The aim of this guide is to explain what to look out for when building your army to roll through ludicrous difficulty without any NG+ options.

This guide was written for V1.10. With this patch, magic fatigue was increased, ludicrous difficulty was introduced, enemy cavalry learned to move after their attacks, and the final boss was massively buffed. All this means that you finally have a reason to build your army better.

This guide is long AF and not meant to be read fully unless you really like theorycrafting.

The recommended way to approach the guide is to read the volley mechanic section, read the other 3 important mechanic sections (there's a TLDR for those 3 sections), skim through the unit class/squad archetype overview sections, then pick whtatever interests you next.


Also, here's my credentials so I may convince you that I know most of what I'm talking about.
Definitely still have a lot of room to improve (especially considering I only decided to try for low turns taken about a quarter of the way into the run), but suffice to say just beating NG ludicrous stopped being that much of a challenge once I started following my own advice.

Because Steam's integrated index is hard to scroll once it's longer than the screen.

Overview
Introduction
Index

⚠️Very Important Mechanic: Volley⚠️
Important Mechanic: Lanchester's law
Important Mechanic: Magic Fatigue
Important Mechanic: Enemy AI Behavior
Basic Mechanic: Squad Movement Types
Unit Class Overview
Squad Archetypes Overview

Juggernaut Squads
Melee Killer Squads
Dragon Squads
Cannon Squads
Healer Squads
Bait Squads
Tank Squads
Money Laundering Squads
Archer Meme Squads
Recommendation for Story Units

Army Composition
Offensive Squads
Defensive Squads
Healer Squads
Cavalry vs Infantry
Example Army

Common Misconceptions
Glossary
Changelog
Comments

If you only have the patience for one section, read this section. The volley mechanic is both hard to notice when playing blind, and incredibly impactful to squad strength.

In SoW melee combat, attack waves are structured. For one side, each time the squad attacks, units of the same type will all pick their targets independently first, then attack at the same time in what we call a volley.

Then units of the next type fires off the next volley until all of the units in that squad attacks once. We call this a round. The defender then takes a round, then the attackers takes a round, and so on.

Volley order in melee combat (credit to Xyranius and Advil_PM on SoW discord):

• Pre-battle (such as Oracle and Everlasting Potion)
  
• Cannons front row
  
• Guns front row
  
• Cannons mid row
  
• Guns mid row
  
• Cannons back row
  
• Guns back row
  
• Magic and dragons
  
• Bow/crossbow (including Ranger first attack crossbow)
  
• Light melee and samurai
  
• Heavy melee
  
• Risen
  
• Healers

So what does it matter?

When a volley happens, all participants will choose their target independently first, then they all attack. This means the choosing of targets does not take into account what other units in the same volley does.

When you have a 9 champions squad attack a triangle formation enemy squad, all 9 champions will waste their first attack on the singular frontline enemy, leaving the rest of the enemy squad alive. This is because when the champions chose targets, that singular forntline enemy unit is the only available target.

You do not want your units to waste attacks making mincemeat of a corpse when there are still other enemy units alive.

To prevent this, you want to make sure your squad composes of units that attack in different volleys so they look before they chop, or at least units with different target selection so they don't step on each others toes too much.

Example 1: multiple volleys (actually good squad)

2 mage, 3 heavy, 2 light.

Multiple volleys makes for the strongest squad.

In this squad, the mages will attack, the light units will then pick targets from those still alive after the mage volley, and then the heavy units will pick targets from those still alive after the first two volleys. Despite 2 of the units not doing damage, this squad can 100% guarantee to oneshot any enemy squads.

On top of limiting overkilling so you can deal more total damage, your damage can still be somewhat focused on the frontmost units, only switching targets after killing them. This way you likely still will kill many enemy units on the first round, limiting the counter attack from the enemy, which further increases the squad's survivability.

Example 2: different target selection (last resort)

Round 1 light units volley: 4 frontline attack, 3 back stabs, 1 guile attack (can attack any row)
Round 2 light units volley: 6 frontline attack, 1 back stab, 1 guile attack

The damage is decently spread out, so total damage dealt can be close to optimal like the multiple volley squad. However, by spreading out your damage to different enemy units, you on average leave more enemies units alive by damaging but not killing them, which means you take more counterattack damage.

If too many units belong in the same volley in a squad you're building, spread out the target selection like this, but if possible, stick to having multiple volleys with fewer units in each volley.

Example 3: what NOT to do

This squad is really bad, despite first impressions.

Suppose You're up against an enemy squad of a column of 3 units, one in each row, each with only 1 hp. This pure swordmaster squad will kill the first enemy on round 1, the second on round 2, and leave the third alive barring a lucky free action at the end of combat. It's that bad.

And as the ability to kill enemies on the first round scales with how many units are alive to counterattack, this squad will also take a lot of unnecessary damage to counterattacks, as even in the best case scenario, it will leave both the mid and back row of the enemy squad alive after 1 round of attack.

TLDR: LDR has increasing return, so try to focus LDR exp on leaders with high LDR already, instead of spreading the LDR exp out.

In SoW, LDR grows independent of level. It instead uses a separate system. Each unit has a hidden LDR exp bar, which fills up as it gains LDR exp. LDR exp is gained primarily from surrenders and objective captures, though normal combat also grants some LDR exp. The MC also gains a tiny amount of LDR exp when someone else captures objective.

Next is a bit of math.

Lanchester's Law states that for a large group of uniform combat units that each do the same effective damage per unit time, the power of a group roughly scales with the square of the number of units.

This is less a SoW specific situation and more a general math problem that just happens to apply to SoW melee combat.

Here's how you put it into practice:

• Prioritize giving LDR exp to leaders already with high LDR. Yes, that includes the MC.
  
• Outsourcing healing to healer squads makes for disproportionally stronger combat squads.
  
• Light affinity on a squad leader is always better. Yes, that includes Beatrix.
  
• The +10 capacity tech is the most OP tech in the game by far.
  
• Artifacts that increases your capacity are nearly always worth using if you can use up all the extra capacity provided
  
• A leader with bad stats but high enough LDR is still quite good. (Jaromir, Kuroda, Lysander)

Explanation:
Modifying the theorem for different units on different sides, the combat power instead roughly scales with the total effective hp times the total effective damage, which reduces back to the square of the number of units when the hp and damage of each unit is the same.

Intuitively, higher total damage means you kill more things each round and take less damage in subsequent round, and that means the same amount of effective hp can last for longer. And you get more effective hp from having more units.

Of course, with non-uniform units, healing, increasing capacity penalty of larger squads and artifacts giving more stats in larger squads, it's a lot more complicated than that, but whether by design or luck, those things mostly cancels each other out, so the power of a squad is still close to the square of the capacity of the squad.

