Two actions per unit. Moving costs one. A long move (dim tiles) costs both. Firing, Overwatch, and most powers end the unit's turn. Powers recharge on a cooldown — except Pulse Blast, which is three charges per mission: throw one at a lone trooper and that is a grenade you will not have later.

Selecting a mutant drops the camera behind them. Targets line up in a strip sorted by hit chance — shootable ones first, the rest greyed with the reason. Swipe, use ‹ ›, or ← → to cycle; the big button throws the mutant's own attack at the current target — a Pulse Shot, a Shockwave, a Rift Shard, a Suture Dart; nobody here carries a gun (or uses a targeted power on them — Mend, Ward and Stim swap the strip to your allies). Move, Blast, Blink and the like pull back to the map so you can pick a tile, then the camera returns. V or the Map/POV button switches views any time; the map still works exactly as before.

On a touchscreen, the first tap previews — the path, who it wakes, the hit chance — and a second tap on the same spot confirms. Tapping one of your own mutants selects them straight away.

Read the number. Hover a hostile to see your hit chance and why. Half cover −20, full cover −40. Set shot: +10 if that mutant hasn't moved this turn. Focus: a miss adds +10 to that mutant's next shot (it stacks to +20; more on Scout, none on Graft) until they hit — the game never fudges a roll in secret, it tells you the odds it is rolling. A shot the math calls 100 is 100. Get around their cover and you're flanking: cover ignored, +1 damage, a chance to crit.

Cover has a side. Shield icons show which direction a unit is protected from. Bright shields protect against the unit you've selected.

Combos. Set a hostile up and let a different mutant finish it: Exposed (thrown out of cover by a Concussive Burst, or its crate wrecked by a Blast or a drum) means no cover against anyone until your next turn; Shredded means Smash or Blast stripped armor for good; Stunned hostiles are +30 to hit. Smash or Phase Strike on a stunned or exposed target is an Execute (+2). Pins and taunts count as setups too. A finish by someone other than the setter is a COMBO — +1 XP to both.

Each family sees the board its own way. A Blaster hovering a Blast tile reads what it would do (hits · kills · wrecks · exposes). A Phaser in Blink sees gold tiles — the ones that flank their target. A Mender's ally strip shows who is in danger right now and what the power leaves them at. A Bruiser's Smash card says when it shreds armor or executes.

The Coalition does not wait. An awake hostile with no shot holds an overwatch lane for one turn, then it comes for you — through the gap, around the wall — and after two dry turns it dashes. Marksmen are the exception: they hold their lane, and their reaction fire has no penalty. Husks blink to your flank. A Grenadier paints a 3×3 on any two of you standing together (no line of sight needed); it lands at the start of the next Coalition turn unless the Grenadier is dead by then. Spread out.

The clock starts at contact. Reinforcements are called in the first time an awake hostile survives a Coalition turn (or when you start a console transmission); the first wave lands a set number of turns after that, and patrols find you a few turns later regardless. Killing a Spotter takes its uplink with it — one more turn. On industrial and rust maps a detonated drum sets the floor alight: fire spreads for a few turns and burns anyone who starts a turn in it or runs through it, both sides.

The record writes itself. Each mutant's sheet keeps a service record — clutch shots, kills at low HP, saves, the people they fight best beside — taken from what actually happened. Going down leaves a scar: −1 max HP for good, and the sheet says who did it. Two mutants who combo together three times are bonded: +5 aim while within 3 tiles of each other. The fallen keep their record in the memorial.

The ramp. Level 3 is a kit fork, level 4 a family mastery (Overpressure or Long Arc, Unbreakable or Momentum, Assassin or Phase Echo, Battle Medic or Field Hospital), level 5 a last stat tick. The Coalition climbs too, whatever the Index: Act II fields Generation II augments (+1 HP), Act III Generation III (+1 HP, +5 aim, double waves every other turn) — on top of any adaptations.

Losing. When the squad falls, anyone still bleeding is taken alive — Program Graft wants the tissue breathing. They sit in a holding pen for three missions; a rescue op with their name on it appears on the side-op board. Fail it, or wait too long, and they are harvested. A defeat report says what happened: when contact came, how many pods woke, who went down first and to what, how many long shots you took. At Index 7 and above one side op always pays Index −3. Modifiers at campaign start: Ironman (leaving mid-op counts as a defeat), No Replacements, Mercy (the first failure of each mission costs no Index). Nothing is wasted: the Wall keeps every name from every campaign, and a new campaign can carry one perk from an earlier run as Doctrine.

