Hocus Pokus, Witches Get Some Focus!
Character Errata 2025
Like many other games (ones that that prioritise replayability over a new edition every 5 minutes anyway ;) ), from time to time we have to rebalance the scales within Moonstone.
New releases create new and sometimes surprising interactions, and whilst myself and Joe playtest A LOT (as well as our dedicated playtesters, who we love) sometimes things just need a tweak to keep the game fun and competitive well into the future. We review character cards in excruciating detail once ever couple of years and make small tweaks to a handful of cards, with the aim of cutting out any potential negative play experiences (NPEs) and maintaining balance.
The Important Bit
It’s been 2 years since the last errata and, just like we did then, you’ll be able to download and print any changed cards at home for free, or purchase professionally printed replacement cards direct from us, or your FLGS. For long time players with big collections there is an errata pack containing all the cards updated in this 2025 review to make updating quick and simple.
Don’t worry about purchasing miniature sets, it’s business as usual there as all our box sets have had the new cards in them for several weeks already. You may even have noticed some in any recent purchases.
The Changes
Anyway, without further ado, here’s the Goblin King Development Team’s commentary on the changes. Click on each image to expand.
With Halloween upon us, let’s kick off with a seasonal good-news story…
Which Witch Wants a Buff?
“Ooooh buffing, how lovely.”
How about - all of them!? By design the three Witches are a complex troupe to wrap your head around, but can do fantastical things if you can perform the right mental gymnastics. Along with sub-factions like Faeries and Norse, the Witches were intended to be a high skill-cap troupe; hard to use well but powerful if their unique challenges can be mastered. And honestly, I think I was too cautious with them at launch. It has turned out that they need to be played expertly just to be in contention with more point-and-click style lists. We’ve decided to give them a little glow-up.
All of the Witches now retain their sisterly benefits from ‘Link to …’ abilities, even after the sister in question is slain. It’s a small change but stops the loss of one witch from turning into a downward spiral and should make them slightly friendlier for new players to use.
They have also all gained the Witch keyword in addition to Spirit. This opens up new design space in future, but we’ve immediately capitalised on this with Antionia.
Antonia
Antonia gets a discount cost Arcane Ability once per turn when targeting a Witch. This allows double Healing (or a cheeky discount on a reposition via Candy Apples) in a Witch-centric list.
Danica
Danica can now make use of the Arcane Cards she has extracted from the deck. In some senses this simplifies things by bringing her inline with all of the other Leshavult deck manipulators, but it also makes her far more exciting to play. Instead of using Meddle with Fate only to inconvenience your opponent when it’s obvious their troupe relies on certain Arcane Cards (pink for Faeries, ‘2’’s for reanimate lists etc.) now the cards you pull are a veritable candy store of options.
Do you want to take cards your opponent wants out, or do you want to guarantee one of your own abilities later in the game? I’ll level with you - this sounds a bit broken. But we’ve tested it extensively and it doesn’t always go to plan. Along with the other Witch changes it seems to have put the Witches right were we want them in terms of competitiveness. The decision to use her initially for Meddle with Fate or Puppeteer is now a tricky one and knowing you’re sitting on a pocket ‘Pink 3’ to use when you choose is a joyous feeling I can tell you, opening up many more opportunities for tactical decisions on when to use your stashed cards!
Zorya
Zorya has always looked like the melee fighter in the Witch in Time box set but in practice many have found her disappointing in a straight up fight with other A-tier melee pieces, forcing Witch players to take a more resilient frontline character (or two). So list building for a 5 character tournament has felt a real squeeze, with never quite enough slots to get the synergies cooking.
Zorya’s buff looks to be the most trivial of the three on the surface, but in practice has proved to be just as impactful as the changes to her sisters. Give her a try – you’ll be surprised what a terror she is now when you have an extra Melee Card to fish for her signature and then freedom to move around as you want in the End Step. With a little more melee punch within in the core 3, list building on top with a support character or two becomes more feasible. Which is a nice segway into…
Raegan (an Honourary Witch for Now!)
