BATTLE GUIDE

**Note: a full in-depth combat tutorial is available in game, as well as explanations of all aspects in the ‘Codex’, accessed from the Main Menu tabs on the right-hand side of the Tome.**

**Combat Basics**

As you travel across the wastelands of Ashe, there will be many difficult and tense moments where you face hostile or dangerous creatures and groups standing in the way of your goals. Inevitably, you will sometimes find yourself in a situation where fighting your way out is the only option. In these instances, you will be pushed into a Combat Encounter.

On the left-hand side are your three Heroes’ Units, placed on the hexagonal combat grid, as well as their three hands of cards. Each turn, these hands will be redrawn from your deck, cycling through every card before re-shuffling the deck and continuing until one side is reduced to 0 hit points on every Unit.

Note that when a Hero is reduced to 0 hit points, they are considered ‘Fallen’ and receive an Injury after the battle. Injuries are added to your deck as Weakness cards (see ‘Keywords and Named Effects’) and must be removed with Herbs (see the Overworld Guide for more details).

**Movement**

Understanding the movement of Units around the combat board is essential to effectively defeating your opponents. Each turn, both your enemies and your own party will have one regular movement available to them, the maximum distance of which can be modified by certain boons and effects. After this movement is taken, additional movement can come from cards played from your deck (such as <Advance>) or by ‘activating’ the Hero by recycling one of their cards in-hand (more on recycling and activation below).

There are terrain obstacles that cannot be moved through and act as cover for both you and your enemies, blocking lines of sight and in some cases interacting with cards like <Cover Shot> for additional effects. Additionally, enemy and friendly Units will block line of sight for ranged attacks, so always keep in mind where you are positioning your Heroes; covering off against flanking enemies and blocking their sightlines for ranged attacks can be key to your survival, but be careful not to block your own attacks from landing.

**Combo Attacks**

Another important aspect to consider is the opportunity to provoke combo attacks based on the positioning of your Heroes. When a melee attack is made by a Hero and other Heroes or summons are adjacent to the enemy target, each of these other adjacent Heroes and/or summons will make a combo attack, dealing a small amount of extra damage. This can be incredibly effective at using less-damaging cards with other additional effects to still deal a lot of damage to an enemy, or simply adding more damage to an already hard-hitting attack, so be sure to make the most of combo attacks where you can.

Keep in mind that only melee attacks will provoke a combo attack, and you can only combo attack when adjacent to the targeted enemy. This means utilising the mechanic can leave your Heroes vulnerable to enemy attacks if you do not have movement available to get them out of melee range again, so be careful to weigh up the potential and risk.

**Willpower**

Combat operates based on a Willpower system, similar to mana in other games: cards have Willpower costs to play, and you have a certain amount of Willpower per turn to use. Generating Willpower comes from either recycling cards (see below) or through powers and cards played on your Heroes, such as <Prepare>. Always make sure to keep an eye on your Willpower generation and whether you can anticipate an influx after playing certain cards, as this can be the key to many strong strategies, chaining combinations of cards for maximum effect.

**Hero Abilities**

Each Hero in your party comes with a specific extra ability that helps to improve the area of combat that they specialise in. Each of these abilities is detailed in that Hero’s own page on the Wiki, but below is a quick summary:

**Warrior:** Their first card played each turn while adjacent to an enemy gives 2 defence to all other Heroes

**Hunter:** Their first single target attack each turn deals +2 damage

**Elementalist:** Their first card played each turn costs -1 Willpower

**Warlord:** Their first card played each turn generates 1 Willpower

**Spirit Speaker:** Their first card played each turn has +1 damage, +2 defence and/or +2 summon health, where applicable

**Alchemist:** One card in-hand is upgraded at the start of each turn

**Assassin:** The first time they play an attack card each turn, draw a card

**Witch:** Their first card played on an enemy each turn will inflict a named effect on the target, based on the card played. (Magic damage = Shocked, Ranged damage = Chilled, Melee damage = Weakened, Other = Burning)

**Keywords and Named Effects**

The cards used throughout combat will often include keywords, which denote a particular kind of effect or status that the card will create. These are wide-ranging and can affect either the target or user of the card, so pay attention to what your card actually does before casting it in the heat of battle.

