Advanced Positioning: Frontline, Backline, Corners, and Baiting

At the beginner level, positioning is "tanks front, carries back". At the intermediate level it's a per-round conversation with the enemy board: where will their threats go, what's the first thing they hit, and how do I make that the least valuable unit I own? You re-position every planning phase, and in the late game you position for a specific opponent.

The zones

• Front row — melee tanks and bruisers. This is where damage lands first. Your sturdiest unit goes roughly in the centre so it's the natural first target.
• Middle row — secondary front-liners, melee carries, short-range units. A buffer.
• Back row — ranged carries, mages, support. The row the enemy is trying to reach.
• The corners — the two back corners are the safest hexes on the board against assassins and "jump to the farthest enemy" abilities, because those effects target the enemy back line and one corner is always farther from the assassin's spawn than the other.

Reading the enemy board

Scout the opponent you'll face and identify their threats before you position:

• Assassins / divers — units whose ability leaps to your back line. Answer: put your carry in the corner away from where they spawn, and station a durable "bodyguard" unit next to the carry so the assassin has to fight through it. Some players also leave one cheap unit alone on the near flank as bait.
• Line / cone / splash abilities — big hits that catch multiple units in a shape. Answer: spread. Don't line your team up in a neat row or column for it. Even one hex of offset can drop the number of units hit from four to two.
• Front-to-back sweeps — abilities that hit the whole enemy team but weaker. Positioning does less here; this is a "win the stats race" fight.
• Ranged poke — a back-line carry that just wants to attack from max range. Answer: get to it fast. Push your front line forward, use a diver of your own, or out-range it.

Clump vs. spread — the core trade-off

Clumping lets your whole team focus one enemy at a time (killing threats faster) and keeps your carry surrounded, but it feeds area damage. Spreading denies area damage and makes assassins travel farther, but your team kills more slowly and your carry can be isolated. The right call is dictated by the enemy: clump against single-target boards, spread against area boards. Against a mixed board, a loose diamond — clumped enough to focus, spread enough that no single ability hits more than two — is the compromise.

Baiting

A sacrificial unit changes where the enemy's damage goes for the crucial first seconds:

• Corner bait — a cheap unit alone in one back corner pulls the enemy assassin to it while your real carry works in the other corner.
• Flank bait — a unit pushed wide on one side draws the enemy front line off-centre, splitting their board and letting your team collapse on the smaller half.
• Bench bait (against summons/effects) — some abilities target "the ally with the most items" or similar; putting a decoy that meets the condition in a bad spot wastes the effect.

Bait costs you a unit's worth of board strength, so only do it when the thing you're baiting would otherwise win them the fight.

Positioning is a read, and reads can be countered

In the late game with two or three players left, your opponent is positioning against you too. If you always corner your carry bottom-left, a good player spawns their assassin bottom-left. Mix it up: swap corners between rounds, occasionally hide the carry mid-board behind a wall of tanks, and against a specific repeat opponent, position for what they did last round expecting them to adjust.