaustion finales from previous attempts). at that point, I was still at 5 points and had retaliate 2 up again, while the archer had disadvantage and 2 points of health. did I follow a better strategy this time? was I just lucky? I am not sure, I played by letting the enemies come to me and trying to keep as far or close from the archers as possible, and disadvantage didn’t do that much, but it ensured Mazacote didn’t have to worry a lot about moving. perhaps that was the crux this time. it might have also been due to the advantage/disadvantage official rules being reverted to the 2 rolls on a single row (as before 2024). attemtps #1 and #2 were run using the 2 rolls equals 2 rows, but I don’t remember it if had some impact, or what impact was that. in any case, I am happy using the oldest version, which is faster to resolve and less ambiguous. next time, the scenario where I failed many times before. wish me luck. Scenario #5 Mazacote had a flashback when starting this scenario. the plate, the leftovers, the flying King Button, and that horrible beetle. um… attempt #1 I set the scenario last afternoon, before going for a show and coming back for dinner. and I ended playing it today. I chose items that can be activated as long as there are elements infused: Rosethorn Knife, Drop of Clean Water (because of the potential afflictions) and Tanglevine Whip. as card upgrades, I went for Hook and Chain, with the opening strategy of wounding the Beetle early on (as the ranged foes were far and the might not need to come towards Mazacote). I reckon it was that opening (and the fact that the King stood away for most of the opening part) that I managed to succeed. it took roughly 3 rounds to finish the Beetle and then get face to face with the Sorcerer. at that point Mazacote was down to 9 points, and about to run his first short rest. Mazacote managed to get right behind him by jumping and then pushing him into a trap, with Skewer, wounding that foe. some of the wounds Mazacote got in between, were cleared by the Drop of Clean Water. on the next turn, the combination of wounds and a successful attack combined with Quietus (which I kept active as long as possible), meant the Sorcerer went down in 2 attacks, putting Mazacote at 2 points. it help that it rolled a null due to disadvantage. and then it was the last 2 turns, I wanted to have Leaping Cleave for Mazacote, to be able to use Skewer. when that card was about to get lost in the last possible short rest, I sacrificed one point. chance made it so that I kept Warding Strength. the move was then not to pierce through the shield in one last massive blow, but to hook the King, drop them into a trap and move away, try to survive one more turn. but Mazacote was lucky and got a 2x. 8 points of damage, minus 3 of shield, Button was left with one point, and the trap did the rest. I was so happy with this, it work nicely in the end, with that one point left. I was not expecting to complete it at this time, but it looks like I took the correct decisions (and had some luck, not loosing too many turns). perhaps I didn’t play one card at all before my first short rest, as I was trying to keep Air infused at all times, but other than that… not much resource waste. now I am running a quick forensic check, to verify that I didn’t misinterpret any rules. it that is not the case, then it is time to move forward into unknown territory: Scenario #6.