Missions and ironman
Missions and ironman in Messalith: every objective and how it is won, the break-out, the size of an enemy force, and why there is no second try.
Objectives
| Objective | How it is won |
|---|---|
| Eliminate | Every enemy dead. |
| Free the captive | An exile beside the captive cuts them loose, or every enemy dead. |
| Hold | Survive 8 rounds with someone standing, or every enemy dead. The enemy knows where you deployed. |
| Break out | Get off the map from an exit tile, or every enemy dead (the story mission's break-out). |
Every mission is lost when no exile is left standing. Which objective a mission has depends on where it is fought:
- Attacks are fought to eliminate, unless the place says otherwise. Causeway's pens and the Receiving House are captive rescues.
- A hidden refuge under an enemy's hand is fought in its own village: free the captives the raiders took, or now and then clear the raiders out.
- Court land in open country meets a Glass Court war camp on 40% of attacks: wipe it out, or free the captive it holds.
- Defences are hold missions of 8 rounds, fought on the ground being struck, with whatever defences the exiles built there standing on the map.
- Story missions are hand-made maps. See campaign missions.
The break-out
The story mission Out of the Pen is a break-out. The squad starts inside a Court pen and wins by getting out: an exile standing on an exit tile spends their action to slip away. The mission ends when nobody is left on the board, and it is won if anyone got out. The downed can't be carried out of a break-out. A mate must revive them so they can walk out themselves, and anyone still down when the last exile leaves is lost. Killing every guard also wins.
The guards wake pod by pod as usual. The alarm goes up when the first pod wakes, or at the end of round 3 at the latest, and 1 round after the alarm the reserve turns out, told where the squad was last seen.
The size of the enemy
A conquest mission fields 2 enemies plus the region's garrison. A siege adds 1 for each stage past the outer works, and a defence adds 2. No force is ever bigger than 9. In unclaimed country the enemy is a raiding party of 2 to 3 from whichever power's land lies nearest. How each power splits its force by kind is on the enemies pages.
Ironman
The campaign is ironman. A campaign mission can't be retried: when it ends, the only way on is the debrief. Deploying marks the mission as under way in the camp's save. Close the game mid-mission and the camp loads it as a lost mission: no ground taken and the week passes. Nobody dies of it, because nobody can know who would have.
The dead stay dead. They leave the roster for the memorial.
After a mission
A won mission is searched for materials, and the fallen may leave Court crystal or Choir brine-glass behind. See resources. Then come the debrief, experience and promotions, and a week passes at camp. See the week.