Brigandine Abyss Beginner Guide: Your First Campaign

Before the first battle

Two decisions come before anything else, and both are made on the setup screen.

Mode. Story Mode runs six scripted campaigns, one per nation. Mission Mode lets you pick any of the 24 nations and clear that nation’s own objective. Neither is a prerequisite for the other — the producer has confirmed campaigns can be played in any order, and the game holds 20 save slots, so several runs can sit in progress at once.

Difficulty. Easy, Normal and Hard are chosen when you begin, per mode, with a global difficulty available instead. It is set once at the start, so pick deliberately rather than assuming you can slide it later. More detail on the difficulty guide.

For a first campaign, start with Gran Dragnica or Scarlet Will. Those are the two prologues the developers shipped in the free demo, which makes them the campaigns built to teach the systems. The full ordering argument is on the starter order page.

The loop you are actually playing

A campaign alternates between two phases:

• Organization Phase — strengthen what you hold. Level strongholds with materials, hire leaders and monsters, send idle leaders on Explorations for resources and experience, and shop the travelling merchant.
• Attack Phase — commit. Invade a neighbouring nation to take its base and its resources, or hold and build another season.

The whole campaign is a bet on that ratio. Rushing means smaller squads against defended bases; turtling means the borders around you get stronger while you sit still. One official screenshot shows a base counter reading “Seasons Until Event Battle: 8” — the game tells you how long you have before the next scripted fight, and that number is the budget you are spending.

Building a squad

Each leader unit commands up to five monsters, and the formation those monsters can take is determined by the leader. If a leader falls, the whole squad retreats with them — so a leader is not a hero to throw forward, it is the anchor the squad depends on.

Two commands make a squad more than a stat block:

• Rally temporarily combines a leader with one monster in their troop, granting the leader that monster’s Rally Trait. A Unicorn grants “Regenerate Ally HP”, restoring 5% HP to all adjacent allies at the start of each turn; an Ash Wolf grants “Continued Movement”, letting a unit spend leftover movement after using a skill.
• Support brings one monster alongside the leader, granting a support ability instead: Dragon gives movement +1, Pixie recovers 5% MP each turn, Demon turns every allied unit into the Dark element at the cost of 20% magic defence.

Both are covered in depth on the Rally and Support guide.

Five rules that decide fights

1. Elements. Every unit has one of five elements. Advantage raises damage and accuracy; disadvantage lowers both. Certain weapons and armour bestow an element on the wearer, so a non-elemental unit can be given one before a fight.
2. Elevation. Ground units cannot reach higher terrain that flying units cross freely. Reading the map for elevation breaks is part of the opening move, not an afterthought.
3. Zone of control. The six tiles around a unit restrict how enemies move through them. Placed well, two units can seal a corridor. Some units ignore enemy ZOC entirely — check before you rely on a wall.
4. Counters. A direct attack can be countered as long as the target still has HP and one of your units is in its range. Magic attacks and area attacks never trigger counters. That single rule is why a caster opening is safer than a melee opening against an unknown enemy.
5. Focus the leader. Defeating an enemy leader forces their entire squad to retreat. Cutting the head off a stack beats grinding through five monsters.

Common early mistakes

• Spreading leaders thin. Empty slots in a squad are wasted command capacity; five monsters per leader is the ceiling, and you want to be near it before an invasion.
• Leaving leaders idle at home. Leaders not committed to a battle can be sent on Explorations for resources, money and experience — an idle leader is a wasted season.
• Attacking into counters. If the target survives and you are in range, you take a hit back. Open with magic or area attacks when you need to soften something without trading.
• Ignoring the achievement hints. Several early achievements double as a tutorial checklist: rally a unit, bind fates with a monster, perform a quest, change class once.

Where to go next

• Hex combat guide — elevation, elements, ZOC and counters in detail
• Organization Phase — strongholds, quests, hiring and the merchant
• Class change — what happens when a unit hits the level threshold
• All 24 nations — who you can play and who you will be fighting