Army Composition

Army composition will vary based on what technology is researched, resources found, mercenaries recruited and possibly the stage being attempted. I’d recommend starting with a balanced deployment with about half your army organized into balanced squads appropriate for the stage and the rest distributed into specialized roles. However, some of the other other approaches to army composition can be quite fun to play, particularly with the right artifacts to unlock specialized squads.

Balanced

A typical balanced distribution relies on archers, cavalry and ambushers to weaken the enemy, followed by infantry to force surrender/destroy the weakened forces and hold the line on enemy phase. The majority of army forces should be balanced infantry squads that excel at both attack and defense, which gives great tactical flexibility to holding the line.

  • Infantry as the army backbone (4+ squads balanced or focused on firearms/mages as per stage)
  • Archers/cannons to damage squad/kill leader from range (2-4 squads)
  • Cavalry to weaken squads or clear out squads weakened by ranged attackers (2-4 squads)
  • Ambushers as player phase nukes (1-2 squads)
  • Healing Support (0-2 squads)
  • Specialty squads like flying dragons, Skull of Rowdain etc (0-2 squads)

Specialized Infantry

The specialized army splits most squads into attack and defense instead of trying to keep them balanced, which makes them better at their role while reducing tactical flexibility. Defensive bait squads must have lower threat rating than all of the offensive squads such that the enemy will prioritize attacking the defensive squads. Higher tier artifacts that greatly boost threat can help your offensive squads maintain their higher threat rating, but some defensive artifacts also have that effect (St Teresa’s Bulwark).

Cannons have really low threat, so they will require either significantly lowering the threat of your bait squads to fall below the cannon squad threat level or superior positioning to prevent enemy attacks on cannons. Adding a few higher threat characters to a cannon squad should help with the first approach & could make the squad a little less helpless on enemy phase. One could also forgo cannons and use archers instead.

  • Offensive focused squads to destroy the enemy (2-4 squads)
  • Defensive bait squads to attract the enemy (2-4 squads)
  • Archers/cannons to damage squad/kill leader from range (2-4 squads)
  • Cavalry to weaken squads or clear out squads weakened by ranged attackers (2-4 squads)
  • Healing Support (0-2 squads)
  • Specialty squads like flying dragons, Skull of Rowdain etc (0-2 squads)

Skirmish Focused

This approach is player phase focused and horse heavy, which is way more possible now with market exchanges of resources. Instead of holding the line, the goal is to destroy the enemy on player phase and then retreat out of reach of most of the enemy. A few full tank bait squads can be used when retreat isn’t fully possible.

  • Raiders to damage squad/kill leader from range and retreat (4+ squads)
  • Light Cavalry to ambush and retreat (2+ squads)
  • Cavalry to force surrender/destroy and retreat (4+ squads)
  • Defensive bait squads (1-2 squads)
  • Healing Support (0-2 squads)
  • Specialty squads like flying dragons, Skull of Rowdain etc (0-2 squads)

Enemy Phase Focused

Squads can only attack once on player phase (barring Jade Figurine and Blessing), but with careful positioning squads can destroy many foes on enemy phase. Of course the enemy attacks first on their phase, so enemy phase focused squads need to be more bulky or have other trump cards up their sleeve. The AI attacks the reachable squad with the lowest threat, so weaker enemy phase squads will vastly reduce the value of your stronger squads & overall pushes this strategy to focus on a smaller number of powerful squads.

  • Enemy phase power squads (2-4 squads)
  • Raiders to weaken and retreat (2-4 squads)
  • Healing Support (1-2 squads)

I recommend the boots of tyranny on the raider squads to ensure they can retreat completely out of range: they will have significantly less threat than your enemy phase squads. Defensive artifacts like Officer’s Regalia will be invaluable for the enemy phase squad survival while Black Belt and the Counter Attack leader trait will help you wipe out the enemy.

There are many ways to make powerful and resilient enemy phase squads, but the initial focus should be a solid front line and enough leadership to allow both healing and damage in the middle/back lines. Later on you can build more specialized squads based on artifacts like the Temporal Modulator, Soha’s Blood Shard and unique leader abilities like AoE healing & the Beacon trait’s interaction.