1. Draft
Build a tight roster by level: two level-1 units, two level-2 units, one level-3 unit, and one level-4 unit. Bans and reveals help manage hidden information.
Game rules
How to play Heroes of Crypto
Build a compact army, place it on a 16x16 battlefield, then win through positioning, faction synergies, morale, spells, and a map that keeps closing in. This guide follows the real shared TypeScript fight engine used by the browser client.
47units in the codex
4playable factions
84unit abilities
Fight loop
The match in one minute
Read a match as a chain of visible decisions. You are not watching a black-box simulation: player actions go through the shared rules engine, then the browser client renders the events on the board.
2. Upgrade and synergize
Before the fight, spend up to 7 augment points and choose faction bonuses when your army reaches 2, 4, or 6 units from the same faction.
3. Place
Put stacks inside your deployment zone. Large creatures need a 2x2 footprint, ranged units need lanes, and aura units need friends inside their real range.
4. Fight
The active unit moves, attacks, casts, waits on Hourglass, or ends its turn. After the action resolves, the engine selects the next unit.
16 × 16 battlefield cells The battlefield is a 16×16 grid. Every move, attack range and aura radius is measured in these cells.
8 max stacks per army You can field at most 8 stacks (unit groups). More stacks means more actions per lap and board control.
2 / 2 / 1 / 1 draft by level 1–4 Each match you draft two level-1 units, two level-2, one level-3 and one level-4. Higher levels are stronger, but you get only one each.
7 augment points Before the fight you spend 7 points on team augments (armor, melee, ranged, movement, deployment) — real trade-offs, not cosmetics.
−20 … +20 morale range Morale drives tempo: high morale can grant an extra turn (and a small boost); low morale can make a unit skip. Built by advancing and killing, lost by retreating and losing stacks.
−10 … +10 luck range Luck is mostly defensive: a lucky stack takes less damage (~1% per point), an unlucky one takes more. It also powers your abilities, and drifts by up to ±3 each lap.
1 – 5 stack power A 1–5 rating of how valuable a stack is (unit value × living count vs the biggest stack). Higher stack power scales its abilities.
every 3–4 laps map narrowing The map shrinks every 3 laps (4 on block-center maps): outer cells turn into holes. Units are pushed inward — or die if there's no room. Don't get caught on the edge.
lap 12 · 4 Armageddon, waves If the fight drags to lap 12, Armageddon begins: 4 escalating damage waves hit everything until someone wins. Fights can't stall forever.
12–60 s per-turn timer Each turn gives 12–60 seconds to act (within a ~4-minute total budget). Run out and the turn is skipped — and the unit loses morale.
×8 max range divisor Shooting past a unit's range distance divides its damage — up to ×8 at long range. Keep shooters in range, or take the Sniper augment to ignore it.
×0.5 ranged-in-melee A ranged unit forced to fight in melee deals half damage (unless an ability covers melee). Keep shooters out of melee contact.
Victory
The goal is simple: keep your army on the board
Each unit on the board is a stack, not a single model. Damage burns through the current body in that stack, then starts killing the next one. When the stack has no living bodies left, it shatters off the board.
You win when the enemy has no living stacks. If both sides stall, the game applies pressure by narrowing the map, turning outer cells into holes, and eventually starting Armageddon after lap 12.
Watch the turn queue, not only the active unit.
Keep ranged units out of melee contact: adjacent pressure can shut down shooting.
Respect the edge. Narrowing tries to push a stack inward first, but if there is no legal space, the stack dies.
Draft
Draft: pick a plan, not just portraits
Conceptually every unit pulls roughly the same weight in your army: a weaker creature simply arrives as a bigger stack, so no single unit is just 'better' than another. Fights are won by your plan and how your units synergize — not by raw stats or flashy abilities.
Unit level matters, but it is not the whole game. A low-level unit can unlock the right synergy, carry an aura, bring control, or give your army a spellbook.
