MICRO HERO: Achilles

Story

The Hydra of Lerna is back as narrator, and this time her tall tale is a sporting one. In this tongue-in-cheek retelling of Greek mythology, Achilles never became the terror of Troy — he became Antiquity's most famous sports coach. Your job is to take a squad of Olympic athletes and turn them into champions worthy of the gods of Olympus. Train them, arrange them, push them to their limits, and chase the highest prestige score you can. Only flawless planning will produce a performance the Olympians would applaud — and prove that Achilles really is a legendary coach.

Game mechanics

Micro Hero: Achilles is built around deck evolution, with one twist that defines the whole game: you hold your entire deck in your hand for the whole session and work through it card by card. Only the first few cards are Active — those are the ones you can interact with — so the order of your deck is your strategy.

Each Active athlete gives you a choice of two actions:

• Send them to the Support Zone — slide the card behind the deck with its top edge showing, turning it into a resource (Agility or Strength) you can combine to fuel future actions and unlock bonuses
• Train them — spend those resources to level the athlete up. Athlete cards are double-sided with four progression levels; you rotate and flip them as they improve, and each level raises your scoring potential. A trained athlete then goes to the Rest Zone, tucked fully behind the deck.

Your Coach card (Achilles or Hector) adds another layer. It's double-sided too, but instead of progression levels it has four energy levels — the coach is the only card that can gain and lose energy, and spending it triggers powerful abilities. Knowing when to burn coach energy is often the difference between a good run and a great one.

Training cards shuffled into the deck mark the end of one training phase and the start of the next, and each phase changes how many Active cards and Support slots you have. Trial cards give you objectives to hit for bonuses that carry into the following round.

Crucially, there is no losing condition. Micro Hero: Achilles is a pure optimisation game: build the best possible team across four training cycles and beat your own best score. The 2-player mode turns it into a competitive duel — Achilles versus Hector, coach against coach, to settle who's really the better trainer.

Designed by Léandre Proust, illustrated by Rémi Leblond, published by Grammes Edition — the same team behind the hugely successful Micro Hero: Hercules. Each Micro Hero title is standalone: one mythological hero, one unique mechanic, one 55-card box.

What's included

• 55 cards in total (solo mode uses only 28 of them)
• Coach / Hero cards — Achilles and Hector, for solo and 2-player play
• 48 Athlete cards — two identical 24-card teams (one per coach; the difference is purely cosmetic). Double-sided, four progression levels each
• Training cards — shuffled into your deck to mark the end and start of each round
• Trial cards — objectives granting bonuses, used in both solo and 2-player modes
• Rules (English and French)
• Bonus card for Micro Hero: Ulysses — a small crossover surprise hidden in every Micro Hero box