Battle-driven
Your first victory each turn generates Command—even when it happens while defending during the opponent’s turn.
⚔ Military · faction guide
Win the fight. Keep moving.
Military turns battlefield victories into Command, then spends that Command on Orders that extend movement, strengthen attacks or defenses, drive enemies back, and secure captured ground.
- Victory
- Run the Gauntlet
- System
- Command · maximum 2
- Leaders
- General · Commandant
At the table
How Military plays.
Military is the most direct expression of Gauntlet’s central conflict: fight for the line, turn victory into momentum, and keep pressure on the opponent before they can recover.
Fast tactical economy
Command tops out at 2, so the faction rewards spending it at the right moment rather than hoarding it.
Leader-shaped tempo
The General converts Command into forward pressure. The Commandant converts it into defense, retaliation, and control.
Signature system
The mechanics that define the faction.
Command
The first time each turn you win a battle, gain 1 Command, up to 2.
Orders
Spend Command on the three Orders printed on your Leader Card. Their timing determines whether they extend movement, modify a battle, increase retreat, or accelerate capture.
Pressure tools
Military cards reinforce victories, add cards after reveal, establish Encampments, punish retreat, and create carefully limited follow-up battles.
Victory
How Military wins.
Run the Gauntlet
Military has no additional victory condition. It must capture the opponent’s final Territory, advance beyond the column, and defeat the opponent in the Last Stand battle.
The advantage
Because every Military system supports movement, battle, retreat, or capture, the faction never has to divide its attention between the board and a separate victory engine.
Faction Leaders
Two ways to lead.
Each Leader uses the same faction card pool and core system, but pushes it toward a different tactical identity.
Attack, forward pressure, and tempo
General
“Forward. Again.”
The General leads from the decisive point, using Command to advance, reinforce an attack, and press a defeated opponent before they can recover.
Leader ability
Orders: Onward extends movement and may begin a battle; Rally strengthens a battle the General initiated; Rout advances again after an attacking victory.
Defense, counterattack, and control
Commandant
“We hold. They break.”
The Commandant turns a defended position into lasting control, strengthening defenses, driving attackers farther back, and capturing occupied ground immediately.
Leader ability
Orders: Entrench strengthens a defense; Repel increases an attacker’s retreat; Fortify captures enemy-controlled ground after a qualifying victory.
Archetype and setting
An institution—and a method of power.
Military represents organized force: field armies, garrisons, officers, fortified positions, and the belief that order is ultimately secured by controlling ground. Its two Leaders embody the faction’s central contrast—the General advances; the Commandant holds.
Visual and archetypal influences: Battlefield command, early-modern officer corps, forts and garrisons, disciplined formations, campaign momentum, brass, leather, smoke, and field earth.
Gauntlet’s setting is still being developed. The six factions are institutions within a broadly shared civilization, not fixed nations or isolated cultures.
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