Fridays IN SPACE!

It's been a minute since I've talked about our Friday night game sessions and they all seem to be taking place in space at the moment! The early night staple is Helldivers 2 continues to be fun and crazy with all the updates in both terms of gear and story. The Illuminates are back on the map now and there's a black hole eating planets as it slowly makes its way to Super Earth. Lol.

We've also recently finished Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr that plays a little bit like Diablo, just in the Warhammer 40k universe with DL going full sword marine, Jim running a psyker, and myself the stock standard Space Marine specializing in bolt guns. It's quite funny that the warp gets angry if Jim uses too much power though, as it starts sending tornadoes and demons after him! Lol. The story is not bad, and there are loads of enemy types "add on" mechanics and game modes that could potentially keep you playing this for a long time after finishing the campaign but alas the game play is very repetitive and dull.

Now we've just started Space Marine 2 which is set in the same play space but this one has higher graphic demands with the over the shoulder camera while fighting swarms of tyranids. We definitely need to be more on our toes here for timed button presses mid combat and so far it's been really great - apart from that I can't see the cut scenes since it doesn't like my graphics card and the exorbitantly long loadings times. Not that it matters, the missions play well enough and give enough info as to what's going on. So far it's a very entertaining game.

The Pancake Adventure

A quick Forged in the Dark adventure I ran for Jim's family when we last visited. Due to time constraints and basically making the mission up on the fly I simplified everything and let each player start with two skills, and so our party consisted of Jim the gymnastic hacker, Trhia the driver hacker, Keira the karate astrologer and doctor salesperson Rose. Oh, and because of Keira's age, I tried not to make the story too grim dark. :P

While walking out in the neighborhood to get an ice cream, the team comes across a little girl asking for help in finding her missing cat "Pancake". She's next to a sign board with many other bits of paper of others missing their pets too. As the girl remembers some goons taking the cat into a black Daihatsu Thor, Jim tries to hack the police database with his mobile phone to track it down and fails so powerfully that his phone explodes!

Shaking her head with a "tsk, tsk" sound, Trhi does the same and succeeds finding there are only 2 of the said vehicle in town and the very first address they visit they spot it behind a massive gate with goons unloading animal cages before a three story house. The gate guard refuses them entry and Keira uses her karate to flying kick him into the gate, knocking the whole thing down!

Jim (acrobatically), Trhi (hacking the security cameras) and Keira sneak into the bushes beyond while more guards rush the gate where Rose uses both her doctor and salesperson ability to distract them and send a few of them with the injured man to the hospital. Keira is spotted, but manages to continue to distract her guard patrol with knowledge of astrology and brown dwarves (these guards are really dumb).

Using acrobatics, Jim climbs up to an open window and encounters a man wearing multiple black belts whom he tries to knock out but fails, getting into a scuffle. Trhia heads down an open exterior storm basement door and hacks her way past a digital lock to find herself in an underground laboratory and encounters a monstrous, howl-meowling dog-cat which starts beating her up.

Hearing the commotion Keira decides its time to put on her own black belt and beat up the guards to rush to Trhi's aid, but Rose gets there first and manages to pull her aside for some minor heals. Upstairs Jim is losing to belt man until he gets a fireplace poker and shoves it through belt man's skull, from underneath the jaw up. Belt man's head explodes because he was a robot!

After finding a deceased girl in an upstairs observatory with notes about revivication using animal blood, Jim takes the small elevator down to the basement and is joined mid way by an old looking scientist who is late in noticing Jim isn't one of the guards. Dr. Samurai X pulls out his cane sword and revolver and tussles with Jim in the elevator (and Jim hilariously scrambles around the tiny space like a squirrel).

Downstairs Keira's kung fu doesn't do much to the dog-cat as the creature blasts her away with a laser blast from its mouth (why not). This buys enough time for Rose and Trhia to find some tranquilizers which Trhi shoots into the monster, putting it to sleep. They lock it up and free the other surviving animals including Pancake just as Jim arrives, having knocked out the elderly doctor in the elevator.

Loading the animals into a car, Trhi drives out of there expertly and they return all the pets and finally get to that ice cream shop they were trying to go to in the first place!

The end. That was a fun and silly 1.5 hour session. :)

Wonka and The Little Mermaid

Movies with singing!