Raegan can now heal friendly Spirits. Raegan is great support for the Witches and the non-Spirit clause on her heal was meant to throttle their synergy. Time has proved that not to have been necessary.
Meanwhile, the Spirit keyword has grown over time in Leshavult. Raegan looks awesome on the table along side Treefolk, and the anti-synergy there definitely felt bad. Being able to give Treefolk and Witches more options and eliminating a feels-bad moment by deleting a word felt like a solid win.
Let’s Talk About Gnomes
“As long as I can a-whack with my pan, I’m happy.”
The other major sub-faction affected by this errata is Gnomes. Here at Goblin Towers we’ve felt for a number of years that Gnomes, once you’ve learnt their tricks, can be quite oppressive. They don’t look super flashy and we think they’ve flown under the radar for most players, especially with all the other exciting releases in other factions drawing attention.
But as we started testing The Faculty, the underlying issues we had in the backs of our minds moved front and centre. There was no amount of down-tuning of The Faculty models that could fix it, as the issues were with models already out there. The Faculty were just going to draw players’ imagination back towards Gnomes and we were certain some problems known only by a few so far, was going to rapidly become a bigger part of players’ experiences if we didn’t get ahead of it. The changes we’ve made keep Gnome play-style exactly the same but shave off some of the more egregious scenarios that can leave an opponent feeling “they couldn’t do anything”, which is definitely a feeling we never want a Moonstone player to have.
Mama Gimble
Mama Gimble has always been one of those models who’s been consistently above the typical power curve. In the early days, when there were only 6 models in a given sub-faction, these sorts of models could fly under the radar as long as the sub-faction as a whole performed on a par with other sub-factions. But as more and more Gnomes have been added, Mama Gimble has started to be labelled as an ‘auto-include’, something we always try to minimise in Moonstone. Games are, in essence, all about a string of interesting decisions. List building is the first interesting decision of the game, and an ‘auto-include’ means one of those decisions is taken away from players.
My Boys is now capped at -2 instead of -3 Dmg to reduce the NPE of “It doesn’t matter how well I do with my attack, it can’t hurt her anyway”. Luck Charms no longer gives Magical Dmg reduction to all nearby Gnomes. Magical Dmg is meant to be the ‘best’ Dmg type, and over time we’ve started to feel there is a little too much Magical Dmg reduction in the game. Lastly and most importantly, Mother’s Wrath can now only be used while Mama is engaged by an enemy. In the early days Mother’s Wrath offered players an interesting choice, to double shoot with Quarrel turn 1 or wait for a more impactful usage affecting many more models later. But with the addition of the Gnomish Airship, Mother’s Wrath was almost always being used turn 1. It was no longer an interesting decision for the Gnome player to decide how and when to use it and worse, with the amount of Arcane Stat buffs going around in Gnomes, it was relatively easy to shoot an enemy off the board at the end of turn 1 from long range. It doesn’t feel great to be on the receiving end of. Mothers Wrath is still an epic ability that can swing games, but now you have to get Mama up into some degree of danger to benefit from it. In practice, this has made Mama much more fun both to play with and against.
Quarrel
Brothers in Arms on Quarrel’s original card, gave +1 Arcane and +2 Melee to a friendly Militia and could be used as many times as energy allowed. A dominant tactic emerged to pump Young Jack up to incredibly high Melee Stat (so high that every card in the deck but one was in the Jack player’s hand and he could guarantee a kill). Quarrel got a v2, which dropped the +2 Melee Stat down to +1, fixing the Jack problem. But then shrewd players began stacking the the +1 Arcane on the Gnomish Airship. In a Mama’s Wrath turn, it was possible to achieve two back-to-back shots at Arcane 8, X+2 Dmg and a 14” threat range. There aren’t many models in the game that can survive that! Basically the v2 fix to Quarrel - we came to realise - wasn’t the right fix. It’s the stacking of Stat buffs onto one model that was the issue. He’s back to +2 Melee/+1 Arcane, but can now only target each friendly model once per turn. Hopefully third time’s a charm for this deceptively powerful model!
