You’re standing outside a reinforced window, staring at a room full of drugged-up private military contractors. You have a wizard in a Kevlar vest, a rebel with a cursed rifle, and a necromancer who’s basically a high-end forensic accountant. If you think Tactical Breach Wizards characters are just standard RPG archetypes with a coat of "modern warfare" paint, you’re missing the point. Tom Francis, the mind behind Gunpoint and Heat Signature, didn't build a game about damage per second. He built a game about kinetic problem-solving where the most powerful move isn't a fireball—it's a well-placed shove.
Most players treat these units like XCOM soldiers. They hide behind cover and take potshots. That’s a mistake. These characters are physics toys. Honestly, if you aren't defenestrating at least three people per turn, you're playing against the grain of the design.
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Jen Alexander: The Storm-Witch in a Riot Suit
Jen is your protagonist, but she’s not your tank. In the world of Tactical Breach Wizards characters, she’s the "Pusher." Her primary utility isn't her lightning bolt; it's her ability to manipulate where enemies stand.
Her Gale Force ability is the bread and butter of the early game. It feels simple. You click a guy, he flies back. But the nuance comes from the environment. In this game, the environment is the deadliest weapon on the map. Jen’s whole kit is designed to bridge the gap between "I'm in a room with a guy" and "that guy is now falling from the twelfth floor."
Why Gale Force is Misunderstood
New players use Gale Force to push enemies away from Jen. Stop doing that. Use it to push enemies into each other. If you knock a guard into another guard, they both take damage and get moved. It’s about action economy.
Then you have Chain Lightning. It sounds like a massive AOE nuke. It isn't. Not really. It’s a tool for triggering environmental hazards across the room. You’re looking for those yellow barrels or electrical boxes. If Jen can’t reach a window with a shove, she can usually reach it with a redirected bolt of energy. She’s the literal spark that starts the Rube Goldberg machine of death.
Zan: The Prophet Who Breaks the Timeline
Zan is easily the most complex member of the squad because he messes with the game’s core conceit: the foresight system. Since you can see the outcome of your turn before you commit to it, Zan acts as the meta-character who manipulates that preview.
His Foresight ability allows him to see where enemies will be and shoot them before they even get there. It’s weird. It’s counter-intuitive. It’s incredibly powerful once you realize he can suppress an entire doorway by shooting at "nothing."
- The Predictive Bolt: You aren't aiming at a person. You’re aiming at a square that will contain a person in three seconds.
- False Prophet: This is his decoy. It’s not just for soaking up damage. It’s for baiting enemies into specific "push lanes" for Jen or the other heavy hitters.
Zan’s presence changes the math of a breach. He makes the impossible shots possible because he’s cheating. Or rather, he’s using the game’s own mechanics as a lore-accurate power. If you’re struggling with a room, the answer is almost always "Zan needs to stand in a different spot and shoot at a ghost."
The Necromedic: Dall is the Real MVP
Dall is... a lot. She’s a necromancer who works as a combat medic, which sounds like a conflict of interest, but it works. In terms of Tactical Breach Wizards characters, she represents the "aggression" pillar of the squad.
She has a move called Swap. It does exactly what it says. She swaps places with an enemy. This is the single most dangerous button in the game. You can put yourself in the middle of a firing squad, but if you do it right, you’ve just put the enemy’s high-value target right in front of Jen’s riot shield.
Managing the Death Tax
Dall can bring people back to life, but there's a catch. She’s not "healing" them in the traditional sense. She’s dragging them back into the fight. Her kit revolves around high risk. If Dall is sitting in the back, you’re losing 70% of her value. She needs to be the one jumping through the glass first. Her "Rush" move allows her to traverse half the map in a single turn, making her the ultimate finisher for enemies clinging to 1 HP.
Banks: The Ghost Who Doesn't Care About Walls
Banks is the Living Dead character who uses her own health as a resource. She’s a "Breacher" in the truest sense. While the rest of the team is looking for doors or windows, Banks is looking at the drywall.
Her ability to phase through solid objects or possess enemies makes the tactical map feel like a suggestion rather than a rulebook. If there’s a turret guarding a hallway, you don't find a way around it. You have Banks walk through the wall behind it and shut it down.