You can check the wikipedia article on Lanchester's Law[en.wikipedia.org] for a more mathematical explanation. Specifically, the Lanchester's square law section.

Lanchester's linear law deals with situations where the damage of each unit scales linearly with the enemy count, which is only relevant in a battle between a squad of only Beatrixes/cannons vs another squad of only Beatrixes/cannons.

The salvo combat model[en.wikipedia.org] is a better representation of SoW combat, but you can't really draw much conclusion from it without plugging in the precise squad you have and the precise squad the opponent has, which makes it impractical to use.

TLDR: The game punishes magic users fighting multiple times each phase by not-so-gradually reducing their effectiveness each fight. The stacking penalty is reset upon the start of a new player phase.

Effected
All mages
Sorceress
All healers' heals (including valkyrie and paladin)
Oracle
Necromancer
Dark mage
Protag's lightning attack
Beatrix (sadge)

Uneffected
Arcane X trait (barrier, vigor, speed, and might)
St.Teresa's Tiara's MAG to STR conversion
MAG's bonus to magic defense
Dragon*

In ludicrous, even with the tech that reduces the effect of magic fatigue, magic users are almost entirely useless after 2~3 fights pm the same phase.

As such, a tanky squad relying on healers cannot tank too many times each phase, and you can't depend on dragons/mages to fight multiple enemy squads on counterattacks even if you can survive it.

Detailed magic fatigue formula (Copied pasted from purplecharmanderz's comment):

Fatigue has 3 variables that determines its multiplier to the damage/effectiveness.

- Softcap (determined by the formula in question)
- difficulty modifier (1x for every difficulty except ludicrous, which is 1.5x)
- use count since player phase last began

the multiplier is very simply determined by the following equation:
softcap/(softcap+(uses X difficulty mod))

heals have a softcap of 2 so after 2 combats we'd expect the equation to be something of about 2/6 or 33% effectiveness for non ludicrous, or 25% for ludicrous.

TLDR is bolded and underlined under "how to exploit AIs" further down this section.

This section is about the enemy AI behavior of ludicrous after the Legend update.

Disclaimer: I am not sure whether the lower difficulties follows the same AI behavior, but I found an NG+ option to change the AI's IQ, so it's very likely that lower difficulties use dumbed down AIs.

Action Order

Enemy AIs have a fixed turn order. If you see this archer squad move before that infantry squad does, the archer squad will move before the infantry squad in every single enemy phase for the entire chapter. Typically, ranged squads in a group move before melee squads.

Basic Behavior
There are 3 main types of AI, which I will call aggressive, passive, and braindead.

Aggressive AI:

• You can tell that a squad has aggressive AI if they moved despite never coming into range of any available targets (a player/allied squad, or the defeat condition base)
  
• If there is nothing in range to attack, enemy squads will charge along the shortest path towards the closest unoccupied tile that lets them hit an available target. Note that they will charge towards the tile that lets them hit an available target when stood on, not directly to the available target.
  
• They will always attack a player/allied squads or capture your main base if possible, no matter how bad of an idea it is.
  
• Ranged AI squads (ranged unit as leader) will prioritize attacking at range if possible, and continue behaving like a ranged AI as long as there is any ranged unit left alive in that squad.
  
• Melee AI squads (melee unit as leader) will prioritize attacking at melee if possible, even if there's one or more ranged unit in the squad.

Passive AI:

• You can tell that a squad has passive AI if hovering over the squad shows their movement range in addition to attack range, but they don't move before you come into range.
  
• They have a group with passive AIs they belong to. Usually you can tell which AI belongs to which group, as passive AIs that sits close to each other are often of a single group.
  
• When any of your squads comes into range of any of the group a passive AI belongs to, the whole group turns into aggressive AIs.

Braindead AI:

• You can tell that a squad is braindead if hovering your cursor over them shows that they can't move at all.
  
• They literally cannot move, so you are safe as long as you're not within weapon range of them.

Target selection:
If there are more than 1 available target in range to hit for a enemy squad this turn, the AI may finally engage their brain and choose their target based on something other than distance.

Before the patch, they always targeted the lowest threat rating squad. After the patch, the AI got smarter.

From what I can see, enemy squads now prioritize player squads with higher unit count and lower threat rating, though the two criteria aren't hierarchical (as in, they will still attack a squad with fewer units if the threat rating disparity is large enough, and they will attack a squad with higher threat rating if the unit count disparity is large enough).

There may be other shenanigans going around under the hood, and I still have no idea about the exact weight they put behind unit count and threat rating, so if anyone has ideas, please leave a comment.

How to exploit AIs

• You can trigger a group of passive AI squads in a fortified position by moving a single player squad in range of a single enemy squad of that group. All passive AI squads in the group will turn into aggressive AI, and will break formation to charge towards you until the end of time. Author's note: this is the second most impactful thing to take away from the entire guide, second only to the volley mechanic.
  
• In a chokepoint, by parking the player's melee squad 1 free tile away from an enemy squad further down the turn order queue than enemy archer squads, the enemy archer squads will be forced be suicide into your melee squad at melee range. They cannot choose to not attack.
  
• If you move/teleport a player squad until its surrounded by almost dead enemy squads that moves later in the action order queue, the full enemy squads earlier in the queue won't be able to attack that player squad.
  
• If there's a long wall with the only opening very far from where your squads are, you can bait an enemy ranged squad into going up against wall towards you by sitting close enough to the wall that the enemy ranged squad may reach from over the wall. You can then move your squad away from the wall, and the enemy squad will immediately turn around back towards the opening. By repeating this you can keep that enemy squad derping back and forth without ever reaching you.
  
• A enemy squad with 1 gunner/mage/cat/archer and 8 melee units can technically attack over a wall, and so you can bait that enemy squad into fighting you with that 1 gunner if you sit right by a wall that enemy squad is on, though it will only work if there's no other available targets in range for the enemy squad to attack. Again, if they can attack, they must.
  
• A surrounded player squad with no adjacent tile open no longer has tiles that lets AI hit available targets, and will no longer be a target. If you block a path with a player squad and have an enemy squad taking up the only adjacent tile the enemies can reach, and there's an alternate path to some of your other squads, enemy squads will go for that alternative path, even if it's the long way around. They will not continue piling on the roadblock, as there's no tile that lets them hit an available target there anymore.

Almost everything in this section can be found in the in-game tutorial, so feel free to skip if you already read that.

Note that in the in-game tooltips, the word "heavy" is often omitted. In this guide, to prevent ambiguity, it will never be omitted, unless I specifically mean both variants. i.e. "infantry" in this guide refers to all infantry, both heavy and light.

