TAO is more than just units and formation. It is also about how you USE those units. This section will give you a few very basic and general tips to use when playing. More specialised strategies for individual units will come soon.

Moving

    Units have different sorts and ranges of movement. If possible, do not move a unit UNLESS:
- It is in danger of dieing or getting hit from the back next turn.
- It is part of a bunched up section of units and an attacker that has an area attack ie Pyromancer, can reach that formation during the opponents turn.
- It is not in range of anything and has to move to attack.
- To reach the back armour.
    The main reason is because that units who move AND attack have to wait the FULL recovery time. Another tip when moving is to see WHERE you're moving your unit to. If you move your unit in to attack a witch and kill it, you might be killing your own unit. Look out especially for spellcasters and scouts. You want to try and stay away from them as much as possible.

Attacking

    All units have very different attack styles and it is important that you learn and master these attack styles. Below are some general tips for attacking.
- At the start of the game it is always hard to decide what unit to attack. Most players to tend to look at the gaming board and do one of two things:
    > a) Attack the strongest unit the opponent has eg Dragon.
    > b) Attack something they know they can kill, eg witch with a dragon/lightning ward.
- When choosing a target, always look at two things, the turns they have left before moving, amount of hit points left.
- It is ussually more useful to attack units that are can attack you next turn rather than waste turns attacking units that take 3 turns to recover. This strategy applies especially to dealing death blows. It is better to kill units that can move next turn rather than kill units that can't move until 3 turns time. NEVER EVER EVER EVER attack from the front unless ABSOLUTELY neccessary. This applies mainly to knights, assassins and scouts. However can apply to the other units that can block. Attacking from the front is always a waste unless you are in one of two scenarios.
    > a) There is a unit that can kill you next turn or screw you up and you have this one chance to take it out, however, you can only attack from the front.
    > b) You are using an unblockable attack
- Sometimes you can only attack from the side. There are two ways to approach this effectively. These will usually work when the enemy has to wait the next turn before moving again.
    > - a) Move a unit like a knight but DO NOT attack from the side. The reason being that next turn, the unit cannot move but your one can so can reach the back armour and not be scared of the other unit blocking.
    > - b) Attack from the side and risk the blocking. If they do block, their back will be turned another way and you can attack form the back with another unit.

Orientation

     After attacking you will want to face your unit so that its back armour is facing away from the enemy so they cannot reach. It is good to know the different movement ranges of each unit as well as the different ranges each unit has. This will be useful for determining where to face you behind. Another tip is to always face your back to the edge of the arena if you are right next to it. This way your unit can only be attacked from the side and front only.

A military operation involves deception. Though confident appear incompetant. Though effective appear ineffective.

    TAO is a strategy game. A strategy game is also like war. In war, it is more than just tactics, troops and weapons. It is also about psyching out the opposing general, causing and confusion and disorder amongst their ranks. Below are a couple of tips that are uselful in causing this sort of dissention.

Confusion

    Probably one of the easiest things to do, especially in the early game when all your units can move. It involves giving the opponent more targets that are all equally dangerous, or giving the opponent more than one unit that will die next turn. For example, at the start of the game, you have a dragon and a witch. Both are in range of the cleric. What choices does your opponent have? S/He can either try to take out the witch, or paralyse one or both, or S/He can move the cleric thus wasting a turn by which you can start pummeling into their army with your other units.
    To those who have played chess, you will know of a common tactic known as a 'fork'. This means that in the next turn, your unit can take out one of 2 or more units. Ie, they get a choice of which unit to take out. This similar concept can be used in TAO. By moving a unit into range of two or more units, especially if you can kill any of them next turn, will prove to be a problematic scenario for your opponent, making him make the choice of whether to sacrifice one unit for another.

Deception

    Definitely one of the funnest ways to psyche out your opponent, by acting like a noob, the opponent will ussually think to themselves that you are an easy win and will slacken off in their gameplay. A classic example of a nooby opening move is to attack their ward. Though very fun, it is still risky. Some smart players will play at their pb even though they are vsing a so called "nooby".

Baiting

    An essential part in many strategies, baiting involves making your opponent attacking EXACTLY where you want them to attack or drawing your opponent towards a location where you can take advantage of that unit. It is mostly used in enchanty strategies where the placement of the enemies units is of utmost importance.
    The most common form to bait a unit is to let them attack the back armour of a particular unit. Most units that do well at luring units to the back armour are scouts and assasins because they die so easily. Knights can lure units too but generally only if your cleric has died.

Anger

    Another fun thing to do is to annoy you opponents. Of course, not directly. The main opponents that are subject to this are the ones in the lobby always raving on about how other people are gay and that they're the best and cursing every second word. They are the people that do not think and rely on anger to guide them. Not all of the time, but yeh, most of the time anyway. Running in blindly without thinking is not a good thing to do in this game. The main thing to do is to just stay calm and give them smiley faces all the time ... like ... this! =). This ussually annoys THEM even further even though they have been trying to annoy you and as such will either just quit or continue losing more and more badly.

Terror

    Thought not really a fun way to win, scaring the opponent into surrendering is another strategy. Having units bunched up with a lot of powerful units make it look a lot more powerful and intimidating. A lot of pansy's ussually surrender as soon as they feel intimidated. Dragons are one of the few units that have this kind of effect. Another one is massed witches.