Moves one of your own icons to any empty square or to one occupied by an opponent’s icon, which begins a battle.

Early in the game, the computer A.I. loves to use this spell to catch a Basilisk on its weak starting square with a Unicorn (or vice-versa). Same with Banshee/Valkyrie, and sometimes a Golem (or Troll) will be sent across the board to take out a Goblin (or Knight). Less often, the computer will use the same technique with its heavy-hitters. The only other use the computer has for this spell is to put something (usually a Golem/Troll) within striking distance of the other team’s mage. All are worthy uses of this great spell, but a human player can be more creative.

Restores full health to one of your own injured icons.

The computer usually saves this spell for the Djinn, Phoenix, or Dragon, but the Wizard and Sorceress sometimes heal themselves late in the game as well. See the Hit Points and Damage section for more information.

Brings one of your dead icons back to life, shiny and new. The revived piece must be placed ‘within the charmed square,’ i.e., one of the empty squares surrounding your mage, no matter where your mage may be.

The computer will only use this spell to bring back one of its strongest two creatures, usually whichever is the first to die.

Swaps the board locations of any two icons. Cast it on two enemies, two of your own icons, or one of each.

The best use of Exchange is probably to move one of your Basilisks, Trolls, or Golems into the fray quickly. Trapping an enemy ground mover is possible, but the time cost to set it up usually negates any benefit. This is the only spell the computer never uses.

Reverses the direction of the color cycle for the changing squares, but the squares will still change after every move of the player who did not move first. If the squares are ‘A’ or ‘F’ when the spell is cast, however, they will change to the opposite color the next time they change. This is great for catching several enemy icons on the wrong color at once, but it helps if you’re the second player to move so that the change is immediate after the spell; that’s another advantage of not going first.

The computer prefers to use Shift Time when there’s an Imprison spell in effect (see below) but will also just employ it to give itself more time to try for all the Power Points.

Calls forth an Earth, Water, Air, or Fire Elemental to do battle with an enemy piece. The elemental must attack immediately; it cannot be placed on an empty square and used later. You don’t get to choose which Elemental appears, but the second player to cast this spell won’t get the one summoned earlier by the other side.

The computer uses this spell to attack the opposing heavy-hitters caught on weak squares or when just about any enemy icon wanders suspiciously close to its mage. Moving your mage off its protective Power Point will usually trigger a Summon from the computer opponent also. Win or lose, the elemental is gone forever after its battle. The combat attributes of the elementals are given below in the Creatures section.

Freezes an enemy icon on its square until the changing squares become ‘A’ (for an imprisoned Light Side icon) or ‘F’ (for Dark). Imprisoned creatures may not move on the game board or cast spells, but can still move and defend themselves in battle if attacked.

The computer will only cast this spell in when the color cycle is ‘C’ or ‘D’ and heading toward its favored color. It also loves to extend (or reduce) a prison sentence with the Shift Time spell, but it’s smart to save Imprison for the endgame, when you can freeze your opponent’s last piece and win immediately.

These foot soldiers are the game’s weakest and most numerous characters. Lacking a ranged attack, they must dodge bullets while trying to get close enough to do some damage. Although arrayed in the front of their armies, the Knights and Goblins really do their best work later in the game, after the opponent’s pieces have been injured from other battles. If they can absorb one attack, they have a good chance of delivering a hit or two themselves, hopefully to polish off a weakened opponent.

The Knight and Goblin are identical in all ways except the shapes of their bodies and weapons’”differences small enough to defy analysis.

These guys flank the Pawns and usually vie early in the game for the nearest Power Points. As the game’s lowliest shooters, they are often outgunned but can still be effective if played skillfully.

The Archer is basically a Knight who shoots with a bow. He can hold his own on favorable squares (‘A’ and ‘B’); however, the Archer is quite vulnerable on the medium squares (‘C’ and ‘D’), where one shot from a Basilisk, Troll, or Dragon will take him out, as will two bashes from a Goblin’s club.

The Dark Side’s Manticore owns the weakest attack in the game, but he makes up for it with a decent hit point total and his widely-spaced tail spikes, which are hard to dodge at close range. He will have trouble against the Wizard or Unicorn and should avoid Knights on squares ‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘C’, where he’ll need 3 hits to kill them. The Manticore is excellent for trying to pull off an upset against a Djinn or Golem; those matchups can be very entertaining.

The Fliers begin the game in the four corners of the game board, whence they have no trouble escaping as they soar over other pieces and enjoy the benefits of diagonal movement. Although the Valkyrie and Banshee are very different, they’re both great for attacking weaker opponents caught on a bad square, especially when it’s bothersome to disturb your carefully-deployed and less flexible ground forces.

The Valkyrie improves on the Archer, having moderate hit point and damage levels. Her weakness is that her spears are both slow and narrow, so the Valkyrie must get in close for a successful attack (preferably on the diagonal). No other slow-shooter in the game has projectiles merely one pixel wide. The Valkyrie is excellent on medium squares, except against the Dragon on ‘D’, where one blast of fire will roast her.

