How an All Army Attack Run Works

A run starts with a commander and a handful of cards, and it ends when your army can or cannot beat the boss in front of it. You recruit troops and artillery, spend what the battle pays, and do it again. The units do the fighting.

The store description is the spine. You take the commander role, pull troops and artillery from a large card pool, beat enemies, and spend the resources on stronger units and reinforcements. The same text says an army is built from scratch and scaled into hundreds of units. That hundreds figure is battlefield size, not a promise of hundreds of different species. The reported demo roster is 60 unit types. Keep those two numbers apart. The units page does.

The three beats

1. Draft. A shop screenshot shows a row of cards, a gold pile, Refresh, Upgrade, and a base level that can read Max or a level number on different shots. Tags under the cards include Neutral and Plant.
2. Fight. Battle screenshots show two packed formations already shooting, a timer, and health bars for both sides. One desert shot is marked 10-1 in the corner. What 10-1 counts is unconfirmed. The shape of the fight is not: you are watching.
3. Spend. Away from the field you fund a town, bonuses, unlocks, and hats. The home base screens label Base Plan, Soul Lab, Treasure Shop, and Set Out.

Tip: Make the draft decision out loud before you hit the fight. If you cannot say which tag you bought and why, you bought a picture.

What you are allowed to change

The store text lists four mixers: characters, factions, cards, and battlefield setups. It also says you can customize cards and units, and craft or mutate individual soldiers. A Plant shop line says "End of turn: Mutate 2 Units," so mutation is not only flavor. A Neutral line pays gold when Reinforcement triggers. Another pays gold at the start of the turn for units sitting on that troops card. The cards table quotes the lines that are actually legible.

Commanders change the card pool. Maps do too. That is the official "special ops" pillar, and it is why a combo that sings on one run can be absent on the next. Warcluck is the one named example: chick airdrops, a Rifle Chick troop, and a field-wide +1.

What you are not doing

You are not aiming every shot. Valve's own description of the Auto Battler RPG Fest, the event tied to the reported demo, says the player builds the force and then takes their hands off while combat resolves. That matches these screenshots. You are also not locked to one permanent squad. The briefing says to swap soldiers out to make room for stronger ones.

Bosses are the stated goal of the scaling. The store text calls them awesome bosses. The briefing calls them enormous. A separate screenshot is a Boss Curse choice, with Dead End and Muddy Waters. Read bosses before you assume a boss is only a big health bar.

Verdict: Play the run as draft, watch, spend. If you catch yourself clicking the battlefield for a target, you are playing a different game than the one on the store page.

FAQ