I started up the Jaws of the Lion campaign with 2 Gloom-Newbies, myself and my wife. My wife and I are veteran Gloomhaven players and have been playing a 2-player campaign for the last few years.
One of my buddies wanted to play Hatchet, especially after seeing the mini I swear he would’ve taken that thing home to his DnD campaign if I hadn’t stopped him. After finishing the tutorial scenarios decided that he wasn’t a huge fan of “The Favorite” card. He found it super annoying to have to chase down his hatchet and would just leave it behind in the previous room. He decided to ditch the standard build for an interesting build that I have become a big fan of.
I decided to write this build guide for others who are out there who like the concept of the Hatchet, but also find it laborious to obsessively follow “The Favorite” wherever it goes.
Some caveats since I know people are gonna go nuts about this:
1. I realize that this probably isn’t THE OPTIMAL BUILD. And that’s ok. It’s totally fine if someone decides to take a less efficient build just simply because it’s gonna be more fun for them. I had a hard time coming to this realization, especially the first time my wife decided to drop two loss cards with her Brute to egregiously overkill a monster “because it was fun”.
But Gloomhaven for some people isn’t always about deadly efficiency and trouncing the hardest levels because that’s “the way” to play a character. Naw man, if your super squishy Spellweaver wants to pretend to be a tank and actually use some of those defense cards, melee attacks and wear armor, then have fun exploring this sweet game!
2. We have yet to unlock the lv 5+ cards, so I’ll probably revisit this when we get to that point, but till then, this build just goes till lv 4.
3. I’m currently playing Jaws of the Lion with 4 players but I think this build will work just as well at a lower player count.
So with that, here we go, a Hatchet guide without the hatchet.
And there it is folks, The offending card itself.
I’ll admit, the top of this card is a pretty phenomenal loss as long as you’re willing to build your character around it. Adding +3 attack to your ranged attacks every 2-3 turns is pretty awesome. Just make sure you never throw it at any enemies far away from the next door. With this card, your strategy is throw “The Favorite” at the biggest baddest baddie, then run up and take it back. Rinse Repeat.
It seems like nobody ever mentions the bottom of this card which is actually one of Hatchet’s best move actions. If enemies are a little too close for comfort, wound them and jump away. This is Hatchet’s only non-loss jump card. It’s super handy for getting into an optimal position for your multi-target cards.
Oh and did I mention this has a 17 initiative? That’s great for going early enough to before most enemies to get that wound off and jump away.
With a normal Hatchet build, shields aren’t really an issue, you just do more damage than what the shield can handle normally, however with this build, you hit more enemies but not nearly as hard, so that wound will come in handy against some of those bigger enemies.
So yea, we take this card, but for the bottom more than the top. Weird right? Every once in a while, my buddy would still play the top during one of those in-between-rooms turns just so he could throw it once against the boss in the next room.
I wouldn’t recommend that tactic, so stick with the bottom for this one.
Unlike arrows, hatchets also make great melee weapons. The top of this card is pretty great for our build. Especially when used in conjuction with the bottom of “The Favorite”. Hit two enemies for 3, then wound the one that stays alive and jump away. Nice! A 25 initiative will hold its own here, but it also pairs well with one of our level X cards which has a 12 initiative.
The bottom is similar to why I like the bottom of “The Favorite”. Do some damage, then walk away. It can be good to use when some of those baddies got a little too close for comfort. You also have a decent health pool (I mean you’re an Inox for crying out loud!) so getting up close and personal is not always the end for you, unlike some other classes…
*cough* Voidwarden *cough*
…excuse me there, Anyway, Close Cuts will serve you well.
Alrighty here’s our first real dud card. 46 initiative is a real pain cuz it’s not fast enough to beat anyone and it’s not slow enough to let all the baddies get into optimal position before we blast all of them… so meh.
Since we won’t have our favorite token out very much, the top just reads “Attack 2″… Yuck
The bottom is actually worth considering here though. It’s definitely worth taking if you’re wanting to grab that extra coin or two, but overall, this is a tough sell since it’s only a move 1 on the bottom and a basic attack on the top.
