Shattered Crown

The castle is twenty-four plots across two pages. Page one holds the throne and the barracks that recruit your units. Page two holds the halls — forge, infirmary, mage guild, temple — and each hall has its own levels.

The three factions share no buildings at all. Switch banner below and the grid changes completely: different units, different art, a different castle.

• Tap a plot to see what stands there and what it does.
• An empty plot shows the one building it can take, greyed out.
• The arrows switch between the two pages.

Each faction has three heroes, and you pick one for good. Any hero can cast the spells you have researched; what makes them different is their attack and their passive.

The hero is also the only unit that builds up Power during a fight, and Power is what pays for spells. Each passive rewards a different formation: Holy units beside the Paladin, a full column behind the Regent, Vampires next to the Prophet.

• Switch banner to see that faction’s three.
• Tap a portrait to open that hero’s card.
• Tap a stat or an ability icon for an explanation.

A recruit is a starting point, not a purchase. Every unit sits at the root of a tree, and every upgrade is a fork: the same conscript becomes infantry, cavalry or a standard bearer, and each of those branches again.

The branch is permanent, and you choose it per unit rather than per account — two players in the same faction can end up with rosters that share nothing. It is the decision with the longest consequences, so the tree shows you the whole line before you take the first step.

• Pick a line along the bottom to see its tree.
• Tap a node for its card. Stats are shown as the change from the unit before it.
• Tap a stat or an ability on a card to have it explained.

Three regions, ten levels each. A level always has the same enemies, in the same cells, with the same equipment — so a level you lose is a level you can prepare for.

Every region is guaranteed to drop two kinds of crystal. That is how you decide where to go when the forge needs something you have run out of.

• Tap a level to see who is waiting on it, and where they stand.
• Six cells, two per row. Melee only reaches the front row; ranged reaches anyone.
• Levels 3, 6, 9 and 10 end in a boss fight.

Eighty-four items in five rarities. Common and rare items stack; every epic and mythic is unique, so you can only ever own one of each. Shattered is not a step above mythic — it is epic in power and price, and sits in its own rarity so tournament rules can count it separately.

An item is more than its stats. It carries a passive, it can require a tag before a unit is allowed to wear it, and it can add or remove tags: Bloodless turns a Zombie into a Skeleton, and everything that counted Zombies stops counting that unit.

• Filter by rarity along the top.
• Every card is the game’s own item card.
• The passive under the name is what the item actually does.

There are six kinds of crystal, and you earn them from everything you do — runs, errands, the Colossus. You end up with far too many of some and none of the one a recipe is asking for.

Transmutation fixes that. You spend two kinds you have to spare and get back a third kind of your choosing. It costs time rather than gold — about an hour — and you have to build the lab first.

• Tap a corner to pick a crystal, then set the amount with − and +.
• Hold − or + to move in fives.
• The timer is shortened here so you can watch it finish.

Engraving permanently changes one unit’s stats. You pick a set of three stats: one goes down, the other two go up. You do not choose the amounts — the stat you give up is worth about twice what each of the other two gains.

A higher tier scales all three numbers up together. You pay in Valor from the Colossus, in gold, and in tokens that only drop in the Crown Tourney. An engraving can be replaced later, but never removed.

• Pick a unit, pick a set of stats, then spend the points with − and +.
• Every number shown is that unit’s real stat.
• The eighth set trades passive ranks instead of stats.

One boss per faction per week, ten thousand health, and the whole faction attacking it together. Your damage counts towards your own rewards, and all three factions can see how far the others have got.

It is not just a large health bar. It has four phases and casts a different set of spells in each: stone and grasping hands at full health, rot and roots below three quarters, bells and a death sentence below half, and fire at the end. Units that fight it come back exhausted, and you pay to bring them back.

• Attack a few times and watch the phase change.
• Tap another faction to see how far along it is.
• In the game, Attack starts a real battle.