The Wind and Wilting Blossom Beginner’s Tactical Guide

Below are my thoughts after playing this game for 27 hours and beating the early release boss Karura with both Hidesato and Kiyomori several times (and no, I have not beaten EA content with Mitsukuni or Shikibu yet. Too RNG dependent with these two leaders). Hopefully the tips I provide in this guide will make your life easier and this good game a more fun experience.

TWaWB is a roguelite adventuring/turn-based combat game at its heart. To prevail, here are some key concepts to keep in mind :

Overall/Regional Map:

1. Each run can be as short as a few minutes (due to your party getting wiped out in a fight) or up to an hour or two (if you go all the way to the end of EA content and beat the current end boss, Karura).

2. In-game achievements are the keys to overall game progression. Expect to do multiple runs to unlock the allies, weapons, and additional leaders necessary to make this game easier and more entertaining. Ironically, the game becomes ALOT easier once the advanced leaders are unlocked.

3. RNG bites. Current version is somewhat balanced on the Regional Map level, especially on ally and weapon availability in the cities. Expect to have frustrating runs because shop RNG hates you and you can’t find the necessary allies to recruit when you need them the most (my wado for two archers!!!).

Tactical Combat:

1. Mob AI – Mob AI is intentionally predictable. Pay attention to the tutorial on how the mob targets based on distance and character threat level. As long as you keep in mind how it works, you’ll never be surprised.

2. Armor is life – healing is hard to come by in this game (most via city shop, which costs wado and are few and far in between), where as armor is automatically replenished to full after every battle. So frontline tanks must have plenty of armor to survive multiple combat encounters during the travel between cities.

3. Range is king. Especially against enemy range mobs and slow moving tanks. Every party needs at least 1 or 2 archers. If your Leader don’t come with archer allies, make sure you recruit archer(s) as soon as you can as they are only randomly available.

4. Reach is king. Make sure your Leaders buy a nagiata as soon as it shows up in a city shop. With a reach of 2, hit 2 hexes, and 2 dmg per hex, it’s the best Leader melee weapon right now.

5. Always thin the mob by killing the 1 and 2 hp mobs ASAP. Most mobs do 1 dmg, regardless of how tanky they are. So kill the low health ones ASAP to reduce incoming damage.

6. Kite whenever you can against slow and tanky mobs (Oni and Nuppeppou) comes to mind. Don’t stand toe-to-toe against them unless you have the armor for it.

In the current EA version, the adventure takes place over 5 Regional Maps. You travel turn by turn across the Regional map, with each step costing a food resource, and the Darkness following behind, forcing your band to ever moving forward onto the next map. At the next map, you encounter tougher enemies and hopefully you overcome them and use the resources to upgrade your party, and the cycle continues on each map. Finally, on the 5th and last Regional map (Kanto), you confront the EA boss and the game temporarily ends after you defeat him.

Below are the 5 Regions:

1. Kyushu – Starting map. No boss on this map. Combat is easy. But for most Leader setups (especially Mitsukuni Layout #1 and Shikibu Layout #1), it’s necessary to recruit at least an additional follower and power up your party to the extent allowed by the resources you gain.

2. Chukoku – Enemy power up quite a bit here. You will die quickly if your party cannot defeat the mid-bosses on this map (two Oni). You should enter this map with at least 3 allies as you won’t be able to visit a store until after you go through the mid-bosses and travel across 3/4 of this Region.

3. Kansai – Enemy power up some more. Onikuma is the story boss for this map. You should have a full party at this point, and hopefully you have at least 2 range attackers along with some frontline tanks with good armor to grind through him. However, if you have a pure melee team, you’re likely to die against him due to his deadly 2 damage counterattacks against melee attacks. Good luck!

4. Chubu – no boss on this map. Just power up and survive the random events.

5. Kanto – Current EA boss is here. Good luck!

Below are my thoughts on the resources in the game:

1. Wado: You don’t have enough at the first two maps. But by the last map (5th regional map, Kanto), you should have enough to go around.

