***Minor Spoilers here*** Sorry, I'm just too excited to not talk about it! 😀 Today I attempted my fourth try at the first scenario. In previous posts I mentioned the furthest I reached was the second of the three rooms. Well, today I made it to the third room!!! I was making better decisions today for sure and utilizing my rests in much more efficiently in order to have the stamina to keep progressing (based on cards lost / cards in hand). I also gained a decent amount of XP (experience) and a bit more loot than previous attempts (which equates to gold at the end of the scenario). Best of all, I killed all but the last monster! Sadly, "Beeker" got killed not long into the third room (stupid monsters... 🤣). In the end, "Magnus" (my Inox Brute) became exhausted and couldn't continue. One more turn available and I would've finished off the last monster! So close! I won't say how many monsters "Magnus" took on, but lets just say he did all the work in that last room. 😏 As I mentioned my decisions are improving. Realizing before my last turn that I wasn't going to defeat the last monster and complete the scenario, I made sure I gathered the treasure chest. ** Minor spoiler coming... ** The treasure chest has a number on it in the scenario book. Once you loot the treasure chest, you refer to the treasure chart in the back of the scenario book to see what you've collected. In this particular chest, I gained a random scenario!! Other than knowing this was some sort of side scenario, I didn't really get the full gist of how cool this was. 😎 These random scenarios can be collected in various ways throughout your campaign (including looting treasure chests in some scenarios like I did). When you collect this treasure/loot, you shuffle the random scenario cards and draw one. The one you draw unlocks a new location on the map! I placed my reusable Gloomhaven stickers (still excited about those) and unlocked a location (that will remain unnamed) for a side scenario. "So what does this mean??" you ask; ... This is the part I REALLY like! This creates more decisions, and gives (me) the impression of an open world video game type concept (I love open world video games). When I sit down (hopefully tomorrow) for my fourth game I now have even more options of what to do before I even start to play: - Attempt the scenario #1 (Black Barrow) again; Gain more XP, more loot and hopefully finish off all the monsters to complete it! -I can go back to Gloomhaven and purchase some new items, complete a city event card (if I choose to), and then a road event (not optional), to return to Black Barrow hopefully a bit more juiced up to take on those monsters. -I can go back to Gloomhaven and do the above, but then use the road event card to take me to my new unlocked side scenario ( I won't say where ) to attempt a new scenario! - OR finally, I can use a road event card to travel directly from Black Barrow to the new unlocked side scenario location. The choices are amazing and I haven't even scratched the surface!!! Whoa.
