BarnstormBarnstorm Beginner Guide: How to Win Your First Sieges
New to Barnstorm? Learn how Ember, crowns and the three-minute clock work, where your troops can go, how to build a first deck and which beginner mistakes to skip.
On this page 10 sections
This Barnstorm beginner guide covers what the tutorial only hints at: how Ember, crowns and the clock decide a siege, where you can drop troops, and how to turn the starter cards into your first wins. You bring eight cards, your opponent brings theirs, and each of you defends a fortress across a ravine.
How a Barnstorm battle works#
You play cards from a hand of four, with the next card shown beside it, and every card costs Ember.
Ember: your wallet and your clock#
You start with 5 Ember. The bar holds 10.
Ember refills at one point every 2.8 seconds.
In the final minute and in overtime, it refills twice as fast for both players: one point every 1.4 seconds.
Refilling stops when the bar is full, so every second you sit at 10 is wasted.
The fortress and crowns#
Each fortress is one wall with four structures in it. The wall can't be destroyed, so ground troops have to break a Bastion or the Gate to get through.
Structure | HP | Attack | Crowns |
|---|---|---|---|
Bastion (one per lane) | 2,500 | 100 every 0.8 s, 7.5 tiles | 1 each |
Gate (center) | 4,000 | None | 0 |
Keep (behind the wall) | 4,000 | 140 every 1 s, 7 tiles | Instant 3-crown win |
A fallen Bastion earns a crown and breaches the wall. The Gate earns nothing but opens the center. The Keep ends the battle on the spot.
Bastions and the Keep shoot at ground and air troops. The Keep starts asleep and wakes when it takes damage or when a Bastion or the Gate falls. Troops can't attack a Keep until its wall is breached; spells can hit it any time.
The clock and overtime#
A battle lasts three minutes, and more crowns wins. If crowns are tied, you get up to one minute of sudden-death overtime with double Ember: the first crown wins. Still tied? The side with more of its fortress HP left wins, and an exact tie is a draw.
Where to place your units#
A ravine runs across the middle of the field. Ground troops cross it only on the two bridges, and each bridge lines up with a Bastion. Those two sides of the field are the lanes. The Gate sits between them, with no bridge in front of it. Flying units, like Hunting Falcons, ignore the ravine.
Troops go on any open tile on your half, from the ravine all the way back past your Keep.
Buildings, such as Palisade, only go on your half.
Spells can be cast anywhere.
After you destroy an enemy Bastion, you can also deploy troops on their side of that lane, up to their wall.
Drag a card onto the field, or tap a card and then tap the spot. Most troops take one second to deploy and can't be targeted meanwhile.
This Short is a fun lesson in lanes: a lone king holds the right bridge for 45 seconds against squires, sappers, a battering ram and a war elephant, and then you see what was crossing the left bridge.
The tutorial and your first steps#
The first time you open Barnstorm, Sergeant Brask runs you through two training battles against an easy bot. The first shows tips on deploying, lanes, Ember, spells, fusion and crowns. The second has no tips and one piece of advice: defend first, then counter-push through a lane. Everything else in this Barnstorm beginner guide builds on that.
You can replay the tutorial from Settings. Afterwards, open your training caravans, and use the Training button on the Battle tab to test a new deck against a bot. Training gives no rewards and costs no trophies.
Barnstorm beginner guide to your first 8-card deck#
A deck is eight different cards. A card you play goes to the back of the line, so a cheaper deck brings your key cards back sooner. The Cards tab shows your deck's average Ember cost as you build.
You start with ten cards, and your first deck uses eight:
Card | Ember | What it does |
|---|---|---|
Squires | 2 | Three fast swordsmen, a cheap distraction |
Lion Knight | 3 | A sturdy knight (1,700 HP at level 1), your front line |
Longbowmen | 3 | Two archers that hit air and ground from range |
Hunting Falcons | 3 | Three flyers that hit air and ground |
Desert Raiders | 3 | Three fast raiders that cut down troops on foot |
Arrow Volley | 3 | Spell: three waves of arrows over a wide area |
Fire Pot | 4 | Spell: a big blast that knocks light troops back |
Battering Ram | 4 | Charges at buildings; drops two Squires when it breaks |
That averages 3.1 Ember. On the bench are War Hounds (1 Ember, three quick hounds) and Palisade (2 Ember, a stake wall that lasts 25 seconds and draws the blows meant for your Bastions).
