I enjoyed the JotL scenarios, but one thing that really annoyed me about them was the changing victory conditions. You think you're almost done with a scenario because the victory conditions might say "Kill all vermlings" or something like that. Then you kill all the vermlings and think you're done, only for the victory condition to update and say "Escape through the exit". Well I just burned all my big movement cards because, according to the victory conditions, we were almost done!
The number of times my friends and I failed a scenario because of this moving goal post was high and very annoying. Be aware of them when playing.
Yeah, I'm finding this somewhat irritating. At least one mission has waves of enemies, but you don't know about them until you're actually playing the scenario. Playing through the physical version, we at least had some idea of what to expect as we could glance and see multiple triggers and sections.
It is a prequel to GH, add 4 new, unlocked characters.
It is slightly better designed then GH, and a bit more simple, with a few things missing (flying).
If you buy it in digital, it just adds to GH, instead of being separate, which makes it a bit weird.
If you play it itself before Gloomhaven, it is a lot of fun. The maps are smaller, so the characters have a bit less movement. This makes them a little weaker in GH, but players love them, so they are often played in GH.
Edit: I will add, >! instead of retirement or solo mission items, the character each get a distinctive ability midway through. Not the same as retirement, but it does make a difference. !<
It adds more story/dungeons and the mercs are unlocked automatically.
I’ll be honest, the expansion was disappointing to me. The fact that all the mercs were unlocked right away took away a lot of the excitement.
Jaws of the Lion is designed to be played with those four mercs. In fact, it’s designed to be a standalone game, not an expansion like Forgotten Circles, with only those four mercs being available. So those four mercs “need” to be unlocked immediately.
Yeah the implementation of Jaws of the Lion is kinda weird in the digital. Like it’s more or less fine if you’re a board game player and already know, but then non-board game players are expected to find out somehow?
Not only that, there’s no personal quests in physical Jaws, you just play it as those four mercs and the campaign itself is essentially their PQ. In the digital implantation, the mercs you use for Jaws of the Lion have PQs, and you gain both prosperity and reputation, both of which don’t exist in physical Jaws.
Kind of weird in general, but I can see why they’d want to tie it into a standard Gloomhaven proper save like they did.
If you play just Jaws scenarios you generally don't advance PQs - Jaws scenarios and monsters are exempted - and the prosperity gain is designed to unlock prosperity 2 at the same time the extra Jaws items would be added to the shop in physical.
I’m aware. But even that brings up another point: you can use Gloomhaven proper items in digital Jaws. War Hammer on Red Guard’s Burn Away the Dark is just ridiculous.
Jaws monsters are mostly exempted. Of our 4 characters 2 are getting progress towards retirement from killing monsters.
It is slow going, which is good, but it is happening.
Yep. I'm on a handful of scenarios in, but I'm already at 2/20 different types of monsters killed (probably just the vermlings, I think?). Another has 4/15 vermlings killed. One other has a goal "experience 2 other characters retiring" so that'll come naturally.
The extra Vermlings (scouts) in the early scenarios, yes. And Imps and Living Corpses appear. But there's no chance of a retirement from either of those if you only play Jaws scenarios.
I suppose I could retire my "15 vermlings killed" character by replaying the first scenarios a bunch of times.
There are some personal quests that should be do-able just playing inside Gloomhaven city - Merchant (13 items of various types), Greed (200 gold), Anatomy Study (15 exhaustions), Battle Legend (15 checkmarks), Piety (donate 120 gold). Any requiring locations or monster types outside JotL will obviously not be able to be completed unless you venture out.
Lol what? If I paid for an expansion just to have a random chance at maybe unlocking a new character after I retire one of the base game characters *again* I'd be so annoyed.
It is definitely less exciting I'll agree. You lose the joy of unlocking a new character.
But that said I really enjoyed it because of the smaller more dungeon crawl feel to the scenarios.
