The game is structured around a weekly mission and a preparing stage between missions. Up to 4 knights can go on a mission. The others can either be in recovery or in training, depending on injuries and if the appropriate structures have been unlocked. Recovery can take a certain number of weeks. The only way to advance the week is to go on a mission, so they cannot be skipped. There is a jousting alignment bonus. It does allow a week to be skipped but it costs money and can only be used once every 4 or 5 weeks.

The first couple of missions are somewhat tutorials. They unlock the mission hub, Camelot, which hosts structures that can be unlocked and upgraded.

The player party can consist of 4 members and possibly a NPC who may or may not be a recruitable hero.

Missions will provide XP, gold, resources, and possibly additional heroes to recruit. Mordred, the main hero is almost always required in the story missions. There are also side missions which can be used to level up other heroes.

In addition to missions there are also random events. They may occur immediately after a mission or appear on the map as a event. Some events allow you to choose a hero to set the outcome. Others will pick a hero (usually most used hero) from your active group and you can either send them or reject the mission. These types of events are "safe" to send heroes on.

Generally events are always good to go to as they reward good XP and add loyalty. Not all heroes can be used in all events. Choosing the wrong one can result in an injury that has to be healed along with and negative loyalty or a weak reward. Generally the event details will specify what type of hero is required, either who it is good for or who it is bad for.

If jousting has been unlocked it is possible to check the outcome in advance. Jousting is an alignment reward which can be unlocked about the midpoint of the game. Save game. Send a hero to the event. Joust. See the outcome. Load previous save. Use same hero or retry with another hero. Without jousting, google is your friend, or alternately you can roll back to a prior save, which is going to be painful since it costs progress, and each mission typically takes 30 minutes to an hour to complete.

Regular game has about 50+ missions. Seasonal content adds another 20+ missions. Once these are completed that is it, the missions do not recycle. There also is DLC content which adds missions outside of the regular game and regular Heroes.

Missions typically give about 1000 gold, 300 resources and 40% XP to the next level. This can vary though, depending on alignment, if the Heroes are over leveled for the area and changes made in Camelot.

During a mission you do not have any ability to view or change hero inventory or to view builds or to swap gear or use loot picked up during the mission. Heroes can be equipped with 2 consumables, and nothing from within a mission - except gold, for the rare vendor that might sell a skill point or a mission buff. Generally you want to have at least 250 gold in the bank for one of these purchases, endgame they may appear for 2500 gold. There are also "purchases" that use health damage. This can be healed afterwards like other types of health damage.

A map is available when in a mission. It may show general target areas and covered ground. Missions will include about 6-8 encounters, resting areas (campfires), shrines and treasure, some hidden. The treasure is generally paltry, except for hidden treasures. It takes either perception (vanguard, sage, marksman) or spellcraft (sage. arcanist). These may require +3 to see everything, so it may not be worth the investment, although there are achievements that may require this. You need to have the appropriate skill to see what a shrine does before using it. Otherwise you can pick a hero to use the shrine. Some shrines are "bad". With spellcraft it is possible to detect these in advance and ignore them. Alternately it is possible to save before and reload on a bad shrine.

Each mission will consist of about 7 or 8 encounters (except mega boss enemies). Encounters are composed of turns. Generally the player always has the first turn, although sometimes are exceptions. The player party will go first, the enemies will go second, and any allies (not in the player party) will go last, then the cycle repeats. Between encounters the heroes can visit a campfire to partially restore health or armor.

Items will give benefits that generally trigger when certain conditions are met. Some will trigger on first encounter after a campfire. Others will trigger on first turn in an encounter. Or first kill during a turn. Or for two turns after a kill. It is important to read item descriptions and choose items which will trigger the most often.

Up to 12 heroes can be had in the roster. The roster starts with 6 slots and the other 6 have to be unlocked, two at a time. There are about 30 total heroes but only 24 will be available based on chosen alignments. Others can only be gotten with a replay. When heroes are recruited without any extra slots they go into an "aspirants" queue. This queue is unlimited so all heroes can be recruited without concern, they just cannot be used until they are brought into the roster. If the roster is full then to add others more slots have to be unlocked. If all 12 slots are unlocked then a hero has to be permanently dismissed to open a slot for a new hero.

Throughout the game morality choices will be presented, for Old Faith or Christian religion and between Rightful and Tyrant alignment. You can either approach these decisions in a role playing fashion, or you can check the alignment map to see which unlocks are going to be most useful. To get all the unlocks in the main game you pretty much have to make the exact morality choice every time one is presented. There are some DLC levels that give additional choices but this is very much past endgame.

