In this guide, I'm going to get into the mechanics of the game, as a quick reference guide for others. I will also touch briefly on a few of the implications of the mechanics, and the resultant strategies that go with them. This is only very brief, however, and this guide should not be used as a strategy guide.

This guide will generally be short on any info about specifics. Champions and ships will be mentioned as examples, or to elaborate on some mechanic I'm describing, but for the most part, this guide was intended to be readable regardless of champions, ships and shells. Of particular note is that a few things claimed in this guide will be innaccurate for specific ships, champions or shells. For example, I mention that ships take up all of the two ends of the Arena. However, the ships Sparrow and Arc have 'missing' segements, that are treated as empty space, the same as that is found on the sides of the Arena. If the game says something contradictory to me in this guide, the game wins, as this guide will not be mentioning every deviation from the norm.

I felt this deserved a section because it is a bit different than what you'd first expect. The game uses the standard Square Grid. You can move a number of spaces equal to your movement. One square or three, it does not take up any more actions. You cannot move diagonally, but attacking diagonally is common. All melee champions can hit a diagonal square. This means that if you are using a 3 Move character, and wish to run away from an directly adjacent (i.e. not diagonally adjacent) 2 move character, you'll need to do so in a straight line. Sidestepping does nothing to bring you out of their range due to diagonal attacks.

To clarify, all the games references to adjacent mean anyone in the surrounding 8 tiles. There is currently no champion, ability or shell, for which adjacent means only the surrounding 4 'cardinal direction' tiles.

Currently, each map is a 7x7 square Arena, with walls, tiles and places where there just isn't any land at all. Maps are symmetrical with regards to both sides, so neither player will have access to a starting position the other doesn't, mirror deployments are always possible. Maps are not necessarily symettrical for the left and right sides of the map, which are only rarely mirrored.

The ships take up all 7 spaces on their side of the field, and to target them, you must be able to attack one space beyond the adjacent space. As such, the battlefield could be considered to be 9x7, instead of 7x7, with the ships taking up those extra rows at the edges of the Arena.

The game assigns alternating turns at the start of the match, three for each side. Think of these turns as 'slots', as in a couple of ways, they don't behave quite like traditional turns.

There is no mechanical compensation for going second, however as the first thing that happens is deploying champions, going second allows you to make your choices all reactionary, which is it's own advantage.

Now, champion deployment. You can bring along 5 champions, however you only have three turn 'slots', so you can only deploy three. When deploying a champion, they are treated as if they were making a move action from one of the squares occupied by your ship. As such, they must have a clear path to their deployment location. This also means that champions with more movement can deploy further from the ship.

Regular turns happen when a 'slot' comes up, and there is already a deployed champion associated with it. First off, at the start of this turn, that champion gets +1 Personal Aether. Now, you get to take two actions. Movement (no matter how many squares), attacks (no matter which one) and shelling (No matte... you get the idea) all take one action. Of particular note is the double-attack. If an enemy is in your champions range, you can take both actions to attack him, doing high damage and (if the basic attack is used) build up Aether. A significant part of this games strategy is based on setting up double-attacks for yourself, and avoiding double-attacks from your enemy.

When a champion is killed, the next time their turn slot comes up, it will be exactly like the initial champion deployment from the start of the game, and you will be able to deploy any non-active champion, choosing different champions for the current situation of the battle. Whether that slot is 5 turns away or 1 turn away is unimportant for this, killing an enemy right before their turns means they will get to immediately redeploy, but right after their turn gives you a full round with 1 fewer enemy on the board. There is no 'minimum time dead' for killed champions. Only the slots are important.

Note that you cannot bypass champion re-deployment to use shells. And the only thing the champion can do is move out of their ship. You are thus safe from all attacks on the turn your opponent redeploys. The worst they can do is body-block attacks to their ship or weaker champions or engage in some threatening positioning that might force you to fall back.

Champions are made up of three things. Their HP, their Move and their attacks. There is no armor or passive abilities in this game. Move and health are self-explanatory, as I said before, move is only adjacent panels, not diagonal panels.

A champion has three attacks. The first is a basic attack. This attack generates 1 Aether for that champion. So far, these are all very basic damaging moves, with no special effects, differing only in range and damage.

The other two attacks consume the champions personal Aether. As noted, 1 Personal Aether is generated by starting a turn (not counting the initial deployment turn), using a basic attack, and stepping on a Personal Aether tile (to be discussed later). Currently, the attacks for every champion consumes 2 Personal Aether for their secondary attack, and 5 for their third attack.

A champion can store a max of 5 Aether, and any aether gained after that goes to waste.

The goal of the game is to smash the enemy ship, while protecting your own. Like champions, there are multiple ships. All ships are defined by their HP, and ships with special abilities have less HP. The starter ship has no special abilities or drawbacks, and has 15 HP. There are currently no ships with Drawbacks, so 15 is the highest. As of this writing, the ship with the lowest HP has 12. As noted, your ship takes up the whole side of your end of the field, assuming it does not have an ability that says otherwise.

The ship can be damaged in two ways. First off, killing a champion does 2 damage to the ship immediately. Re-deployment to fill that lost 'slot' does not affect the ship in any way. However, several champions have suicide attacks. If they are able to use these, they die without the ship incurring any damage. As a result, it is an excellent way to deny your opponent the kill and the resultant ship damage that goes with it.

