Tactics
| Tactics | ||
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Basic Tactics: allows you to rearrange your troops just before combat, within 3 hex rows of the commanding hero. | |
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Advanced Tactics: allows you to rearrange your troops just before combat, within 5 hex rows of the commanding hero. | |
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Expert Tactics: allows you to rearrange your troops just before combat, within 7 hex rows of the commanding hero. | |
Tactics is a secondary skill, that allows hero to arrange his troops on the battlefield at the beginning of combat. However, if a hero is attacking another hero and both have Tactics at the same level, they cancel each other out, and neither of the heroes may arrange his army. If one of the heroes have higher level of Tactics, his skill is treated being on the same level as the remainder. For example, if hero with expert Tactics encounters a hero with basic Tactics the remainder becomes 2, which means that the hero's expert level Tactics is treated as advanced level Tactics.
Heroes with Tactics as a starting skill:
Boragus the Barbarian (basic)
Charna the Death Knight (basic)
Dace the Overlord (basic)
Erdamon the Planeswalker (basic)
Gunnar the Overlord (basic)
Ignatius the Demoniac (basic)
Kalt the Planeswalker (basic)
Lacus the Planeswalker (advanced)
Mutare the Overlord / 
Mutare Drake the Overlord (basic)
Shakti the Overlord (basic)
Terek the Battle Mage (basic)
Thunar the Planeswalker (basic)
Torosar the Alchemist (basic)
Tyraxor the Barbarian (basic)
Tyris the Knight (basic)
Xeron the Demoniac (basic)
Cassiopeia the Captain (basic) 
Dargem the Navigator (basic) 
Illor the Captain (basic)
Discussion
Tactics is one of the best secondary skills in the game. At expert level, it allows a hero's army to advance 7 hexes, which is almost half of the battlefield's total length of 15. This also allows hero to arrange his troops most in suitable way for his army's capabilities. Furthermore, hero may take full advantage of the obstacles on the battlefield as a tactical element. Also a valid action is to "turtle" the troops, meaning that arrange the melee units to protect the ranged units. Combining Tactics with speed increasing spells like (mass) Haste or (mass) Prayer, allows even the slowest army to reach enemy lines on the first round of combat.
The downside of the skill is, that same level Tactics cancel each other out. When heroes with the same level in the skill confront each other, neither of them may benefit from the skill, and therefore have one secondary skill less to utilise during the combat.