Let talk Meat Shields - Gloomhaven

Charging into the fray the barbarian took three hasty strikes from the startled Goblins before leveling them with his battle axe.  Looking forward he saw a far nastier threat.  From within he felt his heart take courage and his health bolstered he charged forward again renewed by a spell cast by the wizard behind him.
That's the idea behind a Meat Shield.  Someone who can take the hits for your more vulnerable team members.  In something like DnD you've got characters that act much like tanks, charging into the fray and taking the attention of the enemy off the rest of the crew.  Left alone such a reckless soul wouldn't last too long.  However, thanks to magical spells or other effects, the other players can keep the tank running while others take long shots with ranged weapons to assist in dealing damage.

In Gloomhaven, a Scoundrel can be a particularly good character as a Meat Shield, not because of a high health level, but because most of their cards allow them to have an early inititive.  This quick action makes them the tartget of all enemies in range thus leaving the other players time to react and support.

One caution would be to make sure you don't take so much damage that you can't hold on until your teammates have their turn.  It is entirely possible for the enemy to deal 10 damage before your allies get a turn and knock you out cold real quick.

Another caution is this.  Don't forget to care for your Meat Sheild.  These individuals that are not supported by their crew are in danger of becoming cannon fodder rather than a Meat Sheild.  Cannon fodder is only useful in large war games, not adventure style games. (The one exception being summons that your characters can make.  These would be usefull cannon fodder)

How to Use a Meat Sheild in Gloomhaven:
Enemies always attack the player closest to them, with a tie being desided by an earlier initiative.  Therefore, any player with a handful of early initiative cards can act as a Meat Sheild as long as they stay relatively infront and continue to use early initiative cards.  For the other players, they need to keep a close eye on their friends health.  They will typically need to use a healing if not every round than every other.  Taking turns doing this can work in most cases.

Check out Maxim's 5 & 7 for some quick one liners to share with your friends.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tapestry 7 Basic Strategy Tips

Image
Hey guys, first off I want to say thanks for checking out my blog.  I have been putting off writing new content for awhile now as I haven’t felt that I could be consistent until now.  And I think you deserve a consistent dose of strategy insight.  With that in mind I wanted to start breaking down a few more modern games outside the heavy heavy Diplomacy that we love oh so much.  That brings us to Tapestry!  I just received it a month ago for Christmas (yes I know I’m a few years late to the game) and already we have 8 plays under our belt plus I’ve reviewed every video I can find on YouTube about it so I am going to condense what I’ve learned from experience and what I’ve picked up from the YouTube.  If you disagree with any of the tips or have your own to share I’d love to hear them! Leave them in the comments below. **UPDATE** this list of tips has been updated thanks to the feedback on BBG, hope it helps! Tip #1 Get the buildings off your income mat! Thi...
Read more

Germany Opening Moves - Diplomacy

Image
This will be a pretty quick post to talk about the opening moves for Germany here.  Being in the center of the map Germany can be pretty difficult to play.  Potential enemies of four sides, I'll be honest I don't normally volunteer for it.  That being said, the challenge can be fun and I wanted to dive into that a little more. If you are playing Gunboat, or maybe everyone is ignoring you so that it feels like Gunboat these are my suggested opening moves for Spring 1901. Kiel - Holland Munich - Burgundy Berlin - Kiel Let's start with Kiel.   Because you have a fleet here you have an interesting decision to make.  Jump into Holland and use him how I would suggest, or head straight into Denmark and potentially keep Russia from that build.  The reason I think Holland is a better bet is this.  England will either assume you've gone mad and headed straight for France, or they'll at least feel comfortable in trying for Norway or Denmark with their ar...
Read more

Citadels - Thieves and Assassins beware

Image
  Citadels, what a brilliant little card game.  This game is a perfect mix of easy to teach hard to master.  With 8 different roles to choose from the options are often wide open and knowing how to play the cards you’re dealt can be tricky. So here’s my unpopular opinion and the reasoning behind it: Never pick the Assassin or Thief if you can avoid it.  Let me explain the logic. These are the only two roles that don’t directly impact yourself for good without a little luck.  With the Assassin you’re only hurting another player but you never know for sure which so it doesn’t really help your gameplay, it only hurts a random player IF that, you can quite easily miss entirely meaning you’ve passed on an opportunity for a role that could benefit your strategy for zero gain. In regards to the Thief you MAY get lucky and score some coins if you randomly guess one of the players who has money at the start of their turn.  If they are smart though there’s never much...
Read more