Wonka

A young Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) arrives in a city with the hopes of fulfilling his chocolate making dreams but finds difficulty breaking in especially due to his lack of money and his zero sense in being street wise. At the same time he is a freaking magician who can seemingly conjure whatever he requires (except money it seems). Funny in a cute way and while the plot has no surprises I was surprised with the decent musical numbers. After seeing Timothée so dour and possibly bored in Dune: Part 2 it was great to see him in a completely opposite role. This kid friendly movie won't be for everyone but I certainly enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

The Little Mermaid (2023)

The woke live action version of the Disney classic still keeps most of the same songs and plot with Halle Bailey starring as Ariel, a mermaid who longs to be a human and can only do so by being someone's bitch using her strong independence skills. There's one shot where she crawls on a rock like a crab (which has ruined all mermaids for us honestly) and screams out despite trying to be hidden which is really off putting, and another where the human prince who is forbidden to get on a ship suddenly teleports onto one mid-song which is jarring. Is it better or worse than the animated one? Can't say as I haven't seen the cartoon one in years. All I know is I don't want to watch this one again with its weak acting and singing. If you need a Little Mermaid hit with better music quality and a much shorter run time have a listen to the talented Voiceplay instead (thanks Jim).

Gloomhaven: Voice of the Mountain

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

After wiping out a Gloom cult gathering (complete with zombies and demons) at their ritual chamber with only DL getting KOed, we visit the Shrine of Strength to try get stronger by standing on pressure plates while being attacked by monsters... an interesting training method for sure! I'm the one that drops in that mission while Juris gets through all the doors to get the final chest. We then go up a mountain to investigate rumors of a dragon and instead get ambushed by Inox and elementals which knock Juris out, but are in turn wiped out by the three brothers. Jim's pretty good with his heals, disintegrating ray and spider bots!

While up there we hear a strange, beckoning voice and follow it into a cave system crawling with enemies, but as the mission this time is simply to open all the doors I use my rat-ninja skills to sneak through them all while the others basically hold the first room. Once all the doors are open the voice booms and disintegrates the remaining enemies, then asks us to free it. Suuuure, before doing that we return to the city to rest up and try learn more about it. Hail suggests the knowledge we seek is in the Shrine of the Depths, so we go there next and retrieve a chest from giant crab monsters and laser shooting eye stalk tentacles. At this point we're all pretty tough now, each having maxed out  at level 9 through the course of these adventures.

GTFO: ALT R2C2 - ???

Yep, this mission is actually named ??? and unlike other times where I say "we haven't been playing GTFO" this time we certainly have been but this level is really up there in terms of BS with the only good news being there aren't any scouts. The job is to recover 7 IDs (out of 9ish that randomly spawn) and then get back out but the main problem is that there is an endless alarm which means you'll have groups of 4 striker/shooters coming at you every 45 seconds. Hope you are good in melee! Also I only discovered now that the strikers also aim for your head so with good timing you can just crouch to evade their tongues (much like shooter blasts). Our loadout was as follows:

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear (team 1)
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Mines/Hammer (team 1)
Jim: Double Tap DMR/Combat Shotgun/Auto Sentry/Hammer (team 2 - terminal duty)
[Bot]: DMR/Hel Gun/Biotracker/Hammer (team 2)

Expect to run this a few times to get used to where cabinets, turbines and cells randomly spawn. Terminals and the disinfection station are in fixed/stagnant positions. Artifacts that improve hack lock skill are handy, as well as a notebook/pen and paper for whoever is doing the terminal (for us it was Jim). Feel free to sprint as there are no sleepers until the last parts anyway just to really screw you over. Here is what worked for us in the end.

From the drop rush to open the big door straight ahead (team 1) and the one to the right (team 2), the idea being to save them for an upcoming hold. If the scum spawn out with you then its good! Fight first and then get the doors open. Team 1 should then go open the door to the left (if its still there) while team 2 who opened the right door sweeps into the next room, following the right wall of the next room to open the next door and loop back out and both teams return to the starting drop room. There's a terminal here on the right side if you are facing away from the hole, and one of you needs to find where the easiest 7 IDs are from here while everyone else defends. You don't need to go into every room!

Once that's done sweep into the next room and make sure you find the tools for c-foamer and ammo for everyone. Open the non-alarm team scan door at the back and there's another terminal just overlooking the stairs (just turn left as you go up). Team 2 stays at this terminal to ping a cell, fog turbine and resources for team 1 to get (split up) opening the two doors dead ahead and to the right. Team 2 can help loot once the cell and turbine are located and bring everything back down to that big dark room with a security door down some stairs in the fog. The generator for the cell can be found by following the stairs down from first scan door you opened and then following the left wall.

Next part is important: wait for the wave of four and your cfoamer needs to get to the middle door (the one looking at the starting drop room) to shut and ice it while the enemies are killed. Then Jim usually closes the door near the fog alarm and DL closes the back door then everyone has to get to the fog alarm door (ideally someone holding the turbine) and get the thing going. If you are lucky the wave will come from the starting drop room which means the cfoamer has just enough time to sprint up the stairs to continue to hold it while your allies do circles and kill flankers. DL usually comes along to put a mine facing the door too at this point. Unlock the door and survive until its back down to the four chasers.

