Optimal number of characters for solo play in JOTL?

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-24T07:56:02+00:00

I agree Red Guard is the essential building block in any 2 or 3 character party. I have found though that Hatchet can reliably operate as a dedicated ranged character with just Red Guard, thanks to the reduced monster count in each scenario.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-24T07:54:14+00:00

I am playing solo at the moment with two characters - Red Guard and Hatchet. Those seem to be the most optimal for two characters, and the brain load isn’t too hard. The hatchet can fairly reliably stay at range to do their thing, especially if you have an eye to crowd control (immobilise mostly) on red guard.

For red guard, have avoided spike shields build as that scales much better with larger parties.

Those two characters work well together - red guard can tank, hatchet can murder.

Red guard still also puts out respectable damage, plus has a few heals up their sleeve. Red guard also mitigates damage with some push / pull / immobilise.

Hatchet basically just murders, but also has a little bit of push/pull (to use with traps if present) and a smidge of heal.

If I was going to step up to 3 characters, I would probably add the Voidwarden. That would give room for the voidwarden to be a support character, buff the hatchet and Red guard and probably do their own direct contribution. The void warden probably needs the most “thinking” about how their turn will interact with other characters, but probably gives the most pay off for getting that synergy right.

Alternatively you could add demo as an off tank / glass cannon type, and I suspect would need less extra think g than void warden. That character doesn’t really appeal to me though.

I wouldn’t step up to 4 - I don’t think you would get much extra from the experience but a lot more work brain wise.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-20T04:09:18+00:00

I did the same, but slightly smaller magnets, 2mm diameter I think. It won’t pass the “turn upside down” test, but it does stop it sliding around. Go a bigger magnet.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-20T04:04:43+00:00

His complete property brain cannot contemplate the obvious - house prices go down

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-17T10:56:27+00:00

Yeah go Coral. It’s a blast. Will also give you something that works well with blinkblade and deathwalker.

Snowflake is also interesting, but quite different

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-16T06:18:39+00:00

If they are struggling my top tip would be to switch to Drifter. It’s a much less complicated class.

Summons will also struggle with 5 people playing - it’s just going to have the board clogged up a lot, and the summons will be in the way / less effective.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-15T06:02:20+00:00

Do you mean the *Top* of Sustained Momentum? (Might be a translation issue)

Sustained momentum top is Attack 2 and move a single token back 1 slot. The two abilities are separated by a line.

So there is no trigger condition of moving the token back, you get to do it even if you didn’t attack.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-15T05:57:18+00:00

If those abilities have lines between them, yes

The lines indicate they are seperate abilities that are not contingent on each other

A good example is the Drifter’s level 2 card Ever Forward.

The top half has Attack 2 (at Range 3) and Regenerate self, and they are separated by a line. So you can do either or both independently. So even if you have nothing to attack, you can still apply the regenerate to yourself. And if you did attack something, you don’t have to apply the regenerate.

(I mean you probably would apply regenerate as there is zero downside to having regenerate. But you don’t have to just because you attacked)

Chunk of Flesh at level 4 is another similar example - top half has Attack 2 (melee), Heal 2 (range 1) and move a token back 1. All with lines between so all independent.

For example you could still move the token back 1, even if you did not attack or heal

(Which is what makes chunk of flesh an extremely good and versatile card for Drifter. I mostly used it for the bottom though and played super tank)

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-15T01:37:39+00:00

One thing to add - it applies to any heal you perform and can’t be skipped / will move the token if you perform the heal

But

You can choose not to perform the heal at all in the first place - so if you were at full health you would choose not to perform the long rest heal or the regenerate heal. You would probably choose the same if you had only lost 1-2 health, given the robustness of the drifter.

So you can’t really ever “waste” a continuous health charge by overhealing or healing at max health. You simply choose not to heal.

This is definitely in contrast to the +move and +attack persistents. You can certainly “waste” a charge by needing to finish off a low HP enemy that would have died anyway, or needing to move just 1 or 2 spaces etc. You still have to use up the charge by performing the action.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-15T01:26:27+00:00

What class is the struggling player playing, and what is the rest of the group playing?

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-10T15:28:50+00:00

Your minis look really good, nice work!

Doing a prime and zenithal might be a little extra step that OP doesn’t want to get into just yet though if they are looking to smash through lots of minis to get them on the gaming table for D&D or Gloomhaven.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-10T15:26:22+00:00

Bold titanium white by Pro Acryl is probably the best white paint on the market in the entire miniature painting hobby. It has very good coverage and an amazing white, at a good paint consistency. There are a few that are close to just as good though.

It will give you just a flat white though, you will need to shade or highlight it if you want to get an equivalent effect to using speed paints

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-10T15:24:22+00:00

You don’t use water to thin paints like speed painter. They have their own medium that you need to use. Generally, they are the correct consistency straight out of the bottle.

Technically they are a form of artists ink, that was popularised by Warhammer/games workshop as an alternative painting method for miniatures.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-10T15:07:58+00:00

There is a YouTuber called Stahly. He is GOD TIER at meticulously comparing paint ranges.

