Skirmish

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Skirmish leaderboard screen.

Skirmish, known alternatively as League, is an in-game mode in which players fight each other's unit teams. While not being an actual PvP (player versus player) mode, Skirmish comes close to it by setting up multiple opposing players' team compositions against the player's own.

This mode is unlocked from the Star Reward system after the player collects 50 stars.

Players build their team with any available units that they have. Independent from the main game, the game mode consists of ten leagues. The player proceeds to the next league after staying in the top half of the leaderboards after a countdown of 48 hours. Players can also move up to the next league if enough victories are reached by choosing to fight everyone at once and winning over most (if not all) of the other participants consecutively. At higher leagues, it will be necessary to work around the prevalence of the Tactical set and annoying team powers (military 5/5, TMF 2/2).

Restrictions

Some restrictions apply to the game mode as it plays very differently to the main game.

The main rule is that only human units are available for use in the mode. Support items can't be summoned through normal means.

In addition, some perks and abilities are disabled or function differently for this game mode:

• The "ability to drop on the battlefield" perk is disabled for SpecOps as it's redundant due to pre-placement;
• The "direct unit control" perk functions differently for Chopper, Grenadier, and Queen: it activates immediately as the battle begins, and then keeps triggering with each cooldown ending.
  • In case of Lionheart, his ability activates when an enemy approaches him;
• The "ability to come back to life" perk causes Glenn to revive immediately after being killed;
• The "chance to dodge a hit" perk has a limitation for Pepper and Ranger: they cannot move beyond the edge of the screen;
• The "places a mine in the specified location" perk for Dr. Miller is activated immediately, being put directly where he's placed at the start.
• Private Rodriguez's special ability has an infinite starting attack range, meaning he can throw his knife and hit his target from any distance.

Process

Unit placement is vital for winning in Skirmish.

A new league starts every 48 hours. Other players will join as soon as they open the PvP menu after their previous league ends.

The player builds their team with units with a maximum cost of 100 points (both courage and rage) on a 4x4 field grid. They then fight other players' teams and earn a dog tag for each win. Whenever one of the other players manages to win a fight against the player's team, they take a dog tag back. Players have the choice to fight one specific player by pressing the button beside their dog tags, or all of them by pressing the "Fight All" button in the lower right corner. There are no draws - each fight ends when one side has lost all their units, either to the enemy or from units that have turned into zombies.

The way the game scans the grid on which units are placed to determine the order of activations of some team power effects is by scanning rows from left to right, starting with the topmost row. This can be better visualized with the usage of the police team power, more specifically their 3/3 synergy, as it will grant the shield to the third scanned police unit and all the next police units.

Visualization of the spawn order of units

Ranking up in Skirmish works through collecting and holding as many dog tags as the player can. After the timer ends, the player will either stay in the same league and earn some coins (if placed below the lower half) or receive a single red key and proceed to the next league (If placed in the top half) until the tenth and final league, in which players will stay for the rest of the season, although they still can fight for top 10 prizes.

The player also receives a coin reward every time they beat other player's team, which varies depending on the league level. Sometimes during a Skirmish battle, players may earn a common or rare upgrade item from a random enemy unit they kill.

Upon reaching League 5, players will encounter the best-of-two format. In this version of Skirmish, there are three rounds, and players must construct a team for each round without reusing any units across the three decks, encouraging more diverse deck-building. To win the dog tag of the opponent, players need to win two out of the three rounds. Conversely, losing two out of the three rounds results in a loss.

If the game becomes too slow, there's a x2 speed button to accelerate gameplay, which can be particularly helpful when using the "Fight All" option.

Skirmish Shop

The shop contents take Skirmish points which can be gained from winning battles and are given at the end of the three day countdown. The shop restocks every 17 days.

Shop Slot	Item	Cost	In Stock
1	5	100 Skirmish points	1
2	350	150 Skirmish points	1
3	250 / 250	140 Skirmish points	9
	One of the three buffs	100 Skirmish points	3
	1	180 Skirmish points	1
4	250 / 250	140 Skirmish points	9
	One of the three buffs	100 Skirmish points	3
	1	180 Skirmish points	1
5	25 Class Tokens (1st random class)	100 Skirmish points	3
6	25 Class Tokens (2nd random class)	100 Skirmish points	3
7	25 Class Tokens (3rd random class)	100 Skirmish points	3
8	A random epic / legendary Carbon item	160 Skirmish points	10

Seasons

Each Skirmish season lasts for 1 month. By the time the season ends, the player receives a seasonal reward depending on their achieved league rank. Immediately afterward, they then go down three league levels.

Info Table

League	Logo	Battle			Coins per		Season rewards	Rank Up rewards	Top Players Reward
		Participants	Top Players	Instant rank-up	Rounds	Battle
1		10	4	6	1	3	30	250	1
2		10	4	6	1	4	40	300	1
3		10	4	6	1	5	50	350	1
4		10	4	6	1	6	60	400	1
5		10	4	6	3	8	80	450	1
6		12	5	10	3	10	90	500	1
7		12	5	10	3	12	120	550	1
8		16	6	14	3	15	150	600	1
9		18	7	16	3	18	180	650	1
10		20	9	–	3	20	200	Badge Level 700	1

Ranks

Ranks are small icons that can be seen next to every player's nickname. They indicate how many times the player has managed to stay in league 10. These ranks are not only displayed in the Skirmish leaderboard but in the player's event leaderboard scores and missions deck as well.

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  Rank 1
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  Rank 2
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  Rank 3
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  Rank 4
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  Rank 5
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  Rank 6
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  Rank 7
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  Rank 8
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  Rank 9
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  Rank 10
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  Rank 11
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  Rank 12
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  Rank 13
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  Rank 14
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  Rank 15
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  Rank 16
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  Rank 17
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  Rank 18
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  Rank 19
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  Rank 20

Trivia

• Before update 2.1.0, PvP was unlocked by obtaining 37 stars. It was changed to a requirement of owning 4 units, and then was reverted in version 2.7.0, with a lesser amount of stars needed.
• Before update 2.4.0, Grenadier was the only unit whose value is evaluated in courage points to be unavailable in Skirmish.
  • The developers never stated an exact reason why he was unavailable for Skirmish aside from his grenade being too powerful for this game mode. It's possible that they weren't sure how to make his manual ability work in that mode or how to balance him.
• Prior to update 3.2.0, Skirmish did not allow any unit that does not cost courage to be used. This affected Austin, Welder, Berserker, Saw, and Queen.
• If players reset their game progress on Android and reconnect to Google Play with their current game progress, their team and league level will be kept.

Gallery

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  Pre 2.7.0 leaderboards.
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  Pre 2.7.0 team editing menu.
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  Pre 2.7.8 team editing menu.

Old League icons

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  League 1
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  League 2
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  League 3
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  League 4
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  League 5
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  League 6
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  League 7
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  League 8
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  League 9
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  League 10