Symphony of War's affinities help you fight in all weather and buff your team in helpful ways.

Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga is a turn-based strategy battle game set in a unique fantasy setting. The cutesy graphics belie the depth of the game’s systems, as a multitude of options allow you to customise the squads in your army to suit your battle style.

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Some you would expect, such as choosing and upgrading your soldiers including ranged, melee, magician and healer units – as well as dragon and artillery units later. But other systems are more subtle. The relationships that form between leaders can affect morale on the battlefield, for example, while the elemental affinity a particular leader is attuned to can also have an important impact.

Every unit in Symphony of War has an elemental affinity. The most common is Earth, followed (in rarity order) by Water, Lightning, Fire, Darkness and Light. A unit’s affinity affects their chance to hit and also land crits in certain types of weather. As weather in the game is largely random, there’s not really anything you can do to make this work in your favour.

However, there’s some merit in having units with different affinities in the same squad to try and offset this randomness. More importantly, a unit’s elemental affinity gives them stat bonuses or penalties:

* An affinity with a ++ or -- sign means an extra bonus or penalty.

At the end of each battle, you’ll be taken to a location where you can supply and reorder your troops before the next Chapter. In the Marketplace, you’ll be able to pick up a variety of items from the Trader – some of which may be Affinity Scrolls. Less commonly, you’ll also find Affinity Scrolls in Bazaars (essentially a Marketplace on the battlefield) during battles or as chest or other rewards.

To check to see if you have an Affinity Scrolls, click on Organise Army while in any town. Next, click Squad Operations and select any unit. Finally, choose Use Item from the menu and click on one of the units in that squad.

This will bring up a list of all the useable items you own, with any greyed out being unusable by that particular unit. To see how changing the affinity of a troop will affect it, simply select them. Arrows will appear on the stats that will be affected, showing you the new value that those stats will have if you use the item.

There are a variety of important reasons you should use Affinity Scrolls when you come across them. You may not want to use them straight away, but they can have a huge bearing on your units.

Also note that these stat changes are applied retroactively. So, the higher level the unit is you use an Affinity Scroll on, the more dramatic the effect will be on their stats. This is because Affinity also affects stats as the character levels up.

A solid choice for heavily armoured tank units (such as Sentinels and Knights), as the lack of subtlety (crit rate, evasion etc.) is made up for with a big boost to health.

A great option for healing units (including Templar and Valkyrie), as it boosts their HP (keeping them alive) and MAG (which buffs healing power and magic defence), while taking away two stats they don’t rely on – SKL and STR. Also, a solid choice for mages, as the downsides are lower than Dark (below) – at the expense of some damage output.

This is a risky choice, as you lose both HP and Loyalty. But the bonuses to both STR and SKL make it a fun choice for lightly armoured ambush troops (Rogues, Assassins) who should be in and out without taking damage anyway – especially if mounted (Rangers).

Any hard-hitting troops (such as Champions) will benefit from this affinity, thanks to increased STR and Loyalty. Just be aware of the drop in magic defence, so try and keep them away from casting units and dragons.

It’s hard to defend an affinity that reduces leadership, loyalty and HP. But a double bump in both STR and MAG will make your dragon units lethal. The big bump in MAG will also benefit any mage units, but you’ll need to gauge if the payoff is worth it. Especially later in the game, it should be.

This is a no-brainer for any leader unit, as it increases LDR – meaning you can squeeze more troops into their squad. However, remember every troop has an affinity – so by changing to Light, you may lose out on HP, STR or another stat. It’s great if you’re a little short of capacity to increase a squad size though, and the fact it has no actual downside is a clear plus.

Next: Symphony Of War: Beginner Guide

Chris Marling is a writer and editor with more than 20 years experience across newspapers, magazines and websites. Based in the UK, he has written professionally on everything from tech to tearooms. But his real passion is gaming, going right back to the Atari 2600 - and especially RPGs and MMOs. He cut his teeth on games such as The Realm and Anarchy Online. But 20 years on still gets excited about exploring each new world. When not online, you'll find him gaming analogue-style around the table. Chris has had five of his own board games published, including Pioneer Days and Armageddon.