New Moon on Friday

I don't really blog my exploits over in the Chippenham provinces very often but last night Paul, Stuart and myself (Chris) had agreed to roll out my Christmas present Luna. This title is one of Stefan Feld's lesser celebrated offerings falling under the sizeable shadows of Castles of Burgundy and Macao.

Stuart was running late delivering various children to the their respective owners and therefore Paul and I took the opportunity to run out a quick game of 7 Wonders Duel. This is quite a favourite of mine and I tend to fair well against Paul when we play. This time was no exception. I had got my money machine working quite well and had settled on a strong military tactic. As Stuart arrived I completed a military victory half way through the third era.

Then to Luna. I'd previously watched a How To video and run through the rules. The instructional video made it seem a lot more complex than it actually was. Reading the rules, which were reassuringly concise, made total sense.

The basic premise is that we are all orders of Novices based at a temple surrounded by 7 islands. The orders are all competing with each other to win the favour of the Moon Priestess and become the next temple leader. The islands basic function is to serve as worker (Novice) placement locations which you can either collect a game helping tile or place a shrine, should conditions allow it. The main board represents the temple and the centre of it is populated with a section for each player, up to a maximum of 4. Encircling the temple is a path which is home to a Guardian character whose only job in the place is to show you which of the 6 rounds you are on and to dispense tiles for placement into corresponding spots in the temple.

Early in the game

There are four movement actions, about 3 temple actions and 3 more special actions. To the uninitiated they seem random. The context of your moves are not obvious. Add in to the mix a Priestess, a Master builder and a nasty Apostate which occupy islands and have their own movement rules after each round, it was plain to see why the start of the game became a tentative exploration of actions. (for the record we all made the "I'm having trouble with my Apostate" gag at some point).

By round two we had a grasp of how to manipulate the actions and islands to our benefit but that didn't stop it being quite the brain burner. The game rewards forward planning, such as, working out where the Master Builder is going to be next so that you can get two novices there and also making sure that you have a Shrine token so that you can build a shrine. Stuff like that meant there were quite a few rounds with players staring at the board calculating permutations. We got faster as the game moved on.

The game doesn't really have that much in the way of direct conflict. The worst it gets is that one action allows you to place tiles with Novices on in the temple and if they meet certain criteria they can displace opponent Novices previously placed.

Even with the lag the game was engaging enough in a puzzly kind of way and the scoring is tight. Stuart ended victorious with around 78 points, I was next on 75 and Paul third with 71.

One thing to note was there was a lack of post game narrative when we discussing the tale of the game. Most of the actions we made had plus and minus points and it was difficult to say which moves the game hinged on.

With the rules and first play under our belts we all felt like giving it another go even though it was a slightly dry experience.

We finished up the evening with a quick game of Sushi Go Party - Stuart winning and an even quicker game of NMBR9 which I eked out a win.