Each squad has a movement type that depends on the makeup of the squad that effects their mobility on the map.

Heavy infantry: the baseline
Light infantry: ignores rough terrain penalty, can ambush.
Heavy cavalry: +1 movement, move after action, higher dodge when attacking.
Light cavalry: +1 movement, move after action, ignores rough terrain penalty, can ambush
Flying: +1 movement, all terrain penalty/benefit, ignores most but not all unpassable terrain.

Note: the hit and run trait all cavalry units have and guerrilla trait that all light units have only affect that unit, not the squad.

To determine the movement type of a squad, the game adds up the number of units with light and heavy type, and assigns majority weight class to the squad. If tied, it's heavy.

The game then adds up the number of units with infantry and cavalry type, then assigns the majority mobility to the squad. If tied, it's infantry.

Non-obvious units:

• Archers are heavy/light depending on your tech unlocks.
  
• Mage/healer are heavy infantry.
  
• For squad movement purposes, samurai counts as heavy.
  
• Cat counts as 3 light infantries, not 1.

So as an example, here's a squad with:
3 light infantry
2 light cavalry
2 heavy infantry
1 heavy cavalry

4 cavalry vs 4 infantry = infantry
5 light vs 3 heavy = light

So the squad has light infantry movement.
(Don't actually use this squad, it's built to demonstrate a point, not to be good at combat.)

Then there's the flying movement type. It requires having equal or more units as dragon riders than anyother units.

Any fat unit (cannons, grounded dragons, big diana, cats and any horse) in a squad with a dragon rider squad will forcibly turn the movement type to heavy infantry, regardless of the majority rule.
E.g. A templar, two heavy infantry and 3 dragon riders = flying
E.g. 1 knight and 3 dragon riders = heavy infantry

Ambushes
Ambush TLDR: light movement type squad can ambush if you both start the turn on an ambush tile, and attack while standing on an ambush tile (can be a different ambush tile). Ambush massively reduces enemy counterattacks.

If a squad's movement type is light infantry or light cavalry, it can ambush when attacking at melee range. One particular artifact can also allow the squad to ambush.

Normally, each unit can participate in 1 or 2 rounds depending on unit type. Most units can take part in 2 rounds, while mages, unupgraded gunners, cannons and most healers only being able to take 1 rounds.

Stefen in particular has 3 attacks once he gets a shiny new sword, but he's a special boy.

After every unit in the attacking squad participated in one of the volleys, the round finishes. The attacking squad gets the first round, then the defender, taking turns until units of both squads all run out of attacks.

Units with "free action" may get an extra attack and participate in an extra round. Executioner trait, desperation trait , the squad having high morale, or being named Sybil may trigger the "free action".

When a light squad start the turn (before moving) on a ambush tile, then attack when they are standing on an ambush tile (after moving), the attack will be be considered an ambush. When ambushed, the defender loses their first round. i.e. attacker takes 2 rounds first, then defender takes 1 rounds.

This very much limits the damage you will take on counterattacks, not only by removing a round from the enemy squad, but also letting you kill more enemy units before they take that round of counter attack. By design, this is a bonus for light units to not die, but there's no rule that says you can't have heavy units in the frontline and enough backline light units to still keep the ability to ambush.

You can check which tile is an ambush tile by pressing F to cycle through different highlights, or just check which tiles are dark tinged when you select a light squad.

Mostly qualitative descriptions in this section, as the game's numbers are pretty opaque. I specifically tested for the splash damage, so that has actual numbers.

Splash definition:
Adjacent splash hits the units right next to the target both horizontally and vertically.
Diagonally adjacent splash hits the units one full square to the top left, top right and bottom left of the target. For some reason diagonally adjacent splash won't hit the unit on the bottom right side of the target.
Row/Column splash hits all other units in the same row/column as the main target.


Baseline Heavy Units: High hp and armor makes them tough, but low SKL means they have trouble hitting light units when counterattacking on defense, and they almost never dodge attacks themselves. On the upside, they don't have much trouble hitting light units when on offense. Units with the guardian trait reduces 25% damage taken when attacked on enemy phase.

Champion: Has guardian trait. The golden standard of heavy infantry. They are pretty tanky, and for some reason they have significantly higher STR and slightly higher hp than the baseline on top of the double chop, so they also hit like a truck.

Zweihander: Has guardian trait. Deals 50% of damage as splash to whole row. They are also pretty tanky. In practice, the splash is worth less than an extra attack, as the target aren't often in a full 3 unit row by the time the Zweihander hits.

Sentinel: Has guardian trait. They are very tanky. As a polearm warrior, they are immune to cavalry charge. As an infantry, they don't take extra damage from polearm. They take 50% less damage from gunpowder too. Only baseline heavy unit attack though.

Centurion: No guardian trait. Deals 100% of damage as splash to the unit directly behind the target, which makes them pretty decent damage dealers. In practice they're slightly better damage dealers than Zweihander, as their first attack each combat is almost guaranteed to make full use of the splash and do extra damage to horses.

Samurai: No guardian trait. In melee combat, joins the light unit's volley, but otherwise just do baseline heavy unit attack. Has hp/armor/SKL halfway between heavy and light baseline unit, making them very squishy. Also can shoot at 2 range for some tickle damage.

Knight: No guardian trait. Deals ~25% of damage as splash to adjacent and diagonally adjacent units and, about as tanky as a centurion. In practice, the splash is worth less than an extra attack, as on average a knight hits about 2~3 units with the splash. Cavalry movement type.

Valkyrie: No guardian trait. About as tanky as a centurion against physical attacks, but shrugs off magic damage and can heal. Low damage. Cavalry movement type.

Paladin: Has guardian trait. Slightly less tanky than a zweihander against physical damage, but shrugs off magic damage and can heal. Low damage. Can only heal during combat for some reason.


Baseline Light Units: low hp and low armor means they die in just a few hits, but if hit and run/guerilla is triggered, can dodge attacks fairly well.

Swordmaster: The golden standard of light infantry. For some reason, they have significantly higher SKL and weapon damage than the baseline on top of the double chop. With crit related traits, they are the best single target damage dealer in the game.

Assassin: Can backstab once on offense for almost as much damage as one of swordmaster's double hit attack, but flops the second attack (both when on defense)Steal $$ based on SKL and actual damage dealt. Baseline light unit otherwise.

Ranger: First attack each combat ignores block (can hit any target) and deals slight extra damage to cavalry. Baseline light unit otherwise. Notably, costs not resource to promote.

Warbow: At melee range, ignores block (can hit any target), but do slightly less than baseline light unit's damage. Very squishy. Can also tickle from up to 3 range.