The public roster is currently focused on four playable factions: Chaos, Life, Might, and Nature. Across them you get melee fighters, ranged units, spellcasters, flyers, large 2x2 creatures, and utility pieces with auras.
- The baseline draft pool by level is 2/2/1/1.
- A level can only be banned if enough units of that level remain available.
- Reveal is best when knowing the opponent's threat matters more than taking another unknown slot.
Level You draft In pool
Lv 1 ×2 14
Lv 2 ×2 12
Lv 3 ×1 9
Lv 4 ×1 12
Chaos 11 Disruption, fire pressure, nasty ranged tricks, and Break plans. 
Life 11 Reliable bodies, armor, resurrection, morale, and formation support. 
Might 12 Direct damage, strong melee pressure, aura scaling, and heavy finishers. 
Nature 13 Mobility, flyers, summons, camouflage, and board-control tools. Unit card
How to read a unit
Medusa Ranged · Walk 
Arbalester Ranged · Walk 
Hydra Melee · Walk 
Thunderbird Melee · Fly 
Satyr Magic · Walk 
Gargantuan Ranged · Walk HP
health of one body inside the stack
Damage
base attack spread before armor, luck, and modifiers
Speed
a major input into turn order inside each lap
Steps
how far the unit can move on its turn
Shots
ammo for ranged attacks, when the unit has a ranged attack
Magic resist
reduces magic damage (100 = immune) and the chance a spell debuff lands — it does NOT stop status effects
Status resist
lowers the chance Stun and Paralysis land (e.g. from Amulet of Resolve); it does not reduce magic
Mind resist
full immunity to mind effects (Blindness, Aggravating, Boar Saliva, Petrifying Gaze). Comes only from the Madness/Mechanism abilities, never from an artifact
10 Ranged 29 Melee 6 Melee / magic 2 Magic
Augments
Team upgrades: 7 points, real tradeoffs
Augments are not cosmetics. They change deployment size, durability, ranged plans, melee damage, and tempo before the first unit acts.
Augment Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3
Armor team armor +6%+13%+21% 
Might melee attack +8%+17%+27% 
Sniper attack + range, ignores divisor +7%+15%+24% 
Movement steps to move +1+2— 
Placement deployment zone, wider 3 rows4 rows5 rows Synergies
Faction synergies: 2, 4, and 6 units
When you field 2/4/6 units from the same faction, that faction reaches synergy level 1/2/3. For each faction, you choose one of two bonuses.
Life
Power by level: 2 / 4 / 6- Supply: +6% / +12% / +19% bodies in each stack
- Morale & luck: +6/+2, +13/+5, +20/+9
Chaos
Power by level: 2 / 4 / 6- Movement: +1 / +2 / +3 cells
- Break on attack: 8% / 13% / 19% chance to shut off abilities
Might
Power by level: 2 / 4 / 6- Aura range: +1 / +2 / +3 cells
- Stack abilities power: +5% / +8% / +12%
Nature
Power by level: 2 / 4 / 6- Board units: +1 / +2 / +3 fielded stacks
- Flying armor: +10% / +20% / +30%
Placement
Placement: many fights are won before the first hit
Choose a unit from the roster, set the stack amount, and place it in your allowed deployment zone. You can move placed stacks, clone the selected stack, delete it, and tune the final shape before starting the fight.
Large units occupy 2x2 cells. They are powerful pieces, but they ask for space: harder to route through a crowded center and harder to save when narrowing starts.
Before pressing start, check three things: who is inside your auras, who can be reached on the first turn, and where your ranged units will stand if the enemy dives them.
Deep dive
The mechanics in detail
Open just the part you need — no endless scrolling.
Turns: one decision, then the queue moves Turn
Move
The path must be legal and fit inside the unit's Steps. Moving closer to the nearest enemy raises morale; backing away can lower it.
Melee attack
The unit must stand next to the target. A ranged unit forced into melee hits at reduced damage unless an ability covers it.
