So you've installed Warcraft Rumble, and/or you're curious about the game and how it plays. Look no further! We're here to break it all down and get you started: with our help, you'll be unleashing powerful armies upon your enemies in no time! Be sure to visit the other guides, as well, to get the full overview for maximum preparation. Some of this is explained in-game, of course, but much of it is not, leading players to confusion and frustration when they don't know everything they need to make informed decisions and be successful.

If you're looking for even more information, perhaps you'll find it in one of the other guides listed below:

Table of Contents

What Exactly Am I Doing Here?

Warcraft Rumble, at its core, is a Tower Defense game. You must protect your base (your main tower) from enemy troops making their way down the map: to do this, you deploy your own troops (or minis) to do battle against them. If you have the superior forces - or prepare a cunning strategy - you can push them back and march up the map to fight the enemy boss. Defeat them within the time limit, and you win! Throughout this chaotic back-and-forth, you'll be taking their towers to create forward deploy zones, mining gold to play minis faster, and watching what the enemy does so you can counter their strategies.

Onward, To Battle!

You've read the above and you're thinkin' "alright, let's do this! LEERRROOOYYYYY"...but before you go charging into a match, maybe we should go over what that looks like. Let's look at the following example:

A lot going on, right? Don't worry, we'll go over it all one step at a time! It can be broken down into smaller pieces, like so:

Health & Timers

At the top are the main Health bars, the timer for the match, and the Pause button. You need to keep the Health bar of your primary tower (not seen here; it's always at the bottom) from reaching zero, or you lose! The Health bar on the right is for your opponent, either the boss or the enemy player's tower in PvP ("player versus player"). The timer always starts at 3:30; when it reaches zero, you enter Overtime! Overtime doubles the passive gold gained each second, helping you for a final push before the timer runs out again. You have one minute until Overtime ends, wherein the match finishes in a tie (against the AI, you still technically lose). The Pause button allows you to pause the game (duh), but it also is where the Restart, Settings, and Surrender buttons are.

Gold & Gold Veins

At the very bottom is your current gold available. You need gold to deploy a mini. Your gold increases over time, or you can use a mini like the Kobold to mine gold from a Gold Vein (the yellow circle). Gold veins can have up to 3 gold on them at a time: the picture above shows the top left vein with 1 gold, and in the bottom left there is a node with no gold on it. Gold appears at a vein over time, as well, so make sure to grab it before your opponent! Gold can also be obtained from treasure chests - dealing damage opens the chest, but you won't get the gold until all enemies in the area are defeated. If you open the chest, but your army is pushed back, the enemy might get the gold instead!

Your Minis

Right above your gold count is your "hand", which contains your available minis ready to be deployed. You can deploy one of the four minis in the table by touching it and dragging it onto the board; once you've placed it, the mini will start traveling up the lane, automatically fighting any enemy it encounters if it can. Meanwhile in your hand, the mini you played will be replaced with the next mini up (the light green circle on the left). You'll need to cycle through your minis before you can play the same one twice, so be smart with your deployment.

Towers & Meeting Stones

The blue circle shows a tower that has been claimed by us - blue for the player, and red for the enemy. You can deploy your minis at your main tower, at a claimed tower, or at a "meeting stone" (not shown). When you attack a tower, it'll fight back until you defeat it; after this, you'll need to protect the broken turret until it becomes operational for your team. You can't place minis at a tower until it is fixed - which will take a few moments - but once it's available, you can start deploying your minis closer to the enemy boss! Meeting stones are claimed a couple seconds after a non-Flying unit comes into its range: they allow you to deploy minis there, as well, but if an enemy mini enters the area, they might take the stone away from you!

Switches

Something not shown here is a Switch: when there are multiple lanes to reach the enemy, Switches might be there to tell your minis which direction they will go. You can change the Switch's direction by simply pressing on it.

The Anatomy of a Mini - Factions & Traits

Now that you understand the battlefield, you need to know about the minis you'll be using to conquer it! Minis come in a variety of flavors, with different strengths and weaknesses to keep in mind. The very first thing you need to know about your mini is which Faction it comes from: each Faction (or "Family") has its own collection of units, although you can mix-and-match for the most part as you desire. This is occasionally relevant - Leaders of each army prefer the minis from their family - but you don't need to worry about that all the time. The five families are: Alliance, Beast, Blackrock, Horde, and Undead.

