Expanding the starter set - Starting Moonstone

One of the questions I commonly hear concerning moonstone is: "I have the starter set, what should I get next?". With so many boxes and so many models out, deciding what the next thing to get might understandably be a bit of a task. However, I do think that there are a couple of boxes that stand out to me as brilliant additions to the starter set.

Troupe Boxes

The most obvious way to expand on the starter set will be an additional troupe box. With 3 additional models, you'll be able to easily create 5 or 6 model troupes and have options about what models to use. With that in mind, what do I think are the best troupe boxes to supplement the starter set?

Tumbledown Street is a great addition to the starter box humans. Much like the starting humans, the humans of tumbledown street are relatively simple and straight forward in what they do and how they do it. Fritz, for example, is perfect for the player who has enjoyed using Baron Von Fancyhat from the starter set but would love to trade off a bit of survivability for more damage. This comes in the form of a little more energy, losing armour and a massive +3 to slicing damage!

On the supporting side of things, tumbledown street also offers Quack and Agatha. Whilst Friar Flavious and Eric have healing capabilities, neither are dedicated healers and their unreliable heal often shows that. Quack is not so unreliable by comparison. With 5 arcane, Quack is going to reliably hit good heals when you really need them. He also brings a little more support to debuff enemies and buff friendly humans, +2 arcane for example goes a long way on Flintlock.

Agatha's support, on the other hand, is more akin to Eric. With a passive aura that helps melee, Agatha will feel comfortably familiar with fans of Eric. Outside this passive ability, Agatha also brings some very useful arcane abilities to help your humans and to hamper your opponent. 'Drink your fill' is a flexible ability that can do many things including energy manipulation. She also brings new tricks to the starter set humans in the form of mobility with 'Enticing offer'.

Possibly the best goblin troupe box in the game and also a fantastic complement to the starter box goblins is the Mushrooms and Mayhem troupe box. Goblins come into their own in moonstone when they have adequate support and methods to skew fights. Therefore, this box of 3 premier support models is brilliant for goblin players and starter boxes alike.

Skewing fights is exactly what Boom Boom McBoom does best. With 'You'll never get this', you can start fights on your own terms and set them up in an unfair way for your opponent. 'Suckerpunch' can then be used to augment friendly goblins first hits, so they never need to get involved in a long drawn out fight. This can be especially fun on Doug, as he can be suckerpunch'ed, then charge a model for a massive +4 damage on his next attack!

The other 2 models will primarily be providing movement and additional energy to your goblin troupe. Between Stu's 'Bawdy jokes' and Shabaroons 'Goblin Mischief', starter box goblins can be amped up to crazy levels of energy. 'Transconbobulate' and 'Rough tides' can then be utilised to send goblins to the best place to perform as much mayhem and carnage as possible. In a pinch, these 2 can also provide a little offensive capability, but they will normally be providing support to other goblins to do the killing or harvesting. Fans of Doug will like that Stu has a 3" melee, which he can use to put out a little hurt. If more arcane methods of pain are required, Shabaroons unique 'Goblin luck' can often throw a spanner in the opponent's plans when all their abilities start backfiring.

Monster Box

The other way to expand your moonstone collection is through a monster box. Whilst it won't contain as many miniatures, it will add a model unlike any of the others in the starter set to your games. With this, you can take either of the starting troupes up to 5 models, which is enough for a standard tournament game. With this in mind, I think there is one monster box that stands out amongst the rest should you want to add a larger model to your games.

Unlike the other boxes covered so far, Gotchgut is a dual faction box. He can, therefore, be used by either your commonwealth or your dominion troupe and he works just as well in either! Within the commonwealth, Gotchgut can enhance your melee capabilities even further and can bodyguard Baron Von Fancyhat. However, when aiding the dominion, Gotchgut can reliably pump up the Vicious Midget's melee stat and can, in turn, be pushed around by his short friend.

Primarily, Gotchgut will give you a good idea of how giants and trolls will operate in moonstone. He has all the general features of the race: bad evade, tonnes of wounds, damage resistance and increased damage in melee.

Honourable Mentions

Whilst these 3 boxes would be my go to recommendations for new players, there are 2 other boxes I think deserve a mention for other reasons. 

Whilst more humans are the obvious complement to humans, the gnomes are also worth consideration. For commonwealth, races don't provide huge synergies in comparison to how crucial the goblin trait is to goblins for example. This means it's easier to mix gnomes and humans in comparison to goblins and faeries. This is especially the case with this box as the gnomes here don't need support from other gnomes to operate. Therefore, this box may be a fantastic choice if you want to dip your toes in the gnomes and see how they play whilst also expanding your starter set.

Young Jack for example adores support from Eric due to his noble trait, enabling the gnome to become deadly in melee. On the other hand, Graddock lends support to other models rather than receiving it. Graddock can be great for newer players too who are struggling to get to grips with arcane abilities. This he achieves by protecting your models from catastrophes and often forcing your opponent to reveal their arcane card when they play it. Finally, Morris is a straight forward model who doesn't lend or receive support but happily wanders around collecting moonstones, very good for players ordinarily forgetting to harvest any stones!

Whilst Gotchgut is great with both starter troupes he is only 1 model. If you share your starter set with someone else, you might be itching for another monster box so both sides can take one. Enter Bristlenose! Unlike a lot of very niche options in dominion, Bristlenose is very generalist and so will happily fit into any dominion troupe. When he is added to a dominion troupe he can be expected to do one simple thing. Get into melee as soon as humanly possible and kill everything. So much like Gotchgut he'll give you a good idea of how trolls operate. Bristlenose will happily comply in this, bringing all the normal characteristics of a troll in a single easy to use package!