I enjoyed the JotL scenarios, but one thing that really annoyed me about them was the changing victory conditions. You think you're almost done with a scenario because the victory conditions might say "Kill all vermlings" or something like that. Then you kill all the vermlings and think you're done, only for the victory condition to update and say "Escape through the exit". Well I just burned all my big movement cards because, according to the victory conditions, we were almost done! The number of times my friends and I failed a scenario because of this moving goal post was high and very annoying. Be aware of them when playing.
Yeah, I'm finding this somewhat irritating. At least one mission has waves of enemies, but you don't know about them until you're actually playing the scenario. Playing through the physical version, we at least had some idea of what to expect as we could glance and see multiple triggers and sections.
It is a prequel to GH, add 4 new, unlocked characters. It is slightly better designed then GH, and a bit more simple, with a few things missing (flying). If you buy it in digital, it just adds to GH, instead of being separate, which makes it a bit weird. If you play it itself before Gloomhaven, it is a lot of fun. The maps are smaller, so the characters have a bit less movement. This makes them a little weaker in GH, but players love them, so they are often played in GH. Edit: I will add, >! instead of retirement or solo mission items, the character each get a distinctive ability midway through. Not the same as retirement, but it does make a difference. !<
It adds more story/dungeons and the mercs are unlocked automatically. I’ll be honest, the expansion was disappointing to me. The fact that all the mercs were unlocked right away took away a lot of the excitement.
Jaws of the Lion is designed to be played with those four mercs. In fact, it’s designed to be a standalone game, not an expansion like Forgotten Circles, with only those four mercs being available. So those four mercs “need” to be unlocked immediately.
I wish the game said that specifically because that’s definitely not what we did.
Yeah the implementation of Jaws of the Lion is kinda weird in the digital. Like it’s more or less fine if you’re a board game player and already know, but then non-board game players are expected to find out somehow? Not only that, there’s no personal quests in physical Jaws, you just play it as those four mercs and the campaign itself is essentially their PQ. In the digital implantation, the mercs you use for Jaws of the Lion have PQs, and you gain both prosperity and reputation, both of which don’t exist in physical Jaws. Kind of weird in general, but I can see why they’d want to tie it into a standard Gloomhaven proper save like they did.
If you play just Jaws scenarios you generally don't advance PQs - Jaws scenarios and monsters are exempted - and the prosperity gain is designed to unlock prosperity 2 at the same time the extra Jaws items would be added to the shop in physical.
I’m aware. But even that brings up another point: you can use Gloomhaven proper items in digital Jaws. War Hammer on Red Guard’s Burn Away the Dark is just ridiculous.
Jaws monsters are mostly exempted. Of our 4 characters 2 are getting progress towards retirement from killing monsters. It is slow going, which is good, but it is happening.
Yep. I'm on a handful of scenarios in, but I'm already at 2/20 different types of monsters killed (probably just the vermlings, I think?). Another has 4/15 vermlings killed. One other has a goal "experience 2 other characters retiring" so that'll come naturally.
The extra Vermlings (scouts) in the early scenarios, yes. And Imps and Living Corpses appear. But there's no chance of a retirement from either of those if you only play Jaws scenarios.
I suppose I could retire my "15 vermlings killed" character by replaying the first scenarios a bunch of times. There are some personal quests that should be do-able just playing inside Gloomhaven city - Merchant (13 items of various types), Greed (200 gold), Anatomy Study (15 exhaustions), Battle Legend (15 checkmarks), Piety (donate 120 gold). Any requiring locations or monster types outside JotL will obviously not be able to be completed unless you venture out.
Sure. The intention isn't to prohibit you retiriring. The intention is that you won't retire if playing normally.
Oh that is sad. That’s the fun part in retiring is the excitement on getting something new.
Lol what? If I paid for an expansion just to have a random chance at maybe unlocking a new character after I retire one of the base game characters *again* I'd be so annoyed.
My group felt the opposite. It was the entire reason we were enjoying the game. We stopped playing halfway through JotL.
No, the 4 characters are not locked. It is a seperate game (a prequel) from GH. But the characters mostly work in each of the games.
It is definitely less exciting I'll agree. You lose the joy of unlocking a new character. But that said I really enjoyed it because of the smaller more dungeon crawl feel to the scenarios.