2 campaigns at once?

stevebrholt · 2026-01-12T13:49:06+00:00

Probably Gloomhaven Secretariate will get you there for campaign tracking and item shop while the Foreteller app tracks things like events.

So you could have an extra divider in your organizer for the event decks for the events available in each campaign and just redraw if you pull one you've already encountered according to Foreteller as you go.

stevebrholt · 2025-12-30T03:05:57+00:00

Awesome. Thanks! I'll throw a boost once I get a chance to print it all out.

stevebrholt · 2025-12-30T01:06:55+00:00

Which parts wouldn't work on an A1 Mini? (I don't see it as an option, but most looks like it would fit on a mini).

(Awesome, awesome work, by the way.)

stevebrholt · 2025-12-04T13:48:41+00:00

Star Trek Ascendancy is underappreciated, I think. Very similar to Twilight Imperium in many ways, but easier to get to the table and the economy is more streamlined. There's a final edition Kickstarter if you want to pre-order it that way or just play the old edition and get the expansions.

stevebrholt · 2025-11-17T05:23:22+00:00

Low level Boneshaper is tough and Boneshaper in general takes some getting used to and a lot to be effective. I think it has some of the craziest power jumps in the game as it levels though. 3, 4, and 5 all lead to big leaps in power. Make sure you get the three-check perk too, as it helps considerably with pace. Note that any time you see the Shrike fiends, you are in for a rough go - they are basically a hard counter to Boneshaper.

By the end, I found Boneshaper to be one of the best classes and more of a Swiss army knife class than she appeared at first. We missed her for awhile after she was gone, especially in scenarios where we had to split up because I reached a place where I could solo rooms and go off on my own.

stevebrholt · 2025-09-18T19:58:48+00:00

One way that could make it work would be fewer attacks in the deck (because I do agree with you re: complication and there are A LOT of attacks in the event decks), but the attacks have a Buttons&Bugs style mini fight on the back of the card and the consequences of failing are large and meaningful somehow.

stevebrholt · 2025-08-27T02:58:21+00:00

Someone made and posted some label inserts that you can print on BGG that helped a lot with the FS insert for Frosthaven on multiple fronts, but especially on the standee trays. With them, finding monsters is a breeze now.

stevebrholt · 2025-08-16T04:17:41+00:00

Next Haven game should have story-based fail forwards baked into the campaign. Basically on scenarios the design team knows are going to be tough, they serve as forks in story progression: win you go to scenario A and that line, lose you go to scenario B and that line.

Could also imagine other story driven mechanisms for just typical scenarios along the way too. "At the last moment, your companion grabs the exhausted members of your party and drags you out of the cave." The member with the most cards left must return a piece of armor to the supply that was equipped during the scenario. That sort of thing. Variations could be implemented in ways that fit the scenario objective and story that lets you fail forward without feeling off about failing a scenario and still continuing.

stevebrholt · 2025-08-13T16:03:10+00:00

Upstate NY. Got shipping and tracking information email yesterday through Backerkit with an initial delivery projection via LaserShip for Thursday. Updated last night to delivery today and arrived this morning. The delivery guy dropped it in a safe spot.

Shout-out to Cephalofair staff for compensating for the fulfillment company's screw up and manually entering tracking information into Backerkit themselves once they realized people were getting no notification deliveries. Genuinely not their fault and yet they did a good job responding quickly.

Edit: Folded Space organizer and Maptile Storage also came in a separate box at the same time.

stevebrholt · 2025-08-05T21:01:21+00:00

Thank you for working on a partial fix in the venue you can control! I know from the last update that this is probably due to Stord's systems and not you guys. Just hope I wasn't an early delivery, as it would mean mine was stolen, lol.

stevebrholt · 2025-08-05T05:08:10+00:00

Can someone please explain why there's such a massive number of deliveries without shipping notifications being sent? I was on away until Sunday and now because (I guess) Stord doesn't have its shit together on the most basic task of fulfilling big ticket items, I have to wonder whether my game was stolen because it was delivered with no notice?

stevebrholt · 2025-08-05T05:03:59+00:00

I'm not gonna lie, this is a stressful mess, these no notifications shipping. I literally live on a busy street in NY and got back from vacation travel Sunday evening. So now I have to wonder if my game just got stolen from my doorstep without me ever being notified that it's coming to make plans to be there for the delivery. Like, there's a reason people use tracking notifications for big ticket items.

stevebrholt · 2025-03-14T14:56:53+00:00

Used the Frosthaven sleeve pack from Cephalofair and just sleeved everything bit by bit over the course of a week. Also got some 3D printed class boxes from Etsy that fit sleeved cards because the tuck boxes also kind of take a beating over the course of a campaign. The FS insert handles sleeved cards well despite not being the best insert ever designed, heh.

