Tidal Pools

Lore & Background

The Breach is not a single stable place. Tidal Pools are among the most unsettling of these manifestations: a world where the water level seems to breathe, rising and falling on a rhythm that has no visible source. There is no moon in the Breach, no ocean beyond the board's edge, yet the pools fill and empty as though something vast and unseen is drawing the water in and letting it go. Those who pilot Goliaths through the Breach speak of the pools with a mix of respect and dread.

The water is shallow enough that a Goliath's legs wade through it, but deep enough to slow every step and make a mis-timed dash end in a unit stuck, legs churning, while a Stinger circles patiently on dry ground. The salt air corrodes joints. The wet rock is slick. And the Bugs, of course, seem to have adapted to the rhythm in ways the pilots have not.

What makes Tidal Pools lore-rich for fans is the implication behind them: the Breach is not merely a battlefield but a living system with its own weather, its own tides, its own moods. The pools are a reminder that the Goliaths are not conquering a terrain so much as negotiating with one, turn by turn, in a world that refuses to hold still.

Reader's Guide

Tidal Pools boards are built around a core tension: the dry land is narrow, and the water is everywhere. Typically you'll find a central band of rock or sand tiles with water pooling on either side, or a series of small islands connected by one-tile-wide bridges. The exact layout varies by level, but the principle is consistent — your movement options are always more constrained than on open-grass boards.

The critical mechanic is the tide shift. On certain turns (often indicated by a subtle visual cue on the board), water tiles will flood into adjacent dry tiles or drain back, effectively redrawing the walkable map. A Goliath standing on a tile that floods mid-turn can be immobilized for a turn, and a Bug that was safely across a water gap may suddenly find a new path opened. You must always read two turns ahead: where the water will be, not just where it is.

Water tiles also interact with specific Bug types. Burrowers can sometimes bypass water entirely, making them far more dangerous in Tidal Pools than on other boards. Spitters on elevated rock shelves can hit Goliaths trapped in the shallows without risk of retaliation. Conversely, a well-placed Hammer swing can push a Bug into deep water, neutralizing it for a turn.

Across difficulty levels and alternate timelines, the frequency of tide shifts increases and the land bridges narrow. On the hardest settings, you may face boards where only three or four tiles are reliably dry at any given moment, turning every turn into a precise choreography of who moves first and where the water will be when they land.