Strategy guide

Play Lanternfall

Tips for getting deeper, from the first few depths to Nightmare.

Placement

• Cover bends. The inside of a sharp bend lets one lantern hit the same foe for much longer. A spot where the trail loops back on itself is even better.
• Build a kill zone. Pick one stretch of trail and stack your lanterns around it. Put Frost or the Hollow Bell at the start of the zone so slowed foes spend longer in it.
• Long range at the back. Comet, Eclipse and Lance reach far, so they can sit behind your short-range lanterns.
• Beacons in the middle. A Beacon boosts the 8 tiles around it, so surround it with lanterns.
• Watch the dashed circle while dragging. It shows exactly what the lantern will reach.

Building a team

A strong team covers four jobs:

Job	Good picks
Single-target damage (bosses, tough foes)	Spark, Lance, Moonwell, Eclipse
Crowd damage (swarms, broods, splitters)	Cinder, Bolt, Comet
Control (slow or freeze foes)	Frost, Hollow Bell, Venom's Neurotoxin
Armor answer	Venom, Moonwell, Eclipse, armor-piercing upgrades

Add a Sapling early: it grows every wave, so the sooner it is on the board the stronger it gets. Add a Beacon once you have a cluster of lanterns worth boosting.

Economy

• Sapling timing. It grows one stage per wave it stands, so place it early and keep it safe.
• The halfway bonus pays out mid-wave, so you can often afford an upgrade before the wave ends.
• Don't oversell. Selling only returns 60% by default.

Upgrades and ascension

• Tier 3–5 upgrades are where lanterns turn on: multi-shot, crits, armor piercing, burns and stuns.
• Ascend your carry. Pick your best lantern and push it to ascension. Then build a second copy and merge for Ascended II.
• Pick the ascension for the job. For example, Spark's Overcharge is pure damage, Static field makes every other lantern hit harder, and Starburst handles crowds.

Boons

• Common boons stack. Several copies of Fiercer flame or Quick hands add up fast.
• Lantern boons only show up when that lantern is on the board, so build your main lantern early to see its boons.
• Surge and Moonfall give free upgrades to every lantern you own, so they're best when you have many lanterns with upgrades left to buy.
• Camp upgrades like Wider fan, Lucky draw and High roller make every pick better.

Foes to watch for

Foe	Problem	Answer
Beetles, Ember knights, Moon titans	Armor	Venom, Moonwell, Eclipse, armor piercing
Broods, Magmites, Jacks	Split into more foes	Area damage behind your main kill zone
Ice skaters, Ghosts, Moon titans	Can't be slowed	Raw damage instead of Frost
Sporemothers	Heal nearby foes	Long-range single target (Lance, Eclipse)
Voidlings, Ghosts, Bog lurkers	Can't be hit for a moment	Lots of lanterns along the trail, not just one spot
Sand wraiths	Dodge shots	Area damage, poison and burns can't miss

See Foes for every foe.

Pushing deeper

• Each depth adds +35% foe health and 4% speed, and brings a new foe. Expect to need more camp upgrades and more mastery before the next depth feels easy.
• Easy is fine while you build mastery and embers. It pays ×0.6, but a win pays far more than a loss.
• Endless is great for mastery and for testing how far a build can go.
• Hard and Nightmare pay ×1.5 and ×2.25 embers and XP once your camp is strong enough.

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