Operation: Establish Dominance

Combat in OED rewards positioning, turn order awareness and reading enemy intent. The breakdown:

Defend

• AJ can queue a defend from 3 squares away; enemies queue defends against her from 2 squares.
• Defends sit in a queue until the enemy actually attacks, so timing matters.
• A grapple against any combatant holding a defend in queue auto-succeeds (and clears the defend).
• An attack against any combatant holding a defend in queue auto-fails AND triggers a counter from chaingirls or AJ.
• If an enemy moves adjacent to AJ without attacking, it just queued a defend.
• Because AJ has a counter against every mob type, defend works like a third attack option when used wisely.
• Tip: AJ's grapple-escape window depends on getting a turn before the grapple deepens, so only queue defends against enemies that act 3–4 turns before AJ, or any enemy near the bottom of the initiative stack. Once four or fewer enemies remain, queueing defends is generally safe.

Attack

• Attacks are free in terms of energy.
• Same hit chance as a grapple, but always fail against defending enemies.
• Chaingirls can swing from 2 squares away.
• Attacking a defending chaingirl triggers a reversal-takedown : dangerous.
• Attacking a defending thug is just a miss : safe.
• Tip: If you are unsure whether a chaingirl is defending, attack on AJ's first action so you still have a second action to escape any reversal.

Grapple

• Costs 1d4+4 energy per attempt.
• Same hit chance as an attack; always lands against a defending enemy.
• Getting grappled eats AJ's entire turn to escape, which gives every other enemy a free movement turn and can lead to a quick overrun.
• Chaingirls grapple from 2 squares away.
• Tip: Save grapples for enemies you know are defending : for example, anyone you watched move into attack range without attacking or grappling.

Maneuver

• AJ starts with 4 moves per turn, Thug v1 has 3, chaingirls have 2. Mobility is her biggest early-game edge.
• Tip: Use movement and the map to shrink the number of enemies in attack range : fight with your back to a wall or from inside an alley, swing, then move out of range before the next enemy turn.