When ready get the fog turbine and you're going to need to march through the fog. Speed is important but as the turbine guy can't run you do have time to unlock some boxes if there are any en route. Follow the right wall and go through the big door and the next big door just beyond that. Feel free to close these behind you but just be careful because sometimes the [Bot] loses pathing here like an idiot which will cost you the run. After the 2nd door you want to follow the left wall to stay up on a metal walkway and someone not carrying the turbine should eat some infection to run ahead and hack lock the small door just around the corner.

Get everyone in there, kill the 4 chasers if need be, then seal the small door, foam the big door to the a left and get started with the security scan on the right. This is a quick scan but you can also quickly die here if you aren't on your game (or the bot decides to take a scenic path when you start it). As soon as the door is unlocked open it and go up the stairs out of the fog (drop the turbine). Fight everything else up here and find more stairs up to locate a disinfection station to cleanse everyone.

Immediately beside you is a blood door. Are there IDs that you need in there? If yes that makes it simple as you can open it now, but for our winning run the answer was no, so we pushed ahead to the small door in the corner which opens into a big chamber with another blood door down some stairs. We did need this one, but it needs power so we just had to go across to the no team scan / no alarm door at the opposite end which leads to the zone with a cell and a fair amount of resources. NOTE: This zone and the zones beyond all blood doors has sleepers. Giant sleepers too. You don't have time to be sneaky though so just shoot em.

With the cell in hand return to the corner between the door you used to enter here and the blood door with stairs down which is where you'll find the generator. DL then setup mines for the downstairs blood door and opened it with the usual hybrid pair and small guys coming out (+ any sleepers that heard the blast). Can't really help much with this next bit but "go in and find the IDs". Yep. They are always in lockers or boxes so stick together, communicate and you'll be ok but don't waste time.

After our first batch of ID's are collected we need to go back through the fog zone, so get the turbine and again follow the right wall which will lead to a terminal here. Ping the ID's while your team protects you, then pick up said IDs and make your way out.  For us we now had to go to the final/first blood door which needs a key (you'd have picked this up while searching for the other IDs) so again, setup (careful of mine + 4 spawners) deal with the hybrid pair + regular monsters + sleepers that wake up and get in there. Get however many IDs you still need (for us it was 1) and run back to the extract as five giant strikers spawn in to give chase. DL got cut off and did not make it, but I think he delayed them for a long period. That said the extraction scan is really slow too, which means we still needed to win against the big boys (+ the endless spawners). Somehow, we did and managed to GTFO!

GTFO: ALT R2C1 - Triangulation

Been awhile since our last expedition here as GTFO has fallen off our regular gaming schedule, but  after an early fail this one turned out to not be so bad! A note on our loadout - Biotracker essential, Cfoam and mines also handy but sniper sentry next to useless! Jim's choice of bringing a Combat Shotty also paid off big time towards the end!

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Mines/Hammer
Jim: Double Tap DMR/Combat Shotgun/Sniper Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: DMR/Hel Gun/Biotracker/Hammer

Today we need to reach three terminals and UPLINK_VERIFY 3 codes into each of them one at a time. Of course alarms will sound while doing these and the things that come for you are invisible strikers! They are probably the least of your worries though.

From the drop clear as you see fit but before heading through the Rank V-M alarm to the North, you might as well do whichever side door you need to for your first terminal, and if you so choose do the other side for gear as well which we did(no alarm on either). Note: there are scouts aplenty here but usually only one per room. Unless they are behind a security door you should probably go kill them, keeping in mind high ground lets you strike their noggins easier plus it keeps you out of the fog in the later part of the mission.

Your first terminal will most likely only have one door leading to it, meaning a simple cfoam duty + single mine will most likely see you through it. The Rank V-M alarm has three doors leading to it, and in both our attempts the bad guys never came from the Southwest doors (note we shut everything and usually our Southeast doors were broken). You then get into a big fog area where killing the central scout is top priority. Afterwards, kill the scouts in BOTH wings. This is because the next terminal is here, and strikers spawn from the opposing wing. The defense involves three doors but the enemies never came from the large bottom floor one.

You'll find fog turbines here so bring at least one with you after you clear the next door to the North which is a class III alarm. You'll be done with circles by the time the invisible strikers get to you, just make sure Biotracker man is ready to scan. Beyond this is the worst part. Thick fog, wall cancers and giants waiting in the mist. When we goofed it was Jim's combat shotty that smacked those big guys down. The final terminal is back here with a single door to defend which is again, easy. After you're done use the corner stairs to funnel the invisible strikers and clear out any that remain before making your way back to the extraction spot.