It’s always fun and challenging to use the Banshee because of its unique attack form: a scream-cloud that quickly drains the life of an opponent caught within its radius. Life is drained 1 HP at a time, for a total of 8 if the cloud hits for the full duration. The Banshee can move while screaming, which is a mixed blessing’”it’s impossible to escape from the scream, but the Banshee is left extremely vulnerable after (and during) the attack. In light of this, the Banshee is best used for polishing off badly injured opponents, and in this task it has no equal, but it’s helpless against a foe with a tall health bar. Perhaps more than any other creature, the Banshee needs to stick to its favorable squares.

The Brutes are strong, tough, and conspicuously slow. In fact, besides the Earth Elemental, there are no other creatures that walk around at less than normal speed. Even though the speed reduction is only one-quarter, the resulting disadvantage in combat is big, and the Golem and Troll have trouble evading close-range fighters like Knights and Goblins. But with their impressive firepower and health, as well as the biggest bullets in the game, they always have a chance of upsetting more powerful foes.

Golems have 1 more hit point than Trolls, but otherwise they’re equivalent in ability. That extra HP does come in handy for the Golem sometimes’”for example, in a head-to-head matchup on ‘E,’ where the Troll should be favored, both need only 2 hits for victory.

These two quick and deadly creatures are more than a step up from the others we’ve looked at so far. What makes them so dangerous is not only how fast they can shoot (the best shot speed in the game), but also how often they can shoot. At 1 per second, the Unicorn and Basilisk can attack more frequently than anything but the short-ranged Knight or Goblin. Since the Assassins begin on wrong-color squares and are so important to their respective sides, an early Teleport attack involving these creatures is always a wise decision.

The Unicorn is the real workhorse of the Light Side; its unique movement range of Ground 4 makes it the most annoying enemy of Dark as it gallops around blockades and picks off anything left too long on a color-changing square. It’s also excellent against the Dragon on middle-color squares and is Light’s best hope against the Sorceress on her home turf, where the Unicorn can absorb a hit and still fight on’¦ and may only need 2 hits for the kill if the Sorceress has already cast three spells. In this case, the Unicorn’s supremely fast laser beams actually make it favored, which is one of Light’s most important advantages. The Unicorn does well on ‘D’ but should beware of darker squares, where it can be taken out by 1 shot from a Dragon, Troll, or Basilisk (on ‘F’).

Taking into account damage, attack rate, shot speed, and projectile width, the Basilisk is unquestionably the most potent attacker in Archon. Long-range foes have trouble dodging the Basilisk’s super-fast petrifying gaze, and its 10-pixel-wide vertical shots make it nearly invincible against anything that likes to get in close for an attack. The Basilisk often wins games for the Dark Side, either by dethroning the Wizard or by destroying half a dozen Light pieces in a row. Its one glaring weakness is hit points, so the Basilisk must be careful, especially avoiding Unicorns on lighter squares if possible.

These fliers are the most mobile icons in the game. Their movement range of 5 is huge on the 9×9 board, and nothing is ever safe from their attack. The Phoenix and Shapeshifter are also Archon‘s most unusual creatures, having peculiar strenghts and weaknesses.

The Phoenix has a short-range attack similar to the Banshee’s, but it defends the Phoneix even as it harms enemies. While its flame is on, the Phoenix is impervious to attack’”but immobile. This is a terrible weakness, since it can almost always be hit just as the flame expires, making this bird worthless against players who know what to do. (This flaw was corrected in Archon II’s Firebird, who can cut short its flame attack.) Creatures with slower attack rates have more trouble taking advantage of this trick, so the best job for the Phoenix is to slay Dark’s 2-seconds-per-shot Dragon. A computer opponent will not use the trick at all, so in that case the Phoenix can have great success against Goblins, Banshees, and Trolls as well. A Phoenix-Shapeshifter battle is often a long, boring affair (each flame protecting against the other) in which the one with the most hit points coming in almost always wins. This is never good for the Phoenix, though, who is sure to suffer severe injury if victorious.

The Shapeshifter may be the Dark Side’s greatest advantage. As its name suggests, it takes on the form and abilities of its opponent in combat. The opponent’s base HP are also used, but the Shapeshifter of course gets the Dark Side’s HP bonuses for square color. This means that on ‘E,’ and especially ‘F,’ it will have a big advantage. Unless you’re confident, though, you shouldn’t start attacking early in the game on squares ‘C’ and ‘D’ because the Shapeshifter is evenly matched against just about any opponent before they’ve sustained injuries. The Shapeshifter’s best feature is that, unlike any other piece, it never suffers permanent damage’”it’s always completely healed after every battle. Plus, the computer A.I. has a bad bug where it attacks the Shapeshifter, even on dark squares, as if it did not heal after being damaged! The Shapeshifter’s hit points work a little differently against Elementals, when it gets a base HP of 9.5’”not all that much’”plus the usual color-bonus, regardless of which Elemental it faces. This is the ‘˜Shifter’s biggest weakness, as it’s an even fight with a Fire or Earth Elemental, even on the darkest of squares’”something a smart Light Side player will use to his advantage.

