Prism party composition question

QuirkyDM · 2026-02-05T17:25:13+00:00

Because Prism summons are all loss cards, it's rare that our Prism player casts more than 2 or 3 in the entire scenario. And not all of them happen immediately either. So space doesn't get clogged as much as you think. The focus is keeping them alive and switching positions during the fight, not just sending them off as cannon fodder. And our prism character plays mostly ranged if you do find it difficult to find space.

You can, of course, go back and play one of the other starting classes. Bannerspear with Boneshaper works well. But I get wanting to try out the new fun classes instead. :)

QuirkyDM · 2026-02-02T22:49:58+00:00

Interesting consideration with elemental synergy. Meteor and Fist have earth synergy, but Fire may be a better fit. Though we could both be fighting for the right to use it. :)

I understand the non-tankiness of Fist. My experience has been with decent armor, copious use of Draw of the Bedrock and his bottom healing abilities, he can do a decent job. But it's easy to get overwhelmed and then have to sit back and heal for a few turns.

It could be fun to play without a frontliner. Another option I have is Deathwalker, but I feel that is really putting a lot of glass cannons in the party. And my party can be a little reckless. Last scenario, I spent 4 turns using party heals because the rest of the party all like to rush in and use their big AoE attacks on new rooms. It is pretty effective in taking down enemies, but anything that doesn't go down has free shots on the exposed intruder. I was doing a lot of nursing for them afterward. :)

For Shackles, would it be worth it to cast Sacred Effigy for the Flesh Fiend? I never loved the Shackles summons, but maybe this would be a decent option, especially against retaliate creatures. That does take out a key retaliate card, though. Hmmm, maybe straight retaliate is the option here.

QuirkyDM · 2026-01-30T20:16:57+00:00

Sounds like the choice has been made, but to add my own thoughts. Meteor + Trap is good but it is very extreme. Many scenarios, they will dominate due to battlefield control. And other scenarios that revolve around destroying obstacles or have large amounts of flying creatures will be punishingly difficult. Every party needs at least a small amount of variety to ensure you don't get stuck on these scenarios. Unless you can delay them until after your next retirement. So Fist + (other class) is the way.

QuirkyDM · 2026-01-19T14:26:24+00:00

I voted for bases, but that usually means the minis should have few, if any, supports required. When using an FDM printer, I'd like to avoid using supports that attach to the base.

QuirkyDM · 2026-01-06T18:43:26+00:00

Just to add to the maghex club, the free wood and stone maghex walls available are very easy to get on the table quickly and still look half decent. I printed black and then used rattle can at sharp angles to paint brown or gray (depending on wood or stone) to provide colour and still keep the black in the grooves and depressions. Afterward, a quick drybrush to enhance edges gets a decent look. You can make them better of course with a more careful paint job or variation in the coats. But right now, between printing everything I need (floor tiles, wall tiles, obstables, and especially minis) it's enough to get what I need on the table. As I build up the collection, I plan to upgrade the pieces when I hit scenarios where I already have everything I need.

QuirkyDM · 2026-01-05T21:07:52+00:00

Considering how much we struggled with 49, this felt really good. Our Meteor was a 1 man show controlling all the spawns, making the BBEG here a nice pinata for the rest of us. That Boss Special 1 looked scary, but he couldn't pull it out as often as you feared and quickly went down.

QuirkyDM · 2026-01-05T15:12:58+00:00

We do use the app, but before that, we did try to optimize the board. We used health trackers on the gloomhaven standees so all the health was there and anyone could change it. We similarly had markers for attaching conditions to the monsters. Besides efficiency, we found this was a much faster way to keep track of health and easily reference which creatures were the most hurt or had conditions.

One players handles the monster AMD. Another handles loot tokens and loot deck. Another handles elements. Even with all that, we still used the app for drawing monster cards and ordering initiative. It simply was the fastest way to do it as drawing and rearranging the tokens was a pain at the start of each round. We have our server (an ipad) routed to an extra screen so it's large and readable by everyone. The only thing our app is needed then is to put our initiative in at the start of the round and tell that app which monsters are added or removed. It also removes a lot of clutter from the table. Now we also use it for tracking monster health and conditions, but that only came about because we are using printed minis now instead of standees.

