Forge of Heroes

The Forge of Heroes is a floor of a hundred and forty-four chambers. You and the Dark Legion are both wagging battles to claim your territory. Every tile belongs to you, to them, or to nobody. Walking onto bare stone claims it — and because heroes move like chess pieces, a Paladin crossing four tiles claims all four, a Cleric paints diagonals, and a Rogue jumps and so claims only where it lands. That is the quiet half of the game. The loud half is the flip. Close a line — a run of their tiles with one of yours at each end, straight or diagonal — and the whole run turns over at once. Neutral stone breaks a line, so a chain is something you build two turns in advance and then spring: a Paladin's Sanctify dropped in the right place can turn a whole rank of the floor gold. Turn three tiles in a round and your next attack lands as a critical, which is the point where the board game and the fight stop being two things. The edge fights back. A run touching the outer ring needs two of your tiles behind it rather than one, and a corner, once taken, is never lost — so the perimeter is worth more than the middle, exactly as it is in Othello. Ground is a statline. Stand on your color and you mend a point a round, hit a point harder, and get your faith back twice as fast; stand on theirs and it costs you. Holy ground heals whoever is on it, shadow blunts every blow, slag burns, forge chambers count triple when the floor is tallied, and gates put you out somewhere else entirely. Seven archetypes, two to five of them per party. The Paladin sanctifies and keeps people standing. The Cleric makes ground that heals and drives enemies back across tiles you wanted anyway. The Wizard takes nine tiles at a stroke and burns your own people doing it. The Rogue appears out of any square with two of your tiles beside it. The Ranger nails down the one piece you cannot let move. The Warlock flips nothing at all and removes whatever is standing where you needed to be — and is quite openly here for the Forge rather than the cause. Four objectives, and only one of them is killing. Hold three fifths of the claimed floor. Keep a shrine in your color for three rounds. Or corner the warlord, box it in on every side, and flip the tile under its feet — a checkmate won on position alone, with nobody killed. Four acts, each of which changes what the floor does: bare stone, then mirrors that anchor a line for whoever reaches them first, then a storm coming down through the roof every round, then a living weapon that re-lays its own floor. Each boss breaks a rule. The Reforger takes two tiles back for every one you flip. The Doppelganger cannot be touched while it stands as someone's exact reflection. The Colossus is four tiles of armor that only comes off when you hold all four at once. Between battles: level heroes, hand out board-shaping artifacts, choose the path, and decide who is coming. Chambers are the campaign currency and they are counted from the floor you were holding when it ended — so there is a reason to keep converting after the fight is already won. Progress saves after every battle, Ironman is there if you want a fallen hero to stay fallen, and there is a daily campaign everyone plays from the same seed. Two charges keep you honest. A Recall takes back your last action — you start with one and earn another every time you turn five tiles at once, up to three, and it never reaches back past the Legion's turn. Foresight is bought for a single hero's decision and shows what a move sets up and what it walks you into; you earn one for every forge chamber you take. Seeing which tiles a move would paint is always free. Two other ways to play. Puzzles are eight fixed boards with a move budget and no enemy turns — nothing moves, nothing is hidden, and every one has been proved by a solver to have an answer in exactly its budget, never a move more and never a move spare. Boss Rush is the four bosses back to back, everybody at the same level with no artifacts and half a heal between fights, so the only thing being tested is who you brought.