Enemy force

The overland map may contain multiple enemy forces, including lurking bands occupying hostile sites, more aggressive raiders infesting both civilized and wild lands, and open armies on the march making incursions.

Location

Every known enemy force on the map is shown as a small coin on the map and also as a square monster portrait at the top right of the screen. (The coin may be hard to notice because it's often drawn overlapping with the heroes.) Scouting wild lands may reveal new enemy forces.

Clicking on either the coin or the portrait will bring up an assault job that can be used to initiate battle with that force.

Faction

Each enemy force belongs to one of the five major monster factions: Deepist, Drauven, Gorgon, Morthagi, or Thrixl.

Deepists are a minotaur-worshiping cult who live in cave systems. They put stone and fungi to creative use, and our heroes aren't sure whether their power comes from their own passion, or from something more sinister... Read some in-fiction lore here.

Drauven are grouchy lizard-folk who primarily live in the trees of forests and swamps, or in trees within swamps, but are happy to descend to the ground to go raid a village and maybe snack on a villager. They decorate themselves and their environment with bird and dragon-like motifs. Read some in-ficiton lore here.

Gorgons have been corrupting the local wildlife and turn them into raging tentacular monsters. They seem to be doing this experimentally, in pursuit of some deeper truth, but to call them "scientists" would tarnish the word. In the meantime, they continue to create the beasts as quickly as we can slaughter them. Read some in-fiction lore here.

Morthagi are clockwork undead, created from bone and metal long ago to serve some dark master. Their creator may be long gone, but the Morthagi themselves have persisted, clanking and hissing in the dusty, forgotten corners of the world. Read some in-fiction lore here.

Thrixl are dreamlike insect-dragons. Their powers are more subtle than those of a Drauv, but more frightening. They prefer to attack minds and souls directly. Read some in-fiction lore here.

All monsters are indeed monstrous. There may be shades of gray, but in aggregate monstrous life is incompatible with human life. Humans fight monsters to survive.

Other Factions

Neutral factions that aren't part of the five main enemy forces. There are a wide array of unique creatures that make up the population of the Yondering, they do not appear like an army of monsters but will impose as an life-threatening encounter.

Strength

Every enemy force has a strength, which determines the number of foe cards it draws at the start of a battle. Strength starts at a base of 4 for incursion armies and 3 for other forces. It is increased by +1 for each territory the force has infested. The strength of every enemy force usually also increases by 1 (sometimes 2) after each chapter. On Walking Lunch combat difficulty, every enemy force has an additional +1 strength.

Lurking Threat

A "lurking threat" is a stationary enemy force occupying a hostile site.

Hostile site

A site on the world map controlled by monsters, and for which interaction can result in a battle. As long as a site remains hostile, occupied by an enemy force, infestation can spread from it.

If the chapter end condition is "Clear All Faction Sites", that means you must discover, assault and defeat all forces of that faction on the map.

Infestation

An infestation occurs when the enemy gains influence in an overland map tile. Thorns will cover an infested tile.

Monsters are infesting this tile. They may ambush groups of three or fewer heroes. Patrol or take out the source to clear the infestation.

Every infestation originates from a lurking force present at the beginning of the chapter. If the infestation has spread from an unexplored wild land, the force will not be revealed until you have scouted its origin territory. You can identify which infested territories belong to a given enemy force by hovering over either the force coin or the monster portrait, highlighting their territory.

Each territory infested by an enemy force adds +1 to its strength.

If infestations are not cleared away, they will spread to adjacent previously-safe tiles.

Infestations can be cleared either by patrolling or by assaulting the origin force. Patrolling first is not necessary, but it makes the battle easier.

Clearing away infestations allows the territory to be developed and produce resources.

The chance for a tile to become infested and the chance for small groups of heroes to be ambushed in them both depend on the difficulty level.

Incursion

Sometimes a monster army will gather in a wild land and make a concerted incursion into civilized territories. An incursion starts from an infested tile and clears the infestation from that tile. Incursions spawn more frequently if more tiles are infested.

An incursion begins by spawning a monster army in a wilderness tile. They immediately begin moving into civilized territories, targeting the nearest town; their path is shown as footprints on the overland map. Hovering over the next destination site shows how soon the army will arrive. If desired, the monster army can be attacked in its origin territory right away.

When an incursion arrives into a developed site, it begins to ruin that site. At this point, a Defense battle can be initiated to stop the incursion. Each time an incursion ruins a site, it loses strength, so an incursion can also exhaust itself without any intervention.

Sites ruined by incursions can be rebuilt. If ruined site is attacked by a second incursion (without being rebuilt), the site is permanently destroyed. Permanent destruction of every town ends the campaign in defeat.

Heroes can perform the Prepare Defense job in a site before an incursion arrives. Defenses assist against incursions in two ways. First, the player gains bonuses during a Defense battle that takes place in a site with defenses. Additionally, an incursion must destroy any defenses before it can ruin a site. Destruction of defenses takes time and contributes toward an incursion exhausting itself.

The frequency, speed, size, and strength of incursions vary with difficulty.

Defeating incursions in battle sets incursion timer back.