Morality choices can help or hinder heroes that have an alignment. Every hero has a loyalty status that gives a bonus to damage and also action point. Heroes will apply up to 1/2 of each morality point according if their alignment matches or not. Neutral heroes are unaffected. In order to get their loyalty up they need to be sent to events. Heroes that have two opposite alignments... are going to be difficult to max out their loyalty. Sending them to events can do it but they are better used on heroes with the same alignment.

Each hero will have traits. They will specify if they are useful in specific positions, they may have different loyalty or mission requirements or so forth. Negative traits can be removed using an extremely rare consumable. Some negative event modifiers can also be removed with another type of consumable. These will not "fix" negative loyalty, they will only remove the negatives picked up by events.

There are 6 Classes

Defender (Main mission mandatory character, Tank)
Heavy Armor, Sword (uses 3 AP per attack), Shield (1/2 damage)
Personally I did not care for defenders, they don't seem to be super useful and aggro range is very limited even with taunt. Since Mordred is the main character he has to be included in most missions.

Champion - Endgame damage dealer
Heavy Armor, Two handed weapon (4 AP)
They will have mobility issues in the beginning, but there are items which can easily solve this.

Vanguard - Endgame damage dealer
Medium Armor, Sword, 2 attacks/3 AP except Tristan, 2 attacks 4 AP
Great mobility and great damage output

Sage - Team buffs
Medium Armor, Sword (3 AP)
Generally not useful for combat, despite skills. Can teleport to become invisible.

Marksman - Early game ranged damage dealer
Light Armor, Bow (4 AP)
Early game they can get 1-2 kills per turn but they fall off hard later. Too squishy.

Arcanist - Ranged damage dealer
Light Armor, Staff (6 AP)
They can only do one attack to start but very solid damage with knock back. They also have a temporary armor buff which leads enemies to not target them so they are much safer to use compared to marksmen.


Each Armor type has two forms.
Heavy Armor: (Defender, Champion)
Higher Health + Armor -2 AP
Lower Health + Armor -1 AP

Medium Armor: (Vanguard, Sage)
Higher Health, Lower Armor
Lower Health, Higher Armor

Light Armor (Arcanist, Marksman)
Higher Health, No armor
Lower Health, Some Armor

Generally it is better to have as much armor as possible with the exception of Champions. Champions suffer (early) with mobility, and with the armor deficit they are already limited to one attack per turn until much later in the game.

The game is set in the round table, which acts as an upgradeable mission hub. Missions are launched from here, money, resources, experience and heroes are collected, and then the base can be improved, heroes can level up, and new gear can be applied.

Buildings to unlock:
This will vary based on the way you play the game. If you are taking vitality damage and sustaining injuries you will probably need Cathedral and Hospice upgrades as a priority. Personally I would recommend getting the Merchant, upgrading for Armor, unlocking the training grounds and also the enchanted tower. Relics can make a huge difference in the game and the more access you have to purchase them the better. The value of armor also is huge. +2 Armor negates a lot of damage over 4 characters.

Building Assignments: Assigning people gives specific buffs to the team or mission. Usually the higher the level of the Hero the better the buff so it is important to train these people when not in missions.

My suggestions:
Round Table: Sir Brunor gives 10 Gold per level per mission. At level 25 that is 250 free gold.
Enchanted tower: Sir Ector 10 relic dust per level per mission, also gives 100 gold per mission where he doesn't participate. The relic dust is used for buying relics.
Cathedral: Conditional, I used white knight for +3 Christian loyalty
Merchant: Sir Bors increases merchant items by 1 per 10 levels
Training: Mordred for the 10% experience buff since there are no better trainers and no reason to use anyone else.
Hospice: Lady Dindraine, increases health restored by healing potions by 2% of her level

Always keep in training or on Missions: Ector, Brunor, Bors, Dindraine.

During missions every hero can equip 6 items. A weapon, a piece of armor, a general relic, and a class specific relic, and finally two consumables. Consumables may be health or AP potions, various types of buffs or spell potions. They have to last for the entire mission so typically I would choose health potions and rarely use them.

Some items come from missions, but probably the best items are bought. There are two stores. The first is the merchant who primarily sells regular weapons and items. His store restocks every third mission, but can be upgraded to restock every second mission. He also has upgrades to have more items and also some relics. These are very important to have, since good items and relics can change the game.

The second store is the enchanted tower. It only sells relics and the cost is relic dust. Relic dust can only be obtained by burning relics (and having Sir Ector as master of magic). It is going to take about 3 relics to buy a low tier item, but there are alignment unlocks that can increase dust recovery.

There is also a third store, endgame DLC, the soul merchant. He sells a fixed list of products. His currency is demon soul fragments. Some of his things can be useful, but once all missions have been completed the game is essentially over, so there is a very limited window to get a few items and use them.