Invisible strikers will keep coming at you endlessly now (but there are gaps so not very endlessly) so just calmly fight your way to the drop point and hold. It's a pretty long hold so expect to fight and if you survive, good job! You can GTFO! :)

Gloomhaven: Unlocking the Sun

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

After that unfair mission failure, I voted to leave the city and let it rot to the poison while we returned to Vermling Bear island and this time wiped the floor with the opponents resulting in a cascade of gold for the party! Juris then suggested we try another crypt mission that was on our list for awhile which also turned out to be a walk in the park as it was a "reach the treasure room and kill all revealed enemies" one, so we were just cautious of opening extra doors. It helps both Jim and I have extra skeletons we can summon now.

Jim then was game to retry the Wishing Well, and while we did much better here I (the rat) still had to run the doll through to the well at the end as DL was a turn away from collapsing after a bad door open (that's really a thing in this game since all the revealed enemies get a turn after you open a door). That said, while I was dodging the spirits in the last room my compatriots actually cleared out ALL the other enemies, including those laser gun golems which was pretty cathartic! Lastly we visited a drake nest and slew 16 of the things for Hail (plus some flame demons that Jim disintegrated) putting all of us on level 7 now (though I think Juris might be level 8).

As an extra reward a Sunkeeper (paladin/cleric type) is now sitting on reserve for our crew since our good deeds haven't gone unnoticed!

Gloomhaven: Treasure and the Trials of the Terrible Turd Tunnels

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

With the path now clear to find the poison in the lower levels Juris makes the call to... sail away from Gloomhaven and search for treasure! Haha, well adventuring needs funds you know? As a bonus there are also no "road encounters" for ocean centered missions! Thus we take a ship to some nearby islands to the East, first landing on a small vermling infested one which immediately proves too scary as they have pet bears so we run and sail a little further south where a treasure map DL purchased leads us to a reefed vessel which is now home to ugly crab things and lumbering frost demons.

Said crabs and demons are actually easy foes to handle, to the point where I'm almost a room ahead of the others and opening doors to let more monsters get involved with the fray. Of course, I almost overextend TOO much and finish the adventure exactly just before I exhaust out but not before we enact Jim's plan of leaving the last enemy alive to loot as much as we could which lets us leave with a fair bit of coin. Yep, any gold or treasure you don't pick up mid-combat / before the mission is over is just abandoned! It's one of the odd systems in Gloomhaven I'm not too happy with since obviously you should be able to loot after clearing out a spot but whatever. We return to the city richer and wonder why everyone is getting even more sick. Oh right! The poison...

We paddle through the muck into the ancient cistern and find while Juris slays many night demons in the depths, DL has terrible luck with his attacks. The source of the poison, four contaminated water pipes, each spawn an extra imp per round and DL is the first to fall while I scurry and shut off the rear two valves before following suit. Juris shuts another down before he too drops leaving Jim to cleanse the final one - which he does! But then... all the imps get their turn and knock him back forcing us to retreat. Despite completing the objective, I guess the win condition is only checked at the end of a round. Mission fail!

Gloomhaven: The Deep Sh*t Ruins

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

Gloomhaven is pretty up there for the award of city with the most secure sewers, as while continuing to investigate for the source of the poison our team triggers some sort of alarm that not only awakens some nearby undead but also activates laser gun stone golems and... cannons!? Who the heck puts cannons in a sewer system!?

It takes us a total of three attempts to achieve the winning condition of occupying all pressure plates simultaneously to turn off the alarm - located in two separate chambers! On the first go, DL and I went left while Juris and Jim went right but Jim was too slow to reach his plate before people ran out of cards. Attempt two Juris and I went right instead but the cannons pushed Juris off his plate then immobilized him at the worst time - losing us the game.

Third go, we basically just killed everything in the most ridiculous manner possible. This included me (a small vermling) pushing a gigantic cannon into a bear trap to destroy it, and for Jim's battlebot spider to somehow make a stone golem bleed to death!? Egads! Now that this section is clear maybe we can actually get back to finding the source of the poison?

Decluttering Day 14:  Old metal gate pieces. Heavy.

Gloomhaven: Jekserah's Corruption

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

After we learn that donating to the temple not only grants us temporary blessings but also increases Gloomhaven's prosperity it has become a common practice for each of us to drop 10 coins in there (the maximum after each mission) and are informed by the clergy about a wise seer in the mountains who can divine the locations of anyone or anything so we pay him a visit, only for him to test us against his guardian golems, spirits, drakes and bears!