Joanna
Joanna has been causing a lot of opponents a great deal of trouble for the last couple of years and has received a similar reduction in her ability to tank Dmg as Mama Gimble, with her Älskling ability now capped at -2. She also now deals nil Dmg with her signature move against High Guard and Low Guard (instead of 0+1 for the Glaive) taking her damage output down just a smidge.
Olim
An issue has been reported by a handful of players with Olim as a moonstone carrier benefitting from Look of Innocence and Bodyguard (usually from Brunhilde in Norse lists), meaning he is too difficult to harm enough to knock stones loose. With new support options for Gnomes and Animals incoming, we felt this largely under-the-radar NPE was likely to become more widespread and again, it was better to get ahead of it. Clearly our boy has grown up a little since his initial introduction (I’m not crying, you’re crying) and he has lost his Look of Innocence, but gained +1 health box as compensation.
(We also took the opportunity to cut some unnecessary extra words from his signature End Step Effect, making it simpler to read without affecting the way it plays.)
Boosts for ‘Vanilla’ Humans & Fauns
“Just wait until you see what I have in store for you…”
Despite a less than stellar tournament record, we are confident that Humans are solid. They are frequently the benchmark that other races are balanced to match, so we have very few concerns. However, as new models have arrived a handful of models have fallen out of common use and we wanted to breathe a little new life into those.
Friar Flavious
Friar Flavious has gained (in what may be our best work yet for ability naming) Rub it Better, in place of Spiteful. It’s basically Spiteful+ as it can now be used to heal nearby friends, not just the corpulent Cleric himself. His signature move also deals some ‘1’ Dmgs in place of ‘0’s.
We found these small tweaks really makes him a contender again for the Human healer slot and firmly cements his play style as the ‘tanky-healer’ who now heals best when he gets stuck into a ruckus.
Gertrude
Gertrude, the Faerie Hunter has also been revised. Our goal was to keep her about as good as she is now vs Faeries, but give her something more useful to do in other match-ups. Her Magical Dmg reduction is now only -1, not -2 (did I mention I think there’s too many Magic Dmg reductions in the game now?) but instead she’ll reduce all Melee Dmg suffered by -1 on her signature move.
These are minor tweaks, but the main buff is a brand new ability; Hunting Party is great against Faeries (who famously love to sit on unused energy for Reaction Steps and Go For Its) but it’s going to come in useful every game, no matter what your opponent is playing. The aforementioned Flavious has had great fun spanking out the heals with glee thanks to 8 Melee cards on the attack, to give one example. We’re hoping these boosts will make players reevaluate some forgotten models in their collections and we’re pretty sure there are some fresh and competitive lists that can be built in Humans without a single Soldier or Noble keyword is sight!
Hoff
Hoff will no longer deal ‘nil’ Piercing Dmg. We felt he could do with a small boost, and the ability to play Thrust Melee Cards for damage (albeit without any bonuses) gives him a few more options and makes him less predictable in melee. Experienced players had learnt that his attacks can be fairly safely countered by always playing a Thrust on defence, which will no longer be a safe bet. As a Starter Set model now too, this small buff reduces a possibly negative ‘gotcha’ moment that could be experienced by a player in their first game or two.
Mr Toodles
Mr Toodles was being left in the display case in favour of Chubs more often than we’d like. We wanted to keep the two Faun support models as equally attractive options with their own strengths and weaknesses. Toodles has lost Weakling and gained -1 Evade Stat, making him an all round more attractive package.
A Shade Over the Curve?
