Credit:
Dan Thurot
The campaign book supplies the maps, with a supplemental book for the big ones.
Credit:
Dan Thurot
That last point is one of Jaws of the Lion’s biggest departures from Gloomhaven’s big box, and it bears some explanation. At first glance, this is standard save-the-city fare. You’re big damn heroes, there are big damn monsters, and we all know the rest. What sets the game apart from its kin isn’t only its card system, but also how it approaches its characters, all of which are refreshingly imaginative.
My character was the Hatchet. Tall, furry, and horned, the Hatchet seems like your standard melee bruiser. Except he isn’t. He’s a ranged warrior who throws hand-axes, tomahawks, cleavers, mattocks, and other hefty bladed implements whose names I’ve forgotten, often striking multiple targets in the same turn. More importantly, he strikes hard, like he’s dealing melee damage instead of flinging stuff around the room.
Over time, the Hatchet grows even more interesting. He has a favored blade that can be stuck into a large monster for bonus damage and then cause even more bonus damage every turn until the monster dies and the Hatchet reclaims his favorite. He also has a supply drop, which is akin to throwing a healing crate into an opponent’s head so it can rebound to heal a friend. Rather than playing the ranged warrior trope straight, he has tricks and spells of his own, all of which mark him as a capable fighter in multiple respects.
And it’s a good thing I liked playing as him, because Jaws of the Lion only provides four heroes. It’s a slight spoiler to say precisely how many classes were in the original game, so suffice it to say there were more, with a retirement system that let players swap out their character for someone else mid-campaign. Like a few of Gloomhaven’s other ideas, this was sometimes cumbersome—one of my friends had a retirement goal he never seemed capable of meeting—but it put the game’s dedication to variety front and center.