2. Food: In 0.6.15, shops always sell food, so you’re unlikely to run out. However, shop prices do vary quite a bit. So buy it whenever you see it in the shop for 3 wado or when your supply is looking low.

3. XP scrolls: You won’t have enough to level up even half of your party. I am currently averaging about 50 XP scrolls or so per full run to Kanto. Enough to level up a full party to all lvl 2 and 3s, or 1 member to lvl 5 with a few scrolls left. It’s a scarce resource in the current version. Buy it whenever you see it on sale and you have enough gold to spare and don’t waste it on fodder allies (aka farmers).

4. Ki: Useless in current version due to ki weapons being fairly useless. Don’t waste wado on it.

5. Ammo: Useless unless your leader got an ammo weapon. Even then there’s typically enough to go around just from event/combat gains. No need to buy unless you’re trying for the ammo related game achievements.

Currently there are 4 Leaders in the game, below are my thoughts:

1. Mitsukuni (power rating: 2/10): Default Leader you start out with. A super tanky warrior with just a katana and two trusty soldiers. This guy is the hard mode in current version. I had many frustrating runs with him because he starts out with basically nothing and is extremely dependent on early RNG for party development. Use him to unlock Hidesato (use ammo weapon 50 times achievement) ASAP and move on to Hidesato. Max Difficulty level.

2. Shikibu (4/10): Leader you unlock by using 100 XP scrolls during multiple playthroughs. Probably going to be the first leader you unlock since you’ll go through 100 XP scrolls very quickly (after a couple runs). She appears to be a leader version of concubine ally and comes with tanto and 2 charms, as well as a poet and a warrior in her party. Still not easy to play, but much better than Mitsukuni. Tanto and Teacher charm (reduce level up exp by 25%) are both quite useful, but the Path of Purpose charm (heal 1 after completing a quest) is useless because there are very few quests per run (1 or 2 on average). Hard Difficulty level.

3. Hidesato (7/10): Easy mode compare to Mitsukuni and Shikibu. Starts with a bow, two very useful archer charms and 2 archer followers. Just buy him a naginata and a couple frontline tanks and you’re on the road to victory. Normal Difficulty level. Once you bought ammo 30 times, you can unluck an even better starting layout for Hidesato, which comes with archers, soldier and noble. So life gets even easier once you unlock his Layout #3 (power rating 9/10 for this layout).

4. Kiyomori (8/10): You unlock him after beating the EA boss, Kurura. If you can beat Kurura, you know the game well enough already. Kiyomori is all about his two charms, Inspiring (25% cost reduction on recruiting allies) and Strength in Numbers (+1 armor for 4th and 5th followers, so +2 armor if you have a maxed party of 5 followers). With a maxed party of 5, Kiomor’s lvl 1 farmers have more armor/health than Mitsukuni’s lvl 1 warriors. So Kiyomori is another easy mode character. Default difficulty level is fairly easy, but need shop RNG to recruit additional allies to max out the party, as farmers really need that 2nd point of armor. Once you finished his achievement of having 5 different types of allies on a team, you unlock his Layout #3, which comes with a soldier, archer, and palace guard. This is probably the most powerful starting Layout right now and drops the game difficulty down to cakewalk because the archers and palace guard can follow you to end game, which means he only has to recruit 3 additional allies max.

Below are my thoughts on allies:

1. Farmer (3/10): Cheap and disposable. Upgrade to better allies ASAP. Only reason I can see buying one is either you’re on the 1st map and nothing else is available. Or you’re Kiyomori and you need to fill that 5th party slot to max out the armor bonus on your charm. Don’t waste any XP scrolls on this ally.

2. Soldier (5/10): Cheap, tanky and move 3 hexes. Best frontline tank until you get a Palace Guard or a Noble. Should upgrade to lvl 2 for extra armor ASAP, then just leave him there as you’ll hopefully find better members to replace him with.