“Splish, splash…”
The biggest item of Moonstone news over the last two years has of course been the launch of the Shades Faction, which we’ve been keeping an especially close eye on. They got off to a strong start in terms of tournament records, mainly, I’m sure, due to experienced early adopters mastering their nuances before their opponents could catch up. But as more players have become familiar with what they can do and the counter strategies to employ, they’ve settled closer to average win rates this year which is great to see. There are a couple of niche interactions that we thought could do with a slight tone down though.
Greymair
Greymair in combination with Jobie has been something of a power couple especially in Shade Spirits lists, which I admit did slip through our nets a bit in play testing and has made the list sometimes feel a bit much for opponents to handle.
Greymair will now only be able to Drain Life on Spirits and Risen. Crucially – this now excludes Jobie, but also Psychopomps. A small nerf for Risen/Psychopomp lists (who have also been doing quite well), but we felt only a light touch was needed there, while also simplifying the ability.
Secondly, his Necrotic Salve will now only hand out energy to Risen and Nobles. Again, this excludes Jobie (who could use +1 energy for That's Mine, This is Mine... immediately after returning to play), but also Snag (who could use +1 energy for a Blink to extend his Deadwood Curse threat range by a little over 2.5”) and Sen’Ara (who could use the +1 energy to create a water feature and lure someone into it on turn 1 of the game). Both Greymair and Jobie remain useful additions to Shade Spirits, but with less potent support it opens the door for other options too. We’ve found both list building decisions and an opponent’s options to deal with them, far more interesting as a result.
Sen’Ara
Talking of Sen’Ara, some players have mentioned they find her a bit over the curve. She was designed to be an A++ lure piece and a major part of the damage output for Shade Spirits. However, we have found being able to inflict wounds on enemies who are hiding behind cover and don’t actually move when lured (due to the ‘within 4”’ component of Siren Song) both thematically jarring and frustrating for opponents who feel they did all they could to protect their models, and still lost half their health. Now targets will only suffer the Dmg if they are within 2” at the end of their move, which feels a lot more like actually being lured into a watery doom and gives much more options for counter play (as well as more options for Sen’Ara to strategically move friends). To further increase the interactivity of the ability, the catastrophe has also been changed from an underwhelming 2” move, to 3 Wds. This is no longer a ‘free bluff’ opportunity for the Sen’Ara player and bluffing now comes with both a large reward, and a large risk. We feel these two changes combined, while both small, make her much more interesting and interactive to both use and face.
Marley
The last Shade model to be included in the errata is Marley. It came to our attention that some players were using Incorporeal Form and then beating up support characters in Melee with impunity. That’s not quite how we intended it to be used, so he will now deal nil dmg in Melee, as well as suffer nil while incorporeal (although he can still scare enemy stone carriers into dropping their stones with a well timed Boooo! and cause Wds in the end step with Horror). We also took the opportunity to bring the wording of his movement while incorporeal inline with other similar movement abilities for consistency.
Tone-Downs for Trolls
Bristlenose
When Bristlenose was first introduced Water Features were a rarity. If they were on the board at all, they were usually well away from the centre where the action typically takes place. His +2 energy bonus for starting a turn in a Water Feature was therefore set high enough that you might consider using him in out-of-the-way areas of the board once every now and then. In 2025 though, with new characters creating Water Features, often right near the middle of the board, Bristlenose can be an oppressive counter-pick in certain match-ups. We’ve toned his benefit down to +1 energy and otherwise made the wording more consistent with other similar abilities while we were there. With this smaller benefit, it may open design space in Dominion to get access to Water Feature creation one day too, something that has been strictly off the table previously.