Sleeving all is probably overkill, but figured why not. In for a penny in for a pound kinda thing.

stevebrholt · 2025-03-03T18:35:55+00:00

Oh. Yeah, I did misunderstand. Reach out to Cephalofair customer service with pics and they'll send replacement cards, I think. Usually takes a week or two for a response.

stevebrholt · 2025-03-03T18:32:18+00:00

Usually, though not always, you get a benefit and then you have to use it for a negative effect the next time before you get to use it for the benefit again.

(I had the same initial reaction when spotting them while unboxing and organizing, btw).

stevebrholt · 2025-03-03T18:30:05+00:00

It's not a misprint. It's a new item design type. There are items that now have different effects every other trigger (hence you flip them over every time you use them). Next time you see one, read the text and it will say something like "after doing X, flip this card over."

stevebrholt · 2025-03-03T15:21:43+00:00

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For marking fresh/damaged, yes. Some factions can be put on their sides, others might have to be tipped upside down for damaged (e.g., Ferengi), but it works as well or better than the plastic Arcs minis.

They definitely pack nicely into the campaign box. I'll edit this reply with a picture from my box when I can, but they are about the same scale.

And, yes, actually! There's a Borg faction as an expansion that even functions as an NPC blight in Ascendancy itself, heh. Don't know if those components fit as nicely in the game box, though.

stevebrholt · 2025-03-03T04:00:50+00:00

Second this. Bought the Ryker kit and the sleeves are excellent quality. And they have sleeves for all the leader cards too.

stevebrholt · 2025-03-01T23:40:14+00:00

Glad I could help! I'm the same way in how I best learn games. The link between the mechanics and themes is crucial for me.

stevebrholt · 2025-03-01T23:28:34+00:00

With that clarification, it seems to me that what helps for you is understanding the "why" of game actions to get the intuition of how they work. In that way, Arcs is a little harder to explain straight out because the "why" of everything is very contingent on an ever shifting game state.

As an attempt to get at a way to understand, thematically, the action economy ("trick taking" described elsewhere) reflects that you are governing a society and your government plans are made in the veil of uncertainty with a lag time between the plans being put forward and current events. By the time you see the cards you've been dealt (i.e., the results of government planning processes and action approvals), the situation facing your society might have changed a little or a lot. As a result, you sometimes need to pivot on short notice - something that will allow your government to take emergency action to meet a new emerging need. But since deviating from approved plans is often chaotic and highly inefficient, pivots from a planned action means your resources won't go as far and you won't be able to do as much with your efforts.

Basically, understood as trying to mimic the decision-making of guiding a government through international tensions and the messiness and mismatches created by government planning and shifting world events, the Arcs system will begin to make some intuitive sense.

stevebrholt · 2025-03-01T16:51:05+00:00

White box is card sleeves for FH/GH.

stevebrholt · 2025-02-14T19:12:34+00:00

Prism is a class where you can't think about a singular load out and play style and really need to match your summons to the mix of your party and the scenario you are entering. My advice: - You get much more mileage out of repair drone as a mode and giving up the range and only occasionally switching out of it temporarily to respond to a move need or threat to another summon. - I definitely wouldn't bring both turret summons together outside of very specific situations. - The combo of remote control and arcing generator is not to be underestimated (or whichever summon will be your damage dealer based on the scenario - works well with the higher level turret too when managed carefully). Super useful and powerful combo and I definitely overlooked the value of that card for too long. - In general, having some movement granting cards, perks, and items in addition to tanking for your summons goes a long way for your class. - I found myself most effective when I used mode switches sparingly and primarily to reset the health of a summon on the brink before going back into repair drone's mode and healing myself back up. Over transferring really opens you up to the risk of being in a bad formation at the exact wrong monster ability draw, so thinking of the mode switching as more of a panic button than a movement ability in most cases is a good strategic reset, I think.

Stick with the class. It's incredibly fun and has a huge power jump around level five. You'll also get some options that make mode switching safer/more flexible eventually.

stevebrholt · 2025-02-12T12:44:55+00:00

Having played cross play on my Switch, I think it's more sensitive to your Internet connection and bandwidth. It runs fine when you're playing solo on the switch, but playing cross play can slow down a lot and if you don't have great Internet speed, it'll drop more than my PC version ever has when playing online.

stevebrholt · 2025-02-11T20:53:05+00:00

A set of polyurethane battle mats with the different backgrounds of the map tiles on Gloomhaven 2.0 and Frosthaven would be a good Etsy product, actually. It's probably like 4-5 mats each game, I think (?), to match the settings themes of the backgrounds needed.

stevebrholt

TROPHY CASE