Pace. Speed ×1/×2/×4 in the top bar (hold Shift to fast-forward a Coalition turn); click, tap or Space skips the insertion and the kill cam. Z undoes your last move or Blink if it revealed nothing. End turn asks once if anyone still has actions. The game saves after every action — close the tab and Continue picks up where you were (outside Ironman you can also restart the current turn). The dice are saved too: reloading replays the same rolls.

Medals and records. Every campaign mission has a par. Win with nobody down (Flawless), within par (Swift) or before a single reinforcement lands (Ghost) — each pays +2 samples the first time in a campaign, and your best turn count is kept. The report says how close a loss came and names a win's closest call. Elites — a gold crest and one trait (Hardened, Swift, Mending, Linked), shown before you engage — drop a cache when they die: it finishes the graft you just recovered, or pays 3 samples. The Commander record at base compares your first missions with your latest. Winning a campaign unlocks the next Ascension (up to 5), each level stacking one more pressure.

Every campaign is different. You pick the first three (at most two from one family); the families you left out join first. From mission 2 on, missions can be dealt a field condition — Nightfall, Downpour, Sensor Grid, Fuel Leak, Heavy Escort, Bounty — and the middle missions come mirrored or with their crates moved. It's all shown before you deploy, and the campaign seed on the hub bar makes a run repeatable.

The Cell. Samples are recovered tissue: +1 per augmented kill or vat, +2 per win, and some side ops pay in them. Spend them to treat a wound now or to rush a graft out of the culture lab. Side ops come two at a time — take one and the other expires — paying Graft Index, samples or intel on the next campaign mission. The Next up panel at base lists everything you're one mission away from.

Grafts. Every Coalition augment was grown from mutant tissue. Win a mission after killing a new kind of unit and its graft comes home to the culture lab (ready after the next mission, or rush it); fit it to one mutant from their sheet at base (one per mutant — moving it is the choice). Ten to recover, from Ceramic Weave to the Surgeon's Hand.

Fuel drums (the ones with the hazard band) are full cover for anyone — until someone shoots one. Any hit sets it off: 4 damage to everything beside it, armor ignored, crates wrecked, neighbouring drums chain. Bait a pod behind one, or don't stand next to one yourself.

Overwatch holds your shot and fires at the first hostile that moves in view. Husks blink and ignore it. Hunker is the other way to spend a turn you can't shoot well: −20 to be hit and no crits against you until your next turn. A 30% shot, overwatch, hunker, or a move — all four are real answers.

Hostiles start unaware. They wake in groups when a mutant comes within seven tiles in view, or fires on them. Hover a move tile to see who it would wake, and every awake hostile that could hit you there shows its odds against you. Pick your fights, and your tiles.

Don't linger. Reinforcements arrive every turn after the mission's timer.

Campaign. Your roster persists between missions in this browser. Survivors earn XP (2 per mission, 1 per kill) and level up; at level 3 you choose one of two permanent upgrades. A mutant who ends a mission under half health sits out the next one. The dead stay dead — they go on the memorial and a new recruit joins their family. The Graft Index rises after every mission and only sabotage, broadcasts and the Surgeon push it back; at 10 the campaign is lost.

Bleed-out. A mutant at 0 HP goes down instead of dying and bleeds for three of your turns. An ally next to them can stabilize (they survive, out of the fight) or carry them (−1 move, no overwatch). A Mender's power brings them back up. Sprinters and Husks will finish a downed mutant if nothing else is in reach. On evac missions, the downed must be carried to the pad or they are left behind. If everyone standing goes down, the mission is lost.

Perks and adaptations. Clearing a campaign mission for the first time earns a pick of three perks. You own everything you pick but bring only two per mission — once-per-mission tricks (smoke, adrenal shot, a power surge) or passives (earlier evac, first downed mutant auto-stabilized). They recharge every mission and never stack. The Coalition answers in kind: each act, and every three points of Graft Index, Program Graft fields another adaptation — tougher heavies, sharper marksmen, faster reinforcements. Push the Index down with sabotage and side ops and they lose one.

Side ops are generated strikes: a random sector, objective and Coalition element scaled to where you are in the campaign. They use your roster like any mission — XP, wounds and deaths all count — and a win pushes the Graft Index back by two. Every sector has a code you can replay.

Twelve mutants, four families. You start with three — Vex, Halden and Nix. Another named mutant joins after each campaign mission you clear, until all twelve are on the roster. Every Blaster, Bruiser, Phaser and Mender shares its family's role, but each mutant has a different power and passive. Two Blasters are not the same Blaster. Take three per mission.

Voice uses your browser's built-in speech voices; the cast sounds different on every machine. Every spoken line also appears in Comms. Toggle it in the top bar.

1 Move · 2 Attack · 3 Power · 4 Overwatch · 5 Hunker · Tab next unit · Enter end turn · Esc / right-click cancel