The Four Factions

Four powers claim the ash, and none of them fight the same way. Roles are not mirrored — each faction is designed against its own hook first and balanced by cost. Here's how each one plays, and who to pick first.

The Ashen Legion

Mechanical hook — Doctrine

Legion squads that hold cover stack discipline over time: their accuracy and morale resistance climb the longer they stay put. Their reinforcement is fastest near a Legion structure. Everything about the Legion rewards patience — form a line, dig in, let the discipline build, and become nearly unbreakable on ground you've prepared.

Playstyle

• Form the front, then win it. Don't rush. Anchor squads in directional cover, let Doctrine ramp, and use the best suppression guns in the game to pin and grind.
• Fight on your ground. Fortify Strategic Points into outposts; reinforce fast near your structures; make the enemy come to a line that only gets stronger.
• Weakness: slow to relocate. A Legion caught out of position, before Doctrine has stacked, is just average — and vulnerable to being flanked out of its cover.

Campaign flavor

The Legion gains bonus income from held provinces adjacent to other held provinces — an empire that pays for order and contiguity. Play them as a slow, unbroken tide: never leave a salient, never fight on two fronts, and let the map compound.

Pick the Legion first if you want the most legible, forgiving faction — a straightforward war of cover and firepower where good positioning is directly rewarded.

The Kindled

Mechanical hook — Fervor

Kills and charges build a shared Fervor meter. At each threshold, all Kindled gain speed and melee damage — the horde becomes more dangerous the more blood it spills. And morale runs backwards: a broken Kindled squad doesn't flee, it frenzies into an uncontrollable charge. You cannot suppress the Kindled out of a fight; you can only kill them.

Playstyle

• Close, always. You lose the shooting war, so don't have one. Absorb fire crossing the open ground, reach melee lock, and turn off the enemy's guns.
• Feed the meter. Early charges and kills spin up Fervor; once it's high, every squad is faster and hits harder. Snowball before the enemy consolidates.
• Weakness: a disciplined gun-line with good cover and space to retreat can bleed you dry before you arrive. Multi-angle assaults and smoke matter.

Campaign flavor

After winning a battle, the Kindled may immediately launch one extra attack that same campaign turn — the crusade rolls forward and never slows. Chain victories to tear across the map faster than the AI can respond; momentum is literally a mechanic.

Pick the Kindled if you want aggression as identity — a relentless, high-tempo faction where retreat isn't in the vocabulary and the campaign snowballs.

The Hollow Court

Mechanical hook — Dread & Reconstitution

Hollow units project fear auras that passively drain enemy morale just by being near — the enemy line frays before a shot is fired. And destroyed Hollow models slowly self-repair on the field unless their wreckage is finished off. "Confirm the kill" is a real tactical action against them. They get no front-line reinforcement, because their power is that they don't leave.

Playstyle

• Advance like a glacier. You'll have the fewest units on the board, but each is a wall. Push slowly, let Dread erode their morale, and be nearly impossible to break in return.
• Make them confirm. Every model they drop tries to come back. Force the enemy to spend time and fire finishing your fallen — time they aren't spending elsewhere.
• Weakness: tiny army, no cheap replacements. A fast faction that refuses to fight your line and out-captures you on the map can win without ever beating you head-on.

Campaign flavor

Provinces the Hollow hold decay — they yield less income to whoever retakes them, so the Court poisons the well as it advances. And their capital cannot be attacked until its outer provinces are broken, making them a late, hard nut. Play them as an inevitability the other factions must dismantle piece by piece.

Pick the Hollow Court if you want the elite, low-count, high-durability fantasy — few units, each terrifying, and a psychological war of attrition.

The Free Companies

Mechanical hook — Salvage & Field-craft

Any wreck on the field — anyone's — can be salvaged for resources or repaired into Free Company service. They can redeploy their structures (pack up a turret and move it), and every infantry squad carries a secondary gadget: mine, smoke, or grapnel. The Companies turn the battlefield's debris and their own toolkit into an edge no one else has.

Playstyle

• Fight the battlefield, not just the enemy. Bait engagements near wrecks, then salvage the aftermath. Every destroyed vehicle is your income or your new unit.
• Mobility as defense. You're fragile, so don't stand and trade. Pack up turrets, kite with the best vehicles in the game, and use gadgets — smoke to cross open ground, mines to deny it, grapnels to reposition.
• Weakness: thin health pools. Caught in a straight fight without setup, the Companies fold. You win through preparation and tempo, not toughness.

Campaign flavor

The Companies may spend campaign resources to buy one-battle mercenary reinforcements anywhere on the map — a rapid-reaction force no one else has. Their income scales with the variety of provinces held, not raw count: a trade network, not an empire. Grab one of everything and strike wherever the money says.

Pick the Free Companies if you want the toolbox faction — the most gadgets, the most mobility, and a campaign about opportunism and reach rather than a solid front.