Flintlock

There are a lot of characters in Moonstone who could be classified as 'Ranged characters' and of all of these Flintlock is arguably the most iconic.

Flintlock’s card.

Being amongst the first human characters in the game with a clear and focussed set of stats and abilities it's easy to see why. With this set of dedicated stats and abilities, how can you ensure he makes a big as impact as possible?

‘Dagger’ and ‘Look Out!’

Although his main abilities are concerned with how he shoots, it's worth first looking at his other abilities and stats to see what he can do if something goes wrong. With 3 melee and a 1" range he's unlikely to reliably draw the card you want in melee and he will often have a problem with 2" range enemies. If he is in range when he attacks or is attacked though he can use his 'Dagger' to deal more piercing damage on rising attacks and thrusts. When he is involved in combat, though he is likely to be the defender, he can fall back on his excellent signature to prevent a little damage and to move out of harm's way. Finally, with "Look out!" he can protect allies from other enemies' arcane abilities by granting them additional evade.

‘Shoot Musket’

“I can see you…”

Now onto Flintlock's main ability: 'Shoot Musket'. With an incredible 12" range this can threaten enemies up to an absurd 16" away when combined with a jog action. As troupes generally start 16" away from each other this can put massive pressure on your opponent from turn one. This is exasperated even further by a fantastic damage profile of X+2 impact, giving a minimum of 3 impact damage if you successfully play a green. With a minimum of 3 damage for even a lowly green 1, your opponent is unlikely to want to call bluffs. However, if they do catch you out the catastrophe is truly catastrophic, preventing Flintlock from reloading, and therefore using, his gun for the rest of the game.

The other problem with 'Shoot musket' is Flintlock's comparatively low arcane stat. To make up for this, Flintlock has the 'Take aim' ability to bump his arcane up from 3 to 4. This does however cost an energy which means that Flintlock won't be able to reload after taking aim and shooting his Musket off his base 3 energy. As for how effective taking aim is, it increases Flintlock's chance to draw a green from 66% (With 3 cards) to 77% (with 4 cards). It's therefore often worth considering if you desperately need to hit during Flintlock's activation, but it will mean he will end his activation with an unloaded musket. This often isn't a problem as the next turn he can start with 'Reload' and then immediately set about shooting stuff again. This isn't the only way Flintlock can increase his arcane though and with proper support, he can become a rapid-firing deadshot who will terrify your opponent.

Increasing Flintlock’s Energy

Quack’s card.

The most effective way to increase Flintlock's arcane is with Quack. With 'Foresight', Quack can bump Flintlock up to a very impressive 5 arcane, or 6 if Flintlock uses 'Take aim' too. With 5 arcane Flintlock will draw a green a staggering 85% of the time (Slightly more likely than rolling a 2+ on a d6!) and 91% of the time on 6 cards. This also indirectly increases Flintlock's damage, as more cards drawn means you're more likely to find the higher greens too! With how much more likely Quack will make Flintlock draw greens he should always be considered for troupes with Flintlock. But sometimes even very high odds will fail and it's here we rely on bluffing in moonstone. As previously mentioned though, bluffing is a very risky affair with 'Shoot musket's dreadful catastrophe. Luckily, the commonwealth has an answer to this.

If you don't fancy your luck or want a contingency plan, Old Calders or Gradock can provide the excellent 'Sage advice' ability. This will yet again increase Flintlock's accuracy and damage as he's now more likely to get away with bluffs with this catastrophe immunity. But wait, there's more ways to increase his damage! Up till now Flintlock can only Shoot and reload every turn, but with 1 extra energy Flintlock can turn this into Shoot, reload and shoot again! A great candidate to do this is Eric who can donate 1 energy to him with 'My hero'. Alternatively Tabby can use 'Energy siphon', ignoring any potential catastrophes with nearby 'Sage advice', to stick a variable amount of energy on Flintlock. Sometimes this will be nothing, but sometimes it might be 2 which will allow him to 'Take aim' as well before firing twice!

With all this in mind, Flintlock goes from 1 shot with X+2 damage at 3 arcane to 2 shots with X+2 damage at 5/6 arcane! With each shot at 5/6 arcane expecting roughly 3/4 impact damage, Flintlock can put a huge amount of damage out at a ludicrous range from as early as turn one! With this sort of damage, you can force your opponent to spend the entire game making suboptimal moves or remove their models quickly and efficiently. With the right models slain early, the rest of Flintlocks troupe can go in for the kill or can harvest plenty of stones whilst the rest of the opponents' troupe cowers in cover!

Arcane    Chance of drawing a green

3                66%

4                77%

5                85%

6                91%