Attacking the ship directly works exactly as you'd expect. The ship has no armor, and will take full damage from your regular attacks. As such you can do a lot more damage to a ship by attacking it directly than by killing champions.

Area of effect attacks only hit the ship once, no matter how many ship tiles the attack effects. Bloody Mary cannot do 6 damage to the enemy ship with her grenade attack, for example. However, if you use a move that pushes back multiple targets (see the Repositioning section) each one will deal knockback damage to the ship seperately.

However, making it to the enemy ship to attack directly can be difficult, and by ignoring enemy champions, you are allowing them to attack you unhindered, as well as build up Aether to use their ultimate attacks. Attacking champions directly will result in less ship damage, but forces your opponent to re-deploy instead of attack, and can negate the accumulation of Aether for devastating attacks.

Shells are this games trump card. You may bring three of them into a battle, and your opponent cannot see which ones you brought. Despite the appearance of three colored shells on your opponents ship, this is purely cosmetic, and does not indicate what kind of shells your opponent has.

Your shells require Ship Aether to be used. This is accumulated in a few ways. First off, all ship damage grants the ship aether on a 1:1 basis. You cannot generate aether by attacking your own ship directly. However, it is possible to damage your own ship with AoE attack, which can generate Aether for you, if you're desperate enough.

Second, you gain 1 Ship Aether when you damage the enemy ship, which includes killing enemy champions. Note that you gain only one Ship Aether no matter how much damage you do to the ship. 1 damage and 4 damage both return 1 Ship Aether.

Lastly, you can gain 1 Ship Aether by stepping on a Ship Aether tile, again to be covered later.

Once you have enough Ship Aether, you can use a shell as one of your two actions for the turn, which will consume an amount of Ship Aether based on the shell type. A ship can hold a maximum of 10 Ship Aether, and there are shells that cost all 10 of it. You can deploy two shells in a single turn, if you have the Aether for it (and this includes aether generated as the result of the first shell, usually in the form of the 1 Ship Aether you get for damaging the enemies ship).

Shells range is usually unlimited. Some shells, primarily the purple ones in the Tricks category, are based on the current champion. Teleport allows you to pick a space to move the activating champion to. You cannot select another one of your champions to be teleported. This is not the case with Healing shells, which can be deployed to the desired champion as needed. You are allowed to target your own units with damage shells and your opponents with healing shells.

Around the battlefields, there are tiles. The are spaces that, when stepped upon, generate an effect. Here is a list of all the currently existing tiles.

Health (Green Cross): +2 Health to the triggering champion
Damage (Red Fire): -2 Health to the triggering champion
Death (Red Skull): Triggering champion dies, you cannot order your units to step on this kind of tile
Ship Aether (Lightning over Ship: Generates 1 Ship Aether for the ship belonging to the triggering champion
Personal Aether (Lightning over person): Generates 1 Personal Aether for the triggering champion

Also, for reference, the spaces where there is no floor function, in every practical way, as Death Tiles. Pushing people off the stage predictably results in instant death.

Tiles trigger no matter how the champion got on top of them, whether normal movement, displacement or teleporting. They also activate the same no matter who put the champion there. You do not get +1 Ship Aether for knocking an enemy onto a Ship Aether tile, that affect is enjoyed by your enemy.

Tiles do not block line of sight, however they have an absolute halting effect on all movement. There are no exceptions. If a champion enters a square with a tile on it for any reason, they cease movement. This includes victims of the Butchers second attack (a pull to him, from up to 5 spaces away), and the Butcher himself when using his third attack (a charge of range 3). As such, when using repositioning skills bear in mind that you or your victim will be stopped immediately upon landing on a tile. In some cases this can completely negate the rest of the attack. Corporal for example will do no damage or pushback from his Charge ability if he doesn't make it to the square adjacent to his enemy.

Tile Movement Halting does not apply to teleportation shells and abilities, since you do not actually move through the intervening squares.

In a tactical game, positioning is key, and of course, there are several ways to push enemies around the battlefield.

First off, you can push an enemy diagonally, if you hit them from a diagonal direction. This has the effect of moving them 2 spaces further from their original location, rather than just 1 (or 4 rather than 2 spaces, if using a more powerful pushback).

Pushing becomes interesting (and a little confusing) when it comes to other objects. As should be no surprise, throwing someone into something else hurts. Note that while tiles stop movement, they do not count as being pushed into something, and thus will not result in damage dealt (unless it's a damage or death tile). Any collision damage is in addition to the damage caused by the attack itself.

First off, if a champion is pushed into a wall, or the ship, they will take an extra 2 damage. In the latter case, the ship will take 1 damage.

If a champion is pushed into another champion, both will move one space, and each will take 1 damage.

If two champions in a row are pushed, and behind the second champion is a wall, neither will move, but both will take 2 damage, instead of only one.

For all of these, the amount of damage done is the same, regardless of how many squares they may have been pushed back. Baron Rouges 2-space knockback will not do any more damage to an enemy against the wall than his one space knockback. Thanks to Razvan for confirming this for me.

And, as noted previously, pushing an enemy of the side off the stage results in instant death. The ground does not take any damage for colliding with an enemy champion.