Crescent Moon

Product Information

Will you successfully navigate this web of rivalries and rise to prominence, or will you squabble with your lesser adversaries and fade into obscurity?

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.Starting with exactly zero cash, the Nomad traffics in the sale of mercenary military units either from the map or from their reserves (units ready for action, just not on the board yet). Even better, once the Nomad had units on the map, other players can bribe them to place their own mercs in the hexes where the Nomad’s units used to reside.

In my post-game discussions, there were also some comparisons to Pax Pamir and Dune, which makes total sense. I get Pax Pamir vibes from the way you're working with other players to manipulate the state of the board, while trying to be clever and sneaky as you focus on your own motivations. Sadly, I have yet to play Dune, but I am familiar with how it plays, and I think that might be the closest comparison. Like any area control game, your grip on power is only ever temporary. In a five-player game, in the four turns between your last move, the board looks like a wildly different landscape. You can’t plan out turns in advance. You have to react. This means it’s a major blow to the chops when the last action you took is now moot. Especially when, as I mentioned, you can’t afford to waste them. My oldest daughter played clarinet and I got her a middle grade one so we didn't have to rent it. Of course, just after we got it she quits.Crescent Moon is an area control game for four or five players. Take on the role of one of five radically asymmetric characters, each with their own objectives to fulfil, unique actions to utilise, and game-changing special powers to employ. Build symbiotic relationships with your allies, undermine your rivals, and choose your friends and enemies wisely in this cut-throat game of power and politics. I played the standard 3-year game for all of my games, and they all ran just about 3 hours which felt fine, but I do want to try the longer game at some point as well. With only twelve actions you really have to carefully plan your moves and it creates an interesting decision space as you figure out what you want to do with each of your actions -- I really need to get cards, but should I wait so I have more money so I can buy more cards to be efficient?, or I really need to build in that space before someone takes it over, but if I don't take an influence action now while that other space is empty, I might have to fight someone for it later. Decisions, decisions. I got 3 plays completed within about two weeks; each play was with 4 players. Each time I set up a night to get it to the table, our 5th player had to bail, got COVID, life happened, etc. The result is combat that is rich in nuance, decision-making and theatre, and not left to random chance. Power cards are used to gain the upper hand in battles, but sometimes come at the cost of paying your opponents. | Image credit: Osprey Games

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 PresentsIn 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. Finally, we have the Nomad who leads a bunch of independent local tribes, which are represented by mercenary units in Crescent Moon. Unlike other characters that can recruit units (Warlord and Caliph), the Nomad can recruit units where they don't have presence and no one has control. The cool thing is, as an action, other players can bribe the Nomad for mercenary units or hire them from the Nomad at an agreed upon price. The Nomad player scores the bulk of their victory points from spending money, so strategically they're motivated to place mercenary units in enticing locations so that other players want to bride them to convert them into their own mercenary units. In fact, this is the only way the Sultan and Murshid can get any units onto the board. The Nomad can also earn some cash-for-points by positioning themselves well for income phases. Either way, the more money they make, the more they can spend for victory points during the scoring phase. It took almost two more months for me to have a game night where I could grab exactly 5 players, and it came in an odd way: a recent night had a whopping 9 people show up, so we split into groups of 5 and 4 so that I could play Crescent Moon at its full player count. This talks you through two rounds (so two turns each) for all four factions. It’s brilliant: it tells you exactly what to do, explaining the examples of what’s happening and why. Then you’re free to play on from that structured starting point. Or you can reset and start again, now you understand what’s going on. I mentioned player count before. The player count for Crescent Moon is its biggest problem. There’s a minimum of four players, and a maximum of five. What do you do if you only have two or three people in your group? You either give someone else an extra faction or two – which can unfairly weigh the game in their favour – or you don’t play. There are some of you reading this now thinking “No problem, we always play with four”, and if that’s true for you, then great. For anyone else, it’s a real problem.