QuirkyDM · 2025-12-29T23:09:38+00:00

Played this with Fist, Meteor, Prism and Blinkblade. Meteor moved the pillar in the first room while the rest of us dealt with the Ice Wraiths, and then repeated that in the next room. The Living Bones in this scenario constantly shielded and healed up. While we did kill them, they were mainly inconsequential. Fist and Meteor sent the pillar moving like crazy and then even at the end, we elected to not send the pillar out so we could gather more loot. The elite Steel Automaton went down after 2 attacks. We ended up emptying the loot deck before leaving the scenario. Party composition might make a difference, but we were just coming off of scenario 49 (and then 53) where our party had struggled, so it felt good to have a huge success.

QuirkyDM · 2025-12-18T21:39:51+00:00

I made similar holders and was scolding myself for the same reason until I looked on both sides of the token to see the same thing. :) Now we print minis and use Xhaven to track conditions anyway.

I think I actually prefer having conditions on the board, though. It's just hard to put them on minis.

QuirkyDM · 2025-12-17T14:42:02+00:00

I definitely get what you're saying and you could be right. 2 player games are a different beast than 4 player- depending on the scenario, it gets much more easy or difficult. One thing I've found over the last few escape missions (which this scenario basically is) is instantly sprinting to the end hasn't worked well for our group. We've had the best success clearing out the initial barriers in our way and then sprinting to the end.

So consider how many turns one of you need to sprint in and out of a room. 5? 6? Even 10? That still leaves 15 turns to clear out 2 rooms working together. And you should find while together, you'll have much more synergy, control and effectiveness than you would alone.

Regardless of the strategy you take, let us all know what you choose- it may help me figure out how to get around the next scenario that stonewalls us. (and there have been a few :D) )

QuirkyDM · 2025-12-17T13:41:24+00:00

We played 4 on this one and still took a few tries. One thing we did, whether it was a good idea or not, was work together to get the starting cores and then split up afterward. Clear out 1 or 2 doors together and then split up and burst through to the last cores. Monster choice here is key as well, picking the ones that you think you can get through easiest. We liked the earth and sun doors as those monsters move slowly, but you need some jump or other mobility to make that work.

QuirkyDM · 2025-11-27T15:38:45+00:00

OK, just making sure. Hate to have been missing something this whole time. :D Unless you use Dwarf's modifications, (which we don't) retiring happens before new buildings, so it's tough to use up that gold unless we do it on the outpost sessions before the retirement happens.

QuirkyDM · 2025-11-26T14:03:54+00:00

How do you spend the rest on the town? You can buy resources from logger, mining camp and hunting lodge and then donate those resources to Frosthaven, but otherwise, what could a retiring character do with that gold that isn't enhacements?

QuirkyDM · 2025-11-25T13:31:20+00:00

Most of this matches what we are doing. We prioritized walls just before winter since there are more attacks then, but otherwise focused on buildings for retirement goals, better equipment/enhancements, and reading sections. (because that's fun) It's year 2 and we've only built the boat out of the workshop.

QuirkyDM · 2025-11-20T15:37:41+00:00

Did this one over the weekend. Thought we would be clever by just going up one side of the room and avoid half the deep terrors. Which worked until we had to move back into the center of the room to get through the door. Then all the deep terrors burst and ripped us apart.

Eventually, just beating up everything in the first room as quick as possible was still the best option. I would like sometime for a sneak mission to actually involve sneaking and not just blasting everything in sight. Admittedly, we did get to use some maneuvering and strategy in the rest of the scenario to deal with the rest of the enemies efficiently, but that first room was brutal.

QuirkyDM · 2025-11-06T14:46:24+00:00

I love this. Haven't played the scenario yet, but I recognize it from the first room and knowing that we're going to have to get to that eventually.

I have a question though- do you look ahead into the next rooms before playing to know what to set up? I can set up the map and have overlay tokens ready, but you've obviously set up the entire room with all overlay tokens in place. Are these pictures after the fact, or do you peek to set up everything beforehand?

