Moonstone proves its worth

My friend Brian dropped by today and we played a game of Moonstone pitting my newly acquired Fauns against the Goblins. The Fauns were fielding Hoff, Mr. Toodles, Jayda, Jackalope, Gloom and Wendigo. The Goblins consisted of Dim & Dimmer, Viscous Syd, Doug the Flatuent, Shabbaroon, Beaky Bobby and Grub. This was the first game that I have played (other than teaching games) where the Goblins have fielded Dim & Dimmer and I was excited to see how well he worked. The goblins were painted except for Shabaroom. The Fauns were all unpainted.

Brian accepted a drop of Moonstones that was very beneficial to one side and so when I won the rolloff I picked to be the early bird and deployed in order to take advantage of that. I placed Jayda in some terrain on the left of the table with Mr. Toodles closer to the centre along with Hoff. Gloom and the Jackalope were on the right to take advantage of some nearby Moonstones. Brian deployed with Shabbaroon and Doug more centrally located and Syd, Bobby and Dim & Dimmer on my left.

Some notable occurrences and comments

I was quite quickly ahead on Moonstones as Jackalope and Wendigo were able to grab one each. Brian then took advantage of Wendigo being too far forward to attack. He then managed to get a triple critical and took Wendigo out with a single round of combat. This is payback from our previous game where Wendigo caused Viscous Syd to attack Beaky Bobby and remove Bobby from play with a single attack.

Mr Toodles was able to keep Dim & Dimmer without energy and away from a Moonstone back for two turns. He is really more of a ‘toolbox’ than just being a healer. It can be tricky to activate some of his other arcane abilities but Blighted Elixir can be quite useful if you can manage having Mr. Toodles so close to possible danger.

The 6” pulse on Shabbaroon’s Goblin Mischief ability is actually huge. I didn’t really appreciate just large an area he can affect.

The ebb and flow of combat is highly affected by the number of energy left on your opponent. Sometimes you don’t get a good impression of this when watching video battle reports but someone, especially Jayda, can easily dodge out of range after an initial attack. Conversely, you can also burn your opponent’s energy with attacks.

Why Moonstone is so good

Brian spent turn three and four trying to desperately overcome a 4-3 deficit in Moonstones. On my right, Doug was outnumbered by Jackalope, Hoff and Gloom and on the left I kept Dim & Dimmer at a distance and low on energy so he wasn’t able to have a real impact. Instead of trying to thump one of my characters Brian instead used him to grab a Moonstone. Syd, well behind the Giant, also took some time to grab a Moonstone. Brian charged Gloom (who had one of my four Moonstones) and took Gloom down to four health.

Brian then used Grub’s Wyrm Hole ability to teleport across the table and attack Gloom. He killed him, placed the dropped Moonstone so it touched his base and then picked it up for the win. This was the second to last activation of the last turn. What a great game. (Technically this tactic should not have worked since Brian was using a wall as an obstacle but it was just too fun to not let him get away with it).

It isn’t this particular narrative that makes Moonstone a great game. There are many games that allow you to have memorable games like this. What is wonderful about Moonstone is that Brian did this in his second game and only his first full two-player game with six models. When I put the terrain together I made sure that there were enough obstructions for Grub to use Wyrm Hole. The core rules of Moonstone are quite simple and they manage the game without getting in the way of playing. This isn’t always the case. Sometimes games have so many rules that it takes a long time to become familiar enough with them that you can just play. Moonstone takes almost no time for you to become that comfortable with its rules.

It is certainly a game filled with whimsy and humour. It has deep strategy. It has fun characters. Its most important feature, to my mind at least, is the minimal learning time and allows players to start to fully enjoy themselves. You get to start having more fun with Moonstone quicker than any game I have played.