This is my favourite game so much that I spent all of Salute demoing it for the team.

The main mechanics were explained ok in this unboxing but hopefully a let’s play or round breakdown will follow to show you all more clear rules and how you use energy to perform actions (rather than activations).

A couple of key mechanics were not explained.

1) the arcane/range abilities that use those coloured cards. You draw cards based on arcane stat and your opponent draws a flat 6 cards from the same deck (all colours and catastrophes shuffled into one deck). As the attacker you then choose a card (it isn’t drawn at random) and you place the chosen card facedown and tell your opponent what card you have played, the key here is that you can bluff!!! You play it facedown and can say whatever card you like. Need a blue 3 but don’t have it in your hand, play a pink 2 facedown and lie through your teeth instead.

As with life however being caught lying has consequences.

After paying the facedown card and declaring what it is, your opponent has a choice to make. They can agree – in which case you apply that card you said it was to the ability and resolve it, you do not need to ever show your opponent if you were telling the truth or not.

OR

Your opponent can say that they do not believe you!
You then reveal the card faceup. If you had been telling the truth then the ability resolves , but because you were honest you may perform the ability again straight away (using cards in hand) without paying the energy cost!
If you were lying however , then your opponent can replace the card you played with one from their resisting hand of 6. So if they have a catastrophe card they play that and the ability resolves as if you’d played a catastrophe card.

The bluff and double bluff for arcane is amazing fun and really allows a player to play the opponent , if you can manipulate your opponent then you never have to rely on a bad card draw.

2) the other thing is to say that the game is not about killing a troupe. It down help. You play 4 turns and whoever is carrying the most moonstones wins. Within a round it’s an igoyougo with one model doing all their actions before your opponent uses a model and back and forth. Activation is supremely important to get the most out of synergies between the models.

Models can also save energy to react to an opponents turn. After every action is resolved an opponents model (just one per action) with
energy can spend it to dodge 1”. This allows some cat and mouse with melee but also helps highlight that positioning is also really important.

The game seems fluffy but the mechanics are really tight and very tactical, whilst remaining fun.

The card based arcane and melee are amazing and really unique.

Happy to field any queries about the game.

A third faction is just being released via Kickstarter and will retail later on – but existing factions are also getting new straight to retail models in late August.

The website moonstonethegame has rules, cards and standees all for free if you want to try the game FOR FREE!

The designers are very active on the moonstone players Facebook group too.

It really is a great game with a very low buy in price, but al the minis are individual collectors items full of character.