Flex your battlefield muscles with Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics

Available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile, Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics is Gameloft's follow-up title to the popular game Blitz Brigade and delivers a wonderfully animated online, tactical combat game. You build an 8-unit squad and deploy them to destroy your opponent's base and protect your base.

There are plenty of upgrades for your troops to increase their destructive power and prizes to win. You can even join a Faction to build a stronger community through your allies. Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics is an easy game to pick up and play and offers a fun way to test your skills at strategy. The free game is a great option to consider when you have a little down time to kill.

At first launch, Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics carries you through a series of tutorials that cover the basics of gameplay nicely. The goal of Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics is to create an 8-unit squad to destroy your opponent's command center and protect your own base command.

Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics

Once the game tutorial is complete, Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics transitions to a main menu that displays your gaming resources/stats and provides you access to key areas of the game. Resources and stats include coins and gems that can be used to upgrade units, your experience level and access to the game's settings. Settings cover the basics such as music/sound levels and the option to log into the game with a Facebook or Microsoft account. You can play Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics without logging into an account, but in doing so you can synchronize game progress between devices.

Navigation options from the main menu include viewing your profile, squads, Faction information, and rewards, and options to choose the division you want to battle in and to visit the game's store. In many ways, the divisions represent the game's difficulty level. You start with the trainee division and slowly work your way up to the general division.

Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics

The battle squad menu highlights all of your combat units and allows you to establish your 8-unit team and upgrade eligible units. There are dozens of troops to discover, each with their own unique destructive abilities. You have ground units as well as artillery units, squads of soldiers and individual warriors. Just keep in mind that you can only have 8 units activated at once. Also, remember to upgrade units when possible to allow them to stay competitive on the battlefield.

The Battlefield

Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics

The game screen for Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics has your battlefield split in half with each side having three base units, two turrets and one command center. The available troop units and a self-regenerating energy bar line the left side of the screen. Each unit requires an amount of energy to deploy (number noted on the icon), adding a time management and strategy element to gameplay. Do you release several low-energy combat units or wait until you build up enough energy to release a more powerful, high energy combat unit?

To launch a unit, tap and drag the icon onto the battlefield. Combat units advance on your opponent's base or help defend your base units by engaging your opponent's troops. There are two ways to win a fight: survive the battle timer and inflict the most damage, or destroy your opponent's command center.

Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics

How to accomplish this varies from game to game. You can concentrate your efforts on the turrets first or center your attack on the command center. Do you rain down artillery on the enemy or flood the battlefield with troops? No two games are the same and that helps add to Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactic's appeal.

Once the battle is over, to the victors go the spoils. You can earn experience and coins, as well as prize lockers. If you lose a battle, experience points are taken away. The prize lockers contain an assortment of goodies ranging from extra coins, gems and unit experience. The downside to the prize lockers is that it takes time before they can be opened, sometimes several hours. You can spend gems to bypass this wait or watch advertisements to shorten the wait.

Fun and addictive game

Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics is a feature-rich Windows 10 game that is easy to learn, but a challenge to master. There are elements of time management, strategy and luck in play that gives the game a challenging appeal. Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics also looks good with cartoony graphics and lively animations. The game requires an amount of patience as you build up your army, but nothing that rises to the level of frustration.

However, this game can drive you nuts at times. It's easy to find yourself feeling invincible and steamrolling through your opponents. Then in an instance, you hit a brick wall and cannot win a battle if you blindfolded your opponent. There is the option to compete in a lower division, but that did not seem to even the odds much. Again, you need patience with this game from not only waiting for prize lockers to become available but also in building a competitive army.

All in all, Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics is an enjoyable base-defense, tactics game for Windows 10. This free game is well suited for short gaming spurts and addictive enough to hold up to marathon gaming sessions. If you've given Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics a try, let us know what you think in the comments.

Download Blitz Brigade: Rival Tactics from the Windows Store

George Ponder

George is the Reviews Editor at Windows Central, concentrating on Windows 10 PC and Mobile apps. He's been a supporter of the platform since the days of Windows CE and uses his current Windows 10 Mobile phone daily to keep up with life and enjoy a game during down time.