The Kill Box Strategy - Gloomhaven

The KILL BOX Strategy - Gloomhaven

The Kill Box Strategy has its use in all types of simulated combat.  Hell, it has been used by generals for ages.  I decided to use this particular scenario from Gloomhaven as it shows the dangers that can come from using it in your tabletop strategy and how to avoid them.

Screenshot from online.flippingbook.com

My own team used the shack on the bottom right as our Kill Box in this scenario and we came close to losing because of it.  We play with a Tinkerer who can set a proximity mine, this is really nice for the scenarios where the enemy is in hot pursuit.  True we had some bad luck but the Guards kept drawing cards with no movement so they took forever to reach us and we had to burn through our cards without them giving us an advantage.

Where we ended up after all was said and done.

As you can see here, the Cragheart and the Scoundrel rushed out to finish off the remaining enemies with our last two cards.  We were very lucky that we pulled it off in the end.  Moral of that story: don't use the Kill Box strategy unless you know the baddies are pursuing quickly as you may run out of resources.

If you are new to the Kill Box, don't fear! I'll jump into why they are useful and how to set them up now.  Once you master it you will be able to use them in all sorts of battle games.

The WHY:

Let's talk about the benefits really quickly.  The first benefit that jumps out to me is that by setting up a Kill Box you are setting up the enemy for maximum damage opportunities.  Often Kill Boxes include a flanking, or pinning position which allows you to dictate the combat.

The second benefit will really appeal to those of you who flinch every time your character takes damage, by creating a Kill Box you limit your enemies to one at a time (generally speaking).  This limits the amount of damage you take while you and your allies can wreak havoc.  

If that's not enough benefit, it also allows your stronger players to take the brunt of the hits while your support does what they do best with ease.  The team that stays together fillets together... alright that may be a little cheesy but you get the point.

The HOW:

As I mentioned above, Kill Boxes require a few environment qualifiers.  If you're the ROCK you need a hard place.  That simple.  These often come in the form of a corner, a doorway, or even a staircase.  This may be far too much of a drift but think about those "tower defense" games on mobile where the enemy is forced through a path of your choosing to take whatever hits you can dish out while they try to reach their goal.  That leads us to the next ingredient.

The enemy objective.  If their objective is simply to hit you (as it is in Gloomhaven) then this is simple to identify, when you're playing a living human in a game of Chess, this can be harder to identify.  

Identifying the enemy objective:  A good way to find their objective is to start with their experience in the particular game.  If someone is playing Chess for the first time it may be easy to lure them after your king.  If they are experienced then they aren't so worried about chasing your king as they are about eliminating some of your key players.  Keep the opponents objective in mind as you plan your Kill Box.

Once you have both identified; position their objective in such a way as to force them past the hard place.  Once they've headed into the trap, apply maximum force.  It's that simple.

I'll jump back to our Gloomhaven example from today to clarify.

The baddies have one objective, move towards and attack us.  That makes it easy for us to determine which way they go.  So we chose the shack on the bottom right.  After making quick work of the guard inside, we all bunkered down and the Tinkerer set the proximity mine in the doorway (highlighted in blue).  The plan was to pull the first baddie into the mine, then proceed to gang bust whatever followed.  Because we had already dealt with the Archers, all of the guards could do was cue in front of the doorway for their turn to die.  The three of us took turns dealing out damage with a mixture of long-ranged (for those in the cue) and short-ranged (for those in front) attacks as our cards permitted.

a close up on that first image

Hopefully, this walkthrough of the Kill Box will help to get your mind turning on how you can apply this strategy in the games that are making it to your table right now!  

Have a game you'd like some help developing a strategy for? Let us know in the comments or send us a message and we can help you get some strategies set up to make you the master!  Thanks for reading and be sure to check back soon for more content!