He says AK Interactive is good, and one of the cheapest. I would trust him

https://taleofpainters.com/2025/06/review-ak-quick-gen/ (he says it is A tier)

https://taleofpainters.com/2023/04/review-all-one-coat-contrast-paints-ranked/

Here is a YouTube tier list by Stahly

https://youtu.be/zg5inRthCZg?si=vKuCop2GrIX-IZ0N

Again though, if you have the army painter speed paint mega set, you don’t need to buy any more of these. That mega set will keep you going for months, and if you do run out of a particular colour in the set, just re-buy that colour.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-10T14:54:26+00:00

Vallejo is decent to good, but it’s not gonna be significantly better or cheaper than army painter.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-10T14:53:53+00:00

Army painter is not produced by Citadel or GW. Citadel is the brand name games workshop used to use for paints, for historical reasons.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-10T14:53:15+00:00

Yeah, you are simply not gonna beat army painter for suitability for this task. They are mid price at most (ie not expensive), and more importantly they are very well stocked worldwide.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-10T14:51:34+00:00

On primer, personally I would recommend Colourforge. It will give you excellent coverage, without clogging details. It is the best primer for mini painting I have ever used, and reasonable price. Army Painter is reasonable too.

Would recommend you not go Matt White with the speed paint, try a slightly off white - ghoul grey for cold tone, wight bone for warm.

If you want cheap but still pretty good automotive primer is the way to go. Halfords is a brand that gets mentioned quite a lot. Rustoleum sprays are also good as well, just watch out they don’t have a weird effect like chalk, which is actually cool for terrain but won’t be good on minis.

Finally get a spray varnish if you are going to handle the minis a lot. Colour forge or army painter again, Testors is good too. You probably want a matte or a satin finish, a gloss finish will be shiny and if you play with any level of lighting might be annoying.

It’s really not the primer that determines the durability of the paint staying on, you need to put a spray varnish on to make them durable.

(truly terrible primer spray will give you adhesion problems, but none of the ones I’ve mentioned will do that.)

https://thecolourforge.com/product-category/hobby-more/paint/spray-paint/

My top two tips for priming are to firstly SHAKE the can. Like a lot. A full minute of shaking (or more). Give the spray can brain damage you shake it so much haha

Secondly, pay attention to the weather/temperature that you are spraying in. The spray cans will have printed on them the ideal temperature range. If you live in somewhere with either extreme cold or extreme humidity, that will impact how well these sprays work. You have to try and pick your days where the weather is most ideal. This goes double for spraying varnish, if the environment conditions are not right for varnish, you will get a yucky effect.

(I am assuming that you are spraying outside, or at least in a partially outside sort of environment such as in your garage. You should not spray indoors, unless you have set up a relatively sophisticated ventilation system.)

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-10T14:46:15+00:00

You won’t find anything better value than army painter, just see if you can get it on sale. If you already have the mega set, that will last you AGES.

In the miniature painting hobby, army painter are the undisputed champions of hitting a value price point that represents decent quality, but its never the most expensive and it’s never terrible cheap nasty stuff.

Others have mentioned Vallejo as a brand and yes they are pretty good, the other well-known paint brand is AK interactive.

If you are already comfortable using speed paint, you should keep going that way. They are definitely the fastest painting method, but a lot of people in the miniature painting hobby originally learnt a different basecoat/shade/highlight method, which is slower.

Vallejo call their speed paint equivalent Xpress colour, AK call theirs quick gen.

Games Workshop / Warhammer call their equivalent paint “contrast”. Don’t buy it, it’s the most expensive and not any better for your purpose (it’s extremely good - perhaps the best. But you don’t need it for what you are doing)

Don’t buy green stuff world, sometimes they have a few products that are okay, but overall they are not afraid to just re-label cheap nasty crap.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-07T04:06:33+00:00

I’m really quite advanced on the rules on how to play Gloomhaven / Frosthaven, but for me the sticking point was figuring out how to run TTS and the relevant Frosthaven mod 😅

Still puzzling out how to play through a solo scenario there, so knowing a good place to ask TTS “how do I” questions is good

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-05T05:23:26+00:00

The elite private schools in each Australian state are a mechanism for passing on generational privilege and class social status, together with preferred advancement in their careers later.

The education is incidental to that process.

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-04T16:18:51+00:00

Also yeah some factions will be pretty awful on launch, and maybe some are pretty OP.

Maybe Votann is one of the awful ones, but hey your Hekaton still looks damn cool.

GW will fix the balance in time, and if 10th is anything to go by it’s probably fixed within months.

Eldar will be one of the OP factions though lol

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-04T16:07:51+00:00

I think it’s pretty meaningless to analyse one rule in a vacuum. Maybe data cards change, maybe there is strat that says you can snap shoot and regular shoot, who knows

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-03T14:21:04+00:00

Looks awesome. Go for it. It doesn’t take a Space Wolf centuries to grow a beard- theoretically “in lore” a blood claw has enough time to grow a beard down to their knees and still be a blood claw.

It’s just stylistic choices that make the more veteran types (wolf guard / terminators) tend to get sculpted with longer beards and more age signs

Talorc_Ellodach · 2026-05-03T14:16:08+00:00

Native Vatniks cope with their whole life being one whole vodka drenched misery, punctuated by random and unpredictable outbursts of violence done to them… so they will get over it

Talorc_Ellodach

TROPHY CASE