Mindthief Solo Scenario Walkthrough

Luke December 4, 2019

Gloomhaven is a cooperative game. Games typically consist of two to four adventurers, playing as a whole host of different characters. As the game progresses, characters can retire and new characters enter the fold. It is ever evolving.

Well, something exciting happens in Gloomhaven when at least two characters have retired, prosperity level is 3 or higher, and a character is Level 5 or higher. That character gets a solo mission.

Solo missions are a whole other ballpark in Gloomhaven. They are tricky puzzles that really tests how well you know your character. They test every aspect, and you need to completely optimise in order to win.

This is my guide for the Mindthief solo scenario. Massive warning ahead – THERE ARE GIANT MASSIVE HUGE SPOILERS in this article. Turn back now or forever know these spoilers.

Gloomhaven: Mindthief Solo Scenario Guide

Okay, so there are a few ways of doing the Mindthief solo scenario. In this article I am going to tell you how I successfully completed it – although take this with a pinch of salt. Undoubtedly you will need to adapt these concepts to fit your own build.

What is the idea behind the Mindthief Solo Scenario?

The idea behind the Mindthief solo scenario is that your friends have been captured, and it is up to you to rescue them. To do so, you need to complete a scenario in four parts – the Entrance Room, the Poisoned Corridor, the Shamen, and the Earth Demon.

Personal Caveats

So, there are a few personal caveats that I need to make you aware of. The first is that my Mindthief, Nigel, is Level 6. Rather than take a Level 5 card, I actually took 2x Level 4 cards.

Most importantly, however, my Mindthief has an attack modifier deck of 29 cards, including a lot of conditions. This means a lot of Nigel’s attacks stun, disarm, or muddle.

Now that has been stated, let’s get on with the guide.

Cards in Play

The Mindthief gets 10 cards at any one time. For this scenario I chose the following –

Cranium Overload (Lvl 4)
Dark Frenzy (Lvl 6)
Perverse Edge (Lvl 1)
Empathetic Assault (Lvl 1 w. Strengthen Upgrade)
Hostile Takeover (Lvl 2)

Frigid Apparition (Lvl X)
The Mind’s Weakness (Lvl 1)
Submissive Affliction (Lvl 1 w. Curse Upgrade)
Gnawing Hoard (Lvl 1)
Silent Scream (Lvl 3)

Items in Play

There are five items in play –

Major Stamina Potion
Minor Stamina Potion
Minor Healing Potion
Boots of Striding
Iron Helmet

Part 1: Entrance Room

When you start the scenario, the entrance room has 6 enemies in it all of which are normal Vermling Scouts. Now, Vermling Scouts are weak, only having 3hp each at Scenario Level 2 (you play the Scouts one level lower than usual due to the scenario condition), but they can be nasty. Job number one is to reduce the amount of fire coming back at you, as otherwise you will have 6 attacks coming in. That and there is a chance they will have Poison as well. You could, in theory, die first turn.

This is where Cranium Overload is great. Not only does it have a low initiative, meaning you can ensure going first, but it guarantees one dead. It then deals two damage to all adjacent enemies, and with some luck can take out 4 of the 6 Vermlings in one turn. That’s what mine did at least. It was a super good start.

A natural pairing with Cranium Overload is the bottom half of Submissive Affliction. The idea being that, leaving two untouched by the Cranium Overload, it is possible to get another Vermling to take out their pal. This didn’t quite go to plan, as it uses the Monster attack modifier deck, which isn’t as great. They ended up hitting and Poisoning the Mindthief.

So, the next move was to move forward in front of one Vermling with the bottom of Dark Frenzy, shooting at the other remaining one and taking it out. Afterwards, I took out the Vermling directly in front with The Mind’s Weakness. This put the first Augment in play, as well as cleared the room.

Now there was one issue. I was poisoned and didn’t want to enter the next room with Poison. So, with that in mind, I moved to just behind the door with Empathetic Assault healing the Poison off the Mindthief.

Part 2: The Poison Corridor

The second room in the Mindthief solo scenario is an absolute pain. The moment you open the door you will take 5 damage and you will get poisoned (which kind of negated the healing of the poison before). For every turn where you are poisoned at the end of your turn you gain an additional 3 damage.