Luckily Juris' new insta-kill (non-elite) is on hand to deal with the harder hitters while I backstab majority of the ranged foes by getting into their room and hiding in there while the rest clog up the singular bottleneck doorway. Victorious, we ask the seer the location of Jekserah and pay her a visit in the mausoleum she's hiding in. She's definitely leveled up her necromancy as almost every single round she summons new zombies but carefully thrown daggers from Juris ends her and her minions for good!

The local guard congratulate us on this feat by means of offering more work. Mentioning dragon sign to the North and a horrible corruption from below the city. We opt to try the sewers first as there are no "travel encounters" for such a short trip. Inside are snakes, vermlings and self-replicating (but also suicidal, because replicating hurts themselves) oozes. DL gets hammered in the second room here but it is Juris who goes down first. Not to worry though as Jim and his spiderbot make it through unscathed while testing out his new disintegration beam. :O

Almost every time you open a door there's an army waiting on the other side...

Alas, in the end these just turned out to be regular sewer denizens as the source of the corruption seems to be coming from further below.

Gloomhaven: Hail to the Void

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

To seal the void gate we discovered last time, we meet with the ghost-like aesther magician Hail who resides in an abandoned tavern in the city. The price to secure their aid is a frost orb high in the mountains guarded by hungry wolves, angry spirits, and very chill frost demons but the worst part of that mission is the long winding path that tires out Juris and Jim soon after opening the final door. I too, would have been exhausted but my final card combo defeated the last enemy and winning the mission!

Apparently sealing the portal is a multi-mission mini campaign though, as next Hail needs a magic censer located in a nearby tomb which, to no ones surprise, has Gloom cultists doing their thing in. The only difference here is that Hail is with us, is not particularly sturdy, and has only one move of taking two steps forward, UNLESS AN ENEMY IS IN A DOORWAY. Which is like, every single doorway? Sigh. Ambush spawns from the rear mean Jim and DL have to hang back to guard the fool while Juris and I push forward. Jim's new spiderbot is pretty helpful in doing that.

Finally with the censer in hand it is time to close the rift (in a 3rd separate mission) where we simply have to guard Hail for 10 rounds in a single, medium sized room. DL makes good use of the Cragheart's stone summoning to wall off some of the spawning demons but those flying AOE tossing Sun demons are really dangerous! Jim keeps Hail alive through healing while the rest of us basically buy time with stuns, mind control and murder until eventually the aesther mage seals the portal and insta-killing the remaining demons with it! With this victory Gloomhaven's prosperity has increased to the next tier which offers new gear in the shops.

GTFO: ALT R2B4 - Septic

The final B level for ALT rundown 2 really brings in the infection rate with many areas of wall cancers and farty fog so its fitting the mission is to find a SPECIFIC fog turbine and bring it to the forward extraction point. Again we brought our scouting load out:

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Mines/Hammer
Jim: Rifle/Machine Gun/Sniper Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: DMR/Heavy AR/Biotracker/Hammer

It's mostly a one way level as the door to the Northern alarm needs an access key so you'll first need to head West to a non-alarm door while clearing the little sleepers in the starting zone. Beyond this begins the wall cancers with giants. Yuck. The key to that previous door is in here somewhere though and the fog turbine deeper in. There are also alarm doors to the North and South, be sure to check which way you need to  go and keep your lights on those wall things.

Ours was to the Class V door to the North which was an easy to hold ice one since there's only one entry. Beyond is a most horrible room of wall cancers and little scum. We just opted to make noise, kill them all, and carefully proceed here to light up the things to make them temporarily "sleep" and found TWO fog turbines. We foolishly just grabbed the first one, and only at the end did we realize it was specifically the second one we needed for... reasons, so if you want to save a trek back here - pick up the correct one now!

With the objective in hand back track to the first door and unlock the Northern class IV alarm. Ice and mine what you can but expect scum to get through. There's a downstairs poison fog area where some scans will fall into, so Jim with the turbine and guarded by the bot handled those while DL and I ran interference.

The next zone is FULL of fog, so make good use of that turbine but hold onto any little fog repellers you come across. We just kept intentionally making noise here and fighting at open doors if we found giants, then at the very North is a class V alarm door IN THE FOG. After closing and mining as many doors towards the start as we could, I split the remaining cfoam between the two doors where we'd be holding. This is where the little fog repellers come in handy, and yes they will come in while you are still scanning. For us, the waves were almost exclusively from the looping Eastern hall.

Once you're done go in and up the stairs then kill those stupid sleeping giant shooters. One on one you can literally dance around them in a circle and keep power striking to win, but hey - shooting is good too. Just setup for a long extraction alarm before getting in that circle (drop the fog turbine in there) because yes, your pursuers WILL make it up to your position. Shoot well for just a minute more and GTFO.