Leave this one behind unless you need it for the scenario.
Center mass is a solid card. Initiate 24 is great. The top is a solid attack and range, it’s super easy to get this top to work in most situations.
The bottom is also good, especially if there are traps around that you can push some baddie into.
Overall solid work-horse card. It’s nothing special, but it’ll get the job done every time.
Bring this along.
Stopping Power is an ok card, The top is not my favorite. A range 2 attack is the worst kind of attack. I mean you have to be exactly 2 spaces away, or you’ll either be at disadvantage or out of range.
*eye roll*
Wind is also hard to come by to make this a range 3. Besides, you have a different card that uses that wind in a better way.
The bottom is situationally ok as well, but a move 3 jump loss card isn’t really what I’m falling out of my chair with happiness for. Immobilizing a decent amount of baddies can be handy, but that will only stop melee enemies from hurting you.
I don’t love this card, but we end up taking it for now as there are a couple of worse cards out there.
Speaking of worse cards. Here’s one! Let’s look at both halves though.
The top can be really handy, especially toward the end of a scenario, the range is nice and the multi target is nice too. Total damage is 6 (more if we can use a power potion or something) which isn’t terrible bad for a loss, but there are definitely better losses out there.
The bottom can lead to an amazing boss-slaying attack… If we were doing a different build. Most of our attacks are pretty small, so we’d be only getting 3-4 extra attack from the bottom.
The biggest downside to this card is that it’s a double loss. You’ve got to lug this card around half the scenario and use it as a move 2 or an attack 2 if the top half was paired with something a little more usable, I might bring it, but as it is right now, not worth it.
Not a fan. Leave it behind
Ah now we’ve got a card! This top is fantastic. Hit three targets at range three and muddle them. This is a great opening move, and coupled with a power potion and some eagle eye goggles it can become extremely satisfying to watch a bunch of vermlings quiver in their boots.
The initiative is the worst kind: right in the middle. At least a slower card would’ve let us go after all the enemies moved into range. But oh well the top is pretty worth it.
The bottom loss has been handy toward the end of a scenario to finish off some weak enemies or to get through those tough shields on some guys.
Take this one it’s core to the build.
Ok, so initiative is pretty dang good here, but unfortunately that top is pretty lackluster. 6 heal is rarely worth a loss card. I mean you could just lose any other card in your hand to negate that much damage. Just kill some more baddies with a different card.
The bottom is a solid, move 3 or the occasional move 5 which would be a nice bonus, but honestly the kill requirement for the move 5 is just a little too annoying to be worth it. Most of the time I want to move into a good position, then attack, not the other way around. And when I do want to attack and then move I’d much rather use the bottom of “The Favorite” or the bottom of “Close Cuts”. It’s pretty rare I’ll actually use the extra 2 movement here.
So this in essence has a top that does nothing and a bottom that is barely better than a basic move 2
You won’t need this card leave it behind
Aha there’s another one of those favorite-centric cards. It’s like this character was designed around it or something…
No matter let’s take a look anyway. 2 attack on top is ok, but range 4 is pretty nice. You can hit just about anyone at that range. Not bad.
Move 2 with push can be situationally good. The additional move 2 would be awesome, but we usually don’t have much wind to spare. But hey if we need an extra couple of movement then we’ve got the option to.
We keep this card too. But it likely won’t be staying too long.
Wow finally that wind we were talking about. This is the only non-loss card that gives us wind. Thankfully we only have one level x card that will use that wind.
The 60 initiative is your slowest card you’ll bring, but honestly I wish it were 90 then at least you’d know you were going after the monsters and could let them burn a turn with you too far away to hit. As of right now a 60 will likely go after some baddies, but some will be slower yet. Just pair it with a fast card most of the time I guess.
The top is a pretty straightforward loss action and it can be great for bosses and for big elites. Especially with high shield.