3. Archer (7/10): Standard range unit that comes with limitless ammo. Very useful tactically, especially against slow mobs, glass cannon range mobs, and 1 or 2 hp chaffs. Every party should have at least 1 if not 2.

4. Palace Guard (8/10): The gold standard for tanks. Extremely tanky and does knockback, which is great for line mobs up for a naginata hit from the Leader. Every party should have one. Worth upgrading to lvl 3 quickly for the +2 armor.

5. Shinto Priest (2/10): Currently a gimped healer. Start at 1a/3h with a 1 dmg melee attack, he’s not designed for toe-to-toe fighting. Additionally, his special ability of removing status isn’t all that necessary as most status only last 1 turn, and bleed, which does last until the end of the combat, can be mitigated by killing the mob before she lands the first hit. Lvl 3 upgrades this SA to AOE, which is still pointless because statuses are not that big of a deal right now. Lvl 5 upgrades this SA to also heal 1 pt of hp per use, which is awesome except there isn’t enough XP scrolls right now to go around (maybe about 50 XP scrolls during a good run), so it’s not worth keeping the priest around when there are so many better options right now.

To the Devs, I recommend the following upgrades for this ally since Shinto Priest could easily fill a much needed niche in the game for a real hp healer. 1. Change him from melee to range 2 or 3. 2. Change the special ability lvl 3 upgrade from aoe status clear to single target heal 1 pt hp on top of clearing status, and leave lvl 5 upgrade as is (AOE heal/status clear). This will upgrade priest’s value (IMHO) from a lowly 2/10 to 8/10 IMHO as party healing is direly needed. Although for balancing, the dev may want to charge 1 Ki resource per use of the +1 hp healing to keep some resource management tension in the game and prevent heal spamming.

6. Bandit (2/10): Special ability of trap is too gimmicky, as you need to put the bandit right in the line of melee dmg for it to work. Additionally, as you’ll be attacking instead of defending most of the time, trapping isn’t all that useful.

7. Onmyoj (10/10): The Japanese fireball wizard. Expensive as hell but worth every penny if you can afford him. Deals 3 dmg to 2 hexes at range 2, and once you upgrade him to level 3, he does 3 dmg to 3 hexes. Onmyoji in conjunction with a Noble will mow down pretty much anything in range in a single turn. His main problem is cost (typically over 150 wado to hire) and rarity (I only see him in a shop very rarely, maybe a handful of times in the 25+ hours I have played).

8. Concubine (5/10): Costly and gimmicky. Does 2 damage per hit and bleed is very deadly against mobs that vulnerable to it, but it takes turns to take effect. Additionally, with only 2 armor, and one of the highest threat ratings for an ally, she can’t survive long on the front line. So you have to play her carefully. Not recommended unless you don’t have anything better in the shop.

9. Noble (10/10): Tanky, great damage dealer (2 dmg) and excellent support ability by granting one of your party member a second attack. Truly awesome when using it on a Leader with a nagiata or ono (axe). Every party should have one.

10. Poet (9/10): Pure support. Upgrade to lvl 3 ASAP. Doesn’t really shine until level 3, but at that point, her support ability of second move becomes AOE with +1 movement, which is Godly. This enhanced ability basically grants the entire party a second move, allowing limitless hit and run and other movement related tactical possibilities. A must for rescue events.

11. Sohei (6/10): Too expensive and I couldn’t afford him on most runs. Using bo as a weapon, he does 2 dmg in 2 hexes next to him. I would like him much better if he uses a naginata, but there are other players who swear by bo, so YMMV.

Quick summary:

My current ideal party for ver. 0.6.15, for when the RNG god smile down on me, would be as follows:

1. Lvl 3 Palace Guard (tank)
2. Lvl 2 Noble (tank/support)
3. Lvl 3 Poet (support)
4. Lvl 3 Omyoji (range/aoe god)
5. Lvl 3 Archer (range)

I was only able to form this party once over 100+ runs, and it steamrolled everything that showed up, including the final EA boss.