GTFO: ALT R2B3 - Pathfinder

Been awhile since the last drop so we just went with our "standard scouting loadout" which we've used a fair bit now as it's pretty effective in winning on the first go:

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Mines/Hammer
Jim: Rifle/Machine Gun/Sniper Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: DMR/Heavy AR/Biotracker/Hammer

The main objective here is a terminal hack (using uplink commands), but the main puzzle aspect is the very first zone which contains an interesting mix of doorways that you'll need to use for two separate defenses - clear out the little guys without wrecking any of them. To the West and East are Class V security doors needing a security key card which is hidden behind the Northern Class IV alarm door. Little c-foam, many mines. 

We bungled our hold and lost some doors!

In the Northern area you must get past giants and a scout to get the keys to the East and West doors, but you'll only need one of them! Check on a terminal to determine which way your objective lies - ours was to the East! A regular team scan (no alarm) door leads to a further zone North that is an extra "supply" zone guarded by giants. Back in the first zone we then setup as best we could for the East, cfoaming and mining the open doors and putting the sniper sentry to assist (always at a door pointing at us so that it shoots things in the back).

Our terminal was at the very Eastern section here which only has one door leading into it. Regardless, we cleared everything and shut everything and use the last of the supplies to cfoam hold the door followed by good fighting. Since I was holding the cfoam Jim was doing terminal duty. After the last code is entered there is an extraction alarm so things won't stop coming. Instead push forward right after killing a wave and get back to the drop point and then hold with whatever you have left. I was down to just my spear when we finally GTFO. :D

Gloomhaven: The Ruinous Toxic Well

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

We decide to investigate rumors about a magical wishing well not too far from the city but can only verify it is guarded by a small army of vermlings, fairies and stone golems that have laser arms. We well and truly get our butts kicked and limp over to a moor where there's supposed to be a sacred healing tree. As luck would have it, the tree is also in danger of burning down thanks to a fire drake orgy. *Sigh* So we defeat the horny drakes, save the tree, heal up and get back to investigating this Gloom cult (the bandits raising the dead) by attacking their next ritual site.

This time they have night demons (you are always disadvantaged to strike them), ice demons (like earth demons but slightly faster/slightly less HP) and fire demons (glass cannons like wind demons but straight upgrades with more damage and more shields). I slaughter the night ones because my mod deck is very much more balanced now so their disadvantage perk does little to save them, DL's boulders smash the ice ones as they lumber across difficult terrain and Jim almost kills all but one fire ones in a piercing bow strike, but as that's one use, the last (elite) fire demon basically duels Juris for majority of the mission until he can finally get his piercing card to hit!

While victory is claimed there is still a gateway to the void realm (where the demons live) that lingers here. While its tempting to just hop in we decide it's more prudent to head back to town and find an expert who knows how to close this thing.

Gloomhaven: Inox Warehouse of the Damned

[Part of the Party Time journal]  

I love how every starting room immediately puts you in the sh*t.

Jekserah's next job was basically the massacre of an Inox encampment which wasn't so bad physically, but felt somewhat wrong when I found the tent they were protecting their young in. No slaying of younglings was required though, as we had to flee before their returning war parties could get us. A guard lady back at Gloomhaven then confirmed our suspicions that Jekserah might not be such a good employer so we decided to snoop on her warehouse to find that she's summoning undead in TOWN! Luckily her zombies are fat, slow, and tend to hurt themselves but her two huge bodyguards with their AoE attacks do a good job of covering her escape. I make good use of jump abilities to deal decent damage but it is Jim and DL that take down the first one and Juris beheads the second.

We try track Jekserah down to a crypt where more undead have been reported but it turns out to be the bandit cult again and they've progressed to summoning earth and wind demons! Random note: opening multiple doors works better in this game as your cards/stamina impose a pretty tough time limit. The earth demons are lumbering and slow and are dealt with using Jim's cunning and Juris' steel while the glass cannon wind demons are tremendously difficult to hit (or rather, to hit through their shield). Jim actually has to come over and help take care of the last one with his piercing bow to cinch the victory here, as DL and I were just taking too long.

Once cleared we find a map made by the cultists indicating another of their ritual sites, and a mark on a different crypt where it seems they've lost control of their summoned dead. We opt to go to neither and return to town to rest!

Gloomhaven: Black Barrow Lair

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

A mercenary team composed of an Inox brute warrior (Juris), a cragheart (DL), vermling mindthief (me), and tinkerer (Jim) were hired to collect a magic tome from some bandits based in a crypt that possibly once was the home of a baby black dragon... Apparently the bandits had some warning since they had six guards ready in the first room! With Juris and DL tanking and Jim healing, I had the opening to not just backstab a few fools but also to open the door to the next hall, introducing three archers into the fight... but just them, because I was "gaming" it knowing that there's a limit of "figurines" even in the digital version which means the additional 3 bandits that would otherwise be here as well were missing.