The weird thing about Room 2 however is that there are no enemies. Instead, you have to take on 3 altars that have (in my case) 6hp each. They have 3hp + the scenario level.

The room will continue to poison you until you destroy all the altars. There is water in the room as well, slowing you down, but generally speaking it’s a relatively simple task made complex by poison.

So, when Nigel did it he could take one round and still be okay. Nigel the Mindthief moved forward and attacked the first altar (which is just inside the door) with everything he had. This meant using the top half of Frigid Apparition with the bonus of The Mind’s Weakness making it a 5 attack. This wiped out that altar due to the Strengthen upgrade from before.

It was at that moment the Minor Stamina Potion was consumed as we worked out that Frigid Apparition with the bottom half of Empathetic Assault was a winning combo. As quickly as we were getting Poisoned it was being healed, keeping our health at net neutral. This destroyed the second altar.

The third altar was a bit tricky. The Mindthief used the Boots of Striding to get through the water and there was a real puzzle to decide what to do. There was no way of using the same combo again without spending the Major Stamina Potion so instead Nigel attacked using the top of Silent Scream. This put the healing augment in play, and it helped bring Nigel back up to near full health by the time he left the room. It was then down to Submissive Affliction to complete the final attack.

Part 3: The Shamen

Entering Room 3 it is a fairly simple room. There is one elite Vermling Scout, who can be taken out any number of ways. Their are then two traps and two Vermling Shamans (Shamen?) split on either side of the room.

What I did at this point was switch out Silent Scream with The Mind’s Weakness augment. That attack was enough to wipe out the Scout.

The trick with the Shamen was to attack them one at a time using the bottom of Silent Scream and shove them into the traps. This is because the Shamen have 3 Shields, which defend against attacks, but they don’t defend against traps. This was made possible by a short rest at just the right moment, and it was possible to push one into a trap. From there the rat swarm was summoned to act as a distraction to the other Shaman (Gnawing Horde), moving again using Empathetic Assault.

What happened was the Shaman was distracted long enough for me to use the Major Stamina Potion, get cards back, and the shove him into a trap as well. This was with the bottom action of Silent Scream whilst I remained poised with the top half of Hostile Takeover for Part 4 of this journey into the Mindthief solo scenario.

Part 4: The Earth Demon

Now we move onto the toughest part of the Mindthief solo scenario (in theory…although in practice not so much) – the Earth Demon.

The Earth Demon is an elite that has the special rule of having its hit point value multiplied by two. This meant, for me, it has 36 hit points. That’s nuts, right?

For this, the core concept was to pile as many conditions on the demon as possible, and with the rolling attack modifiers that give a condition, this was pretty easy.

With the Rat Swarm dealing 2 damage plus poison every round as a base, it meant that I had to be pretty efficient with cards, but through strategic rests it was possible to play Submissive Affliction several times in a row, dealing a lot of damage. This teamed up with Perverse Edge and Frigid Apparition meant it was not only possible to keep the Earth Demon with a multitude of conditions on him, but also ensure he remained in range of the rat swarm, whilst not attacking back. Submissive Affliction was able to do up to 9 base damage a turn. To break this down –

Frigid Apparition does a base attack of 2
+1 attack per condition. At its best this was a +4, and at its worst it was a +3.
+2 for The Mind’s Weakness augment.
+1 for Poison.

With that in play, and with so many great attack modifiers, the Demon fell within a few turns..

The End of the Scenarios

The level was beaten, but on the very last cards.

Summing Up the Mindthief Solo Scenario

There is no doubt about it – the Mindthief solo scenario isn’t easy. It takes a lot of planning and a lot of minutia to get specific aspects right. That middle Poison Room is a stamina drain, and so it’s important to move through as quickly as possible. The Demon isn’t hugely damaging, but he takes a lot to take down. It’s important to keep that in mind.

Generally speaking, it is a really fun scenario. It’s hugely enjoyable and a great puzzle.

I realise that guides at this level can vary so much depending on different builds of Mindthief that people use. Mine is distinctly a “glass cannon” kind of build, and it worked for this scenario. I would recommend taking one summon, definitely take at least one way of healing. You will 100% need it.

I hope you found this run-through and walk through of how Nigel completed it useful. Feel free to leave your thoughts and comments in the comments section below.