Core Squads

Archer Squads

Archers should typically in their own dedicated ranged squads because they shoot more shots from 2+ range and will take zero to minimal return fire from most enemy squads. The enemy archer squads are typically smaller and less powerful than your own (even on Warlord) so you can usually take them out without needing much healing. However, having a nearby squad with 2+ healers can still be helpful in a pinch.

The typical tradeoff here is between raiders and warbows dominated squads, but samurai could be an option too. Overall I recommend horsebow/raider majority, archer/warbow/samurai minority squads to enable cavalry movement and retreat while saving on horse costs. Later on archers can be come samurai to boost survival or warbows to allow returning fire at range 3. Samurai up front can also enable a safer ambush close range attack, but I tend to keep my archers at range.

The Fang of Duros (+60 HP, +20 STR, -500 MAG, -10 ARM) is a great fit for archers: they don’t need magic and have no healers in the squad while the Boots of Tyranny gives them incredible range for hit and run. Steelshatter really makes a difference against heavily armored foes too. For stages with enemy squads on walls, also consider using Heartseeker to bypass wall defenses. If you don’t want to make a speciality Tiara squad, that can also be given to archers.

Cannon Squads

Cannons inflict incredible damage, but lack the movement and hit & run capabilities of raiders. They are also completely useless on enemy phase, so positioning is critical. Given that they are also very expensive and the best firearms techs are at the very end of the tech tree, I usually end up with just one cannon squad. However, this squad can be incredibly devastating if protected.

You can opt for an armored front line as a fail safe or rely solely on positioning to protect your cannons; I prefer positioning as the squad will get reamed on defense regardless. Cannon damage is based on the weapon value, not strength, so most offensive artifacts will not be very helpful. The war pike is an exception to this & the skill based artifacts can be helpful for hit and evasion.

General Tank/Anti Firearm Squads

Firearms are the most potent enemy threat for many stages of the game, so building some squads that can mitigate firearm damage is essential. The key is three sentinels up front for their 50% firearm reduction and significant cover provided. Two healers is recommended once the squad expands beyond 5 characters and any type of damage focused characters can be utilized, though mages would ideally have a trait like arcane barrier to help them survive better.

Hulking Pavise/Landis’s Mirage for reducing firearm damage will help even more and general defense artifacts like Officer’s Regalia and St Teresa’s Bulwark are very helpful as well. These sentinel based squads also are very effective tanks in general, so you can swap the firearms artifacts on and off depending on what enemy forces are present.

Keeping some armored classes in the back row allows these squads to also be used against assassins, rather than making specialized squads just to combat them. However, you don’t need all of your squads to be built this way.

Anti Mage Squads

Mages are rarer than firearms, but can devastate low magic classes without proper preparations or initiative to take out the mages with archers or assassins. Paladins, mages, Diana, dragons, MC and anyone else with high magic will have good survival against mages. Abigayle’s dragon incubator squad is a natural fit for this, though end game I usually field fewer dragons.

Cyrene’s Regalia (+25% dark resist, 48 HP, 8 MAG) is incredible against enemy necromancer squads too. With all the paladins, you likely won’t need two templars in these squads and could even get away with none. Your flying dragon rider squads also are likely to double as anti mage squads, given their heavy reliance on dragons & their likelihood to include paladins to grant tanking and healing in one slot.

Mixed Defense Squads

Because you never know what you might encounter, I also run mixed sentinel/paladin squads that can hold their own against either. Balmung and Excalibur are versatile artifacts that really help dragons and Paladins with the dual boost to stats, but be careful to drop Excalibur when fighting necromancers (-25% dark resist).

Defensive Bait Squads

Defensive bait squads purposefully lower their threat to attract enemy attack while maintaining their ability to take damage and heal. This is best done by reducing the number of characters in the bait squad until they are your lowest threat squad and using multiple templars (low threat, high healing). The Noisy Cricket artifact should help too, but I’m not sure what the formula is. It may be harder to defend the back row with smaller numbers, so be careful with positioning against assassins or kill them on player phase with archers.

Ambush Squads

Light squads require planning to trigger ambushes, but two consecutive attacks on player phase can obliterate the enemy before they can counter or render the remaining forces impotent. Ambush squads should focus more on damage, with less need for sentinels up front and no more than one healer. Ice mages (Or Essence of Embor) might be interesting as well, to lower enemy skill by 25%, which will increase the chance of your critical hits while lowering the enemy hit rate. Adding a few assassins is a good way to distribute damage to the back lines too.

Zweihanders typically offer poor damage with the combination of row damage and going last, but they can be an interesting option for ambush squads. Combined with Stefan & assassins they can effectively distribute damage to front and back lines. Alternatively, use swordmasters and you can wipe the first row with the swordmasters while having the zweihanders follow up against the middle row. Or combine all three classes to distribute damage even more & possibly one round wipe the enemy.

Light cavalry can also get in on the ambush action, which becomes particularly powerful once dragoons gain light movement type. While cavalry have reduced movement in the rough terrain necessary for ambushes, this is made up for by the ability to disengage and retreat. Hussar are also underrated for damage, outdoing knights and valkyries and coming in just behind swordmasters and champions.

Eskander’s Karambit will allow any squad to ambush without reliance on light classes. If you find this artifact early game, before you research Magician’s Initiative, you should make a mage heavy squad and give them this artifact so that when they ambush the enemy they won’t take an enemy attack before they cast their magic.

Cavalry Squads

Beyond light cavalry for ambush, cavalry squads are also extremely useful for engaging dangerous foes and retreating back behind the infantry lines. Generally infantry classes are superior damage dealers and tanks, so try to have just the minimum number of cavalry needed to gain the movement type. For a more offensively focused squad, put mages in the middle and use hussars or dragoons to complement a front line of knights and valkyries.

For a more defensive cavalry squad, the front line should be paladins or sentinels with mounted units behind them. The key is which five mounted characters to squeeze into the middle & back lines. One could go with a single templar and hussars/dragoons, but with five light cavalry one might as well make an ambush squad. Another option is to use valkyries as back line defenders, damage dealers and healers. This also makes the squad ideal for facing assassins. While I don’t usually rely on valkyries for primary healing, three of them can work well together, as long as no one gets burst down too quickly (better get arcane barrier for the mage or use a centurion in that slot).

Healing Support Squads

Healing during battle is essential, but sometimes it needs to be augmented by healing from other squads. If you have many squads with two healers, you might not need many (or any) healing support squads, but if you are using a few ambush/archer/etc squads with no healers, I recommend having at least one healing support squad. Many stages have a higher max deploy cap than you will have fully built squads anyway. While valkyrie and hospitaler are the best for healing support, due to movement, any healing class will be helpful. Early on just tossing a random high leadership character in as the leader and filling the squad with medic recruits will be perfectly fine.

The Donari Staff will grant +10% out of combat healing and the spellbooks will have little drawback (-armor, -strength) when used for a support squad.

Flying Dragon Squads

Early to mid game dragons are amazing for their breath damage while being more resilient than mages and easier to promote, but by end game mages should edge them out, particularly with arcane barrier/etc traits. However, dragons are still very useful for flying movement: many stages can be shortcut and bottlenecks bypassed by flying squads. As dragons take up two slots & three are needed to ensure flying movement, paladins are very helpful to combine tanking and healing into a single front line slot.

One could use more sturdy unique dragon riders up front instead, to enable other back line characters to be added to the squad. Bloodthirst traits or healing artifacts could also be used to reduce the reliance on paladins. Artifacts that boost strength and magic are leveraged exceptionally well by this squad, as both paladins and dragons can fully utilize them.