My summoned rat swarm could tank some arrows as DL and I cleared out the archers while Juris and Jim finished off the initial guards. Juris then opened the last chamber and got pelted by the numerous archers sitting behind some multi-armed skeletons, downing our horned warrior and giving Juris an aversion to doors. Luckily we could manipulate the skeletons into the already set traps and smashed the remaining archers at close range where they have disadvantage at attacking.

With Juris revived the team proceeded downstairs where the bandit boss was busy summoning more skeletons, and I goofed by overestimating my rat swarm and ending in a bad forward position (while not being invisible). As such, I got wounded significantly early and just piled on as much hurt on the boss before collapsing in exhaustion. Luckily Juris sword and DL's hurled boulders took care of the other bandits while Jim got the finishing shot off on the boss, clearing this level. Since we couldn't open the five mystery doors, it was back to the city of Gloomhaven to get paid by our patron, the merchant Jekserah, who was happy to take the accursed tome off our hands for some coin.

GTFO: ALT R2B2 - Power Corrupts

I hope you practiced silently smacking giants in the previous level because you're gonna need it here (or you can just practice here, whatever). The objective is to find four small generators to plug four cells into (which come down the elevator with you). Our load out was the same as last time, which means DL got extra ammo again for the sniper rifle.

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Mines/Hammer
Jim: PDW/Machine Gun/Sniper Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: Hel Revolver/Machinegun/Biotracker/Hammer

Giants are all over the first zone, so stealth kill or stealth past as you see fit. The first generator is in here somewhere so make sure to ping it at a terminal before going through the regular team scan to the next zone, which is dark and tiny and full of ugly spitter things on the wall that scream and poison you if you get too close. Shine your light on them to make them sleep! Little sleepers are in here too, so balance as you like. We still stealth meleed with flash lights on. Lol. Anyway, second generator is in here too. Yay!

This is followed by a largish zone with the third generator and CLASS V alarm exits to the North and West. One of these will contain the last generator spot so check first which way you need to go (ours was West). For defense here since there was no door, Jim's sniper sentry was facing inward around the bend from the entry point so that it would hit both upstairs and downstairs mobs (you'll understand when you see it) and I cfoamed a cone infront of the gun to give it more time to shoot things while DL also put mines just after the cfoam. Note there's a non-alarm team scan East but leave that shut first to simplify things. This defense held until around the last set of circles so it's pretty effective!

Behind either CLASS V door are rooms of scouts! For single ones DL sniped, but for the double Jim tossed a cfoam grenade and missed but a scout still walked into it, leaving it open for me to spear and then spear his buddy - which was both cool cause it worked and foolish cause it was safer if DL shot it, but whatever. :P

After plugging in the last generator head on East through the non-alarm door until you hit a zone with a CLASS V ALARMED BLOOD DOOR. What!? This one caught us as we thought it was just a regular blood door, so mine was set up on the East door, sniper turret along South wall facing back towards us (always shoot things in the back) with foam in front of it. At least I shut the door behind us, but it wasn't cfoamed or mined. On your run, make sure to do those things. We also had cleared the room by stealth bop, and then I just fired one shot to get the fog sleepers to come out.

So, with the surprise of needing to do circles - we rushed forward to start the scan and then I went back with the bot to hold the first wave along the South wall while the others tore down defenses and did circles, but I had to fall back pretty quick. Eventually all the circles were done and we ended up doing a big counter clockwise semicircle to win the wave. Sheesh. Comparatively the regular blood door segment of this blood door was pretty straightforward! Once done, its a fast silent extract just behind that door to GTFO!

GTFO: ALT R2B1 - Sacrifice

Next step down from R2A1 is basically the introduction to blood doors and making giant strikers more common. It's a simple task: just open up the forward extraction spot which you will find just by going North all the time. This was our loadout:

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Mines/Hammer
Jim: PDW/Machine Gun/Sniper Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: Hel Revolver/Machinegun/Biotracker/Hammer

Now's a good time to recap how to stealth kill giants: stack up behind solo sleeping giants and each call out a unique limb on the target. Swing a fully charged melee at the same time and your goal is to break the limb you called out as that forces the giant to stagger. Hitting the nape and destroying the head is always a good idea, as that deals significantly more damage. Note: if you brought clubs and knives, this is probably going to be tougher! For groups of big guys, clear everything else, shut the doors to kill the noise and snipe them.

Clear your drop zone of regulars and you'll find the first blood door. A mine pointed towards the door is better than one across, but either way there will still be scum that you will need to shoot after. Make use of the shelf cover provided when those spiky head hybrids come out. They can shoot a lot, but cover negates their greatest strength.

