10 Useful Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia Tips!

Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia can initially appear intimidating and confusing. This is understandably as making early mistakes is easily done unless paying close attention to its tutorial and taking your time to digest everything it has to offer. Here we hope to give you a few tips to avoid these common mistakes!

The very first selection

Depending on the nation players choose to play as, their initial stance in the war can be seen to help you choose which nation to pick first, as certain nation’s will already have a head start. This can be seen by each nation’s initial status, showing the amount of castles, knights, monsters and mana they start with. For example, starting with the Shinobi Tribe will put players as the most vulnerable and difficult positioning, with the least amount of all factors, while the Mana Saleesia Theocracy has the largest gap in advantage across all categories compared to their rivaling nations.

Quest as often as possible

Take your time during the organisation phase, and always make use of quests. Not only does it increase experience for many of its troops as indicated by the arrow signs when selecting the quest location, you can also meet an unaffiliated knight, indicated by knight icon. Even more quest locations will unlock by story progression, and different quest locations differ with each base. Exploration quests are quests to obtain items or monsters, and training quests increase Rune Knights’ and their monsters’ experience. Be sure to use your strongest knights when going out for exploration quests, as the quest success rate, item rarity is affected by the level of the knight sent. Get the best awards by sending your very best.

It is always worth the time to send the Rune Knights and their monsters lacking in their experience on training missions as often as possible. Additionally, these units should also not be placed in front line castles unless joined with a higher unit, as being corned to defend a castle with less mana can happen. This is easily done as you progress through the story, with so many castles being captured and leaving behind inactive units, so keep your eyes peeled on observing and checking the whole map during organisation phases. This leads me on to…

Retreating can be a winning move

This may not be an obvious, valid decision when battling in Brigandine. Sometimes it is worth admitting defeat early on to avoid monsters being lost forever, and your rune knight being out of action on the next phase. The retreat option is always available even at the start of a battle, and has the involved units retreat to the nearest nation castle. Please note that this does automatically hand over the castle to the opposing nation, but by taking a step back, you’ll be far more prepared next time!

Make note of opposing nation movement

You’ll want to take note of the base routes between castles, as not only can the player move between their own bases and invade enemy bases, but this is exactly what your opposing nations will be doing. Always keep an eye on castles that may be easily captured as they may only hold one to two troops, or even nobody at all, meaning for a swift and easy capture to add to your base numbers. This also helps in avoiding castles with leader that may be a bit too levelled up compared to your troops. It is always best to have at least 3 stationed troops ready for battle in case of an invasion.

Check the main menu during every organisation phase

The importance of using such menus for battle intel (Nation Status during organisation phase and Battle Map during attacks and defending) throughout the game should not be undermined, as it provides the all-important mana power each nation currently possesses. This is a brilliant indicator to which castles the player should target for potential victories as the lower the enemy’s mana total is, the easier the battle.

Know what hits best during battle

Always have your lower levelled units deal the finishing blow, as this is the easiest way to ensure bonus experience points going towards under-levelled units. Bonus points also occur when players use units that hit effective skills or spells on certain monsters. Players should also always consider both monsters on their side and their opponent’s, as any monster outside of its’ Rune Knight’s command range has its power noticeably decreased.

Advantages and disadvantages

Excelling in the battles of Brigandine involves making use of the many advantages and disadvantages it offers. Much like how I already expressed in our review to make note of monsters’ advantages and disadvantages in terrain as each monster type will fight better in their favoured area of a map, Element Correlation is the attacks that use a favourable element to deal more damage. Red is weak to blue, blue is weak to green, and green is weak to red, while black and white are weak against each other. An unfavourable element deals less damage to its superior element, while damage you deal will increase if your unit has more elemental orbs equipped than their target. Make use of this effect by equipping items and weapons that stack for more effective and hard hitting attacks.

Know how to win the battle

Pay attention to the 12 turn restriction. To win as the invader, the unit must be on the castle hexagon by the end turn, and if a defending unit is still in the castle hexagon or nobody is, they are victorious. If this tactic does not suit or work for you, a more viable option may be focusing on a troop leader, as taking down one often results in the others (up to the two other leaders) retreating.

Knights, Monsters and Summoning, oh my!

There is a lot to make note of with all of this. As previously stated, if a knight is defeated, they retreat, but if a monster is taken out, it does not return unless being summoned back at the cost of a lot of mana and a rare revival stone only obtained through exploration quests. To have the best chance of locating this, always send a higher levelled knight with just a high monsters, as the higher the level, the more chance they have in finding the rarer items.

There is a limit to how many monsters nations can hold, even if the monsters are on standby. At 100 available spaces, if you’ve left captured or summoned monsters in bases you’re not planning on returning to, it’s always best to release these monsters to make room for more. This can either be done by summoning or capturing opposing nation’s monsters during battles. Always prioritise protecting the monsters that have been promoted in battle, as each basic/early monster can easily be summoned back at a cheaper cost.

Monsters that can be summoned differ from base to base, so it is always worth checking on the summon monsters option in each castle for chances of obtaining better monsters to summon with just mana as the cost. Additionally, by summoning monsters, there is a chance for a Mana Miracle to occur, where monsters with more mana energy than others can take a new form with better stats.

Rune Knights can command up to 6 monsters once their Magic Pool becomes large enough after levelling up. When forming up troops, there is a maximum magic cost limit that cannot be exceeded, and the stronger the monster is, the higher the magic cost is to add it to the party. Play around to balance this out as much as possible, as fitting in as many high levelled monsters will always be more beneficial than settling on lower monsters.

Promote, promote, promote!

As my final tip, this is arguably the most important one for players who are interested in customisation. Basically, by levelling up, every single unit, be it rune knight or monster, have advanced classes available to them when they reach a certain level to unlock new abilities and skills. The proficiency tiers, exclusive to Rune Knights, allows for certain skills and abilities they have obtained to transfer to a changed class once the proficiency tier is maxed out. For example, you could have a fighter learn healing spells as a priest, then revert back into the fighter, retaining healing spells while dealing damage. The options are endless!

Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia releases today and has a demo available on the Switch. Give it a go, it’s not one to be missed!

Check out our review here!

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