Below is a quick list of each keyword and their effect (you can also find a tooltip for every keyword present on a card when hovering over any given card in-game):

-         ‘Melee Attack’: deal damage to an enemy adjacent to the user, provoking combo attacks

-         ‘Ranged Attack’: deal damage to an enemy at any distance, blocked by characters or obstacles between the user and target

-         ‘Magic Attack’: deal damage to an enemy anywhere on the map, regardless of distance or obstructions

-         ‘Power’: gives the Unit a permanent bonus until discarded due to taking damage in excess of resilience value (small green diamond); each Unit can have up to 4 active Powers

-         ‘Defend’: absorb damage dealt to the character equal to their defence; all defence on a Unit is halved at the start of their turn

-         ‘Melee Resistance X’: incoming Melee damage reduced by X amount

-         ‘Ranged Resistance X’: incoming Ranged damage reduced by X amount

-         ‘Exert’: discard your oldest active power to play this card, as well as any Willpower cost

-         ‘Inspire’/’Inspired’: +1 to all Melee, Ranged and Magic damage dealt by the ‘Inspired’ character (per stack)

-         ‘Protected’: -1 to all Melee, Ranged and Magic damage taken (per stack); each stack cancels one negative named effect

-         ‘Steal’: stolen cards are taken from the owner’s hand, but returned to the owner’s discard pile when discarded by the thief

-         ‘Activate’: any activated Unit can perform a free ‘Move 2’ action (per activation)

-         ‘Stealth’: cannot be targeted by enemies unless adjacent; +1 stack of Stealth at the end of each turn; on first attack after gaining Stealth, +1 to all damage dealt (per stack, split amongst all targets), then lose Stealth

-         ‘Create Card’: generates a new card based on specific conditions, which cannot be redrawn and is removed from the battle once discarded for any reason

-         ‘Acid’: whenever Acid is inflicted, deal 1 Status damage (per stack of Acid on target)

-         ‘Shocked’: when hit by Melee or Ranged attacks, deal 1 Status damage to all friendly Units within 2 spaces

-         ‘Chilled’: -1 to all Melee, Ranged and Magic damage dealt; -1 to all movement

-         ‘Burning’: take 2 Status damage at the end of your turn or whenever you suffer Magic damage

-         ‘Immobilised’: Unit cannot voluntarily move

-         ‘Defenceless’: Unit cannot gain defence

-         ‘Weakened’: Unit deals -3 damage on their next attack; cannot perform combo strikes

-         ‘Exposed’: +1 damage taken from all sources; cannot have Stealth

-         ‘Weakness’: cards that provide no defence when recycled (see ‘Recycling and Activation’)

-         ‘Heroic’: cards that are removed from the battle after being played once; cannot be duplicated

-         ‘Summon’: cards that summon a new Unit; new Unit is summoned on target space, is deck-less/skill-less and has one Basic Action automatically, either movement or attack; can be activated for further Basic Actions.

**Recycling and Activation**

Recycling cards (right-click) generates Willpower for any friendly Hero to use, as well as ‘activating’ the Hero who’s card was recycled, allowing them to move 2 additional spaces (per activation). Both of these effects are usable each time a card is recycled, meaning you can both move the owner of the recycled card and use the generated Willpower from each recycled card. Recycling cards that then go unspent (excess Willpower) at the end of your turn will also generate 2 Defence for the unspent card’s owner.

Remember that Weakness cards, while still activating their owner Unit and generating Willpower, do not provide any defence if left unspent at the end of the turn, so be sure to use them well when you recycle them.

**Armour and Redraws**

The Armour value of your Heroes will give them bonus hit points at the start of each battle, based on the overall Armour afforded to them by their equipment. Redraws are increased through a number of factors, all based on aspects of your party’s adventuring (see the Overworld Guide for more details).

Redraws can be used by first recycling the unwanted cards from a Hero’s hand, then clicking the Redraw icon at the bottom right of their portrait. Only one Redraw may be used per turn per Hero, and you have a finite number available per battle, so keep that in mind as you decide when to use them in combat (the total number of Redraws available per Hero is written in green text on top of the Redraw icon). Note that any recycled cards which are then used for their generated Willpower or movement prior to clicking the Redraw button WILL NOT BE REDRAWN, nor will any recycled cards that then get redrawn still provide their generated Willpower or movement.