Heroes of Kaldora
HUMAN
Racial Ability
A road can by built with 2 stone, 2 wood or 1 of each.
Good for those who like an expansive kingdom
Monk Class
- Experience level: Beginner
If someone rolls a defensive kill against your king’s army, it counts as your kill instead. This ability can be used on each player in 3+ combat, meaning that the + advantage may become +4 or even +6.
Easy to manage combat class. Players who pick monk need not fret about their playstyle. The monk is one of the most stable classes and has a very reliable combat power of 2 so even the most inexperienced players can excel with monk. A side benefit of the monk is that the ability can be doubled or even tripled in combat with 3+ players, so don't shy away from such situations.
Paladin Class
- Experience level: Experienced
On the end of your turn, up to three soldiers who were removed from your king's army during combat can be revived and placed next to one of your castles.
It is easy for a paladin to amass a lot of soldiers on the map for blocking purposes and the class ability can be coupled with the racial trait well. A large road network means that any fallen soldiers can ensure quick passage back into the King's army. The paladins combat power may be 3 but it is important to remember that the revived soldiers do not immediately return to the army.
Warrior Class
- Experience level: Expert
King's army gets one automatic '6' on siege roll (guaranteed successful siege and 1/6 chance of instant capture).
Players who pick warrior should be relying on their incredible siege bonus to deplete and distract their enemies. Siege as early as you can and try to obtain a supply of advantage cards because barrage cards still count toward an instant capture. It is essential for the warrior to not build all 6 castles right away so they can siege to full effect.
ELF
Racial Ability
The King's army or a group of 3 soldiers on the map can move an extra land tile/road length.
The elf ability means that elfs can move around the map the easiest. This suits the players who like moving far from their base to attack from multiple locations. Buying soldiers in groups of three can be beneficial because they can use their +1 movement to reinforce a King's army.
Druid Class
- Experience level: Beginner
On your turn if you attack with your king's army, your enemy relinquishes 5 of his defensive combat rolls. The defending player is always allowed to roll three combat dice, even if they only have four soldiers in the king's army.
The druid class has a nice combat ability that even the most inexperienced players can take full advantage of.
Ranger Class
- Experience level: Experienced
During combat on your turn up to six soldiers in your king's army can stay in an adjacent tile and attack from range, rolling their combat dice and preventing the enemy from rolling their defensive dice.
The ranger is one of the best combat classes in the game but it is also the trickiest to manage because there are difficult choices to consider. Although a maximum of six soldiers can attack from range, you may choose a lower number because you may want the rest of the King's army to move in and if that's the case it should be large enough to survive a turn. However you may also choose to use the Ranger ability defensively to just deplete an enemy and not necessarily move in after. The best use of the ranger is with six soldiers on the map in addition to the king's army. In this instance, you can keep all six archers back and then consolidate the rest of your soldier to attack in a large group.
Wizard Class
- Experience level: Expert
Instead of moving 1 tile, the king's army can teleport to any land tile with an elven castle. The army is still able to do the rest of their movement.
The Wizard class is the most challenging class to play with and a Wizard should be adopting a vastly different playstyle. With the elf's +1 movement, the Wizard may essentially be able to move anywhere on the map and any player who plays as Wizard might benefit from adopting a nomadic approach. Roads start to matter very little so prioritize gold and crop to amass a powerful army of speedy elves.
ORC
Racial Ability
When Orcs make a siege attempt (even when unsuccessful), The player collects the resource card corresponding to the target castle.
Good for players that want to be aggressive with their sieges and combat
Berserker Class
- Experience Level: Beginner
When attacking with the king's army on your turn, You can roll your combat dice first. The opponent then has to remove any dead soldiers before even adding up his combat dice.
The berserker is a very fun combat class that gets progressively better the more soldiers you have in your king's army. This is a class that will make you feel that it is overpowered and is a good class to play if you have not been lucky enough to play the base game.
Bloodmage Class
- Experience Level: Experienced
If you are attacking with the king's army this turn and you have successfully killed a soldier, pick up an advantage card. You can only do this once every turn and may use it immediately if it is an inspiration card.
Players who play as the bloodmage especially should make themselves familiar with the advantage cards and be aware how useful they are in the game. The bloodmage should adopt a gold/crop heavy strat and try to attack with the kings army whenever possible. This is coupled well with the orc racial trait because Wood and stone can still be available if you absolutely need it. An influx of barrage cards can help with your sieging capabilities and it is especially easy for the bloodmage to build up a collection of inspiration cards to stack.
Shaman Class
- Experience level: Expert
When the orc king's army is on a tile with an orc castle, the player can move the castle anywhere else on the land tile, along with one road that is connected to the castle. The castle and road must still be connected. A shaman can also build a castle on the same tile as the king's army without needing a road.