Raider: About the same as warbow in melee combat. Can also tickle from 2 range. Is a cavalry.

Arbalest: At melee range, ignores block (can hit any target), and has slight armor piercing. Their damage is low, and they don't benefit from STR. Takes reduced tickling from enemy ranged squads. Can tickle at 2 range.

Hussar: Baseline light unit with polearm and a horse.

Cat: Deals ~75% of damage as row splash, takes up 2 slots. Can hit up walls, and ignores block when attacking down walls (can hit any target).


Mages: Frontloaded damage with that instant cast tech, but squishy to the point that they will (rarely) get oneshotted by enemy archers.

Note that stat growth increases your stat when you level up, and that increased stat stays with the character even after you reclass them. Fire mage has the worst attack type but the best MAG growth, so you can get the best of both worlds by training a unit up as a fire mage, then switching to another class when things gets tough.

Fire mage(datamined multiplier and stat growth): 65% damage to row, and +10 MAG +5SKL growth.

Lightning mage(datamined multiplier and stat growth): 75% damage to column. and +15 SKL growth. Chance to daze targets (25% STR debuff)

Ice mage(datamined main target and stat growth): 70% damage to single target, ~50% damage to adjacent targets, ~25% to diagonally adjacent targets, and +5 MAG +10 SKL growth. Chance to slow targets (25% SKL debuff).

Sorceress(datamined main target multiplier): 40% damage to main target, ~26% to adjacent targets, ~13% to diagonally adjacent targets.

Necromancer: About 100% damage to main target, no splash.

Dark mage: At melee combat, deals about 30% damage to main target, ~20% to adjacent, and ~10% to diagonally adjacent, and hits twice. At ranged combat, hits for about 15% damage to main target, ~10% to adjacent, and ~5% to diagonally adjacent, and hits only once like other mages. Reduces target healing.

(Datamined by purplecharmanderz)

Others

Gunner: Each row is its own separate volley, so can fit into any melee squad without any worry about volley mechanic. About as squishy as a light unit without the SKL to dodge attacks. Deals pretty good damage against heavy units because of its armor piercing, but hits only slightly harder than a baseline heavy unit against everything else. Needs tech to attack twice per combat.

Dragoon: Same as gunners, except they have light cavalry movement type. They are basically better hussars. Needs tech to attack twice per combat.

Dragon Rider: Has guardian. Deals 33% of damage to adjacent and diagonally adjacent as splash. With average artifact/traits, deals about the same damage to the main target as a baseline heavy unit's attack damage. Takes up 2 slots. Extremely high hp but mediocre armor and 0 dodge.

Cannon: Low damage but deals 100% of damage as splash to whole enemy squad, which adds up to quite a bit total. Attacks once. Dies to a breeze. Unlike archers, they do the same damage both at melee and at range.

Templar: Heals a lot, but pretty squishy to physical damage, can (rarely) be killed by even enemy archers.

Oracle: Provides a tiny squadwide shield at the start of combat. On paper, can mitigate more damage per combat than a templar can heal. In practice, most of the shields ends up wasted on units that doesn't get attacked. Pretty bad at keeping your frontline alive, but somewhat useful at preventing your squishy mages from getting oneshotted by a few stray arrows.

Not all squads do the same thing. For any squads, you first want to set role for them, and only then decide how to build it, with the goal of accomplishing that role efficiently. It's only possible to optimize when you know what you are optimizing for.

In this section, I outline the function of most common squad types and their cost. Refer to further sections for details of specific squads.

Resource: the amount of resources a squad would take up, specifically iron, magic gem, obsidian, sun stone, horse and pyrocite.

LDR: how much minimum LDR the leader requires for the squad to be effective, aka how much you want this leader to hog objective captures and/or arena opportunities.

Stats: minimum required investment in artifacts, traits, and stat items, or relying on using special units that are just stronger than generic units.

Main squads

Generalist squads that makes the backbone of your army.

Resource: high
LDR: high
Stats: very high

Heavy infantry movement type.

These are heavy investment squads that are designed to neutralize multiple enemy squads with counterattacks on a single enemy phase, even at low morale.

They sound OP because they are OP, but their cost is also OP.

Resource: medium-high
LDR: medium-high
Stats: medium

Can be heavy infantry, light infantry, or heavy cavalry movement type.

These are squads that are designed to neutralize an enemy squad with a single attack on player phase with the least investment. It should be able to tank weakened enemy squads easily and shrug off counterattacks, but can fall apart if hit a few times by full enemy squads.

Resource: medium-high
LDR: low
Stats: medium

Flying movement type.

Dragon squads can ignore terrain, and they are great at killing enemy light squads or ranged squads, but have trouble against heavy squads. Use them primarily to assassinate cannons/archers on walls.

Dragon squads are also extremely powerful mid game because of the low LDR requirement, to the point that they can somewhat contend with melee killer squads at killing enemy heavy squads, but falls off in terms of direct combat power once other squads start having enough LDR to scale further.

Specilized Squads

These squads are replaceable, but are useful nontheless. Below are the most popular examples.

Resource: high
LDR: low-medium
Stats: low

Heavy cavalry movement type.

Low investment and effective, cannon squads are where you dump your extra resources. They oneshot light and ranged enemy squads, and can weaken heavy squads decently well.

They don't do much to dragons, and will die to a breeze.

Resource: low-medium
LDR: low
Stats: low

Heavy infantry/cavalry movement type.

Ridiculously cheap, and they can keep your other squads topped up.

Resource: none
LDR: none
Stats: none

Light infantry/cavalry movement type.

Their job is to die. Low threat rating makes them alluring targets for the AI.

Resource: medium-high
LDR: medium-high
Stats: medium

Heavy infantry movement type.

These are bait squads that can be reused. Or a poor man's juggernaut.

Resource: medium
LDR: medium
Stats: medium

Light infantry movement type.

A weaker melee killer squad that makes you some money through thievery. Not exactly a powerful squad unless heavily invested in, but as usually there's enough weaker enemy squads to clean up, so might as well make some money off of it.

Meme squads

Archer squads deserves its own category.

Resource: medium
LDR: medium high
Stats: high

It is possible to build an archer squad to oneshot enemy squads, but that requires some ridiculous investments.

In practice, archer squads without disproportionate investment deals very little damage, and is really only useful if you really don't want to take return damage (makes permadeath easier). The more you invest in archer squads, the less you invest in more damaging squads, and as a result you'll just take longer to complete each map than if you skipped archers altogether.

Example

This is what it means to break a whole army solo, and it's done in the worst possible state for the squad to be in.

The juggernaut squad was not buffed by exemplar, and the morale is shattered.