The bottom is a solid move 3 and that wind will be really handy for your Extra Lift card (level x).
We’ll keep this one mostly for the bottom, but occasionally to dump an attack 6 on a nasty Stone Golem.
Alright this card has my favorite type of heal. The kind where you almost inadvertently help out.
Red Guard: “Can you hit this guy?”
Hatchet: “Yea, and do you want me to get rid of that poison too?”
I mean who is gonna say no to that?
The top is pretty nice. The attack is ok, with a good range and removing poison can be huge for encounters with vipers and other such nasties. Even if you’re not just removing poison, heal 2 is a nice bonus.
The bottom is kinda like the top, except you can get rid of your own poison instead. A solid movement and an element that somebody else might want…
We’ll take it.
Oh goodie. look at that initiative!
Now this is a card that goes well with disorienting barrage and close cuts. But first let’s look at that top:
Oh wait… Can we use this?
A top loss with 3 movement and shield…
I suppose if there were an Indiana-Jones-esque trap hallway where you just had to run away from a boulder and hope the wall arrows didn’t pierce you too badly, then this would be the time to use that top. Other than that though… I’m not sure why it exists.
The bottom though is pretty sweet. This was the compliment to Disorienting Barrage that would be the opening move 9 times out of 10. Pop a power potion and use those eagle-eye goggles and bam! You’ve got a sweet opening move that will take out a couple of baddies and leave the last one muddled before they even move. Pretty slick
And here’s the card that finally uses that wind effectively. Range 3 attack 2 isn’t great, but range 5 attack 3 is. In this case it isn’t hard to set up either, just use the bottom of power pitch on one turn and this card on the next. The XP is a nice bonus.
The bottom can be situationally good depending on the scenario. If you need to run really fast it’s nice, but otherwise not worth the loss. Although I did see a pretty hilarious turn where this bottom effect was applied to the bottom of disorienting barrage and the Hatchet just skated around the room poking various baddies before finishing them off.
Ok so that’s it for level 1 and X cards you should have the following load out:
This is approximately in rank order with the best on the top left and the worst on the bottom right
Let’s take a crack at our first level up choice.
Alright we have the ever present “Favorite” choice with repeat shot. Let’s start there. The top is a range 3 attack 3 and very rarely are we doing to get anything else out of it.
The bottom could be handy to knock out a big guy. Bottom attacks tend to be really useful at times, but a loss card isn’t quite what we want
Ricochet however is an excellent card. A range 3 attack followed by a range 2 attack from there is not only thematically awesome but really handy for finishing off those little guys. It’s always funny to me when you hit an enemy a few hexes away and bounce it off his forehead into the guy standing right in front of you.
The bottom is an interesting loss that can help you damage the shielded enemies. But I’m pretty sure you’re almost always gonna want to use the top
Take Ricochet and replace Follow Through or Stopping Power, whichever you dislike most.
Let’s take a look at level 3.
Ok. we’ve got a tougher choice here. Both of these cards have a useful top loss with a nice bottom. Let’s start with Sharpened Blades:
The bottom is solid. A move 4 non-loss is great. Plus in a pinch, we can expand that to a move 6 if we need (though we’d almost always rather use our wind for Extra Lift at this point).
The top is an interesting loss. It comes out to 5 eventual extra damage, and 2-3 wounds depending on how you play it out. Usually you’ll want to keep hitting the guy that you damaged with your first attack and they’ll already be wounded. Wounds will cause an extra couple of damage, so you could get an extra 7-9 damage out of this loss card. Not too bad. The downside is that you really only want to play this top in the lull between rooms. If there are baddies to kill you wanna kill them. If you’re taking a setup turn in the middle of a fight, you’re giving the monsters an extra turn to wipe out your party. Wounds are also a great way for you to contribute to killing those annoying shielded enemies.
Fearsome Efficiency also has a pretty good top loss. 6 damage at range 4 plus wind, and boy that extra overkill damage is pretty sweet. This is a great way to knock out two low-health enemies or to use on that big boss or elite instead. This is a pretty versatile top loss.
