Stop! Thief!
Throughout Moonstone’s life, there has always been the possibility of running lists with no focus or intention of causing damage to an opponent.
Instead, these troupes often rely on speedy tricks and stacks of energy to grab stones as quickly as possible and defend, or more likely flee, from their opponent until the end of turn 4. Whilst unreliable as a strategy, if the stone drop is right and you’re unprepared for your opponent to use such a strategy it can be quite bewildering. But fear not! There are definite tells and signs your opponent might be going for such a strategy and only certain moonstone drops where it’s reasonably feasible.
As for judging whether or not your opponent can go for a ‘Smash & Grab’ strategy like this, there are a couple of things to bear in mind. That is, ‘Melee Zones’ and what I’ll call the ‘Fourth Moonstone’.
Moonstone Deployment and the ‘Fourth Moonstone’
With lots of non-weakling Energy and mobility tricks, Fauns like Hoff are one of the troupes which can favour ‘Smash & Grab’.
In 5 & 6 character troupe games, 7 Moonstones are dropped. Therefore, if a player ends the game with 4 Moonstones, they are guaranteed to win as there are only 3 stones left that their opponent could harvest. If a player plans on grabbing stones and running off they will often aim to grab 4 stones for this reason. With this in mind, you can observe where the stones drop and try to determine if and how your opponent may go for a ‘Smash & Grab’ depending on which side of the table they start on.
Generally, the most favourable type of drop for these troupes is 3 stones within or close to their deployment and a low-depth stone on the centreline: the ‘Fourth Moonstone’ they need to win. Here these troupes can pour all their resources into rocketing one model up to the centre to grab that crucial Fourth Moonstone, then use other models to try and reel them back in. The other Moonstones near their deployment can then be harvested with any leftover energy from the first turn, or as they retreat. Of course, it’ll often not be like this exactly - some stones are bound to lie outside of the deployment zone, stones in the centre might be quite deep, etc. Even when this is the case though, there will normally be one stone which an opponent attempting to ‘Smash & Grab’ will go for first (their Fourth Moonstone) as it would otherwise be harder to get later on. Determining which stone could be the Fourth Moonstone will get easier the more games you play - but when you can it’ll give you a decisive advantage against ‘Smash & Grab’.
Melee Zones
With a large Melee Zone and large amounts of Energy, Doug is great for rushing up to the centre and preventing early harvest actions.
This leads to the other thing I mentioned at the start of this article: ‘Melee Zones’. Despite just being a fundamental part of any character stat card, this is one of the best defences against ‘Smash & Grab’. This is chiefly because models who are engaged in Melee cannot take the harvest action. Combining this knowledge with determining which is the crucial Fourth Moonstones (that could win your opponent the game) gives an excellent first option to stopping ‘Smash & Grab’.
In essence: put a melee zone over the stone that’d win your opponent the game!
If you suspect this might be necessary, the first thing to do is deploy for it. For this, you’ll need a character with a large melee zone or plentiful movement and to deploy this character opposite the Fourth Moonstone in question. This will let this character activate, Jog up, and step until they’re covering the Moonstone with their Melee Zone at the drop of a hat, preventing a ‘Smash & Grab’! If they won’t quite be in range for this, other characters which can donate energy and movement effects can push them up the board, giving them just enough movement to react to a ‘Smash & Grab’.
What to do if Someone Slips Through
With lure effects and Moonstone stealing, Kaufman is great for chasing down Moonstone hoarders.
Although this is a great first route to stopping this type of strategy, sometimes a crafty Goblin or Faerie may slip through the lines and grab that Fourth Moonstone or another game-winning Moonstone. In this case the game is not over: there are still multiple ways to chase down those Moonstone thieves. First thing first, slowing them down so they can’t get away with their stones! A relatively blunt way to slow down a character is through energy-sapping - a character can’t take many Steps or Reaction Steps if it doesn’t have energy.
Characters with luring effects, like Kaufman and the Tax Collector, are also great for slowing down enemies by hauling them in when they try to flee. Furthermore, these two characters have another trick up their sleeves - don’t bother killing the characters with the Moonstones, just steal the Moonstones! Abilities like ‘A Generous Offer’ and ‘Robbery’ can throw a real spanner in the works for these troupes, stealing their Moonstones away.
Finally, to once again loop back around to one of the first things mentioned, Melee zones are also still great. Engaging a character who has multiple Moonstones can make it awkward for them to Jog, allowing another one of your characters to Jog in to deal with them. This can be with Moonstone stealing abilities or just Melee attacks to finish them off.
Final Thought
In general, when playing against these troupes Melee engagements are invaluable! ‘Smash & Grab’ requires careful planning, execution and luck to pull off, with each energy spent being critical. Therefore, anything that can cause even a slight issue can cause disaster for these troupes. So preventing harvests completely, or engaging characters and forcing them to spend more energy to disengage or Jog awkwardly is game-winning. As well as completely disrupting their plans there is one final advantage to engaging everyone in a ‘Smash & Grab’ troupe. Most of them are composed of characters pathetic in Melee, so get to your own smashing and start making Melee attacks!
