Pub Crawlers Pint-size Preview #2

Hello! We are back today with our second small preview of the upcoming Buttons & Bugs: Pub Crawlers expansion for Gloomhaven Buttons & Bugs. If you missed our first entry, you can check it out here. 

There is much more to talk about with this expansion, so let’s get to it!

Allies

Why would you need a ranged ward ability on the Fungal Monk’s card Tireless Retribution when you’re playing a solo game? (In case you haven’t played Frosthaven or Gloomhaven, ward is a positive condition that prevents half the damage you would suffer. More on new and returning conditions in the next preview!) 

Because Pub Crawlers introduces scenario allies to the campaign! This opens up new strategic options and dilemmas, as you will take part in scenarios that may now ask you to protect, escort, or receive aid from various tiny allies along your way. Now a simple ability, in this case “ward range 2” may offer an important decision instead of having that already made for you with yourself as the only option. This adds another layer of strategic depth to the game as at times you’ll need to weigh helping your allies versus helping yourself. 

Bless & Curse

As you can see in the Whistlecry cards above, Pub Crawlers will introduce bless and curse tokens to the tiny world of Buttons & Bugs. If you are a Gloomhaven veteran you are well-versed with how these work in the bigger ‘Haven games, but how will they work here? Let’s break it down.

1. There will be eleven bless tokens and eleven curse tokens included in the game. 

2. There are two “pools” – one that all the enemies share, and one that you and any of your allies (if you have any that scenario) have. 

3. A pool may only have either bless or curse tokens in them at a time – never a mix of tokens. For example, if you have no tokens in your pool and perform the top of Clear Skies, you’ll add one bless token to your pool. But if you have three curse tokens in your pool when you perform that ability you would instead remove one of the curse tokens (bringing your total down to two) instead of adding a bless token.

4. When any figure with bless/curse tokens in their pool performs an attack they will roll the ten-sided bless/curse die along with the usual modifier die. 

5. If the number you roll equals or is lower to the number of tokens in your pool, that attack value is either doubled (bless tokens in your pool) or is reduced to nothing (curse tokens in your pool). So if I have three bless tokens in my pool, I’d double my attack value if I roll a 1, 2, or 3. Any time the bless or curse is resolved, you then remove one token from the pool (much like you would remove a bless or curse card once drawn in other ‘Haven games).

Bless and curse tokens should no doubt add some memorable moments for you, for better or worse, as you play through the campaign!

Persistent abilities with charges

While the top of Stinkhorn might grab your attention (and next time we’ll be talking about that “mushroom” icon), the bottom ability here is something new to Pub Crawlers. Much like bigger ‘Haven games have persistent abilities with a certain number of charges (in those games they are marked with tokens that you slide across circular spaces on the card), the method in Pub Crawlers will require less printed space. Instead, you’ll simply rotate the card 90’ in the direction the arrows indicate every time a charge is used. This allows abilities like the bottom of Stinkhorn to exist in the Buttons & Bugs universe without needing additional tokens to track things, and using less space. And in this case, this might be a damage mitigation ability that you find quite valuable – but more on that down the road. 

That’s it for now, but next time we’ll be back to talk about some new (and returning) conditions that will be featured in Pub Crawlers as we lead-up to Gen Con. Until then, mercenaries! 

Pete K. is a long-time member of the Cephalofair Community and now our Official Community Manager. Make sure you subscribe to the Cephalofair Insider Newsletter as he peeks behind the curtains at Cephalofair HQ and gives you all the deets.