Boulder
Boulder has always been a rock-solid pick in a variety of lists over the years. However, we started to be concerned that with more access to Reanimation in Dominion these days, he brings an awful lot of value as a reanimation target; able to jog up late turn following reanimation to engage, strip multiple energy from opponents, and be ready to start hitting with his full base energy the following turn. By design, the Dominion Nobles’ play style is a ‘blue deck’ denial and disruption style of play, and we felt the combination of toughness and reanimation efficiency of Boulder in this list may at times tip it just a little too far, with potential NPE for opponents if they feel they don’t enough energy to do things in their activations. Boulder’s Calcify can now only take an energy from one model he’s engaging in the replenish step, rather than all models he’s engaging. One of his energy pips has also been moved up one space so that in a turn following reanimation he will usually be less effective than previously.
Jackalope
The Jackalope is a model that we’ve felt for a while has consistently performed above the power curve. With excellent moonstone harvesting, above average melee output, above average toughness and very high mobility, even while carrying moonstones. It’s a lot of value in one adorably fluffy oversized package. The Jackalope has been bottlenecking any development of the animal keyword in Leshavult for a while now since adding any more support for animals would push her into even higher levels of power, and now with the release of Boffinsworth she was becoming an even bigger menace in Commonwealth too. We felt if the goal is to have all characters equal, a small nudge down on this model would be sensible.
So what’s wrong with the Jackalope? A common turn two activation for the Jackalope was to Jog 4” up to a 2 Depth Moosntone, Harvest and then Hop 4” away to safety, without leaving the opponent much opportunity to contest the stone, reducing interactivity. To curb this, instead of a bonus depth reduction on the first Harvest, Burrowing Claws will now allow the Jackalope to Harvest a stone regardless of Depth, but at a cost of (3) energy. She’s still able to pick up those 4-depth stones with her base energy and even for mid depth stones, being able to harvest completely in a single action is also more useful than it may first seem, denying your opponent opportunities to reaction step and engage half way through digging. However, opportunities to Harvest and immediately skiddle outathere will be rarer, and we feel that will increase interactivity between players overall. In summary then, the Jackalope remains a great harvester option in both factions, just not quite as exceptional as they were.
A New Giant for Hire
Dim & Dimmer has gained the Mercenary keyword. This is a keyword that we plan to give a little more love in the future, but in the meantime we’ve found a Mercenary Dim & Dimmer combo’s beautifully with Agatha. We’re always keen to enable list-building diversity and find ways to breath new life into older models, and small changes like this can have a surprising impact!
Clarifications and Clean Up
It occurred to us that Goblin Airships and Gnomish Airships could, rules as written in The Arising Book, be placed on top of boxes and other obstacles to gain +1 Arcane Stat. Clearly this is silly as they are supposed to be up in the sky, so Up Up and Away now excludes them from gaining bonuses for elevation.
The Arising also has rules for interacting with Objective Markers in campaigns which state they are activated with a Harvest action. This raised questions over whether Doug the Flatulent’s ability Digger means he has to flip an arcane card or not. To save an FAQ and keep our options open for further uses of Objective Markers in future, the simplest fix was just to add the words ‘on a Moonstone’ into the Digger text to clarify that the ability is not used when activating Objective Markers.
Tabby, the Librarian gains a couple of words to clarify that the recipient of energy from Energy Syphon must be within 8” of her, not the donor of the energy. This is always how it was meant to be played but the additional words avoid any potential for confusion.
Final Thoughts
We know you lot hate erratas and the process is definitely not one we relish. Reprinting stuff, replacing stuff, opening hundreds of boxes and swapping cards… The physical work alone has Mike in tears and Mick’s thumb bleeding from papercuts. The mental load would crush every Gnomish professor in the Academy twice over, even arguing over whether a model should lose a wound or not can take weeks and has led to several formal duels (not a great decision on Joe’s part as I have actually had weapons training and I won’t let him use a tank).
But!
We all love this game and have a passion to keep it in peak health and vitality for many years to come. I hope after reading our thoughts you’ll understand why some of these decisions have been made and can enjoy even more agonising list building experiences and tighter games as a result.
Love,
The Development Team
Goblin King Games