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Meteorite Manual

Last update: Mar 31th 2026

Introduction

Meteorite is an *deep breath* Asynchronous Multiplayer Warband Tinkering Tactics Auto-battler set in a strange fantasy world where small warbands are scrambling to find and secure precious meteorites. In this game, you build a warband: a leader and a group of units equipped with artifacts, then pit that warband against other war bands, in 1 versus 1 games of battles where the goal is to "attune" with a meteorite. These battles resolve automatically, so the game is really about which player can build the best team with the units they have.

This Document

This document is a "living" reference that explains every concept and mechanic in the game, and goes in depths on everything. If you want a quick way to learn the basics please seek out the learn-to-play docs.

Game Concepts

Warbands

In a battle, the two players have each prepared a warband, a collection of units and leader. The warband is built and tinkered with on the warband builder screen. By default, a warband may only have up to 8 placed units.

Units

Units are the main elements of this game. They are depicted as cards, with some nice card art and a frame. Each unit has stats and abilities, and will act on its own. Units are summoned from your warband automatically at certain thresholds during a battle. They can also be summoned by other effects (they are then called token units).

Stats: Tier, Strength, Stamina, Cooldown

Units have four main stats: tier, strength, stamina and cooldown.

Tier determines during what turn of the battle the unit will enter. There are three tiers. By default Tier 1 units will enter at the start of the battle (day 1), Tier 2 at the start of day 2, and Tier 3 on day 3.

Strength determines how much damage a regular Attack action from the unit will do.

Stamina works like the unit's health and defense. If the unit gains damage equal to its stamina, or if the stamina equals 0, they die and leave the battle.

Cooldown states how many turns the unit waits before it activates.

Cooldown and activation

Most units have a cooldown, which determines how often the unit gets to activate. Each battle turn, the units' cooldown meter is charged, and when it is full (equalling its Cooldown stat) the unit is ready to activate. When a unit activates, it tries to perform its actions, then the cooldown meter is reset. The cooldown stat can never be less than 1, and a unit can never activate more than once per turn.

Some units don't have a cooldown. These units will never activate, and usually don't have any actions.

Damage Types

Each unit has a damage type, which determines what kind of damage the unit does, some which have advantage over other types. When a unit deals damage to a target with a damage type they have advantage over, they deal 1.5x damage.

The types are:

Color Types

Each unit and leader has one or more color types. The color types do not have any major significance during battles, but can guide the player in building their warband, as same color units often have synergies.

The types are:

Actions

Units also have a list of actions that let the unit do effects (such as attacking) whenever it is activated.

Each unit has a list of actions, and it will attempt to do them in order from top to bottom. When the unit is activated, it will start to evaluate if it can perform the first action in the list, then does it, and goes on to the next action next one and so on.

Actions can also be part of trigger abilities, which are not part of the units main list of actions. This way some actions can also be performed by leaders.

Action Targets

Most actions have one or more targets, which specify who the action effects will happen to. When the action is evaluated, all possible targets are gathered and sorted, and if it can find at least one target, the action will be performed. Inpsect each action to see how they find targets.

A target can have a combination target types, including self (the unit or leader doing the action), unit and leader. A target can be a ally or enemy (or both). Targets can also be filtered by abilities, like labels and counters. An action can also have more than one target.

If there are multiple possible targets, the action will always prioritise the meteorite holder, then whoever is closest to the unit doing the action.

Action Costs

Some actions have an additional cost to be paid, usually a type of counter. For example, a Summon action usually costs one Bell counter. Costs are spent from the unit first, then the Leader, but not from other Units. One can think of the Leader as having a shared supply of counters.

Chance Actions

Some actions have a "chance" icon and value. These actions can fail or succeed randomly, where the value is a percentage of likelihood (100% will always succeed). Once it's determined that the the action can be performed (i.e. it found a relevant target and paid the action costs), a "chance check" will happen, determining whether the action will go through.

Abilities

"Abilities" in Meteorite are various traits that a unit or leader can have. They can be thought of as pieces of ability text on a card. Units can have any number of abilities, and there are several types: labels, triggers, passives, counters and keywords. Throughout a battle, a unit can gain and lose abilities.

Labels are signifiers. They don't have any rules of their own, but are used by other abilities and effects. For example, a special attack might only attack units with the Undead label. Note that the unit's damage and color types also count as labels for these purposes.

Triggers are abilities that happen once a condition is met. The condition can be things like units entering, does actions or when the opponent attunes. When the condition is met, the effect will happen. A trigger can even have an action as the effect.

Passives are abilities that change some kind of behavior, maybe replacing effects or adding a rule. For example, a unit with the passive Shadowed cannot be targeted by actions.

Counters are similar to passives, but the unit can have multiples of them. For example a Hasted counter reduces the units cooldown for each Hasted counter the unit has. Some Counters do not have any rules of their own, like Bells that are used by other abilities as a resource.

Keywords are compound abilities. They give the unit or leader a set of things that together form one big complex ability, for example a trigger plus some counters. Keywords can even add additional actions to a unit.

Artifacts & Artifact Slots

Artifacts are special items that you can get while playing the Gauntlet mode. Each unit can have up to 3 artifact slots (you will generally see more slots on higher tier/higher rarity units). On the warband builder screen, you can equip artifacts from your artifact pool (your owned artifacts) to your units. Each artifact will change the unit somehow, for example adding abilities, changing stats or adding actions.

Rarities

Units come in three different rarities: Common, Uncommon and Rare. Rarity have any significance during battles, but represent how often you will see units in the Gauntlet mode.

