I spent a week in Chicago. That’s one week without a one-year old. The downside was that for four of those days, I literally never left O’Hare airport (staying on the Hilton there) for business meetings that were long but tolerable. Then I spent three days running around with old friends. Again, without a Baby Raptor. Plane flights are for books again! And video games! And movies! (even if Deadpool 2 was inexplicably dubbed to PG-13. We’re on headphones people.) I’ve dribbled out of Core 19 and Kyle hooked me on a new game: Bad North. Let’s discuss.

Bad North is a mashup of tower defense and RTS. As you can see above, waves of zombie-Vikings assault your island. You move around your units to defend them, hopefully utilizing the random-ish terrain to your advantage. In-between assaults, you upgrade your troops. It’s a perfect Switch game as it naturally fits into 5 minute bits. It’s very terse on instructions and game mechanics, so exploring how it works has been a lot of fun for me. It has thar Dark Souls-y feel of being merciless and letting you discover the nuances of the mechanics. The rest of this post will detail my strategic tips, so if you want to avoid “spoilers” just go buy the game and jump in.

Your troops start out as generic militia rabble, but early on can specialize into one of three classes: swordsmen, pikemen, archers. Likewise the attacking waves start out equally generic, but soon additional flavors start attacking: archers, shield-guys, brutes. The core gameplay is matching up your troops against the enemy hordes to take minimal (to no) losses.

The Good Guys

Swordsmen: These are your most versatile units. They are mobile, can pack a pretty good punch, and are pretty sturdy with their shields. Strongest against archers, weak versus brutes.

Pikemen: These units are the best at defense, staying still and controlling chokepoints. They can get overrun (especially if flanked) and when flustered, going from lethal to useless. They can’t fight on the move so be sure they are placed when you want them ahead of time. Despite these drawbacks they are hard to crack, as they can keep dangerous foes at a safe distance by prodding with their pikes and not take a single hit in return. Strongest against shield-guys and brutes, weak versus archers and open areas.

Archers: Able to fight from range (duh), the are very useful at whittling down large swarms before they even land. They are useless in melee combat though. Strongest versus large numbers of anything, weak versus shield-guys.

Items

There are also items you can pick up along the way. While any unit can equip them, some fit better than others.

Bomb/Warhammer: these are consumables that can only be used 1-2 times per island, to blow up a square. I recommend giving these to your swordsmen, since you most often need to use these when something has gone horribly wrong and you need to recover. Swordsmen are your most mobile units, so they can hustle to where these tools are needed.

Ring of Command: this item increases the maximum size of your unit, from 9 to 12 to 16 (when levelled up). Again, any unit can use these but it’s incredible on archers. It noticeably increases their firepower, making them more useful.

Horn of Courage: at any time you can have your guys heal inside a house, but they are taken out of action for 30-40 seconds, which can feel like an eternity. My favorite army composition (more below) only uses one pikemen, and too often you just can’t go without them. Being able to instantly reinforce a squad that maybe took some unlucky blows can help turn around a devolving situation.

Squad Composure

You start with two squads, but you can pick up additional commanders reasonably quickly to a maximum size of four. You need one of each troop, which leaves the four slot as more of a wild card. I’ve toyed with two pikemen, and when it works it feels great as they clog the lanes and just effortlessly cut down waves of troops. But there are islands that are completely flat with no good choke points and lots of mobility needed. Also, pikemen are fragile. When a situation devolves it’s almost impossible to get them resituated and recover. For that reason, I recommend having two swordsmen units. They work well in a variety of situations, are most helpful on the trickiest maps (the aforementioned open maps), and are better at recovering from setbacks.

I’ve tried aggressively recruiting commanders to get two groups of four commanders island-hopping, but I found it spreads out my gold too thinly. Upgrading your troops to veteran & elite makes a world of difference–especially against the brutes–and that’s just more useful than having more commanders. It can be helpful to pick up a 5th commander so you can fill in if someone goes down. But don’t worry about recruiting more than that.

The Bad Guys

Early on you’ll get familiar with the rhythm of the basic enemies. Funnel the generic guys towards your pikes and whittle them down with arrows. Greet shield-bearers with a pike wall. Utilize line of sight to hide from the enemy archers (especially protect your archers and pikemen) and then have your swordsmen chase them down on the beach and cut them down. But soon newer, trickier foes emerge

• Tomahawk Shield-bearers. Equipped with longer, Norman-style shields, these jerks unleash a tomahawk volley before charging in. These can decimate your delicate pikemen, normally your weapon of choice against shielded foes. Try to have swordsmen with shields endure the missile volley, then withdraw and let your pikes finish the job. Or have a mix of swordsmen and archers pummel them.
• Brutes. These large troops have a lot of HP and deal a lot of damage. Pikemen are an absolute necessity to keep them at a safe distance; archers can be helpful in whittling down their HP as the pikemen fend them off.
• Brute-archers. I have only faced these guys once and they wrecked me. They fire a huge, ballista-esque bolt that deals a ton of damage. Even elite swordsmen are knocked back several squares when they block a bolt. Hide your pikes and archers and be ready to rush them with swordsmen. Elite swordsmen do block their shots pretty well; these foes are the best reason to have two powerful swordsmen units.

Other combat tricks

• Utilize their auto-targeting to your advantage. If a bunch of enemy archers are landing, put a swordsman unit on the beachfront to attract their fire. An archer unit right behind them can then return fire reasonably safety.
• The pikeman Charge ability is incredibly useful (far more so than the Plummet/Volley of the other units). It can sweep a concentrated group of foes cleanly away and/or rapidly reposition your pikes.
• More experienced archers (esp. with the Ring of Command equipped) can wipe out entire waves of generic enemies. It’s really satisfying to have ghost ships harmlessly come ashore because your archers already did the business.
• The bomb is powerful, but it can hurt friendlies. So don’t throw it into a mixed melee unless you absolutely have to.
• Enemy shield-bearers can block arrows or defend against swords/pikes, but they can’t do both. If you have arrows raining down on them while they are in melee combat, you can wipe them out pretty quickly.
• I spent my gold first getting my guys to Veteran (prioritizing swordsmen, then pikes, then archers). Then levelling up equipped items. Then going to Elites (same priority). Oh, I do get Charge for my Pikemen first before getting my first Veteran.
• Enemy archers can shoot up one elevation level, but not two. You can perch your archers up high and let them shoot with impunity at landing archers.