Crescent Moon

Product Information

And you need more time to see what happens when you set those moves up. In my first game of Crescent Moon, I didn’t even use all of the available actions amongst my 12 total turns. You won’t see enough of the cards. Scores are lower, which is fine, but the secretive nature of scoring gives some players better chances at fulfilling their secondary objectives, which are usually harder to attain. Pre-pub link is up, and the game is getting great numbers to start. https://www.gmtgames.com/p-1083-wings-for-the-baron-deluxe-gmt-edition.aspx

The Murshid is really interesting; they have the most cards available for other players to buy on the market, and they work to establish their political influence all over the map. They break ties in places where they have influence. Sometimes, other players will have to pay the Murshid just to make sure they don’t sabotage their plans. The illustrations found in the game were mainly created by someone with Muslim origins and they reference a number of artworks from the Islamic world, which do lend the game an aura of authenticity and help the players immerse themselves in the culture portrayed in the game. The Game As well as strongholds, you’ll need to recruit troops. The Murshid and the Sultan can hire them from the Nomad. The Warlord and the Caliph have other methods of gaining troops. Hiring is a separate action, as is moving them from hex to [empty] hex. As is moving troops into a hex controlled by another player. Then combat (with cards) occurs; and, once again, the neighbouring Murshid can get involved… Objectives: Earn Yourself Some Crescent Presents

ABOUT CRESCENT MOON BOARD GAME

However, it is clear that a lot of wars were fought and people will have died in large numbers. It is also clear that many people will have lost their homes and had to flee or endure a new, probably merciless ruler, as one power expanded and took over populated areas. In Root, there are options to play with fewer factions, without overly disrupting the game. In Crescent Moon, the different factions are so inexorably linked, and dependent on one another, that it’s not an option. Those links are baked into the game, and so integral to the way the game pans out that each player has Year One objectives to aim for. If you complete them you get VPs that are only available in the first round, and in persuading players to go after them, it helps set up the game state to keep things running smoothly. Crescent Moon puts the player in the position of one of the Middle Eastern rulers of the 10th century. You need to scheme and plan and try and control as much area as possible, whether via influence or military power, and when you play the game you definitely get a sense of all of that. At first blush, Crescent Moon is easy to compare to Root. While Cole Wehrle’s masterpiece of warring woodland creatures looms large over this new asymmetrical board game, it’s by no means eclipsed - and what emerges from behind that sizeable shadow shines very brightly.

So Osprey Games has focussed very much on a positive playing experience and not on the historical accuracy of Crescent Moon. The game intentionally creates gameplay that is removed from what actually went on in the 10th century in the Middle East, especially when it comes to the wars that were fought. After all, combat is reduced to moving wooden tokens and playing cards, then removing tokens from the board, just like many other games. Final Words Even when you get 5 warm bodies to play Crescent Moon, you also want to make sure you get people willing to do a LOT of table talk. So, I still had the chance to play Crescent Moon at 4 players, but to finish out this review I knew I needed to get at least one play in at exactly 5 players. Crescent Moon, our exciting asymmetric area control game for 4-5 players, is out now! From designer Steven Mathers and with art by Navid Rahman, this game of power and politics has been getting a lot of buzz and is finally hitting tables ... Not knowing exactly where people are with victory points creates opportunities for people to bluff and talk their ways into shifting alliances. As the player with the most experience, I really enjoyed monitoring the social experiment that resulted from players not knowing exactly how many points anyone had. Plus, scoring up at the end of the game was always exciting.Unfortunately, it’s not all good news for the game though. I felt there was a huge barrier before you actually got to the game. The rulebook pretty much immediately introduces 6 very important terms. Until you understand the difference between tokens with military strength, civilian strength and influence, they are hard to properly understand.

The Murshid has won 3 of the 4 games I’ve played; it is a challenge to understand why that happened so often (and in digging around online, other play groups are seeing this as well). I get why this happens in first-time plays: no one knows what anything is really worth, so they pay the Murshid for mob-style protection any chance they get. After income, the Warlord, Caliph, and Nomad players calculate their reserve value to determine how many units they can add to their reserve card, which is the main way these characters get units onto the map. The Warlod and Caliph player add ordinary units (wooden discs, blank side up) to their reserve, and the Nomad adds mercenary units (wooden discs, camel side up). The game is designed by Steve Mathers and Illustrated by Navid Rahman. Steve lives in Melbourne, Australia, working as a programmer, and has been a part of the computer, tabletop, and roleplaying communities there for three decades while also traveling the world to strengthen his knowledge and love for ancient history. Navid is an illustrator with a keen interest in world building, creating environments with a blurred line of whimsical fantasy and reality. He creates striking scenes of sari-clad women, enchanted forests, whimsical organic shapes of colorful patterns filled with meticulous detail. ABOUT CRESCENT MOON BOARD GAME For Root fans, it’ll scratch much of the same itch while providing a breath of fresh air and some fascinating new ideas. For newcomers, it’s a more forgiving and approachable introduction to the idea of a board game where everyone is playing their own game, but together. Given time, there’s a good chance Crescent Moon’s setting, gameplay and ideas may well cast their own long shadow.When I read the rules for Crescent Moon, many of the elements from Sidereal Confluence came to mind, which is my all-time favorite negotiation game. My #1 gaming experience last year was the 9-player game of Sidereal Confluence I organized with friends. Truly, an amazing experience. Will you successfully navigate this web of rivalries and rise to prominence, or will you squabble with your lesser adversaries and fade into obscurity? Crescent Moon (2022, Osprey Games, designed by Steven Mathers) is already getting lots of comparisons to Root thanks to the classy production and asymmetrical gameplay. Crescent Moon is an asymmetric area control game for 4-5 players where players perform actions, often negotiating with one another, to affect a shared map striving to achieve their unique victory objectives. Some players aim to gain military control of certain hexes on the map, while others might be more focused on gaining political control of hexes. Suffice to say, each player has their own motivations, and there's lot of action and intrigue that unfolds on a relatively small map.