The bottom is the real money maker though. The only other bottom attack you have is Close Cuts, unfortunately with close cuts, you have to be right next to the enemy at the start of your turn to make that effective. With this bottom attack, you can kick back and relax, maybe pop some popcorn as you hit enemies at a range while your melee buddies deal with the fallout. Additionally, if you finish off an enemy with your top action, this bottom becomes an attack 3 instead.
The initiative on both of these is terrible but we’ll deal with that by pairing with some of our faster cards. (of which we have a decent amount).
I think I prefer Fearsome Efficiency here as the bottom attack is really nice and I don’t think we’re ever falling behind enough to need a Move 4 to get into position. Additionally, I really like the overkill damage on the top loss.
Take Fearsome Efficiency, and replace either Stopping Power or Follow Through, whichever one you didn’t replace last level.
Your new standard hand:
On to Level 4!
I think we have a pretty easy choice for our build here, let’s break it down though:
Ripped From The Flesh looks like a good card to use for a Favorite build. Initiative 20 is great, especially for what it’s trying to do: stealing back the Favorite token. The bottom heal is alright, but the conditional strengthen is unfortunate since you’d rather be strengthening yourself at the beginning of your turn to give you advantage all the way until the end of your next turn. In this case you’d have to kill an enemy with your top action, then play the strengthen which then only gives you advantage during your next turn.
Now, what we really want to look at is this Overwatch card. The top is a straight upgrade to Extra Lift. We can consume wind to pretty easily make this and attack 4 at range 5 with an xp. The bottom is pretty awesome, especially if we’ve got a room full of sludges, vermlings, or oozes (if you’re in original Gloomhaven). The best part about this loss is that you will never misfire a charge, all of them will hit baddies. This is a loss card that will do 10 damage across 5 enemies attached to a nicely spam-able top action. Yes please.
Take Overwatch
You can choose to get rid of Extra Lift as this is a straight upgrade to that card, or if you want to stick it to the man, get rid of The Favorite instead. I’d recommend keeping Favorite cuz it’s a little faster and that jump really comes in handy.
This should be your level 4 loadout:
Let’s talk perks!
I think every Jaws of the Lion Character has some awesome perk options, Hatchet is no exception to that.
I know a lot of people enjoy taking out all the negative modifiers before adding any positive ones to reduce variance first. I however am ok with a little variance so I take a little more balanced approach by alternating removing some bad cards and adding good ones. Maybe I’m just too anxious to get to my good stuff and removing negatives just seems so boring at times.
Hatchet has a couple of remove cards and a bunch of sweet replace cards
I really like the stun and wound modifiers as it greatly enhances your multi-target attacks that don’t always finish off the enemy right away.
Those +3 cards are sweet but I take them after the replace 0 with +2 muddle since the total gain is +2 either way, and the muddle is a nice extra.
I don’t love the immobilize or the push 2 cards as I think they aren’t that great for effects that just come up randomly. Often you actually want the enemy to still move and often the push doesn’t really give you much benefit unless you were planning for it. So those two are my least favorite.
Here’s the order that I’d take them.
- Remove two -1’s
- Replace 0 with 0 stun
- Remove two -1’s
- Replace 0 with +1 wound
- Replace +1 with +1 stun
- Replace 0 with +2 muddle
- Replace +1 with +3
- Replace +1 with +3
- Replace +1 with +3
- Replace +0 with +1 poison
- Add one +2 wind
- Add one +2 wind
- Add one +2 wind
- Replace 0 with +1 Push 2
- Replace 0 with +1 Immobilize
Or if you want to look at this another way:
That’s it!
Thanks for reading through, leave any comments you might have below!
Gloomhaven Builds 
Do another one for the demolitionist. This was awesome to read.
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Glad you enjoyed reading it!
I’m working on a spoilery guide for the diviner, but I’d be glad to do the demolitionist next. She’s a tough nut to crack and there are so many ways to build her
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