How to Master Ambush
TLDR: Ambush is a game about one moment. An enemy column marches down the road with a treasure in the middle of it. You place archers and soldiers beside the road, you watch the column come, and you press Attack when you choose. An archer fires one arrow forward at that instant. A soldier walks one tile forward on every tick after it. The column marches at the same speed, so you can never catch the treasure from behind · you must cut in ahead of it. Count the tiles from your soldier to the middle of the road, and attack that many ticks early.
How a round works
A round has three beats, and only the third one is timed:
- Place. Put your pieces on free tiles beside the road. The shaded tiles are the road, and nothing of yours may start there.
- March. Press Start. The column marches one tile on every tick, and your pieces wait out of sight.
- Attack. Press Attack on the tick you choose. Every archer fires one arrow, and every soldier walks forward from the next tick.
You win when a soldier and the treasure meet on one tile. You lose when the treasure leaves the far edge.
Every board has a moment that wins: the game builds the column, then proves a plan beats it before it shows you the board. If your ambush misses, the moment was wrong, or the tile was.
The two units, and the exact rules that govern them
Archer. It fires one arrow straight forward at the instant you attack, and only then. The arrow flies until it meets a unit, and it kills that guard. A piece of yours stops the arrow too. An archer never moves, so its whole value is the tile, the heading and the moment.
Soldier. It walks one tile forward on every tick after the attack, and it never stops. A guard it meets trades with it, and both fall. Only a soldier can take the treasure.
The two mistakes that lose a clean board: an attack that comes too early, which walks your soldier into the road ahead of the column and lets a guard run it down, and an attack that comes too late, which leaves your soldier behind a treasure it can never catch. The column and your soldier move at the same speed, and that one fact decides most rounds.
The arithmetic of the moment
This is the whole skill, and it is one subtraction.
Count the tiles from your soldier to the middle of the road. That is how many ticks the soldier needs, because it walks one tile per tick. Then watch the treasure. Attack when the treasure is that many tiles away from your soldier’s line.
Two tiles out, two ticks early: a soldier one tile from the road needs one tick, so attack as the treasure reaches the tile before your line. A soldier two tiles out needs two ticks, so attack one tile earlier again. Say the count out loud on the first few rounds, and the timing becomes automatic.
Stand where the treasure comes to you: a soldier that reaches the middle of the road one tick early does not lose the round. The treasure marches onto it, and that counts as taking it. So the window is two ticks wide, not one · the early tick and the exact tick both win, and everything else misses.
What the archer is for
The archer does not win the round. It clears the guard that would trade with your soldier on the way in.
Aim across the road, not along it: an arrow that flies along the road meets the lead guard first, which is rarely the one in your soldier’s way. An arrow across the road meets the near file first, which is exactly where your soldier crosses. Put the archer on the same side as the soldier, one or two tiles back.
The arrow reads the board at the instant you attack: range never limits it, and the column moves under it. A shot that would hit a guard on one tick hits the next guard on the tick after. The moment you press Attack fixes both the arrow and the march.
Fewer pieces, higher score
You get 100 points when a soldier meets the treasure, 10 points for each piece you did not place, and 5 points for each guard you destroyed. The treasure is the goal, and the unused pieces are the reward for a clean ambush.
Place the plan, not the budget: a round that gives you three archers rarely needs three. Find the crossing that costs one arrow, place two pieces, and bank the rest.
Difficulty, and what it changes
Easy gives a small board, a narrow road and a short column, so one arrow opens the way. Medium widens the road, so a soldier needs more ticks to cross it and the count gets longer. Hard gives the large board, a road two tiles wide on each side, and a column packed with guards.
A practice path from beginner to flawless
Phase 1 · the count. Easy board. Place one soldier one tile from the road, and attack as the treasure reaches the tile before it. Goal: feel the one-tile, one-tick rule.
Phase 2 · the miss. Attack on purpose one tick late, and watch the soldier walk in behind the treasure. Goal: see why a chase never works.
Phase 3 · the arrow. Medium board. Find the guard that trades with your soldier, and put an archer across the road from it. Goal: clear the crossing, not the column.
Phase 4 · economy. Replay a board you already won, with one piece fewer. Goal: the lightest ambush that still meets the treasure.
Treat every loss as a replay, not a reset: the battle log stays on screen after the round. It names the tick your arrow flew, the guard that traded with your soldier, and the tick the treasure left the board. Almost every loss is one of three things · you attacked early, you attacked late, or a guard stood in the crossing.
The mastery metric
You have mastered Ambush when you can look at a fresh board and say the plan before the march starts · which tile the soldier waits on, which side the arrow comes from, and which tick you will press Attack. When the column crosses and your soldier steps into the road exactly as the treasure arrives, the moment has stopped being a guess and become a count.
Ambush
Set your ambush beside the road. An enemy column marches past with a treasure, and one moment lets a soldier cut in and take it
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