Leaders

Each warband has an assigned Leader. A leader is similar to a unit, but does not have Tier, Strength, Stamina or Cooldown, and is not placed in the arena and cannot be activated. It does have abilities and color types. The leader starts each battle already in play and cannot die or otherwise be removed.

Battles

The Arena & Queued Units

The battles play out in the arena. The arena is formed by two front lines of five spaces each, one for each team. Units are summoned on each line on their assigned spaces. When a player gains reinforcements, those units are queued up, waiting for their assigned space to be vacant before entering. Several units can be queued up on the same space, and in that case they enter on a first in, first out basis. Queued units cannot be targeted.

(Note: Leaders aren't part of the arena, but can still be targeted by effects.)

Day & Turn Structure

Each battle is broken up into days and turns. Every 12 turns a new day starts. At the end of the 5th day, the battle ends in a time out.

This happens during a turn:

The Meteorite & Attunement

At the start of each battle, in the middle space of the arena sits the meteorite. To win the battle, the players need to attune with it. Attunement is a meter that goes from 0-100%. When a player hits 100% they win instantly, and if the game ends due to time out, the player who was closest to 100% wins.

The main way to gain Attunement is by holding the meteorite: at the start of each turn the player with a unit holding the meteorite attunes, gaining attunement equal to the player's attunement rate. Meanwhile, the player(s) who don't hold the meteorite loses 1% attunement each turn (this is called attunement decay).

Attunement can also be gained by abilities and game effects, such as the Meditate X action. There are also ways of getting "static" attunement, that can never decay.

Attunement Rate

Each player has an attunement rate (how much they gain each turn they hold the meteorite) that starts at 1%, but it will go up each Day, and can be increased by abilities and effects.

Picking up and dropping the Meteorite

At the start of each turn, if no unit is holding the meteorite, the unit closest to it will pick it up (chosen randomly). If the holding unit dies during another unit's activation (say, killed by an attack), the current unit will pick it up instead. Otherwise, if the holding unit dies it drops the meteorite at its position, waiting for someone to pick it up on the next turn.

Gauntlet Game Mode

The Gauntlet mode is the main game mode in Meteorite. In this mode, players play a run of up to 10 rounds, acquiring units and artifacts, tweaking their warband, then battling other players' ghosts for rewards. The goal is to survive all 10 rounds without being eliminated, and to score as many points as possible.

When you start, you choose a Leader to use for the duration of the run, out of 3 random picks.

Each round is broken down into two phases, building and battling.

Building

On the warband builder screen, you build and tinker with your warband. On this screen you can add or remove units to/from the warband tiers, including their placement on the arena. You have a pool of units, starting with just 1 basic unit for each tier. You can also equip or unequip artifacts from your pool of artifacts to units in your warband with available artifact slots.

In gauntlet mode, you start with an amount of Salt (this game's main currency). More salt can be gained from battle rewards and from selling units and artifacts.

On this screen, you can also enter the shop, where you can recruit more units and buy artifacts, out of a small selection. You can re-roll the shop for a small fee, and you can sell your unwanted units and artifacts. The selection of units in the shop is affected by the colour types of your chosen Leader, with matching colours appearing more often.

If you have any rewards to gain, you have to handle them before moving on. When you start the Gauntlet mode, there are two available rewards, and in further rounds the available rewards is based on what opponent you fought. If you won your last battle, you get all available rewards, otherwise you only get to pick one from the selection.

Choosing opponents

When you are ready to leave the builder screen, you will get to choose an opponent (a ghost of another player's warband) to battle. In each game of Gauntlet, there will be 7 other ghosts to play against, but in each round you will get to pick from up to 3 of those ghosts to fight.

You can see what the most common damage type in their warband, as well as their leader color types. Also listed is what rewards will be available after the battle (as noted above: winning will gain you all the rewards, otherwise you will only get to pick from one of the listed rewards). The quality of the rewards vary depending on the Grade of the opponent ghost, with a higher grade giving you more valuable rewards. The grade is based off the Streak that the opponent had at that point in their own Gauntlet run. Note that you always gain a point for winning a battle.

The types of rewards:

The last round of the Gauntlet is handled a little different: the reward is always additional points.

After the opponent is chosen, the battle between your warbands will play out, then if you are still in the Gauntlet, the next Round begins!

Streaks

When you win or lose a battle, you start a Streak. When you have lost 3 battles in a row, you are eliminated from the Gauntlet and the run ends. While you have a winning streak of 3 or more, each battle is worth 2 points instead.

Last Stretch

During the final 3 rounds, winning a battle always give you 2 points and losing gets you eliminated.

Gauntlet mode Ghosts

In the Gauntlet mode, you are playing against other players asyncrhonously, meaning that you play against the ghosts of their own Gauntlet runs. When the mode starts, you are grouped together with 7 other player's ghosts, and each round you will fight their warbands from that round in their own playthroughs. In each group of ghosts, there will always be one that has survived all 10 of their rounds. When your run ends, your own ghost will be upload for others to play against.

Advanced concepts

Triggers, Effects, Steps & Stacks

A battle is played out in steps, where each step a game effect is executed from a stack of effects. Effects are usually unit actions, but also things like attuning or taking damage.

The stack of effects will be executed, one by one from last to first. Some effects will add more effects to the stack. In very few cases such as when gaining reinforcement, those effects are prioritised and will happen before any other effects in the stack.

Many abilities and effects have associated triggers. Between each step, all triggers are checked, and if triggered, can lead to more effects being added to the next stack. An example of a trigger can be a unit getting damage equal to its stamina, which would cause it to die (and also trigger any on death effects).