Guildrun Hex Positioning — Frontline, Clumps & Focus Fire

Read the Board Before You Lock

Enemy packs telegraph melee rushers, backline casters, and wide splash. Place your primary tank on the hex that intersects the most dangerous path, not automatically on the pretty center tile. Ranged carries sit one ring behind with escape hexes free of friendly clutter so they are not the first collision target.

Tutorial updates in patch 0.5.2 improved item drag highlighting and battle-grid dimming — use that clarity. If a fight feels unwinnable despite strong relics, screenshot the loss and ask whether your carry stood on a contested choke.

Frontline Anchors and Soft Frontline

Hard frontline (Warriors, high-Defense specs) should occupy tiles that force enemies to spend attacks before reaching Grace or Ming. Soft frontline — mid-range bruisers like Gustav after the Glacier range trim — can step forward to occupy space, but only if their kit wants clumps.

Never recruit a sixth hero that doubles your frontline without Backup value. The reserve slot is a weapon; see Backup mechanics. A bench aura that shields Kai beats a redundant tank who steals shop gold.

Clumping for Splash vs Spreading for Survival

Clump allies when your win condition is ally-centered AoE heals, shared shields, or lover pairings that need adjacency. Spread when enemy splash or line skills punish blobs — especially on higher difficulties where modifiers amplify AoE.

Enemy-side clumping is often desirable: park threats so your Ming burn adjacency or Kai shield nuke hits maximum targets. Watch creator boards for “bait hexes” that pull packs into your splash cone.

• Clump: team shields, adjacency burn, lovers that need neighbors
• Spread: anti-AoE, protecting a fragile hyper-carry
• Hybrid: tank clump up front, carries staggered behind

Backup, Range, and Mid-Fight Movement

Reserve heroes still contribute Backup effects — placement of the active five still matters for who stands inside aura radii when combat starts. Rank-ups that change range (Gustav Glacier −1 Attack Range in 0.5.2) can suddenly stop a hero from walking into the ideal blizzard footprint. Re-place after every major spec pick.

If The Storm is killing you, positioning rarely adds thirty seconds of life — you need tempo. Use placement to shave five to ten seconds off kill time via better focus fire, then fix damage on the combat tempo page.

Practice Routine

For three runs, change only placement between retries on the same Act 1 challenge. Keep shop purchases constant when possible. You will feel how much the hex grid matters before you blame relics. Then graduate to Red Rift boards where Boss Token retries (two per boss after 0.5.2) let you experiment cheaper.

Combine with beginner guide and build planner so role plans and tile plans match.