Reminder to go back and read the volley mechanic section if you skipped it. Juggernaut squads live and die on you taking at least some advantage of volley mechanics.

Cost:
Resource: high
LDR: high
Stats: very high

Composition:
Front: 3 heavy units with guardian trait.

Mid: Swordmasters.

Back: 2/3 heavy units or tanky light units.

Situational: add a cat to buff two rows with the rally trait at once if you don't have the LDR to fill it with infantry units. Not dragons, they suffer from magic fatigue.

Artifacts:
Best: sohas blood shard, *st.teresa's tiara, st.teresa's bulwark, black belt, balmung, **skull of rowdain, grothnor lich's skull
Good: everlasting potion, temporal modulator, and anything with good str and/or arm.

*St. Teresa's Tiara: the best damage boost in the game, with the ridiculous STR and high SKL, all for the cost of having 0 MAG. With this, you can very well afford to take warrior's hubris on your light units so they don't get oneshotted by mages, and still come out on top compared to another artifact + another damage trait. The ridiculous STR boost also makes the light units somewhat tanky against physical damage.

**Skull of Rowdain: Locks your morale to fearful. Normally a detriment, but for a juggernaut squad, it saves you from shattered morale. If your squad's stats is high enough, you can eat the negative stat bonus from the Skull and still come out doing more damage than without the skull. The surrenders you get is just the cherry on top.

Role:
Juggernaut squads are your heaviest investment squads. Their role is to charge forward before your army, and bait in enemy squads while neutralizing them on the counter attack, which makes advancing into tough positions without slowing down too much a lot easier.

For positioning, rush forward until it's the only friendly squad in range of as many enemy squads as you can tank safely, end the turn, then watch the fireworks.

General concerns:
For a juggernaut squad to do their job, they need to be beyond OP. They will be often fighting on low morale and cannot rely too much on healing to survive due to magic fatigue, and they need to have ridiculous sturdiness to survive multiple attacks each turn without losing units.

But if you do manage to make such a squad, its value instantly skyrockets, as it will no longer be constrained to only 1 battle per player phase.

Detailed Build
Frontline: Always fill the 3 frontline slots first. They dilute the incoming damage, so having a full frontline is vital to how sturdy the squad is. You want to prioritize champions as they are the most hard hitting unit with guardian, but having a sentinel/zweihander or two is fine.

Mid row: This is the safe row. You want to cram it with non-heavy units. Typically sword masters. Stefan and General Ragavi are both good here too, though until very late into the game, you can't have the nephelims in another leader's squad.

Backline: Here, you don't absolutely need to be unreasonably tanky as long as you don't let full enemy assassin squads hit you, so typically here's where you put things like centurions and more champions. Narima in particular is tanky enough to be on the backline too. Only put generic light units there if you won't get hit by assassin squads.

While having 3+ volleys is better for preventing overkill, most attack types other than heavy and light either do too little damage or suffer from magic fatigue. Ideally you want post-nephilimlized Stefan, Narima and Guy Verre Kanon (unique merc with guile trait) to spread out the damage a bit.

Best sustain: Soha's blood shard and bloodlust trait on the frontline units are the best hp regeneration tool since they don't care about magic fatigue and happens every combat, so you prioritize having this setup for a juggernaut squad. Unfortunately Soha's blood shard is unique, and you probably won't find more than 3 bloodlusts trait scrolls, so if you wish to field more than 1 juggernaut squads without NG+, you're going to have to improvise.

Alternative setup: Without infinite sustain, your juggernaut squad will be worn down over multiple battles. A everlasting potion, and having General Ragavi/temporal modulator to limit damage taken on the first few fights each phase can let the squad fight 3~5 times each phase, which is still very much worth the heavy investment. You'll likely need a personal healer squad following it around.

Alternative setup #2: with a tanky enough frontline and a healer or two, you can still take 2~3 fights each phase. Again, you'll likely want a part time healer squad nearby. As this squad can't take too many fights anyway, you can stick Beatrix in the squad too, as she still does ridiculously large amounts of damage in the first 2 fights. This is what I like to call a not-quite-juggernaut squad.

Gunner: gunners don't scale with stats. As a juggernaut will hog all the best artifacts, swordmasters/champions/centurion will usually do significantly more damage than gunners.

Mage: They're really only good for the first 2 fights each phase, and even then they aren't that useful on defens, as their main advantage over melee units is that their damage is frontloaded, which matters a lot less on defense.

Oracle: They suffer from magic fatigue, and on top of that, they helps less than healers when it's the one unfortunate unit that gets focus fired that you need to worry about. General sustain, if needed, is the job of a healer squad. Hard pass for any juggernaut squads.

You will have to feed the leader quite a lot of leadership exp for your juggernaut squad to stay ahead of the curve, so if you have the DLC, give them the liberator trait early on, otherwise have them capture the objective in the arena often.

Example


Reminder to go back and read the volley mechanic section if you skipped it. Melee killer squads are much more effective when you take advantage of the volley mechanic.

Cost
Resource: low-medium
LDR: medium-high
Stats: medium

Composition:
Front: 2-3 any heavy units, as most damage are to the frontline.

Mid: any damage dealers or supports.

Back: anything other than mage/healer

Artifacts

Best: Jade figurine, temporal modulator, and anything good your juggernaut squad couldn't take
Good: anything that increases capacity, damage, or survivability

Role
These are your main offensive squads. It's a lot cheaper to build if it doesn't have to survive attacks from full squads like the juggernaut squad, so you can field quite a few of these.

They should safely neutralize a full hp enemy squad on the player phase, and should shrug off some attacks from weakened squads, but can fall apart if hit once or twice by full enemy squads, as surviving that often requires quite a bit more investment.

For positioning, you want to group up with enough other melee killer squads to more or less match the local enemy melee squad numbers, and push forward slowly while making sure that after taking action you end up somewhere out of range of full enemy melee squads.

General concerns
Damage damage damage. You mostly need damage with these squads. As you attack on the player phase, you deal a turn of damage before getting counterattacked, and if your damage is good enough, that counterattack will be coming from a half dead squad, which makes surviving it very easy.

This is probably the most common squad in anyone's army, and the most important to get down right.

Detailed build
It is vital to have multiple volleys or target selection types in a killer squad, or it's not going to do enough damage to keep itself safe when attacking full or almost full enemy squads past midgame.

Frontline: the best units are champions/centurions/zweihander/knight/valkyrie/paladin. You either want more damage directly with the first 3, or you want more damage by filling your healer quota with something that also does damage when it's not needed to heal.

Midline: mage, healer, gunner, and light units like swordmaster/assassins. These are the safe spots, so whatever squishy unit you want goes here.

