Range and Unit Tactics Guide

Courtesy of TeamR:

Range and Unit Tactics Guide
LEGEND L - leader R - rear F - front BRL - Battle research lab (allows units to use 3 slots)

During battle two units will face off against one another. As illustrated below: Without BRL: [L] [F] vs [F] [L] With BRL: [L] [R] [F] vs [F] [R] [L]

A unit's range affects how many spaces ahead it will be able to attack: range(1): monster will only attack from the front or from the rear when the front line is destroyed. (one space ahead)

range(2): monster can attack from the leader position, or the rear position if the unit is upgraded with BRL (two spaces ahead)

range(3): monster can attack from any position within a unit. Note that if a unit has been upgraded with BRL, leader is required to have range(3). leader only needs range(2) if the unit is not upgraded. (three spaces ahead)

BEHAVIOUR Ranged monsters will move into the forward most position possible and attack at max range FIRST. For example:

unitA [L] [F] vs [F] [R] [L] unitB

In this senario, if the leader of unitA has range(3), he moves into what would be the rear position and fires ahead of his front line, ahead of the enemy front line, and damages unitB's rear position.

If the leader of unitB has range(3), he fires ahead of his rear and front line and damages unitA's front line.

The key thing to remember here is that monsters with range fire at max distance first then work their way back. They will also move up a rank whenever possible.

TACTICS With all this in mind, it opens the door to a few different tactics.

Because ranged units tend to be weaker than front line units, it's possible to have a ranged unit on the front line to attack the enemy leader straight from the beginning of a battle. If the unit leader dies, the fight ends in defeat even if the front and rear lines are full. So it might be a worthwhile tactic in certain situations.

Or vice versa, one could have a stronger unit with low range in the leader position to avoid early defeat.

All things to consider. The NPCs do more damage than human controlled monsters of the same level, so having your leader weak and exposed can spell early defeat (has happened to me a few times)

ILLUSTRATION

In the above pictures, I got my butt handed to me because I failed to plan for the enemy attacking my leader. He was only at about 150 strength. At the time I thought they would need to destroy my front line first. As you can see, that isn't the case. The lizard ranger has range(3) while my mage has range(2). So while my front line unit was clearly stronger, the enemy won by avoiding them all together