Beyond that is a big zone with giant sleepers and 4 security doors (other than the one you just used to enter). In the SE is an optional "supply closet" we didn't bother opening as it would just complicate things, then two more blood doors to the East and West, and a locked Apex door to the North. The key card is behind one of the blood doors so ping it, then prep with a mine (ours was to the East) and shoot the left overs from cover again.

Inside is a scout which DL sniped, and the key card to Apex CLASS VII alarm! To setup for this, we shut all the doors we could and DL mined all the immediate ones and the ones one step away while I cfoamed all the immediate ones and used the remaining cfoam in a cone in front of Jim's sniper sentry positioned at the Eastern blood door (because that's what we opened) facing towards the Apex door.

This is one of those "fight well" situations, but remember to do circles too! The [bot] on biotracker is amazing at letting you know which side to pay attention to as the swarm came from both East and South for us. Opening the Apex door triggers an extraction alarm so combat mine and rush and hold the extract spot as a wave of giants comes after you. DL is great with the sniper rifle and really smashed them here, though with that gun being 100% full with 8 shots it meant donating a lot of ammo kits to him, which balanced out my excess of ammo with the twin pistols. Everything worked well, and we GTFO of there. :)

GTFO: ALT R2A1 - The Dig

With ALT R1 out of the way it's time to venture into ALT R2, and this one isn't too hard if you're already an experienced group like us. If not, you're about to get more experience dealing with medium sleeper clusters and some solo scouts! Our loadout was as follows:

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Mines/Hammer
Jim: Rifle/Machine Gun/Sniper Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: DMR/Heavy Assault Rifle/Biotracker/Hammer

Today's mission is to collect two pieces of cargo and return it to the extraction spot and the basic rule as usual while clearing is: don't break any doors. From the drop clear what you've got and you'll find yourself facing two security doors, but the one to the North needs an access key so ignore that and go through the non-alarm one to the West.

This room holds three corridors and six regular doors which you should try keep intact while clearing. Somewhere here is the key and two more class II alarm doors, one to the West and one to the South. Behind one of these is the first cargo item so ping and open the correct door (ours was South). We tried to funnel the wave here by leaving the middle two doors and bottom left door open, but they still decided to break the bottom right door... bleh, whatever.

Behind either door of those class II doors is a scout, and since we were feeling gun-brave we just let DL snipe it and handled whatever woke up. After taking the cargo to the extraction spot its time to go for the previously locked Northern door which is a class IV alarm. A little trickier to setup so DL put mines on all the doors and we closed everything we could. Sniper sentry was set facing the West security door which is now permanently open. I foamed what I could as well as the floor of that open door.

Anyway, this is one of those "fight well" moments and it wasn't that tough. There are some giants that come so watch your corners but you should be ok. Last chamber has last cargo item and another scout for DL to snipe. Before taking it to extraction we prepped by cfoam and mining the right hand door while cfoam and sentry waited along the left corridor since that door was broken now.

The extract scan is a slower one so put the cargo down in the circle and get ready to defend as little strikers will be coming for you. Nothing overly dramatic if you are expecting it. :)

GTFO: ALT R1D1 - Deeper

And just like that we're now at the final mission of Rundown 1, this time we need to turn off a reactor. Is it that simple? Well, yeah but getting there can be a challenge! Our load out of this one was:

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Sniper Sentry/Spear
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Burst Sentry/Hammer
Jim: Rifle/Machine Gun/Sniper Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: Hel Revolver/Machinegun/Biotracker*/Hammer

*The [Bot] has some funny lines when he's using the Biotracker. :P

Again the general gist of this map is "go North until you hit the objective" with lots of long corridors to take advantage of sentry usage. First door will be a class IV alarm (sentries on long bridge) followed by a room with a scout, then a class V door (sentries in long hallway before big area) and a room with TWO scouts, and another class V Apex door (sentries facing open door / looks like a short distance).

The scouts are a decent threat but just remember you have all those long stretches you can setup turrets to help with the defense. Now as we were burning through ammo here we also decided to open the 0 alarm doors on the sides which holds lots of gear - but only after doing the alarmed doors if we could help it. Sleepers and giants hide out there so be smart and weigh your options as you don't want to spend more of a resource that you're trying to collect!

At the reactor (turrets facing the hall) the shut down command will turn off all the lights and trigger a class IV alarm that forces you to hold your ground followed by an endless extraction alarm as you run to the drop point but this time all your enemies are shadow strikers! Big flashlights help here - basically if you think you saw something move shoot at it! Once you reach the extract spot, put turrets down, hold and GTFO!