How to play Marrow March
Marrow March is easy to start and slow to master. You place soldiers in front of a wall, the dead march on it, and when the wall falls, what you earned grows the Essence Tree for the next run. This guide covers the first night, the two currencies, the fall, the tree, the ages and the Ancestral Sky.
What do I do on the first night?
The first night teaches itself. Open the Armory, press PLACE on the archer, then click the marked ground in front of the wall: archers shoot whatever walks into range. Train him, hire a wizard for the massed ranks, and let them come. Every kill pays gold. The herald points at each new thing the first time it appears, and the night ends the way every run ends: the wall falls.
What are gold and Essence for?
Gold is for this run: soldiers, their training, traps, the guns on the wall and the wall itself. Every kill pays it, and it is gone when the run ends. Essence is for good: it gathers with every assault held, and a fall pays a share of the assault that broke you. You spend it in the Essence Tree, and only there.
What happens when the wall falls?
The run ends, and that is the loop, not a failure. The fall screen counts what you did, and the Essence Tree opens beside the wall. Buy what you can, then rebuild: the next run opens on the assault where the wall broke, with the gold you had earned before it, and your army and wall are raised again. Sounding the retreat yourself counts as a fall too.
How does the Essence Tree work?
The tree has 100 upgrades in 6 disciplines: Warfare, Stronghold, Commerce, Doctrine, Arcana and Works. It opens outward from its heart: each step reveals the next, and no step has more than five levels. Some deeper steps cost diamonds, which only the Colossi carry, and the tree can be whole without them. Every upgrade of the Essence Tree.
How do I make my soldiers stronger?
Click a soldier to train it: damage, attack speed, reach and more. After three levels it can be promoted to a path of its own and learn skills. One strong archer beats three weak ones, so train before you spread out. The Garrison drawer trains and commands a whole kind at once. Each kind has a job:
- Archer: Single target, fast.
- Wizard: Area blast, slow.
- Catapult: Ground bombardment — lobs over shields, blind up close.
- Shaman: Support — empowers one ally at a time, never fights.
- Windcaller: Straight gale — blows a lane of foes back, strongest up close.
- Ballista: One heavy bolt at extreme reach — the only answer to a standoff.
How do I choose what my soldiers shoot?
Click a soldier and pick how it chooses: Front shoots the dead nearest the wall, Toughest the one with the most health left, Closest the one nearest the soldier. Below that are the kinds of the dead: click a kind to have it hit first whenever one is in reach, right-click a kind to never shoot it. The Garrison sets the same for every soldier of a kind at once.
When do new soldiers and defenses arrive?
Nothing in Marrow March is shown before you reach it, and the herald introduces each new part the first time it appears:
| When | What arrives |
|---|---|
| From the start | Archers and wizards |
| Age I, assault 6 | Traps |
| Age I, assault 8 | Guns on the wall |
| Age I, assault 8 | Catapult |
| Age I, assault 12 | Windcaller |
| Age I, assault 18 | Shaman |
| Age III, assault 14 | Ballista |
The March, the campaign map, opens once the first age is cleared.
How do the ages work?
The March has ten ages of 20 assaults each; in Early Access, Ages I to V are open. Every age has its own sky: fog shortens every reach, rain drags at the dead and damps your fire, snow keeps cold stone from mending, and a storm makes everything worse and pays more for it. A lord of the dead waits at the end of each age. Clear an age to open the next; marching old ground again still pays. All ten ages.
What is the Ancestral Sky?
The prestige layer. Grow every step of the Essence Tree and its heart opens: your commander passes into the sky, years pass, and an heir takes the wall, born knowing what the line knew. The heir brings Legacy, more the deeper the line held, and Legacy lights the 30 stars of the Ancestral Sky: a faster siege and AUTO from the Messenger, great leaps in damage and gold from the Warlord, and head starts from the Chronicler. Each star is lit once and kept for every line after. Every star of the Ancestral Sky.
What happens after a breach, with the Inner Ward?
The Inner Ward, a star of the Chronicler, changes what a breach means: when the wall falls, the fight moves onto the road behind it instead of ending the run. Soldiers can stand on the road, engines go on its bastions, and the gate’s machines hold the horde: the portcullis, boiling oil, the drawbridge and the sea gates, each bought once with diamonds. If the last door falls, the run ends. The defenses.
Can Marrow March play itself?
Partly. Stars of the Messenger quicken the siege, and Marching Orders sends each assault out by itself after a short count, so a strong line holds while you are away. Where your soldiers stand, what they learn and what the tree grows stays with you.
Tips for a first run
- Train before you spread out: one strong archer beats three weak ones.
- Wizards hit a whole cluster; put them where the host bunches up.
- Catapults lob over shields but are blind up close. Keep them back.
- Windcallers sell time, not kills: they blow a lane of the dead back, strongest up close.
- Shamans never fight. Put one next to the soldier you most want to be stronger.
- When Skeleton Archers stand off out of reach, the Ballista is the answer.
- A fall is not the end: spend the Essence, and come back on the same assault.