Ranged attack
You need shots, a valid line, and no melee lock. Long shots are reduced by a range divisor up to x8 unless Sniper avoids the penalty.
Spellbook
Spellbook units cast buffs, debuffs, healing, mass effects, summons, and position tricks. Three separate resistances gate effects: magic resist (magic damage + spell debuffs), status resist (Stun/Paralysis chance), and mind resist (full immunity to mind effects).
Hourglass
The unit waits and comes back later in the queue. It costs morale, but it can turn a bad action now into a better action later.
Luck Shield / Skip
Luck Shield (defend) clears this turn's random luck swing and ends the turn, for a small morale cost. A forced skip also ends the turn and costs morale; ending your turn normally after acting costs nothing.
Combat, without the formula sheet Combat
Damage depends on attack, living bodies in the stack, target armor, luck, range distance, selected attack type, and active abilities. That is why the same unit can hit very differently from two different board states.
Responses exist. Melee and ranged units can answer an attack if they have not already replied, are not blocked by an effect, and can actually reach the attacker.
Abilities give fights their character: Lucky Strike can spike damage, Stun and Blindness break tempo, Petrifying Gaze can finish a target, Fire Shield returns damage, and Range Null Field shuts down shooting around it.
Morale, luck, and stack power Tempo
Morale runs from -20 to +20. Each lap a unit rolls about its morale value in percent to act an extra time (positive morale) or be skipped (negative morale). High morale also nudges movement range and, when it procs, boosts attack; low morale does the opposite.
To build morale, advance toward the enemy army (+3 per move) and kill enemy stacks (a big push for the attacker). Retreating costs morale (-3), and when one of your stacks dies, your other stacks of that same unit lose morale too.
Luck runs from -10 to +10 and is mostly defensive: a lucky stack takes less damage, an unlucky one takes more (about 1% per point). Your own luck also makes your abilities stronger and more likely to fire. Luck gets a small random swing each lap; Luck Shield (defend) clears that swing for a small morale cost.
Stack power is recalculated from a stack's board value: unit experience times living amount, compared with the largest stack present. It ranges from 1 to 5.
Exact morale changes
| +3 | Move toward the nearest enemy |
| +4 | Kill an enemy stack (goes to the attacking stack) |
| -3 | Move away from the nearest enemy |
| -4 | Each surviving stack of yours of a unit whose stack was wiped out |
| -3 | Hourglass (Wait) to act later in the queue |
| -2 | Defend (Luck Shield) |
| -1 | Skip the turn, or let the turn timer run out |
| ±20 | Hard cap — morale never leaves this range |
Ending your turn normally after acting costs nothing. Each lap a unit rolls about its morale value in percent: a positive hit lets it act an extra time (and hit a little harder), a negative hit gets it skipped.
The map does not wait forever Map
The board is a 16x16 grid. The current random map rotation includes normal, lava-center, and block-center maps. The center mountain can block shots and has 5 hits; lava-center maps make Made of Fire matter.
Normal maps narrow roughly every 3 laps. Block-center maps narrow every 4 laps. If neither army closes distance or deals damage, the engine can add extra narrowing pressure.
After lap 12, Armageddon starts: four damage waves gradually force a stalled fight to end.
Roles
Role cheat sheet
- Black Dragon and Angel show what large flying finishers can do, but both need room for a 2x2 body.
- Medusa, Arbalester, and Gargantuan teach firing lanes, ammo, and range distance.
- Satyr and Ogre Mage are reminders that a spellbook can matter more than raw damage.
- Pegasus, Griffin, Peasant, and Valkyrie prove that aura placement wins fights before the first attack lands.
How to play better next match
Start with a faction plan: which 2/4/6 units unlock the synergy you actually want?
Place ranged units so the enemy's first dive does not shut off their shooting.
Do not press Hourglass automatically. Wait only when you know what better turn you are creating.
Track the narrowing map from lap one, not when the edge is already a hole.