The most basic gameplay of any turn-based strategy game is choosing your unit's actions.  Metal Brigade Tactics is no different - you have a group of VAs that you have to move every turn.  When a unit is selected, the player must move the unit (different VAs have different movement ranges, depending on their speed), then they can choose to do an action, or do nothing.  The action is usually attacking enemy units.  When a unit attacks it simply chooses one of its weapons, and chooses a target, then the attack happens.

If possible, attacked units will counterattack, requiring the player to carefully consider his actions.  Line of sight plays a role while attacking as well, mountains, buildings, and enemy units can block line of sight.  This is an important strategy - using your own units to block counterattacks.  Plan well!

Weapons in Metal Brigade Tactics fall into three categories: Single Shot, Rapid Fire and Explosive. Like rock-paper-scissors, each weapon type has an advantage over another type, forming what is called the weapon triangle.  If a VA attacks with a weapon type that has an advantage over the defender's weapon type he will get a bonus to damage.  If a VA attacks with a weapon type that is at a disadvantage from the defender's weapon type they will deal less damage.

Remember the weapon triangle when planning your strategies: Rapid Fire has advantage over Explosive, Explosive has advantage over Single Shot, and Single Shot has advantage over Rapid fire.

Rapid Fire > Explosive > Single Shot > Rapid Fire

VAs can equip powerful artillery weapons; these weapons deal damage to an area, have extremely long ranges, and ignore line of sight rules.  Pretty awesome right?  They have one huge disadvantage: long flight time.

Unlike traditional turn-based strategy games that simply have units move one after another, Metal Brigade Tactics uses a 3-phase system.  The first phase of any given turn is called Artillery Targeting, in this phase each player takes turns plotting artillery targets.  Then all player sides do a traditional Move/Attack phase, after which the Artillery Resolution phase occurs.  During this phase the artillery fired earlier in the turn lands, dealing damage to a large area.  This means that you may have targeting a nice juicy clump of enemy units during Artillery Targeting, but they may have all moved by the time the artillery lands!  Smart use of artillery, predicting enemy movements, luring enemies, and setting up traps are an important part of Metal Brigade Tactics.

Vertical Armor are machines, and machines require a power source.  Every time a VA takes an action his energy reserves diminish.  This includes attacking, counterattacking, and firing artillery.  Some weapons require more energy than others to fire, and if a VA is out of energy, he can no longer attack and he takes more damage because his armor is no longer powered.  Luckily VAs are advanced machines and the energy is fully refilled every turn, but this shouldn't stop a smart player from taking advantage of an enemy that is low on energy to deal extra damage to it and avoid counterattacks.

Simply controlling these giant machines of war isn't enough - tweaking their loadout is as big a part of the fun as telling them what to blow up.  Between missions in the campaign and before any skirmish, the player can set which two weapons a VA will carry into battle as well as equip them with Accessories.  Which weapons a VA can equip depend on the VA itself - for instance not every VA can equip artillery.  Weight also plays a factor: you can't equip two of the most powerful guns on a light fast scout.

Vertical Armor can also equip up to two Accessories, Accessories either provide some sort of boost (additional range, more damage, more armor), or can be used mid-battle to provide a specific benefit (regain health, or ammo).

Metal Brigade Tactics contains an engrossing 19 mission story-based campaign.  The player begins as a common Vertical Armor pilot, but soon gets embroiled in a top secret mission with a mysterious Special Operations squad.  As the campaign progresses the player will gather together a ragtag band of VA pilots, as well as access to more and more advanced VAs, weapons and accessories.

The campaign isn't linear either - throughout most of the story the player has a choice as to which missions to take in what order.  There are even special bonuses for players who like a challenge and attempt missions out of order, or on harder difficulty levels.

Between campaign missions the player has access to a black market shop that can air-drop new VAs, weapons and accessories to their current location.  The shop is always getting new stock as the campaign goes on, and the player is always collecting more money as they complete missions.  Spend your credits wisely, or blow it all on that cool new VA - the choice is yours.

During the campaign the player has command over a squad of VA pilots.  These pilots not only have unique personalities, but they also have unique stats and abilities that grow over the course of the campaign.  Part of the fun is trying to ensure your pilots have the correct equipment to complement their specialties.

As the campaign progresses, pilots will level up and gain perks.  Perks are special abilities that help them in combat.  Some examples include the ability to strike first even while defending, ignoring counterattacks, always having the weapon advantage, and more.  Taking advantage of these perks, and equipping the pilot to get the best use out of them, is part of the strategy.

While the campaign is fun, sometimes you just want to set up a crazy "what if" scenario.  What if two players each had 10 of the best VA in the game and fought it out on a tiny map?  What if one side had all artillery units, and the other had none?  What if I think I'm better at the game than my friend?  This is what Skirmish mode is for.  Skirmish allows you to play on any of the campaign maps, and choose up to 10 VAs for both players, with any loadout possible.  Play against the excellent AI, or against a friend in hot-seat style multiplayer.

Metal Brigade Tactics includes an editor that allows players to easily create and share Skirmish maps.  Want to make a map that spells your name then fight on it?  Go for it.  While the editor requires a fairly advanced understanding of the game concepts, and maybe some experience modding other games, it is easy enough to use for anyone to grasp very quickly.  For more on how to use the Editor and share maps, see the modding section of the Forums.