Combat is where Riftbound gets fun. It’s also where new players completely lose the plot.
You’ve got units, you want to move them to a battlefield, and then you’re not sure what happens next. Is combat automatic? Can I move more units in mid-fight? Do my units get tired? Why does this one unit move differently?
Let’s break this down in a way that actually makes sense.
Every unit can do something called the standard move during your Main Phase (when it’s your turn and nothing’s actively happening). It’s simple: you exhaust the unit (tap it, tire it out) and then you move it from your base to a battlefield, or back from a battlefield to your base.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
Now, if a unit is already exhausted from something else you did earlier in the turn, tough luck—it can’t use the standard move. But don’t think you’re totally stuck. You can still move exhausted units using spells or abilities that specifically move them. Those don’t require you to exhaust them again.
Here’s the time-saver: you don’t have to move units one at a time like you’re shuffling them individually. You can grab a bunch of them, exhaust them all at once, move them all as a group to the same place, and boom—they’re all there. One smooth action.
This matters because it feels cleaner at the table, and sometimes you’ll trigger effects that all resolve at once instead of piecemeal.
Some units have an ability called Ganking. This is where movement gets a little spicy.
Normally, units can only move between your base and a battlefield. Base to battlefield, battlefield to base. That’s the standard move. But if a unit has Ganking, it gets to use the standard move to go from one battlefield to another instead.
It’s not an extra move. It’s a different flavor of the standard move. The unit can only move once, but the destination options are different. Think of it like unlocking a special route on the map.
You can move Ganking units alongside your regular units as long as they’re all going to a legal destination.
Here’s where things get intense. When units from both players are on the same battlefield, a showdown automatically starts. Nobody has to declare anything. The game just happens.
This is how it goes down: both sides total up their unit’s Might (their combat power), and they deal that much damage to the other side. Simple math.
Then you compare damage to each unit’s Might value. If a unit takes damage equal to or greater than its Might, it dies (unless it has an ability protecting it). If it takes less, it survives.
After all the math is done, you look at what’s left. If one side has units and the other doesn’t, the side with units controls the battlefield and you score a point (or hold it, depending on timing). If both sides have survivors, here’s the wild part: the attacking units retreat back to base, but the defending player keeps control. Weird, right? But that’s how it works.
I mentioned this before but it’s important enough to say again: units heal completely after combat ends. That unit that barely survived with 1 health? Full health. This rule actually changes how you approach combat. You can’t wear someone down over multiple combats. Every battle is a fresh start.
Once a showdown starts, you can’t move more units in using the standard move. You’re locked in. The only way to get more units into an active combat is if you have a spell or an ability with the Action or Reaction keyword.
This is why positioning before combat matters so much. You can’t just go ‘wait, hold on, let me bring in my best units’ once the fight’s started. That’s why the pre-combat phase is so tactical.
Combat is the heartbeat of Riftbound. Get it right and you’re making clean, confident decisions. Get it wrong and things snowball. The good news? It gets intuitive fast.
Not sure if you can legally move that unit into combat, or whether you’ll win that showdown? Arbi has your back. Get instant rulings on movement, damage, and showdowns.