Backline: heavy/light units/gunners. You will still occasionally take an attack on enemy phase, so it's still better to keep the mages away from the backline, but it's not 100% required like a juggernaut squad.

Ideally you want 3 or more volleys in a melee killer squad so you don't get screwed over by unlucky target selection too often.

In general, champion, centurion, mage (in particular fire/lightning/ice mage), and sword masters do the most damage, so stock up on those as much as you can. You only need enough healers to keep the squad safe from counterattacks from a weakened enemy squad after your first round killed some of them.

You want a lot of melee killer squads in your army, so you may not have enough of the best artifacts for all of them. You will mostly rely on the unit's base stats and their attack types to carry your damage, so try to stay away from hussar, ranger or sentinel in these squads unless you run out of obsidian.

For the same reason, gunners are a cheap way to fill a melee killer squad with decent damage units when you don't have good traits/artifacts. Dragoons in particular can help with turning the squad into cavalry/light movement type. You can even add a field cannon or two into the mix, as they aren't half bad in player phase melee combat as long as they're not the ones taking hits.

Keep in mind that damage is your main concern, as a melee killer squad with low damage is just a more expensive bait squad, so don't take too many healers.

Sorceress can reduce counterattack damage due to their crowd control, which lets you get away with less healers, while they do a bit of damage on top of that. You can add one into any of your melee killer squad, but as with healers, don't take too many, since their damage isn't that great, and there's no point stunning the same target 3 times.

For a light infantry movement type, you need less/no healers as you take less counterattack when you ambush. Having a cat or two helps immensely for both keeping the light movement type (it counts as 3 light infantry units each) and saving up on capacity cost, so you can field some mages/heavy units.

For a heavy cavalry movement type, you may want a variety of horses. Knights have decent damage and a little bit of splash, and which makes them a decent frontline. Dragoons has decent damage independent of traits/artifacts. Valkyries can fill your healing needs and free up the non-horse unit's to be damage dealers. Hussars don't do a lot of damage, and they're not tanky either, so avoid them. Stuff as many infantry/mages as you can into this squad as long as the movement type is still cavalry, as they're the real heavy hitters.

For heavy infantry movement type, there's no external restraint on unit choice, so the squad should do its job with the least artifact/trait investment, and can sometimes take a fight on the enemy phase. You want 3~4 heavy infantry, 1~5 light infantry/gunners, 0~2 mages, and 1~2 healers.

Do NOT ever build a melee killer squad with only 1 unit on the frontline. Even weakened enemy squad counterattacks can kill a lone frontline if nothing else is there to share the burden.

If you do put traits on units, prioritize offensive traits on the damage dealers (including frontlines if they are also damage dealers).

Example


Cost:
Resource: medium
LDR: low
Stats: medium

Composition:
3 dragons

3 infantry/mages/healers.

Artifacts
Best: anything that increases mag, str or arm

Role
Dragon squads are the actual assassination squads. Being able to bypass terrain means those pesky cannons/archers on walls are easy pickings. Also useful for rushing towards places blocked by terrain, or past choke points blocked by enemies.

Dragons deal good AOE damage, but nowhere near the damage needed to kill heavy units or enemy dragons. Keep their sights on light/ranged squads. When there's nothing to assassinate, they should function as a weaker melee killer squad.

For positioning, also treat as melee killer squads: don't get hit by full melee enemy squads and try to maintain a local numeric advantage, unless you're looking for a sacrificial play or is protected by terrain.

General concerns
Dragons have the guardian trait and high hp but low armor, so while they are not exactly made of paper, they aren't the best tanks, as they requires an unreasonable amount of healing to stay healthy.

Dragons do less damage the less hp it has, which makes fighting multiple times in a single turn until they're low a bad idea, so investing excessively in a dragon squad is usually not worth it, unless you invest so much that they stay high hp throughout multiple fights.

Dragons taking up 2 spots means you incur less of the extra capacity penalty of a 5+ unit squad. Good thing is that a dragon squad's power spikes hard midgame. Bad thing is that it falls off late game.

Dragon damage formula (credits: purplecharmanderz
Dragons scales off of 4 stats:
- Weapon*100%
- Magic*200%
- Strength*200%
- Current HP*2.5%

This means that for dragons to be effective, you need them to stay at high hp. In most cases, that means having healers and not fighting to many times each phase.

However, if you don't need bloodlust traits elsewhere, you can teach the dragons bloodlust, as it heals a % of max hp each time an enemy dies, which coupled with dragon's gigantic max hp pool, can keep them healthy through multiple battles.

This will create a very powerful squad that combines the mobility of dragons with the ridiculous survivability of juggernaut squads at the cost of not being able to kill quite as many enemy units on counterattacks as a true juggernaut squad.

Detailed build
No horses because that forcibly changes your movement type to infantry. Being able to fly is the main reason you ever field a dragon squad.

You get 3 pretty good dragons for free throughout the game: Azuros and later Zelos and Abigayle (DLC required). Compared to generic dragons, Azuros has extra hp, Zelos is all around stronger (including the extra hp), and Abby can AOE heal.

Cloudrender is really weak, don't waste your money on that merc. His stats is lower than generic dragons, he doesn't have any useful traits, and there no point getting him early for the advanced calss because as a silver dragon he does pathetically little damage, and you can't get a squad to fly with just 1 dragon rider anyway.

In general, you have to choose between a heavy infantry unit to tank for the dragon, or a squishier unit to support them from the back.

For the heavy infantry tank, you typically want a paladin, as dragons don't heal themselves, or a champion/zweihander, as they do the most damage to the often heavy frontline of enemy squads, which is what the dragons struggles the most to kill.

For a support backline, having a templar or two is great, as dragons requires quite a bit of healing to stay healthy.

For mage backlines, having one sorceress is especially good, as its AOE double debuff on the first turn really helps mitigate the counter attack's damage you will inevitably take.

For physical dps backline, you want swordmasters/zweihander/champion/centurion/gunners. They are the best unit at killing enemy frontlines, and typically that's where the most heavy units are on enemy squads.

Dragons are OP midgame, so there's every reason to rush the dragon rider tech, but in general, you do not want more than 3 dragons squads. Once the normal squads gets ahead in combat power, being able to fly will only only useful when you have somewhere to be that you can't otherwise reach.

Example

Cost:
Resource: high
LDR: low-medium
Stats: low

Composition
A high LDR leader, preferably with shock and awe trait or treasure hunter trait.

Field cannons until you reach capacity.

