Using Combat pages

Minor Spoilers for Urban Plague receptions and later chapters. Want to know when you should use a combat page? Want to know what is good for clashing against certain combat pages? Well here is a guide.

Intro

Understanding Combat pages and where to use them is vital to winning receptions, especially later ones. Here is a combat page:

Combat Pages have a light cost int the top left corner, an Icon to show what kind of combat page it is (Melee, Range, Mass Attack), sometimes a full page effect, and a set of up to 5 dice, some of which may have an effect individual to that dice.
Combat pages come in 5 grades: Green, Blue, Purple, Orange and a special one I'll cover later.

Dice on a combat page come in 10 different varieties: Red Slash, Pierce and Blunt Dice, blue Block and Evade dice and All 5 of them have a yellow Counter dice variant.

Offensive dice deal damage and stagger damage of their particular damage type.

Block dice deal stagger damage equal to how much higher it's roll is over a clashing dice. If a block dice looses in a clash against a offensive dice it's roll is subtracted from the winning dice's damage and stagger damage.
If a block dice on a combat page is not used in a clash when the combat page is used, it is stored in a pool of dice which are used in response to one sided attacks.

Evade dice negate any offensive or block dice it rolls over and recurs for the opponents next dice.
If an evade dice clashes with another evade dice both dice are exhausted.

Counter dice follow the general functionality of the dice type they look like (Counter Block blocks, Counter Evade dodges, Counter Offence Attack) however at the stat of the scene they are stored in a pool of dice which are used in response to one sided attacks. Counter dice recur until either they loose a clash or the combat page they are countering runs out of dice.

Melee Pages

Melee pages fundamental to most decks and they come with a variety of dice layouts. Counter dice start showing up chapter 5 and the discussion will spoil some of the receptions.

Light Generation

These pages are very useful. Especially with multiple speed dice. They have an effect that restores light next scene, greater then their cost to use. There are two variants: one is on use which restores light as long as the page is used in the scene.

The other is on hit where it has a dice which restores light if it hits. They are a little less hopeless in a clash.

Page Draw

These pages become important at higher emotion levels and with key pages with SpeedII or SpeedIII
They draw a page which helps keep your options open. Like Light gen pages they have on use and on hit varieties.


There are a few pages which both have light gen and draw pages. They are highly versatile.

Both light gen and page draw pages are terrible in clashes and are counter fodder, so use them in a one sided attack with your slower speed dice.

Single Block Attack



These combat pages are built for particular clashes. Blocking a first attack then preforming attacks afterwards. They are great for dealing with high rolling single offensive dice to reduce the resulting damage and then counter attack. These start out pretty weak but become a lot more useful later on.



Double Block Attack


These pages are good for defensive builds having two defensive dice then an attack. They are best used for clashing with combat pages with only 2 offensive dice, to cut down on damage and get negative emotion coins. or deal stagger damage. Also useful if the enemy has lots of power.

Evade attack


These pages make a strong counter to low roll multi dice pages as well as being useful for clashing against other evade pages. They don't work well against strong single hits though.

Single Hit Block


These combat pages tend to be quite reliable in a clash. dealing damage with a single dice then blocking to reduce incoming damage. Very useful for dealing with ranged multihits as well.

Singular Strikes


One dice. One strong offensive dice. A strong trump card against most ranged pages as well as dealing alright damage. Their Ability to generate Emotion coins leaves much to be desired and they can be unsafe to use in certain clashes.


Status effect pages





These combat pages can be used to tip the balance in your favour, or the enemies favour. They can apply harmful status effects like bleed or burn, apply debuffs like fragile or Paralysis or apply buffs like power or haste. Pay attention to how these are status effects are applied to plan your next move. Some buffs are immediate, many apply next scene. Some require a particular dice to hit. Read the page and respond as needed.

Upkeep Pages




These pages are alright for clashing but also come with bonus light gen or page draws, they are good for maintaining page draws and light generation during long fights. Which become more useful later in the game.

Strong Multihits


These pages are very good for dealing damage and wining clashes if you are clashing against one you will want a page to reduce damage or win the occasional clash.

Counter Pages



These Pages are good for covering multiple clashes on a speed dice. If you need to deal with a counter page, have one combat page deal with the main page and a strong combat page to win a clash with a counter dice by via a one sided attack. Some combat pages only have counter dice and thus the speed dice it's attached to prompts no action.

Ranged Pages

Ranged Pages are a page type introduced during Urban Plague. Ranged pages go before melee pages do. In a clash with another ranged page it works like a melee page. In a clash with a melee page the ranged page will clash with any dice on the melee page if a offensive dice wins against a ranged page no damage is dealt, instead it is recycled and added to the end of the combat page. When the ranged page stops rolling offensive dice the melee page will then clash with any defensive dice remaining and keep attacking until the melee page runs out of dice to play.

Ranged multihits



These dice are useful for quickly dealing damage to get a stagger or a kill. They are fodder to Strong offensive dice though.



Strong ranged Hit


These dice are often ranged single hit dice. Often very difficult to win against them so prepare a block dice ready for them.

E.G.O and Mass Attack Pages.

This section contains Urban nightmare and Star of the City spoilers. I won't metion how you unlock E.G.O pages.

E.G.O Pages

Ego Pages are awarded on the 3rd, 4th and 5th floor emotion level and exist in a pool of extra pages that can be used but require charging by getting emotion coins.



Ego Pages consist of strong pages, single hit or mass attacks. They are your trump cards in a fight. Either doing lots of damage or providing various strategically valuable effects.

Mass Attacks


Why hit one person when you can hit all of them. Mass attacks go before ranged pages and will target random speed dice. If there is a combat page in the targeted speed dice it will clash with the mass attack no matter what the speed dice is targeting.

There are two types. Summation as shown above rolls dice which in a clash is compared to the total roll of all non counter dice on the page. If it wins a clash against a particular combat page that page is destroyed and won't be used later in the scene. Play combat pages with many high rolling dice to combat Summation pages.

Individual Mass Attacks have dice which clash against individual dice on each combat page. if a clash is lost against an individual mass attack dice the loosing dice is destroyed. Play pages that have good rolls against the dice the individual mass attack page has.


And that's about all I have to impart.