Goblin Mischief

Nearly 5 years ago I attended a tournament for this fun-sounding skirmish game I'd heard about online called Moonstone. To say I enjoyed myself would be a bit of an understatement as, despite all the miniature games I was playing at the time, this was the only one I felt like producing content for. At first, this was just to write about a game that had really captured me and also to help me improve my writing. I'd certainly like to think my writing is better when compared to my first article now! Following this I was lucky enough to have a few games against Tom himself at my regular friendly local gaming store. As I have now found out, most games when you're developing a game are playtest games and very rarely 'standard' games! Whilst helping with all this playtesting of the new characters I was able to see the final cards a little before release. Seeing the cards a few days before release was very helpful for the blog, allowing me to preemptively write articles for...

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...

Normally for troupes built around a keyword, several characters have auras and abilities that target said keyword. The treefolk however are not like these traditional keyword focussed troupes. Instead, they focus on how they and their opponents interact with wooded patches. As well as bringing a new terrain focussed playstyle to the Leshavult they also bring some very durable models by Leshavult standards. Gump in particular has the incredibly rare ability in Leshavult to reduce damage suffered. It isn't just one type of damage like the Jackalope either, Gump reduces TWO types of damage! This in combination with a few treefolk abilities and some more traditional Leshavult healing tricks can lead to some incredibly tough trees! The Growers Firstly, the treefolk need to get their wooded patches on the board. For this vital task, Ruwt will happily lend their expertise. They bring the familiar 'Verdant Growth' and a base energy of 3 allowing them to use it once per turn off the...

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...

In Melee we T(h)rust Coming in at a whopping 6 melee, the Fencer immediately secures her place as the highest melee stat model in the game. This is also supplemented by a fantastic arcane 5 and a superb evade of -2. As for her other stats, the Fencer has the traditional faeries melee range of 1", 6 wounds, and an incredible 5 energy. As great as these numbers are, it's from the Fencer's horde of passive abilities that we see how this faerie designed for melee will operate. Firstly, she has the standard 'Weakling' as is common with most faeries. As normal this can be removed by Wasp's 'Rage' ability, but weakling isn't usually an issue for this faeries as we'll see when we look at her signature later. Unusually for a faerie, the Fencer has some damage reduction, specifically an excellent -2 against all piercing damage received. Although this seems oddly specific it is very useful in tangent with her signature. On the damage-dealing front, the Fen...

Zzz... Huh? L ike many goblins, Portly Pete has an underwhelming stat line at first appearance. Unlike most goblins though, Portly Pete is slightly less evasive and has slightly more wounds than the rest of his goblin comrades. Although, as is typical with most goblins, these stats are a little misleading initially. This is where 'Asleep on the Job' comes in! Despite being a skillful goblin soldier, Portly Pete is often a little aloof, which leaves him in an awkward position at the start of the turn. Firstly, he can't be the first activation in a turn. However, when he finally wakes up, he gets a boost to his melee and evade stats which puts him more in line with the other goblin soldiers. This can be even more effective if the Goblin King is around since Pete gets this boost every time he activates! Once he’s in combat, Pete can make use of +1 piercing and Impact damage to his melee damage. In turn, he can reduce all non-magical damage he suffers by -1. In practice, it mea...

The three inevitable things in Tauber: Death, Taxes and Moonstones M oonstones are the win condition for a standard game - if you have more than your opponent by the end, you win. Now with the Tax Collector, they're also great for buffing your troupe's movement and toughness as well as sapping the opponent's troupe of energy. 'Rebate' and 'Income Tax' are the Tax Collectors' active abilities that accomplish this. As these are active abilities, they don’t need any cards drawn from the arcane deck and go off automatically. This is always a nice bonus for active abilities but it’s especially useful for the Tax Collector, as she is likely to be targeting moonstone carriers (who are often hiding behind cover), enemies who have good evade, or both. 'Income Tax' is something the Tax Collector will likely use every time she activates. For no cost, she can target an enemy character that has a moonstone and get them to pay an energy tax or forgo all their ...

Any resemblance to any real developers (in play or slain) is purely coincidental G oblins have had an affinity with being able to move moonstones around for a while now, with models like the Goblin King and Crusty Balboa being two examples. Jobie is the latest of this type of goblin, though he specialises in stealing stones from right under the noses of the opposing troupe instead. From here he can then throw them around the board, getting them further away from the enemy and closer to your own troupe! This he accomplishes with his two active abilities 'A Cunning Plan' and 'That's Mine... This is Mine...'. The first is a rare ability in Moonstone which allows Jobie to voluntarily give up his Moonstone and chuck it 2" away from himself. This comes at the cost of 1 energy and, perhaps more steeply, Jobie being slain. From his base energy, this means Jobie will be able to harvest a moonstone of depth 2, then throw it to his allies.  This is perfect for moonstones ...

A new errata is here and has updated a few cards for the game. Since the last errata, Goblin King Games Games has gone full-time and given us a lot of time to review and clear up some rules. Additionally, the Arising expansion was released and added a bunch of new characters to the game with many new models and troupes. We've reviewed the cards in great detail and made some updates which we've been planning to look at for a while. Changes such as slight balance tweaks and some rewording to help clarify some rules and remove some ambiguity. I've also coloured the updates red here to help with the reading. Without further ado, let's have a quick look at what they are and how they might change the game. Organised Play Before that though, we can quickly cover some tweaks to the organised play document. This is mostly wording, but we have updated sudden death to be allowed if time permits. This should lead to fewer draws in organised play. Longshanks has also been recently u...