One figure at a time
Priority passes after every activation, and a coin toss opens each round. A bigger warband never gets a free alpha strike, and a figure held back is a figure the enemy has to keep worrying about.
A 1v1 tabletop skirmish, one figure at a time.
Muster a warband, deploy it, and fight over the shard veins under a twelve-tile board. Free, in the browser, and built for a phone.
No download. No purchases of any kind.
How it plays
Every activation is a decision
The rules live in one place and both sides run the same engine, so what the board offers you is exactly what the server will accept.
Ley Points
The commander's own pool: two at deployment, one a round, banked and capped at six. Most abilities cost action points; only the strongest draw on the ley, which is what makes each cast a decision rather than a habit.
Points price strength
Every figure's cost comes off its real stat line, so a legendary can be cheap and a common can be the priciest miniature in the box. Rarity never enters the formula.
The hand
Four ley cards, bought like figures
A card costs party points from the same cap as your warband, so a full hand is a miniature you did not field. It is played from a hidden hand, for ley, and discarded once cast. Your opponent sees only how many you still hold.
On a phone
Three layouts, not one squeezed into three
Portrait, landscape and desktop each arrange the same panels around the same board. The staged “move here” step appears on a touchscreen and stays out of the way on a mouse, and the camera leans in when a battle opens so the miniatures read at arm's length.
Cindral, Year of Glass +12
Four powers over one dwindling resource
The Leyheart cracked and bled aether for a season. What is left are shards along the old conduit lines, and every battlefield sits on a vein. That is why anyone fights over twelve tiles of mud.
Cogwright Combine
Pressure Plating
Steam and ledgers. The only lit city on the continent, and it never stopped burning things.
Luminarch Concord
Aether Efficiency
The old establishment, still issuing writs for property nobody agrees it owns.
Ashvow Legion
Shield Discipline
No sorcery, no mercy for its wielders, no home until the last account is settled.
Vargheist Kin
Pack Hunter
The changed of the deep wilds, who refuse the word victim and count in lessons.
A fifth chapter, the Glassborn, belongs to none of them. They carry a shard that will not go quiet, and take the field for whoever is paying.
Fair play
Nothing here is for sale
Booster packs are opened with Aethercite Shards, and Shards are earned by playing matches. There is no wallet, no in-app purchase, no storefront and no gift codes.
No real money, anywhere
There is no route, direct or indirect, to buy Shards, Dust, figures or packs.
Published drop rates
Every pack shows its odds and its guarantee in the app, before you open one.
Rarity is cosmetic to the rules
It changes how often a figure turns up, never how strong it is on the board.