Artifacts
Best: anything that gives direct % damage increase (Sayunaari war pike, obsidian arquebus, etc)
Good: anything that provides better movement or gives extra capacity

Role
Cannon squads are the only ranged squad worth using for general squad killing. They are best used to soften up too powerful enemy heavy squads that your melee killer squads have trouble with, but otherwise can be a ranged/light enemy squad killer in their own right.

As they die to a breeze, do NOT let them come under attack, even by weakened enemy squads.

Positioning: make extra sure you can create a safe space for the cannon by the end of the player phase before moving it forward. Typically that means you need a lot of melee killer squads, or have enough other squads to body block for your cannon nearby.

General concerns
Cannons don't scale with STR.

Cannons don't want to ever take damage, so they care not for survivability nor sustain either.

If you're not confident in your army control, you can stick a heavy infantry in front with wide guard trait, or just make a triangle formation with a heavy infantry in front. You're never going to survive a full enemy squad's attack either way, so don't bother going beyond a single frontline.

Cannons don't care about blocking, so they will hit the entire enemy squad even when the frontlines are still alive. That means you don't need as much damage to be neutralize enemy squads (killing squishy mid/backline neutralizes them well enough).

There is little reason to force gigantic cannon squads. You can always split your cannons into multiple squads as long as you have enough cannons in each cannon squad to oneshot light units in enemy squads, as that is usually enough for even underfunded melee killer squads to mop up safely.

Example


Cost
Resource: low-high
LDR: low
Stats: low

Composition:
A bunch of healers.

Artifacts
Best: Donari charm
Good: leftover movement or MAG increasing artifacts
Meme: Emperors missive, for your t1 medic squads.

Role
They run around healing your squads, primarily juggernaut squads that don't have soha's bloodshard, dragon squads that fought enemy melee squads, and melee killer squads that don't have healers.

For positioning, play it safe. Typically healer squads are juicy targets to the AI. Only move in once you clear out nearby threats, or be prepared to take one for the team (which isn't much of a loss considering how cheap a healer squad is)

General concerns
Since you're not fighting with this squad, you just fill it up with healers and mobility/healing artifacts.

Detailed builds
There's 3 types of healer squads you can field.

• The cheap medic squad. Basically a bunch of t1/t2 medics/priests, as they're essentially free. You can fill up the rest of your army limit with medic squads at practically no cost.
  
• The cavalry healer squad. Basically get enough hospitaller for cavalry movement type and fill the rest up with medics/priestesses. Cavalry movement type makes it possible to keep the squad alive long enough to actually benefit from Donari charm sometimes.
  
• The expensive valkyrie squad. A valkyrie frontline plus whatever other healers you want. This healer squad can venture close to weakened enemy squads without being deleted, but should still stay away from full enemy squads. Very expensive in resource cost, but is still cheap in everything else.
  
• The meme squad(credit: Jab): t1 fighter frontline, t1 medic mid/backline, and give the squad emperor's missive. The gigantic damage reduction from emperor's missive for using t1 units can get it to survive really well despite the low investment. Downside is it has the lowish healing due to the non-healer frontline, which usually require some LDR to make up for with more backline healers.

The first two types of healer squads don't need much upkeep, as you can just recruit new medics once they're too underleveled. You can demote the low level ones to reclaim the resources spent too, and a tech in the tech tree your newly recruited medics will come at full CP ready for promotion, so replacing a healer squad's units with a new high leveled ones only costs a handful of gold.

For the Valkyrie squad, occasionally let them force surrender a shattered enemy squad so they keep up in level, and they will occasionally grow in capacity.

Example

Example 2


Cost
Resource: none
LDR: none
Stats: none

Composition

Any leftover unit(s), in a column.

Artifacts
Don't.

Role
Their job is to die. Low threat rating makes them alluring targets for the AI. Additionally, they can help shuffle your useful units around when needed.

For positioning, put it next to a squad you want to hopefully spare.

General concerns
The lowest investment bait squad is, of course, the single unit bait. It should die in one hit.

The high quality bait is a column of soldiers, which sometimes has higher threat rating than what you want to protect, but can take a couple hits instead of dying to a breeze. Refer to the volley mechanics to see why you want a column instead of a row.

The legends update made the AI smarter. They will not always aim for the lowest threat rating squads anymore. Unfortunately, this means that you can't rely on bait squads to 100% reliably keep your valuable squads safe unless you bodyblock for them. It's still quite useful once you get more familiar with the AI.

Build details
Light infantry is the best movement type, as shuffle is something that can sometimes save a turn for your actually useful squads.

While you cannot form new squad with a t1 unit, you can demote a squad leader back down to t1 and retrieve whatever resource was used. Then again, many t2 units have no resource costs so it doesn't really matter much.

Example

Cost
Resource: high
LDR: medium
Stats: medium

Composition
Frontline: 3 total sentinels/paladins

Mid: paladins/valkyries/templar

Backline: 2~3 paladins.

Artifacts
Best: St.Teresa's bulwark, officer's regalia, obsidian plate armor, everlasting potion
Good: hulking pavise, aldor's tower shield, blademaster's armor

Role
Run forward to bait in enemy squads, especially enemy cavalry squads, so you don't need to put your melee killer squads in vulnerable positions one turn before you can hit the enemy squads.

For positioning, position so you're in range of at least one of the clump of enemy squads you want to bait in.

General concerns
Your only concern with building a tank squad is to survive as many attacks of any type as possible, and knowing you will likely lose this squad sooner rather than later anyway, you forgo any concern for dealing damage. There is no need for any light/gunner/mage units to diversify the attack volleys. Focus purely on survival.

AI units generally turns on their aggressive behavior in groups, so you don't need to be in range of the whole clump of enemy cavalry squads for them all to come rushing in. And as such, a tank squad won't need to survive as many attacks as a juggernaut squad, so can rely on healers to keep them healthy.

Detailed build
The unit comp mostly depend on what enemy squad type you want to tank.

If your tank squad has sentinels in the frontline, you can survive guns better, but requires your leader to have enough LDR to field enough healers on top of the frontline to keep them healthy.

If your tank squad has templars in the mid row, you may lose them to ranged attacks or aoe attacks, but they can heal a unit even if its over half hp, overall making your squad survive melee squads better.

Against arrows/magic, arcane barrier is a pretty good workaround, as it doesn't suffer from magic fatigue and refreshes every battle. It can keep blocking the chip damage from multiple enemy archer/mage squads peppering your tank squad.

The AI never fields any assassins in cavalry squads, so if the rest of your army can deal with infantry squads without extra help, you may very well put healers in the back row when building your tank squad.

Example



Resource: high
LDR: medium-high
Stats: medium-high

Composition:
Frontline: champion/zweihander/centurions, paladin/valkyries.

Mid and backline: light units and optionally a healer.