As the game’s best two fighters, these characters are the most important to their respective sides other than the Mages. Should the Djinn or Dragon go down in combat, they’re the ones you want to bring back with your Revive spell. Both can fly with a range of 4, so they can always keep an eye on multiple Power Points at once. In fact, from the center square, they can reach any other spot on the game board.

The Djinn has as many hit points as a Golem but significantly less attack power, delivering a relatively low 6 damage per shot. His shots are large and swift, though, giving Goblins and Banshees little chance for survival and Trolls not much more. He should avoid the Dragon and Basilisks on medium-color squares, but, if healthy, the Djinn is the only Light Side icon to have an advantage in shots-to-kill over the Shapeshifter on ‘C.’ The Djinn is fairly vulnerable to Elementals, especially Fire, on the three darker square colors, so he needs to be moved to safety as early as possible. When Light needs to take out the Sorceress on her home square to win the game, the Djinn is an excellent choice for the attack.

The Dragon is the strongest and most intimidating creature in the game. No opponent, on any color square, can withstand two blasts of his fire, and many are roasted with just one. The Dragon’s health bar, too, towers over all others with an incredible maximum of 23.5 hit points; some foes will need five hits to bring him down. He pays for these gaudy numbers, however, with a miserable attack rate of one shot every two seconds, the worst in the game. Consequently, the Dragon can really struggle against the Phoenix and against the swift-shooting Unicorn on medium squares. In most cases, though, the Dragon will have the upper hand, notably against any Elemental, no matter what color square. Light should save his Elemental attack for the Shapeshifter instead. Dark should make sure to Heal the Dragon if his health gets low.

As the leaders of their teams, each Mage starts on a Power Point and usually spends most of the game defending it. Although weaker than the very best fighters in combat, they are strong enough to be favored in any fight on their home squares, as long as they haven’t cast too many spells; the HP bonus for their home squares goes down by 1 for each spell cast. Later in the game, the Mages may venture away from their Power Point and into the battlefield, where they’re both superb combatants on middle-color squares. A battle between the two of them, which is rare, would be even chances on any square but ‘A.’

If you’re playing the Light Side, your favorite piece will be the Wizard. He’s an awesome, intimidating fighter who shoots fireballs that are large, powerful, and swift. Dark shouldn’t bother attacking him with anything less than its best creatures. The Wizard is very rarely the underdog; if he does need to go wandering away from his home square, he should avoid the Dragon on ‘D,’ Basilisk on ‘E,’ and Shapeshifter or Troll on ‘F.’

Dark’s spellcaster is the Sorceress, whose lightning bolts are faster than her rival’s fireballs, but are smaller and less powerful. She’s not quite as good as the Wizard in combat, but is still more than a match for any Light piece on a medium square. Dark players may enjoy using the Sorceress as an attacker and handing off Power Point guard duty to a Dragon or Troll.

The four Elementals do not fight exclusively for either side, they just fight when called upon by the spell Summon Elemental. They disappear after their one battle. Generally, they’re mediocre warriors, each worth about a Valkyrie except Fire, which is a little better. Unfortunately, the spellcaster has no control over which Elemental shows up. Elementals do not receive an HP bonus for square color, so they have the same number on any square, and it’s a fairly good amount.

Overall, the weakest of the bunch is probably the Air Elemental, whose projectiles look like the Djinn’s but are a bit slower and weaker. It is similar to the Archer, but better due to its larger bullets and unique attack rate of 6 shots every 7 seconds. The Air Elemental is also the only icon with physical gaps in its body, allowing the horizontal attacks of some creatures (Djinn, Unicorn, Valkyrie, Archer, Shapeshifter, Basilisk, and Manticore) to pass right through, if it’s lucky. It’s probably best used against a Unicorn or Shapeshifter.

Marginally better than Air is the Water Elemental. It has more HP and does more damage than Air, but cannot shoot as often. Pratical results with Water will be similar to Air, but Water can take out a Basilisk on ‘A’ with one shot and will have at least an even fight against a Shapeshifter on any square.

The Earth Elemental is a poor man’s Troll, having the same lumbering pace but fewer HP and dealing not quite as much damage. At 9 per shot, though, Earth still packs a punch. You might use it to take out some weaker foes with 1 shot, and it probably is the best Elemental against the Dragon.

Fire is, without a doubt, the best Elemental the spell can buy. Similar to a Basilisk, Fire can do damage in a hurry, mimicking the Basilisk’s attack power and attack rate. Its bullets aren’t quite as fast, but they’re still swift enough to get the job done. Fire is great against just about anybody, but especially against a Djinn, Unicorn, or Basilisk. It has very few hit points, though, and can be taken out by 1 shot of a Dragon, Golem, or Troll.