Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion Chaos Demon – Overview & Strategy Guide

Hey there and welcome to the last article of this series where I will write about the Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion Chaos Demon.

In the previous post, in which I analyzed the Living Spirit, I briefly mentioned the Chaos Demon enemy and the day to talk about it has finally arrived.

I kept the best for the very end as there’s so much going on with this enemy that I wanted to take the time to describe it properly, it deserves it!

There will be spoilers ahead, so if you arrived at this page by mistake I’d suggest you stop reading right now.

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Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion Chaos Demon

The Chaos Demon is the scariest and strongest enemy in the entire game, as well as probably the best-looking foe with that chaotic maze of spikes and tentacles surrounding its body.

This monster is the perfect versatile creature that can deal melee/ranged damage and use all the elements to inflict negative statuses or trigger particular effects.

Seriously, it’s like putting the specials of all the Gloomhaven enemies into one monster. The result is a creature “slightly” overpowered.

Thanks to their high base statistics and their ability cards, your characters will never be safe with them in the dungeon.

I would have loved to encounter them towards the end of the campaign as they appear quite often at the beginning and then they stay out of the radar. Sad.

Where you can find this monster? Scenario: 5, 8, 10, 20, 21, 24.

Chaos Demon Stat Cards

The statistics of the Chaos Demone are the highest among all the enemies in the game and this alone should already be enough to give it the title of the strongest monster in the game.

It will take multiple turns to lower its health to 0 and in the meantime, the monster will fight back giving you hard times.

Other than the high statistics, this enemy has an innate muddle special when it attacks, which is very annoying because it forces you to fight a very strong enemy with the disadvantage malus.

Chaos Demon Ability Cards

Average Initiative value: 46.

Similar to the Living Spirit, Zealot and Vermlings, these enemies have a very average Initiative value, with a mix of fast and slow ability cards that makes their moveset quite difficult to foresee.

The fact that you can’t predict their moves is even more dangerous when you look at their amazing ability cards deck, full of Move+Attack cards. It’s the most powerful deck in the game by far.

Let’s start by talking about the ability for which the deck revolves around: Mana Explosion.

It’s a standard Move+Attack ability that infuses ALL the elements, fire, ice, air, earth, light and dark.

When the elements are infused, the Chaos Demon can use the remaining ability cards that will consume one of those elements triggering a special effect.
Lady Luck plays an important role here since there are abilities stronger than others, mainly due to the Initiative value.

Hungry Maw is an ability that can disarm your character by consuming any elements. Even though it’s initiative 98, the fact that it doesn’t have restrictions on the element to use makes it quite strong and annoying.

Seismic Punch consumes earth to transform the single target melee attack to an aoe melee attack. Can be powerful if the enemy is nearby two characters but it’d be difficult to pull it off if you carefully plan your character’s movements.

Black Tendrils is an average initiative card that makes all adjacent characters suffer 1 damage in addition to the normal melee attack. Only threatening if you and your party are surrounding a Chaos Demon.

Flashing Claws gives the advantage to the enemy’s attacks and if it consumes light it can also recover 4 hit points. Very annoying when you’re that close to killing it.
If you have the Red Guard in your party it shouldn’t be difficult to “steal” the light element.

And finally, let’s have a look at the top 3 fast initiative cards that could potentially make the dungeon exploration very hard:

Whirlwind is a 3-hexes aoe ranged attack (at range 2) which could give the monster a shield if consumes the air element. With 20 initiative value, it could not be very easy to outspeed in order to steal the element.

Chilling Breath is an even faster initiative card perfect for stalling the fight because anyone who attacks the enemy will suffer 2 damages. The Chaos Demon has to consume the ice element in order to trigger that effect. A very very annoying effect, as ideally you would aim to finish the fight as fast as you can.

The grand finale, Heat Blast. With its amazing initiative set to 1, the fastest ability in the game, it can wound your characters from the distance by consuming the fire element. It’ll be impossible to outspeed, therefore your faith is in Lady Luck’s hands.

Strategy against Chaos Demon

• The most important thing to do is to study their moveset and keep track of which cards they have drawn so far, so you can act consequently.
• Due to the variety of the ability cards deck, I would keep the Red Guard (and Demolitionist) at close range to absorb the attacks and attack from distance with the others. Don’t place the Demolitionist adjacent to the Red Guard, but keep it 1-2 hexes away to avoid the aoe attacks.
• If the Chaos Demon pulls the Mana Explosion, try to use actions that would steal some of those elements to lower the odds to activate one of their effects.
• Inflicting negative statuses such as poison or wound will help to defeat them.

I’m sure the Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion Chaos Demon will change the way you play the game. Without studying its ability cards deck a bit, the only possible outcome from a fight against it is only one: defeat.
At the right game difficulty, every fight against this enemy will remain in your memory as the coolest one you have ever fought!
At the end of the day, this is what you expect from Gloomhaven, to have cool and fun fights, and the Chaos Demon gives you those like no one else does.

This is my last article for the Overview & Strategy series. I truly hope you liked them and found interesting tips for your campaign. Have fun with the game, catch you soon!

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in:

Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion – Review
Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion Classes – Overview & Rank
Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion – Monsters Overview