BUFFS TO LOOK FOR IN ITEMS:::

Vanguards: For melee characters it is good to have mobility and increasing damage per kill, preferable 2 of each
Movement costs 33% less AP (This can appear on two items)
Gain 2 MP per kill
Gain X damage for 2 turns per kill
+X damage until the end of the encounter per kill
If an attack leaves a unit below 15% it is killed instead (!! this is hugely important since it can directly kill the lost !!)
+X MP per turn

Champions:
Gain X armor for each AP reserved for 1 turn
+X% damage until the end of the encounter for each hit received
Immunity to Stun (they should have this in one form or another)
+X damage until the end of the encounter per kill
Gain 3 AP for the first kill each turn
Teleport to the next nearest enemy after each kill (this completely solves their mobility issue)
Teleport ring (grants teleport, once per encounter)

Sage:
Allies start each encounter with X temporary HP
-1 Cooldown for support skills
Killing a unit reduces cooldown of inspire

Defender:
When hit, turn towards the attacking enemy.
Ignore X% of the enemies armor breaking value
Regain X armor per kill

That is my lineup. I did not bother with arcanists or marksman so I can't comment on them.
Teleport ring (grants teleport, once per encounter)

It is possible to save scum the store rotations. Obviously you can't do this in roguelike mode. After finishing a level a prompt will appear to leave the level. You save a game at this point. I always call this game "FIN". Back at base I check to see if the store rotations have changed and if they have anything useful. If they have changed but nothing useful then reload and repeat. This can waste a LOT of time but the results can be very worth it.

Essences are permanent single use buff items that can only ever apply to one hero and cannot be changed after use. They are earned through accomplishing some predefined goals, like amounts of damage, damage types, specific enemies killed, points healed, and so forth.

My build centered around vanguard and champions, so these are my basic recommendations for them:

Vanguard (my primary)
Extermination: +1 AP per kill (put on primary)
Lost Slayer: +25% damage
Fomorian Slayer: +25% damage
Extermination: +10% Weapon damage

Champion: (my secondary)
Speed: +1 AP (put on secondary)
Stability: Immunity to knockdown
Sight: Immunity to blindness (note, AOEs ignore blindness)
Crushing: 20% armor breaking
-> Use stun immunity in armor/relic items

Vanguards can hide after kills, champions cannot. Many enemies can completely debilitate Champions, so I give them most of the immunities. They can still get chilled but this is relatively rare.

The other Essences, feel free to distribute at will to anyone you plan to keep using.

There are a few things to realize about combat. First, the map is based on a hidden grid. The grid cannot be seen except during combat or when placing characters. Moving the characters will always move them to one of these hidden grid spots. When moving diagonally the character placement can be less than ideal. For situations like this it is useful to save after all combat and possibly before and reload if a bad placement happens.

Generally the player gets the first attack in an encounter, however there are exceptions. For attacks, it is best to end turns outside of the enemy attack zones but inside the enemy movement zone. You can see these when moving, except for enemy archers or enemies with special moves.

Damage: There are two types of damage that matter. Any damage takes away from health first and then vitality. If vitality reaches 0 then that character is dead. Permanently dead. Health can be restored somewhat by potions, by campfires or by abilities. Vitality damage is a problem, as it will consume injury tokens, and once the injury tokens are gone the hero will sustain semi-permanent injuries.

Both vitality damage and injuries are fairly permanent until healed. There are some equipment and unlocks and shrines that can heal some vitality but injuries will cause various types of debuffs and mandate time in the cathedral to heal. For that reason, IMO it is better to redo encounters where a hero sustains vitality damage. This obviously cannot be done in rogue-like mode and there is one specific story mission which also prevents saves, for Sir Yvain, the misty woods. Redoing encounters also may be painfully difficult in hard or very hard mode so that is another thing to balance.

Action Points: Everyone generally starts off the game with 8 AP (action points). These are the points used for movement and attacking. In addition to AP there are MP (movement points), which can be used for movement only. Heavy armor subtracts either 1 or 2 AP from the total. Sword attacks generally take 3 AP, Two handed attacks and bow take 4 AP. Staves take 6 AP.

Loyalty: This is a mechanic that rewards heroes with up to +20% damage and +1 AP. The maximum appears to be 20 loyalty, however the bonuses are achieved at 15 points so no reason to go much beyond that.

Generally it is desirable to build around vanguard or champions or both.
Both have abilities that can give multiple APs per kill.
This allows them to do kill streaks.
Some support build teams are viable but harder to manage.
To plan for these builds the most important items are those that give movement AP per kill and/or Damage increase per kill.
There are AP boost items but they only apply once per turn at best, and worse, the first turn only.