In order to win more battles than not, the Reinforcement Phase has to be a core part of your strategy.

REINFORCEMENT PHASE BASICS:

INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO PORTION ON RECRUITING UNITS: 9:00-9:43

INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO PORTION ON REINFORCEMENT PHASE: 10:40-11:52

RULEBOOK SCREENSHOT ON RECRUITING UNITS AND THE REINFORCEMENT PHASE:

In Factions: Battlegrounds, picking the correct time to recruit powerful units is extremely important. It’s great to recruit units during the round, when it is your unit’s activation (Number 1 in above image), but let’s focus on the Reinforcement Phase.

REINFORCEMENT PHASE: After all units for all players have activated including Captains that have commanded players may recruit new units with their gold amounts into their base camps. The player with the terrain tile advantage recruits units first. All players must recruit all their units before they activate. Recruited units then activate in their rank order. Players cannot count up resources until all units have activated in the reinforcement phase. Players cannot recruit units after they count up resources for the round.

Let’s simplify this. The Reinforcement Phase occurs when all units have an activation token on them. Here is what the Activation token looks like:

Units recruited during the Reinforcement Phase (R-Phase for short!) get to activate right when they are recruited!! This creates an excellent opportunity to pummel enemy units that are left defenseless or are a little too close to your basecamp. A really effective strategy is saving your generated resources all the way through the round (not recruiting units during the round when a unit you control has the activation) and then utilizing the Reinforcement phase to completely change the momentum of battle or force your opponent to change their entire strategy because you have unleashed a massive monster that they must deal with immediately.

Here are a couple of units I like to bring out during the Reinforcement Phase:

Centaur Stampeders is an excellent unit to recruit during the Reinforcement Phase. It’s a problem as soon as it hits the board, and will make your opposition have to change their plan immediately. The 6 attack attribute can take out most enemies, and the movement attribute of 3 cuts the battleground in half. I like to go after the biggest, most expensive enemy within 3 spaces, and can usually get to an important enemy unit. It has even more flexibility in movement with BULLRUSH (When moving, this unit can move through spaces occupied by other units.) Centaur Stampeders is a powerful unit no matter when it enters the fray, but bringing it out during the Reinforcement Phase can maximize the game-changing impact it can have.

Two stats to look for when trying to identify a powerful unit to bring out for maximum pain during the Reinforcement Phase are high Rank (because the unit will activate right away in the R-Phase and then again very early in the round) and area damage spells (because they can catch multiple units off-gaurd). The Naga Archon has both. In addition to having an excellent Rank, the Naga Archon has the Wave of Blades spell, which rips through an entire row or column. The Archon can enter the fray during the R-Phase and slice multiple units, then activate again when the round begins and do the same thing. Back to back activations for a unit as powerful as the Naga Archon could win the game if your opponent is careless with the spaces their units end their activations in.

The other crucial thing to know about the Reinforcement Phase is that you do not have to play anything during it. However if you have NO units on the board (including your basecamp) and do NOT play any units for 2 Reinforcement Phases in a row, you automatically lose the game.

When the units recruited during the Reinforcement Phase have had their chance to activate, the round ends, and a new round begins with players counting up their resources and removing the activation tokens from their units.

BEGINNING OF A ROUND (RESOURCE GENERATING):

INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO PORTION: 5:32-6:15

RULEBOOK SCREENSHOT OF RESOURCE GENERATION:

Because the Reinforcement Phase occurs at the end of the round, it is important to manage the resources that you generate at the start of the round. If you are able to have a solid number of resources available, however, you can use the Reinforcement Phase to take over the game. What are some of your favorite Reinforcement Phase units? Hit up the replies!!