As the focal point of any game of Dragon Dice, terrain provide several functions: they determine the actions available to armies at their location, they provide elemental energies to power faction abilities, and their eighth faces grant special powers to those who control them.

And of course they determine the winner, which is somewhat useful.

Your run-of-the-mill terrain dice come in six combinations of colors, each with four different eight-face icons, giving us a grand total of 24 options when building any force. Each of these six color combinations has a distinct progression of magic, missile, and melee faces, regardless of the eighth face chosen.

While it may seem obvious to choose terrain matching both colors of an army, there are several more considerations to be made, so let's dig in and see what we discover.

Coastlands - preferred home of the Coral Elves - are comprised of Blue (Air) and Green (Water) elements. Coastlands allow magic only on the first face, with missile on faces 2-5 and melee faces on 6-7.

Highlands - home to the Dwarves - contain the Red (Fire) and Yellow (Earth) elements. They grant magic on faces 1-3, missile on faces 4-5, and melee on the last two faces.

Composed of Blue (Air) and Yellow (Earth) elements, Flatlands are the primary home of the Feral. Offering magic only on their first face, missile and melee each receive three faces apiece.

Containing Green (Water) and Yellow (Earth) elements, Swamplands are home to many peoples, especially Treefolk. They offer two magic faces and two missile faces, with melee spanning faces 5-7.

Home to Scalders, Feylands are made up of Green (Water) and Red (Fire). With the fewest missile faces on any standard terrain, Feylands bring three magic faces, a single missile face, and melee faces beginning at 5.

Red (Fire) and Blue (Air) blend to form Wastelands, home to Fire Walkers. With only a single magic face and two missile faces, Wastelands have the most melee faces of any standard terrain, running from faces 4-7.

As with their more common counterparts, advanced terrain also come in six color combinations with four different eighth-face variations, giving another 24 possible options. However these advanced terrain cannot be taken as home terrain, somewhat limiting their reliability in use.

Diverging from standard terrain, advanced terrain have icon distribution based on their eighth face, rather than their color combination. In other words, every Castle has the same icon distribution, whether it's a Coastland, Swampland, etc.

Offering magic on two faces and missile on one, the Castle brings melee starting at the fourth face. It has the following eighth-face effect:

When an army turns a Castle to its eighth face, the army's controller choose any standard eighth face (City, Standing Stones, Temple, or Tower) and the terrain is considered to have that eighth face until the terrain face changes.

Boasting the highest number of melee faces bar none, the Dragon's Lair has a single magic face and a single missile face, with melee from every face thereafter. It has the following eighth-face effect:

When an army controls a dragon's lair at the start of their turn, they may summon any dragon matching at least one color - or any ivory or ivory-hybrid - to any terrain. This does not include white dragons.

A boon to mages across Esfah, the Grove has four magic faces - more than any other terrain - followed by a single missile face and two melee faces. It has the following eighth-face effect:

When an army controls a Grove at the start of the turn, its controller must unbury one buried die (controlled by any player) if possible - Dragonkin and minor terrains move to their owner's Summoning Pool, non-Dragonkin units move to DUA, and items move to the controlling army.

Sporting two faces for magic, three for missile, and two for melee, the Vortex grants one of the few re-roll options available in all of Dragon Dice:

During any non-maneuver roll while controlling a Vortex, an army may re-roll a single unit before applying any SAIs.

Minor terrain form a portion of the Summoning Pool at the start of the game, and can be critical to many strategies. There are four types matching every color pair on their larger counterparts, with each type providing a different icon distribution.

• Minor terrains add their colors to the current terrain for purposes of the controlling army's faction abilities.

• Minor terrains provide additional action options or maneuver and save results, depending which face they roll.

The Bridge has two faces showing Double Maneuvers which doubles the army's ID results when rolling for maneuvers. It also has the Flood icon, which halves the army's maneuver results, and then buries the die at the start of the army's next march.

This die is excellent for either ensuring your maneuver-heavy army will win those rolls, or for helping your slower armies maneuver a bit better.

The Knoll provides two Missile faces, expanding the possibility of an army getting to take missile actions. It also has the Dust Storm icon, which halves missile results and again buries itself at the start of the army's next march.

It goes without saying that any missile strategy is made better with the inclusion of at least one Knoll in the Summoning Pool.

A counterpart to the Knoll, the Village provides two melee faces to boost any army relying on close combat for victory. It has the Revolt icon which halves melee results and buries the Village at the start of the next march.

Again, this die is a welcome addition to any Summoning Pool for armies interested in melee combat.

The counterpart to the Bridge, the Woods minor terrain provides two faces with the Double Save icon, which doubles ID results when rolled for saves. It also has the Flanked icon which - as you might expect - halves save results and buries the Woods at the start of the army's next march.

This is a very versatile minor terrain that can be used for any army at all, and is a great option instead of - or in addition to - the melee- and missile-oriented minors.

Unique among all terrain by containing the Death element, Deadlands are a great asset to any Death faction, and can even be a great option for anyone else.

First, they can be brought to any terrain - no elemental match required. This means a single Deadlands Village could be used by a melee-oriented army without worrying about matching a color with a terrain.

Second, they count as "dead units" for purposes of powering Death-faction abilities, allowing them to access those abilities without any units in the DUA.

For many newer players, the default strategy for selecting terrain is to grab the terrain that matches both colors of the force they've built - if possible - and then selecting eighth faces that seem useful. While this is a valid strategy, there are often much stronger choices to be made, with some deeper consideration.