The shaman is a very useful class once you know how to use it. It is one of the few classes that is much more beneficial for the early-game. Players playing as the Shaman can build castles without needing roads so an aggressive play may try to mess up people's plans by building on a coveted tile. With the shaman's castle movement, you could for instance transform a castle that produces stone/wood to one that produces gold/crop, setting yourself up for amassing soldier in the late game.
There is also some very daring emergent game play when it comes to picking the shaman as your first orc class. Picking the Shaman first means that you can build up your kingdom fast, especially if you focus on wood and stone. After you have 6 castles on the board, move them all to focus on crop/gold. Now you may want to sacrifice your king to obtain a bloodmage or berserker. Both of these classes thrive with a plentiful accumulation of gold/crop, and the orc racial ability means you can still obtain wood/stone if you become desperate.
Undead
Racial Ability
A group of at least three soldiers can blight a tile, preventing any enemy from harvesting on the blighted tile
Good for players who want to control the battlefield, limiting resource collection, and using your abilities to gain the edge in combat
Undead Class
- Experience level: Beginner
When attacking with the King’s Army, roll five extra combat dice. This gives the necromancer the numerical advantage in otherwise even fights, or play aggressively with a low soldier count army.
Use your extra attacks to stay in fights longer than you might want to in a regular game of invasion, and go for the kill on a particularly weak enemy. This works very well with advantage cards like Inspiration, as you can use that advantage on the necromancer’s extra rolled dice.
Enchantress Class
- Experience Level: Experienced
The enchantress can use battlefield control to their advantage by moving three soldiers in the same or adjacent hex.
This control ability is surprisingly deadly. You can move soldiers out of a defending king’s army, severely weakening it, before moving in for the kill. This is also a great way to stop a movement block from happening, or setting up a block yourself with your opponent’s soldiers. You can move soldiers to make them easier to kill, and spread out an opponent’s forces. Really, the creativity this class can engage in is it’s greatest strength, so think critically about how moving your opponent’s soldiers can help you and hurt them.
If you move an opponent’s soldiers while they are in an active siege, a minimum of three soldiers are not affected.
Rogue Class
- Experience Level: Expert
This king’s army is able to stealthy move around the map, avoiding blocks, and not getting trapped by enemy forces. However, that is only the half of it. The rogue’s true strength is in its assassinations. Sit, wait, and watch as your opponents slowly bleed each, and then move into combat to finish off a weak king.
Rogue king’s army has a massive advantage in three plus player combat, so they are incentivized to let their opponents engage with each other. When the rogue is the attacker in a combat of two or more players, they can choose to allocate their kills among any of the players, but are encouraged to focus on only one player in order to kill their king, and not face retaliating attacks from a defender who they are not targeting. A rogue must be patient, subtle, and most of all, deadly.
Dwarf
Racial Ability
Groups of three soldiers can siege or capture a road
Good for players that want to restrict where other players can build, by destroying their roads, or making them hesitant to build on certain tiles like stone
Thane Class
- Experience level: Beginner
The thane is a highly defensive class that limits how many of your soldiers are killed in combat. A thane only loses half of their soldiers that are killed in combat, which makes them one of the best defensive classes in the game.
Thane players embody the old adage that defence is the best offence, so they can afford to do risky, aggressive plays on their turn, knowing that even if they lose soldiers, the casualties will be minimised.
Artificer Class
- Experience Level: Experienced
The artificer class may seem extremely simple on the surface, but it allows for flexibility in soldier creation, much like the human’s road building. This class gives players more choices on how they want to place their castles and gain resources, because crop and gold are used interchangeably. This also makes the artificer highly resilient to losing a castle, as their production of soldiers will not be affected, as other players might be.
Artificers should specialise in crops or gold as their primary resources, and build as many soldiers as possible to either put on the battlefield, or strengthen their king’s army. Artificers also have the advantage in trade negotiations with other players, using their superior harvesting of crop or gold to make advantageous trades for other resources. A very aggressive play, for example, would be to place only on gold hexes, and use that monopoly for political ends.
Tunneler Class
- Experience Level: Expert
The tunneler is a challenging, but very fun class that depends on good initial stone placement on the map. Tunnelers can move between two stone hexes as if it was one movement action, and then if they attack an enemy on a stone hex, they can reroll four missed attacks.
The tunneler is all about surprising opponents and catching them off guard. They have excellent mobility, provided that the map has spaced out stone tiles. Tunnelers can interrupt a siege, blast out of the ground to kill soldiers, and cause enemies to fear building or putting units on stone tiles.