Now, speaking at the base level, the combat of Warcraft Rumble is a bit of a rock-paper-scissors affair:

  1. Melee minis are strong against Ranged units. They are generally more durable, or have ways to close the distance so Ranged minis cannot kill them fast enough.
  2. Flying minis are strong against Melee units. Melee minis cannot reach them, meaning they are safe to attack without reprisal.
  3. Ranged minis are strong against Flying units. Ranged minis lob their attacks from a safe distance, preferably behind the more-durable troops, and can usually hit both land and air minis.

Of course, it's a tad more complicated than that, lest the game not be terribly interesting. You also have to consider how they attack:

  1. One-Target minis can only attack one unit at a time, but they usually compensate with higher base damage or they're a Tank with a high Health total.
  2. Area of Effect (AoE) minis damage multiple units at the same time, provided they are bunched together. Perfect against Squads.
  3. Squad minis consist of a number of units in one package, allowing you to overwhelm singular enemies with superior numbers.
  4. Spells do not deploy a lasting mini onto the table, but rather have an immediate impact within their Area of Effect.

There are also other passive effects (or Traits) to consider, which help provide the troop with its individual uniqueness. Most of them are listed here:

  • Armored minis take 50% less physical damage.
  • Elemental minis inflict elemental damage, which ignores Armored.
  • Resistant minis take 50% less elemental damage.
  • Poisonous minis deal a stacking damage-over-time effect to enemies; strong against Armored.
  • Frost damage slows enemy attacks and movement speeds.
  • Taunt forces enemy minis to focus their attention on the mini who Taunted.
  • Tanks have high Health pools, perfect for being a frontline fighter.
  • Summoners create more minis on their own, either automatically or when a condition is met.
  • Healers can restore the Health of friendly minis.
  • Miner minis can "attack" Gold Veins to acquire the gold.
  • Rebirth minis can revive one time after they die at 50% Health.
  • Stealth minis are invisible to other minis, towers, and bosses until they take damage or attack.
  • Fast minis cover ground quickly, allowing them to catch up to a fight in progress or to start one sooner.
  • Cycle minis cost 2 or less gold, allowing you to cheaply deploy a unit. It also means you can see your other minis more often.
  • Unbound minis can be deployed anywhere on the map, without requiring a tower or meeting stone. Great for capturing chests!
  • Bombard minis can only damage ground enemies, but this usually means they do so with an Area of Effect and good damage.
  • Siege Damage deals double damage to towers. A Siege Specialist will ignore all minis and focus only on towers or the boss.

Here are three pictures of my troops, to show examples of some Trait combinations:

  

  1. The Harpies mini is a Flying Squad with Fast that costs 3 gold. I have a special Talent that gives them Poisonous. They are from the Beast family.
  2. Then there's the Necromancer, a 4-gold, One-Target Ranged mini with Elemental and the ability to spawn Skeletons with its Summoner trait. He is considered Undead.
  3. Lastly there's the Prowler mini, a Melee, One-Target Tank with Fast that costs 3 gold. The Stealth is from a Talent. The Prowler also comes from the Beast faction.

How these traits combine is what makes each unit different, so acquire them all and explore how they behave to find the ones that work best for you!

Talents, Rarity, Levels, and You

There a couple of other things you need to consider with your troops, which are their Talent, their Level, and their Rarity.

Talents are passives that provide a bonus of some kind and can alter how the mini functions. All minis start without a Talent, but can begin using one when they increase in Rarity. When a mini goes from the base level of Common to Uncommon (green), or gains a higher Rarity such as Rare (blue) or Epic (purple), the player can then buy one of their Talents in the shop. Your mini can only take advantage of ONE Talent at a time, so choose wisely! Until you upgrade their Rarity to gain more Talent slots, you will be stuck with your initial choice.

The remaining aspect of the mini is their Level: gaining a level increases their Health and raw damage, up to Level 30. Levels can be acquired with Experience up to level 20; after that, you need "bonus" levels which come from the Talents (+1 per Talent purchased, up to +3 with all Talents acquired), the Rarity (+1 per Rarity gained, up to +4 at Legendary Rarity), and the Army Upgrades system (+1 per tier, up to +3 at gold tier). Increasing the Level of a mini is the primary means of improving its power and durability, so do this as often as you can!

And that's it! You should be all the better to start conquering your foes in Warcraft Rumble. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below! If you wish to learn more, check out the other guides as they become available - we plan to continue with starter guides, plus some more in-depth material for when you're ready to make decisions on building your armies and tackle certain challenges.