What madness awaits me, you might ask? Here ya go!
10AM until 12:30ish:
1. Moonstone boxes will be available for purchase at 10% off RRP! Our staff will be handy to assist you in figuring how to create the troupe that suits you as well as rules overviews and Q&A about the rules of this fantastically silly game!
2. Demos, demos, demos! Even if you arrive in the afternoon, we’ll have a dedicated demo table ready!
3. A proper hobby hangout! We will be providing space, super glue, and even some primer so that you can get your crew ready for the afternoon’s anarchic play event! All you have to do is bring some paint if ya want to do more! The hobby hangout table will be available all day!
1PM until close: Our Anarchic Play Event! (please read to the end for details. Also, John had way too much fun writing more of this so enjoy!)
The Archipelago of Anarchy II: The Sequel!! (In store gaming event, NO painting requirements).
“Oh bollocks. The Taubarians have made it past the Isle of One. Everything'll be going tits up in no time. Ready the ship, m'boy. Time to set sail before they steal everything that's not nailed down!”
-The Infamous Merchant and More-Than-Occasional-Pirate Andriano Rossini to his son and first mate, Luigi.
Background:
The Archipelago of Anarchy is a recently discovered group of islands off the coast of The Commonwealth named so for its teleportation storms that randomly relocate visitors to seemingly random places on each island. However, the sheer amount of moonstone found on the islands makes it worthy of expeditions by the brave, the bold, the greedy, and folks who are not quite right in the head in general.
The Island of One is the closest to the coast, unsurprisingly followed by the Island of Dos, Le Trois, and, sigh, you get the picture even if you slept through foreign language classes in school. Anyway, due its substantial moonstone deposits the island is an ideal get rich quick scheme for those who view mass theft and stabbing people as part of the road to success! There are even rumours of another pair of magical swords located somewhere on the island because what fantasy setting would be complete without them!
This time the island our erstwhile adventuring loonies will be exploring (plundering) this time is the Island of Dos. While the Rossini clan claims to have discovered the archipelago, it was actually first visited by a group of mathematicians who got lost on the way to a conference and weren’t exactly what people would call “creative types.” *
So gather your crew and set sail with us to the Archipelago of Anarchy II: The Sequel!
*it’s not to say that mathematicians are not creative people. In fact, these fellows were a diverse, multi-lingual groups who did there best to spice things up as they explored. This particular group also simply figured if they got the so-called professional creatives involved in the naming process, their wealthy patrons would eventually join in and the whole thing would be lost in various focus groups until the islands sank into the ocean or the world was hit by an extinction event level meteor, whichever happened first.
Gameplay:
1. Each player will choose a troupe of 8 models and place their name in The Fancy Hat provided by the Narthex staff or a half drunken orangutan, whichever is available at the time.
2. Players will have their name pulled out the Fancy Hat and their troupe will be teleported to a part of the island to explore.
3. The parts of the island will be represented by various tables set up by our crack team of half drunken orangutans for 2 player, 3 player, and 4 player games. From there, players will choose their crews in order to commence gleefully robbing and stabbing friends and complete strangers in the quest to collect the most moonstones. Measures will be taken to assure those who want to play all three formats will allowed to. This may involve bribing the orangutans with more booze, but hey, nothing that's worth it is every easy.
Players will have 60 minutes to plunder everything that's not nailed down and batter whoever gets in their way this before their crew is teleported to another part of the island.
4. As the games finish, the players will again place their names back into the Fancy Hat to determine where they are teleported next along with who they will be robbing and stabbing next. The names will be pulled from The Fancy Hat by whichever of the half drunken orangutans has established dominance by the point.
5. This cycle of madness will continue until we run out of time or until the cops show up to collect the orangutans for anti-social behaviour.
6. In a ceremony likely far more grand in the imagination than in reality, two magical swords will be awarded to two different people: The Master of Greed and The Hero of The Island of One.
The Master of Greed will be the player who won the most games or collected the most moonstones if there is a tie. If neither of these work a steel cage will be constructed outside and things will get sorted out that way. And, yes, there will be other prizes announced on the day you greedy gits.
The Hero Of The Island Of One will be determined by popular vote. Simply submit the name of the player that made you laugh the most that was not yourself, you mad bastard. Whoever receives the most votes, wins!
About the the itself:
Moonstone is a fantastic skirmish game where you play as weird fairy tale style creatures like faeries, cultists, gnomes, pirates and other fantastic creatures including a knightly goblin riding a pug. If you’re a fan of Sir Terry Pratchett, Ronald Dahl, Jim Henson, and many others there is definitely a faction or sub factions for you!
Battle it out to collect moonstones, no dice rolls and the game is very card based in terms of its characters, melee deck and arcane deck.