Arena

Arenas and tactical combat

Find a match, choose your view and prepare for arena combat.

Reviewed 10 October 2026

Choose a supported screen

Open Forces → Arenas on a desktop, laptop or landscape tablet. Arena setup and battle are blocked on phone-sized portrait and very short landscape screens. You can read the wiki on a phone and return to a larger display for the match.

Browse and enter

Arena Setup separates available and current matches and includes tabs for Tournaments, monthly leaderboards and badges. Read the selected arena's rules, entry conditions and any financial commitment before joining.

Resume as an empire switches to that participant before rejoining. View keeps you spectating with your selected empire. These actions do different things; choose the participant you intend to command.

Monthly public arena maps

After the monthly map update is deployed, FFA and PVE each receive a new map once per calendar month, using UTC. Rotation waits until every player entry has finished and left, including disconnected entries. The next empty-arena check then replaces the map; active entries are not ended for rotation. FFA and PVE can change at different times.

Monthly maps cycle through Plains, Forest, River and Mountain with fresh layouts. They use gentle terrain: at most two elevation levels, a 15% woods target, 2% rough terrain and narrow rivers. Cleared access paths can lower tree and rough coverage. Every generated map is checked for connected routes and at least 75% of its hexes reachable by wheeled vehicles without crossing woods, rough terrain or deep water. Tracked vehicles and mechs can use additional terrain according to their normal movement rules.

You do not need to request a new map or rejoin solely because the month changed. These monthly rotations await the compatible game update. Private and betting arenas keep their selected terrain.

Choose terrain for a new match

The updated Training Arena and Neveron Arena creation forms offer a Terrain profile selector: Plains, Forest, River, Mountain or Legacy terrain. Plains favour open ground with scattered cover; forests provide substantial wooded areas; rivers provide waterways with dry crossings; mountains add ridges and steep barriers with open routes and sparse tree cover.

Neveron Arena density controls adjust the selected profile. High Woods or Hills makes cover or relief more pronounced. Water controls the river width on River maps; None removes that waterway. Existing matches retain their terrain. Public FFA and PVE maps can be changed by an administrator only after all player entries have finished and left, including disconnected entries.

For profile maps, None removes the selected terrain feature. Low normally uses 60% of the profile baseline, Medium uses 100% and High uses 130%. After the Forest woods update, new Forest maps instead target Low 30%, Medium 50% and High 70% wooded hexes before access paths are cleared; None removes woods. Cleared paths lower the final coverage. Other profiles and density controls keep their existing scaling. Forest with Low Woods can still have more woods than Plains with High Woods. Buildings keeps its original density control and uses eligible ground without blocking the protected routes.

The Forest woods update requires the compatible game update. Existing saved maps retain their trees; create a new Forest arena or ask an administrator to update an empty public arena to use the revised targets.

New profile maps use seeded Perlin noise for varied woods, hills and winding waterways, without a repeating terrain tile. Each newly generated map gets its own seed; reopening the same saved map keeps its layout. Existing matches keep their original terrain. After the compatible game update, an administrator can use Public Arena Terrain to generate a new PVE or FFA layout once all player entries have left.

Water Chance has no effect on Plains, Forest or Mountain profiles. On River it changes width rather than the chance of getting a river. Legacy terrain keeps the original parameter behaviour. The profile-control correction applies to matches created after the compatible update; already-created matches retain their generated terrain.

These terrain controls are prepared locally and require the compatible game update before they are available.

Combat rules reference

Read Combat rules for movement, attack rolls, arcs, damage, physical attacks, heat, infantry, buildings and ejection. Push, Clear Woods, Ignite Terrain and Calm fire/smoke require the compatible game update. Other wind types remain future reference.

Understand visibility

Betting arena cards show Full visibility or Fog of war. The creation dialog's Battlefield visibility → Fog of war enables sensors and jamming. Players use their own side's view automatically; spectators choose a viewpoint.

A sensor-only contact is an unknown unit with its weight-class colour. Visual sight, electronic detection and permission to attack are separate checks. Read the Sensors and jammers guide before relying on a contact as a firing solution.

Learn the controls and track results

Select a unit name to inspect its details. Vehicle variants can share their chassis image; use the displayed name and weapons to identify the variant. The Vargr APC LRM image correction requires the updated client.

The Tutorial Hub offers vehicle and mech combat tutorials. Use them to learn movement and attacks in the relevant battle context. Monthly leaderboards track arena performance, and Badges lets you choose which earned monthly award to display.

For a scheduled competition with identical temporary lances, read Monthly arena tournaments. Your tournament combat units and permanent strategic military are separate.

After elimination or a lost connection

After the compatible server correction, rejoining an existing Training or Neveron Arena brings only the player who requested entry back into that match. Your opponent can rejoin when ready. If entry asks you to leave a tournament battle, exit that battle first. Leaving its last battle connection releases the entry lock without changing tournament attendance or deadlines.

After the compatible access update, a rejected battle connection returns to Arenas with an Arena Unavailable message. Check your selected empire and Combat access before trying again. A temporary login block may need time to expire.

A battle login block applies to your account across empires and arenas. Switching empires does not clear it. If it persists, contact an administrator instead of repeatedly retrying. The corrected block durations await the compatible game update.

FFA and PVE elimination ends your current entry. The final statistics stay on the results screen until you choose Exit Arena. Enter again deliberately when you want another unit.

The updated reconnect handling restores your final result if elimination happened while disconnected. If the previous entry is no longer available, leave the battle and enter again from Arenas. Reconnecting alone does not start another entry.

The phase clock catches up after a background tab or sleeping computer returns. Server updates determine the current phase and legal actions. These reconnect and clock improvements await the next compatible game update.

The next terrain update lets access paths follow natural elevations instead of carving a flat border or zero-height trenches. Gentle approaches keep river crossings usable. Hills set to None still deliberately makes the map flat. Existing saved arenas keep their layout until an appropriate terrain update is performed.

After the sparse-woods update, new Mountain maps start with a 5% woods target instead of 15%, before paths are cleared. Woods Low, Medium and High scale that target to 3%, 5% and 6.5%. Existing maps retain their trees until replaced with a newly generated map.

After the reduced-rough update, new Mountain maps use a 10% rough-terrain target instead of 30%. Rough Terrain Low, Medium and High scale it to 6%, 10% and 13%; None removes it. Woods and cleared paths can lower the final coverage. Mountain heights stay the same, and existing maps retain their recorded terrain.

After the mountain update, newly created Mountain maps have peaks and valleys of different sizes and steeper slopes away from the access paths. Hills controls their relief; None still makes the map flat. An arena already in progress keeps its saved terrain. Create a new Mountain arena, or have an administrator update an empty public arena, to use the revised mountains.