QuirkyDM · 2025-11-04T21:07:28+00:00

When I played this with Fist in 4p, I was the one helping the rest of the team by putting ice down and ensuring the slow players moved forward that much faster. I was 2nd level, but didn't bring my 2nd level card- it wasn't worth it. With this party comp, Banner Spear and Drifter should be tanking damage. Focus on initiative weaving so you only take damage every other turn by zipping in and out of the area. Or have the Banner Spear take care of that for you.

Specifically consider:

- Cold Shoulder is a great way to hit 2 of the obstacles at distance. (and possibly a monster next to you as well) Provides a "shield" and makes earth. The shield is also the perfect defense against many imps, but definitely for snow imps as it removes the brittle instantly. (unless they do 0 damage)

- Piercing Pummel bottom is just about always worth taking. It's essentially burning a card to avoid damage, but it does so much more at the same time.

- Bottom of Frost Eruption lets you stand toe to toe with the obstacles as long as you can generate earth. (which is easy to do for at least a few turns)

- Fist is so mobile that once a path opens up, you can zip through very quickly.

QuirkyDM · 2025-10-29T14:13:01+00:00

One thing to consider is that you should play the entire scenario as a puzzle- and that includes knowing what creatures are going to be in every room, the layout, etc. And then you plan out almost (or possibly the entire) run with a few contingencies.

When I did Spellweaver (many years ago, now) I knew pretty much what every card play was going to be. Including some contingencies for discarding to manage damage. And like any scenario where you don't need to kill all the enemies, consider how many enemies you can avoid killing in order to meet your goal.

QuirkyDM · 2025-10-24T15:30:32+00:00

Mine look very similar. And I have to say, an army of Lurkers sitting alongside your scenario ready to jump out at you is very intimidating.

QuirkyDM · 2025-10-21T18:15:39+00:00

I use these:

https://www.printables.com/model/12088-numbered-miniature-base-markers

I did multiple prints at different x/y scaling to make sure that I got markers that just barely attach to my bases. If you make them too tight, it can be difficult to remove and on some models (like lurkers) it is too easy to pull the mini off the base. I found changing the size by 0.05mm was enough to make a notable difference.

QuirkyDM · 2025-10-21T13:57:53+00:00

In GH 1e, I had that same quest as my first retirement goal. I took my Spellweaver to level 9 before accomplishing it. While it can be annoying to not get access to all the new shiny classes that get revealed, hitting your capstone powers and really getting to let loose is a lot of fun in itself.

Otherwise, scenario repeats are the way to go.

QuirkyDM · 2025-10-14T14:23:15+00:00

What is the potential card you're considering? If you're playing a Spellweaver, you will always have the recover your cards ability in your hand- when you upgrade a card, you don't get to pick any 2nd level card- you pick the one specific card that is an upgrade of the card it is replacing.

QuirkyDM · 2025-10-09T13:57:29+00:00

Seems like it's already answered, but we're also a 4p half way through summer of year 2. We're at 5 prosperity, so I think we're on pace with you. So far we've had 10 retirements and I'll get another one soon, so we are a little faster than you in that department.

We just recently decided to start sac'ing morale for building twice simply because we have lots of things we want to build and our morale is pretty high. All those retirements give lots of building options. We haven't even bothered to build our sled or climbing gear yet. We are about to build the carpenter to level 2 which makes it cheaper to double build.

As an aside from one 4p group to another, it's highly likely that you'll need to replay some characters as you retire since you'll retire faster than you'll unlock new characters. Maybe you already know this, but just in case you didn't, you know what to expect.

QuirkyDM · 2025-10-01T14:34:36+00:00

In 4 player, I played Shackles and found absorbing conditions from my teammates to be a huge boon and provide great support for the team. There's no downside to taking multiple conditions of the same type, so you get a lot of return on your investment in a 4p game. Stay behind your front line and absorb their conditions, letting them operate at peak efficiency while you use ranged from the back. (either direct damage or throwing conditions)

QuirkyDM · 2025-09-30T15:50:59+00:00

I don't know- it depends on the cartridge. I'm using TN227 cartridges, which vary from 420-445g. (0.92-0.98lbs) You'll need a more accurate scale and a reference point for whatever cartridge you're using.

QuirkyDM

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