When you change the deck, keep its shape:
A win condition whose job is hitting the fortress. Here that's the Battering Ram, ideally behind the Lion Knight.
Cheap answers: two or three cards at 1 to 3 Ember, like Squires, Desert Raiders or War Hounds.
Air cover: at least two cards that hit flyers, such as Longbowmen, Hunting Falcons and Arrow Volley.
Two spells: a small one for swarms and a big one for tougher clumps.
A sensible average. We like a first deck around 3 to 4 Ember. Much higher and you'll wait on the bar.
As new arenas add cards, our best Barnstorm decks for every stage of the Trophy Road picks up from here.
Fusion basics#
Drag one card in your hand onto another. If the pair is a recipe, they fuse into a stronger card, and the other slot draws your next card.
Fusing costs no Ember. You pay the fused card's own cost when you play it.
After a fusion you wait 15 seconds before fusing again.
A fused card is used up when played; the two ingredients go back into rotation.
Fusion cards can't go in a deck. You only get them in battle.
Your starter deck already holds a recipe: Longbowmen onto Fire Pot makes Fire Archers, a 5-Ember pair whose arrows burst and set air and ground targets on fire. Fuse when you can afford to play the result soon, since you give up Fire Pot as a spell. There are nine public recipes and six secret ones that players uncover by solving riddles in the Alchemist's Workshop. The Barnstorm fusion guide covers every public recipe.
How does a fused card hold up? In this Short, a Fire Tower takes on one card at a time: the Lion Knight and the Lionheart melt, Fire Archers leave it at 217 HP, and three Pikemen finally bring it down.
Seven beginner mistakes to avoid#
Sitting on a full bar. At 10 Ember, play something, even a cheap card at the back.
Spending everything at the start. You open with only 5 Ember. Dump it at a bridge and you have nothing for the counter-push.
Splitting a push across both lanes. Two half-pushes are easy to stop one at a time. Stack one lane.
Spelling the fortress. Fire Pot and Arrow Volley deal only 30% of their damage to structures. Save them for troops, unless one finishes a Bastion.
Waking the Keep early. See the warning below.
Hitting the Gate for crowns. It has 4,000 HP and gives no crown; a Bastion has 2,500 and gives one.
Letting a Ram walk in untouched. Building-targeters go for the nearest building, Palisade included, so a Palisade in the Ram's path saves your Bastion.
To see how close a Battering Ram can get, watch this Short: a tower at 4% HP, a Ram rolling in, and Pikemen breaking it one tile from the wall.
What to do after your first sessions#
Battle matches you with a player at a similar trophy count, and a computer-controlled opponent steps in if nobody is free within a few seconds. A win earns 30 trophies; a loss costs 25.
Climb to the next arena. Oasis Fort opens at 300 trophies, and each new arena adds its cards to your collection. The guide to all seven Barnstorm arenas lists what each unlocks.
Claim the Trophy Road. It has 38 reward stops between 50 and 4,000 trophies and follows your best count, so a losing streak never takes a reward back.
Do your daily quests. You get three a day under Events, then Quests & Pass, such as "Win 2 battles", "Cast 5 spells" or "Fuse 3 alchemy cards".
Climb the Campaign Pass. Each 30-day season has 35 tiers, and every four crowns you earn moves you up one. There's a free track and an optional premium track.
Upgrade the eight cards you play. Each level adds 10% HP and damage and costs card copies plus gold, so don't spread gold across your whole collection.
That's this Barnstorm beginner guide in one line: spend Ember before the bar fills, defend first, then push one lane hard enough to take a Bastion. Barnstorm is free on Google Play for Android and coming soon to iPhone. The full card list, arenas and FAQ are at barnstorm.softick.dev. See you on the bridge.
Watch more battles, Shorts and the story series on our YouTube channel.
Play Barnstorm
A real-time PvP card battler for Android and iPhone: build an eight-card deck, fuse cards mid-battle and storm the enemy keep in three-minute castle sieges. Free to play.