Goblin Mischief

Commonwealth humans have been a presence in the game and story from the very beginning. Today they continue to influence Tauber and play as a brutally hard-hitting and tough troupe on the tabletop. Among Tauber's common races, humans stand as some of the biggest and strongest. In-game, this is often reflected by above-average melee and wound count, in some cases as high as 9! This wound count is supplemented by an average amount of energy, usually 3, with most of it generally skewed to the left. Whilst it's not as extreme as the gnome's energy skew it is enough for the humans to take a few hits before their energy starts suffering. In addition, their large frames and affinity for larger weapons often bestow them with great melee ranges. There are however some disadvantages to being so large, meaning humans often have poor evade, usually 0 or +1. This can make them very easy to hit with ranged weapons and other arcane abilities. Damage-dealing arcane abilities usually aren...

You can ring my bell, ring my bell Most support models in Moonstone generally do one or two things pretty well. Daniel however does not and instead opts to do a lot of things well! Furthermore, Daniel supports characters irrespective of keywords so he will happily slot into any troupe with ease. There are however some troupes that appreciate his bonuses slightly more than others. With some careful positioning and planning, Daniel can really bring out the best in all of the characters he's playing alongside. Troupes that really appreciate his buffs, in general, are the ones that like to huddle together making use of multiple auras. Daniel can therefore feel right at home with gnome, noble and cultist troupes, which generally stick together around one or two models and methodically advance up the board. To this end, Brother Daniel carries the excellent 'Plant the Placard'. In the early turns of the game, this can be used to simply move your troupe up the board. At only 2 of D...

A Piercing Boar Sir Hogswash is a classic Commonwealth melee model with no frills attached. Of his four abilities on the front of his card, three are specifically to help him in combat. The other one is to help him against troupes with lots of arcane which he is often used to counter.  As well as these abilities, Hogswash also has some great melee stats, keywords, and signature move.  All of this combined leads to a melee stat 4 model with a 2" melee zone, some boosts for melee damage, and some damage reduction. The 'Hunting Spear' gives +1 piercing and slicing damage which means you'll always get +1 damage in melee as all melee cards have options for either slicing or piercing! More interestingly it also gives a further +1 damage against animals, making Hogswash an excellent choice if your opponent's troupe contains many animals. Similarly, 'Sun Shield' also plays very well against specific troupes notably cultists and faeries with their focusses on impact...

VALHALLA! Unlike Olim and Liv, Bj ø rn offers no support options and instead opts for an all-out damage and combat policy! The first and simplest such ability is bearskin, reducing all non-Piercing damage he suffers. To supplement this, Bj ø rn also has a healthy complement of 8 wounds, as well as three energy, shifted as far to the left as possible. The main advantage of energy shifted all the way to the left is as normal, he doesn't lose energy as easily the more wounded he becomes. Whilst this is obviously a great advantage for gnomes in general it is even greater of an advantage to Bj ø rn due to how his melee damage bonus works. 'Berserk Fury' is a unique melee damage bonus, it gets better the more the Berserker is wounded. It can vary from no bonus damage for a healthy Bj ø rn to a +4 to all damage types for a Bj ø rn who's suffered 7 wounds! When Bj ø rn has suffered 7 wounds though he is likely to die from the next melee attack courtesy of the opponent a...

Liv, Love, Manipulate cards   The norse often make use of the top card of the arcane deck and having enough models to manipulate and make use of the deck is often the key to the norse. Enter Liv who is excellent at both setting up the deck for these abilities and making use of the top card of the arcane deck. Liv's one and only arcane ability is 'Runes of Power' which is a simple 1 energy action that she will likely end up using every turn. With a range of 8" she will be able to either restore X wounds or deal X-1 magical damage. Off an arcane of 4, this will reliably give some decent heals and occasionally deal a little magical damage. The real power in this ability though is the fact it costs only 1 energy and can hence be done multiple times, giving more and better options for  'Manipulate the Runes'. Like 'Runes of Power', 'Manipulate the Runes' is also something that Liv will likely be using every time she activates. Unlike 'Runes of Po...

Jack the Even Younger The norse are here and Olim is the hero of this new keyword. To help his fellow norse, Olim has a slew of abilities. Some of these abilities are to help anyone, some of which are better suited to the norse and some which can only be used by the norse. In keeping with the traditional toughness of gnomes, Olim has the noble keyword, which allows Brunhilde to Bodyguard him, a defensive signature where fellow norse can leap to his defense and 'Look of Innocence'. With these three abilities combined, Olim will prove as defensive and tough as all his gnomish predecessors. The norse playstyle is somewhat different from a traditional gnome troupe. In these cases, Mama Gimble normally forms the core of this troupe, giving incentives for the gnomes to bunch up around her for damage resistance and arcane buffs. By comparison, norse troupes usually struggle to bunch up due to their tendency to charge headlong into melee combat as soon as possible. This is seen in the ...

With so many keywords and troupes now available to play in game, there's a huge variety of choice for someone deciding who to pick up as their first troupe. With this in mind here's an overview of some of the most common keyword troupes in the game. So if you're wondering where to start or if you fancy trying something new to play, check below for a swift overview of the most common troupe archetypes in the game! I've given each archetype a difficulty to play rating, a 1-5 star rating (1 being the worst and 5 being the best) on several stats, a handful of models you'll commonly use with them and a one sentence description based on how they'll play! Commonwealth Humans  ( Difficulty: Low)  Melee:  ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ Ranged:  ☆ ☆ ☆ Toughness:  ☆ ☆ ☆ Speed:  ☆ ☆ ☆ Harvesting:  ☆ ☆ Key models:  Baron von Fancyhat , Quack Playstyle: Very all round depending on how you build your troupe, models don't need support from other models but will always appreci...