The Bannerfall Compendium

Knightly order of the coast

Disciplined imperial legions

Elusive wardens of the deep woods

Deep-mountain forgeclans

Restless hosts of the grave

Warbands of the burning steppe

Scholarly conclave of stormcallers

Swift clans of the open vale

Found as battle and ruin loot, then carried by a hero. Effects stack.

Stronger artifacts drawn by deep-floor treasure in a Dungeons game.

Powers beyond raw might — flight, farsight, mana, warding, healing and more — found only in a Rich Artifacts game.

The mightiest enchanted relics, drawn from deep dungeon floors in a Rich Artifacts game.

Hero-only sites. The hero's stack fights the ruin's guardian, then rolls a reward — gold, an item, an ally, or hero XP. The four themes are cosmetic terrain flavour, and a ruin's tier (near / mid / far from the nearest capital) is a difficulty descriptor only: neither changes the reward.

Sacred sites that appear only when a game is created with Mystic Sites enabled.

Your realm's settlements. City levels — walls, income and which units they can build — apply only in City Levels games (see the Rules tab); each level above the first adds +10 gold/turn. Base income below is a level-1 city.

Combat & strength

• Each unit has a Strength (Str). A stack fights with its members' combined strength, highest-Str units defending last.
• Leadership: the single highest Leadership among a stack's non-hero units adds to the whole stack — it does NOT stack (only the best applies). Elite units give +2, heavy +1.
• Favored terrain: if any unit in a battle favors the tile it's fought on, the whole side gets +1. Ground units favor their faction's homeland; heavies also favor Hills, cavalry also favor Plains.
• Marsh is nobody's home ground: no side gets the favored-terrain bonus fighting on a marsh tile.
• Siege: a siege engine in the attacking stack cancels the defender's city Wall bonus.
• Naval: strength at sea is capped (a land army can't project full force onto the water).

Movement & terrain

• A stack moves at the pace of its slowest member; entering a tile costs that terrain's move points.
• Plains: 2 move
• Forest: 3 move
• Hills: 3 move
• Mountains: impassable to most
• Water: impassable to most
• Marsh: 4 move
• Flyers ignore terrain (2 per tile everywhere) and cross water. Ironhold tunnels mountains (5); Sylvan move cheaply through forest; cavalry are fast on Plains, slow in Forest.
• Marsh is the slowest passable ground (4 move) and grants no home-ground bonus; only flyers (2) and the Duskborne, who wade it at 2, cross it quickly.

Cities & walls

• City level (1–3) sets what you can build and your Wall bonus on defense: L1 +0, L2 +1, L3 +2 Str to defenders.
• Higher-level cities also build higher-tier units and earn more income (+10 gold/turn per level). Upgrading costs level × 60 gold.

Heroes & magic

• Heroes gain XP from battles and level up (need level × 12 XP). Strength = 5 + (level − 1).
• Command bonus by level: L1–3 → +1, L4–5 → +2, L6+ → +3 to the whole army.
• Mana grows with level (max = 3 + level × 2, so a level 3 hero holds 9). Spells cost mana and require a minimum hero level.
• Heroes can carry found items, whose bonuses stack on top of everything above.