Disclosure: A review copy of Gloomhaven: Jaws of the lion was provided by Cephlofair Games

Introduction

If you had asked me my thoughts on Gloomhaven two months ago, I would have pointed you to my post on Bigfoot’s Trash Taste, where I boldly speak about how I find Gloomhaven frustrating and how I didn’t enjoy the dozen times I sat down to play it. So when the opportunity from Cephlofair Games to get a review copy of the smaller follow-up game, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion came up, I was surprised to find myself compelled to revisit the Gloomhaven system.

I recently wrote more in depth about the full sized Gloomhaven, the 21 pound big red box full of mystery, anguish, joy, and frustration. I talked about how a negative first impression soured my opinion of the game for nearly 5 years, only to have it slowly turned around by the digital implementation. So when Jaws of the Lion showed up at my door, I roped a couple of friends (Bear, from my regular weekly game night and his partner, Lynx) into playing with me. Bear has some experience with role-playing games, and his wife, an avid gamer in her own right, enjoys combative games. If there’s a throat nearby, she’s keen to punch it, but neither had played any Gloomhaven before.

With that in mind, over the past month we’ve made our way through the first 5 scenarios for Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. Before I really launch into how our games went, you might be asking yourself: “What exactly is Jaws of the Lion and what makes it different from Gloomhaven?” While Gloomhaven is a massive box with a ~100 scenario campaign, 17 playable characters, more than 30 different monsters, and dozens of map tiles to create wildly different scenarios, Jaws of the Lion is a much smaller box. Containing only 4 playable characters, 16 monster types, and a comparatively straightforward 25 scenario campaign. The goal of Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion was to provide an easier way for gamers to get introduced to the Gloomhaven system. The first 5 scenarios are a tutorial that introduces the rules of the game gradually, instead of all the information overload that the full Gloomhaven game is. The setup for each scenario is simplified in Jaws of the Lion, due to the map tiles being replaced with a spiral bound scenario book that features artwork specific to each scenario.

How to Play

Here’s an extremely quick how-to-play. At the start of each round, you’ll play two cards from your hand. The number in the centre of one of the cards will indicate your initiative, that will dictate the turn order. On your turn, you activate the top action of one of your cards, and the bottom action of the other card. Every card for every character is different, and using your abilities to synergize with each other is key to victory. As you gain levels, you’ll have more cards to choose from, but the number of cards you can take into each mission is static, based on your character.

Most missions in Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion are comprised of ‘kill everything’, and most actions involve moving and hitting. Each attack has you flip a card from your own attack modifier deck, which you can upgrade and modify as you accomplish tasks and gain levels.

Now, that’s basically it, but there are a ton of rules and nuance in Gloomhaven that are important to understand fully before you can understand the situations well enough to play through a mission well!

Review

Introducing Bear and Lynx to Gloomhaven via Jaws of the Lion was a treat. The tutorial structure introduces the very core mechanics with special, tutorial cards that include helpful text boxes of how to read the icons and apply the effects of the card. The enemies have one static ability, making it easy to plan your approach, and it feels like any group could stumble through this mission and come out the other end unscathed.

The subsequent missions add in all the elements that make up the full Gloomhaven gameplay experience. More cards, burning (or losing) cards after a powerful effect, experience points, gold, elements, modifier decks, monster attack decks, blesses and curses, pushing and pulling, status conditions, losing a card to negate damage, and so on. The training wheels come off and the tutorial launches the player into the full Gloomhaven experience. There are so many things going on in a regular Gloomhaven game that introducing someone to the full experience is quite a challenge. This, step-by-step approach worked wonders. At no point did any of us feel overwhelmed by rules. Each mission stretched our brains like pizza dough until we filled the pan. Gently, working each corner one at a time, careful not to tear our precious brains by roughly forcing too many rules in at one time.

The setting and story is dark and brooding. It starts with a missing husband, and very quickly you stumble into occult rituals and dark sacrifices. Unnatural abominations and living corpses are featured early on. That said, the gameplay is entirely combat; you’re trying to kill your opponents. If violence and malevolence turns you off, the narrative is going to leave a sour taste in your mouth.

I’m not sure what else to say about Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. If you’ve played Gloomhaven, it’s more of the great gameplay that you’ve come to expect, albeit a bit of the extraneous bits trimmed off the edges. If you’re new to the system, the tutorial is an excellent on ramp to the system. Once you’ve learned the whole game, Jaws of the Lion might feel a bit too streamlined for your liking. The four characters synergize extremely well together, and that’s by design. You don’t need to spend significant time and effort crafting each of your characters and decks, so they’ll work together. In the same breath, the missions feel easier than the base game. We’ve come close to losing only once, and that might be a byproduct of the built-in synergies of the 4 classes that come in the box.

At the end of the day, if you’re interested and inexperienced in Gloomhaven, you cannot go wrong with Jaws of the Lion. It’s cheaper to acquire, faster to set up, and guides you into the experience. I can absolutely see people completing the ~20 missions that come in the campaign, then launching themselves into the full game, only to really appreciate the guard rails that Jaws of the Lion has for its players. Those guard rails are helpful for some people, but restricting for others. Treating Jaws of the Lion as an epilogue for a group that actually managed to complete their Gloomhaven campaign may feel a bit unsatisfying. It lacks the long term goals and discovery that I think takes the experience up to the next level.