How It Plays

Strength runs out fast

Stamina is spent on movement, attacks, switching sets and other actions, and every enemy hit takes a little more. Two limits apply at once: the stamina pool for the whole battle, and turn capacity — how much a fighter can spend right now.

So you have to plan several turns ahead. One step too many can leave you without a strike, and an opening that is too aggressive, without strength at the decisive moment. Recovering restores part of a fighter's stamina, but ends the turn and leaves them more vulnerable — so even the moment for a breather has to be prepared in advance.

Turn order matters

Fighters take turns by initiative, not side after side.

So the question is often not “whom do I attack?” but “can I take him out before his turn?” Sometimes a weaker strike now is worth more than a stronger one later.

A flank can decide the battle

Every fighter faces one way. A strike from the front, from a half flank — diagonally from behind — or in the back: these are different situations.

Going around raises damage and weakens the shield, while a strike in the back hits hardest and bypasses the shield entirely. So sometimes it pays to spend a turn on positioning rather than attack head-on.

Contact with the enemy changes movement

A fighter with a melee weapon holds a zone of control — the hexes around him. You can leave it, but every such step costs extra stamina, and the enemy gets a strike on the way out.

That is why the front line doesn't just deal damage — it shapes the battlefield.

Weapons are more than different numbers

A sword, an axe, a mace, a war hammer, a spear or a scramasax — each does a different job.

Some weapons are steadier and let you carry a shield. Others hit harder or strike several enemies at once, but cost more stamina and force you to take risks.

Ranged weapons differ just as much in range, power, accuracy and ammunition.

Damage type matters

Slashing, piercing and blunt damage work differently against armor and against unprotected targets.

A heavily armored enemy is better broken down with blunt weapons. Once the armor is broken, slashing weapons become far more dangerous.

That is why the right lineup for your warband depends not only on your heroes' levels, but on who they are marching against.

Winning isn't all that matters

The battle doesn't end on the victory screen.

One outcome can leave the warband almost unscathed; another can send several key heroes to the Infirmary and leave vital gear broken.

Getting the warband back into the fight

Between outings, the warband returns to camp.

Here you allocate not combat actions but time and opportunities: whom to heal, whose gear to repair, whom to train and whom to prepare as a replacement for battles to come.

Camp is where the consequences of the last battle turn into decisions before the next one.

There is no single best lineup

Before a battle, the question isn't only who is stronger.

One enemy forces you to bring blunt weapons against armor. Another calls for more archers. Against shieldmen you need flanking moves or weapons that can break defences.

But the hero you want may be in treatment just then, and the shieldman you need may be left without serviceable gear.

Twelve people. One warband can't take them all

The game has twelve named heroes, but in a single playthrough at most nine will join the warband: you can take only one from each recruitment offer.

These aren't nameless classes or interchangeable units. Each has a character of their own, a combat profile, a past and ties to other heroes. So the makeup of your warband is a combat choice and a story choice at once.

Everyone has something they left behind

The heroes' biographies don't exist in isolation from one another. They served together, met the same people, witnessed the same events — and remember them differently.

In time, each hero gets a personal sortie of their own — a separate story in which they have to return to an unresolved part of their past.

These missions do more than add one more battle. They complete the character's personal story and grant them a unique distinction.

Choose who tells this story

Dzvenyslava, Liutobor and Ratybor set out together, but each of them sees people, events and what the warband must do differently.

Choosing a leader comes down to more than a combat bonus. It sets the perspective from which the player sees the campaign: the dialogue, how events are judged, how allies and enemies are regarded.

The war stays the same war. But what it means to the warband changes with whoever stands at its head.

Expeditions don't change one hero — they change what the whole warband can do

Camp buildings are unlocked by the campaign. Expeditions expand them: new procedures in the Infirmary, upgrades and a second anvil in the Smithy, new exercises and pillars in the Training Yard.

The longest expeditions grant a band award — a permanent boost for everyone in the squad at that moment. And every expedition brings firewood for the Long Rest, which puts the whole warband back on its feet in one go.

Sortie

growth for one hero

Expedition

growth in what the whole warband can do