The Possession Mechanic: This is where the skill ceiling hits the stratosphere. You can jump into an enemy, move them, and force them to fire on their teammates. It costs mana, and it’s taxing, but it solves "unsolvable" rooms. The trick with Banks is knowing when to stop being a ghost and start being a soldier. She’s fragile. If she gets caught out of phase in a room full of active shooters, she’s done.
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Ransome: The Defiant One
Ransome is your "Cursed" character. He’s the heavy hitter. If Jen is a scalpel and Zan is a telescope, Ransome is a sledgehammer. His kit is built around the idea of "The Big Hit."
He has a cloak. He has a massive rifle. He has a lot of pent-up anger.
Ransome’s gameplay loop is:
- Invisibility to get into a flank.
- Line up a shot that hits three guys.
- Reveal himself and deal massive knockback.
He is the closer. When the room is messy and there are five guys left with half health, Ransome is the one who sweeps the floor. His interaction with the "Defiant" status is what makes him unique among Tactical Breach Wizards characters. He gets stronger as things go south. He's the guy you want left standing when the "rewind" button isn't enough to save you.
Synergy: How to Actually Win
You cannot look at these characters in isolation. That’s how you get stuck on the harder difficulty tiers or the optional challenges. The game is about Combining Actions.
Consider this scenario:
Dall swaps with a heavy gunner. Now that gunner is standing next to a window. Jen uses Gale Force on a different enemy, knocking them into the gunner. Both fly out the window. Meanwhile, Zan has already placed a predictive shot on the square where the reinforcements will enter. Ransome is cloaked, waiting for the one guy who survived the fall to crawl back up.
That’s one turn.
The complexity of these characters lies in the "Preview" bar. You should be spending more time clicking and dragging potential moves than actually hitting "Commit." The game encourages you to fail. It wants you to see Jen die, then rewind, and realize that if Banks had just moved a chair six inches to the left, the whole outcome changes.
The Mana Economy
Every character has a different relationship with Mana.
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- Jen gets it from being efficient.
- Dall gets it from being in the thick of it.
- Banks treats it like a literal life force.
If you run out of mana, you’re playing a very bad version of XCOM. If you have full mana, you’re playing a superhero simulator. The goal is to keep that meter cycling. Don't hoard your points. Use them to create "The Perfect Turn."
Common Misconceptions About the Squad
I see a lot of talk on forums about how "Zan is weak" or "Banks is too squishy." These aren't character flaws; they're player failures to adapt to the game's verticality.
- "Cover is King": No. Cover is a trap. In this game, cover just means you’re standing still for a grenade or a knockback. The best defense is making sure there is no one left to shoot at you.
- "Kill Everyone": Many missions don't require a total wipe. They require an objective. Characters like Banks and Dall can finish a mission in two turns if you stop trying to play "Team Deathmatch" and start playing "Capture the Flag."
- "Rewinding is Cheating": The game is literally balanced around the idea that you will rewind 50 times per level. The characters' kits are too explosive to work in a "one-and-done" environment.
Mastery and Next Steps
If you want to master the Tactical Breach Wizards characters, you need to stop thinking about them as "Wizards" and start thinking about them as "Physics Objects."
The game is a puzzle masquerading as a tactical shooter. Every room is a lock, and your team is a set of very strange, magical keys.
Actionable Strategy for Your Next Session:
- Focus on Knockback: Before you fire a gun, check if a shove does more effective damage via environmental impact.
- Layer Your Turns: Always move Dall or Banks first to set up the "geometry" of the room, then use Jen or Ransome to execute the "push."
- Abuse the Preview: Don't just check if a move works; check why it works. If an enemy survives with 1 HP, look at Zan’s positioning. Can he chip that health away with a predictive shot?
- Upgrade Smart: Prioritize upgrades that grant "Free Actions" or "Mana Refunds." A wizard who can cast twice in a turn is four times as powerful as a wizard who just hits harder once.
Go back into the mission select screen and try a "Perfect" run on an early level using only one character's mana. It forces you to learn the base mechanics of their movement and standard attacks. Once you understand the "weight" of each character, the magic part becomes much easier to handle.