Artifacts:
Best: Shinobi Gi, Trueshot Bow, St. Teresa's Tiara, Balmung.
Good: STR increase, mobility or capacity artifacts.

Role:
A more fragile melee killer squad that goes around fighting weaker enemy squads to steal money. It may be a meme, but it's actually not bad.

Positioning: follow your army when you have local superiority. Don't take enemy attacks on enemy phase.

General concerns
Being able to fight safely means you get to fight more (and steal more money), so it's worth investing quite a bit to make this squad strong enough to fight often.

You do not steal money from combat if attacked on the enemy phase, only if you attack on the player phase.

Detailed Build
You want at most 5 assassins, as any more would make the squad too weak at combat to be of much use. That, and overkill damage doesn't generate any money, so having 9 backstabbers waste half their attacks on corpse on round 1 doesn't help.

This squad is quite a bit less efficient than melee killer squads due to having mass assassins. You need to invest a bit more for it to do enough damage, and it is quite vulnerable to attacks, so you should in theory never let this squad be attacked on enemy phase. As such, there's little need for a sturdy backline to survive enemy assassins.

The amount of money stolen scales with the actual amount damage dealt by units with thievery. So you steal more when fighting enemy squads with more hp for you to deal damage to. That means focusing soley on maximizing SKL and the number of assassins and therefore limiting yourself to only cleaning up half dead enemy squads will yield a lot less money than making the squad strong enough to fight larger squads that your assassin gets to attack twice against.

The amount of money stolen does scales with SKL, so you want SKL artifacts in addition to the typical melee killer squad artifacts. Shinobi gi and trueshot bow are perfect for such a squad, providing a massive SKL bonus for very low capacity cost.

Example

This is a random generic peeshooter, with no stat items consumed.

I'm currently doing an archer only run (archers plus nephilims, techincally). I recorded a few of the chapters, link at the end of this section.

Cost
Resources: medium-high
LDR: high-very high
Stats: high-ridiculously high

Composition
Frontline samurai + mid/backline raiders
or
Pure warbows.
or
Pure crossbows.

Artifacts
Meme tier: St. Teresa's stupid hat, soha's blood shard, balmung
Best: steelshatter, fang of duros
Good: STR, SKL, capacity, and hit rate increasing artifacts.

Role
Pretend to do damage.

Hit enemy squads with no open adjacent tiles.

Soften enemy squads that your melee killer squads have trouble with.

Build up magic fatigue for enemy healers.

General concerns
The ranged damage of an archer squad is laughably weak unless you give them very powerful artifacts, but being ranged has both the benefit of not taking counter attacks, and being able to attack enemies with no open tile around them.

At melee, the damage of an archer squad is weaker than a melee killer squad, and they can't take much counterattack either. However, the damage they deal in melee combat is still significantly higher than the squad's ranged damage, so you'll often still find it better to fight at melee range.

Detailed build

Fang of duros is perfect for archers, as few other squad would want 20 STR in exchange for having 0 MAG and -10 to armor. Archer squads should almost never be attacked and needs no healer, so they don't care about having 0 MAG.

St. Teresa's Tiara also reduces your MAG to 0, but usually gives more STR and also gives a massive chunk of SKL without the armor malus, so in a vacuum it's the best artifact for archer squads. However this artifact is too OP and other squads that can do more with the stats would compete for it.

Steelshatter is pretty good on any physical damage units, and archer squads are usually 100% made up of physical damage units.

Of the three unit compositions, the crossbow version is the least reliant on stats. It does damage independent of STR, so if you don't have good artifacts lying around, crossbows are better than traditional bows.

The samurai+raider version can survive an attack or two from weakened enemy squads, but will still die to a attack from a full enemy squad. It also has cavalry movement, so it's easier to stay out of harms way.

The pure warbow version has 1 extra range, which in no way makes up for the better movement type and slight tankiness, and also costs a ridiculous 2 obsidians per warbow. But warbows use a thicc yellow bow which looks way cooler, so they are the objectively superior choice.

For the meme build:

St. Teressa's stupid hat makes you stupid, but gives you the muscles to compensate. As long as you don't get hit by mages/dragons, being stupid has no downsides. Also 20 free SKL so you actually hit your targets.

Soha's blood shard is essential to your best juggernaut squad, but hey, we're meming! 15 str + 15 int = 34 str under the stupid hat and arcane might.

Balmung gives 8 str + 6 int = 15 str. Plus another 24 SKL! Great!

~150 STF and ~100 SKL on even generic archers means you hit hard and hit true. And should you ever crit, you can do hundreds of damage with a single arrow.

Note: St. Teresa's stupid hat uses the final MAG after flat stat bonus from artifacts to translate to STR, so Fang of Duros and the stupid hat doesn't mix well. Arcane X traits are calculated before the stupid hat's MAG translation though, so can work well together.

Archer only run highlights (most egregious failures of the run more like):
Ch9 Triple fail on the perfect map for archers: no S rank, failed bonus objective, and missed the timed chest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbdlWA8h31U
Ch12 Bonus objective? What bonus objective?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1jxLKfLMzw
Ch19 Grabbing that the SW chest is so easy when you have 11 turns to do so. (copium)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayX8URPUMeM
Dragon's Haven Debut of the meme tier artifact squad. The setup is so OP that despite being mostly archers, the squad can almost function as a juggernaut squad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ22XqEavJM

Many of the story characters are OP and can work well in any squads, but they are still more effective in some squads than others. Here's my personal preference.

Diana: Main juggernaut squad, melee killer squad. Gigantic hp pool, high physical/magic defense, high aoe damage, and a built in daze, she is perfect for both killing enemies and keeping your squad alive. With bloodlust and soha's blood shard, she is functionally immortal.

MC: healer squad, melee killer squad, secondary juggernaut squads. The revive makes them a good healer squad leader, while the aoe magic makes for a good melee killer squad leader. High LDR and free morale heal makes them a good juggernaut squad leader, enough to consider even with how much magic fatigue hurts MC's damage output.

Beatrix: melee killer squad, dragon squad. She is a squad killer all on her own, so any combat squad that doesn't need to deal with magic fatigue can use her. Note that Sin Credo is only good when you're on a smallish squad, a almost full squad can nearly always do more with other artifacts. Beatrix is hands down the strongest unit in the game if you don't consider magic fatigue, but she's not nearly that broken.

Stefan: melee killer squad, dragon squad, any juggernaut squad. He is the only backstabber that can backstab on defense, but in general he does a whole lot of damage and can contribute well in any offensive squad.

Lysander: melee killer squad, cannon. He has a built in shock and awe for guns or cannons, high LDR, and a AOE heal, so he's good for either.

Kuroda: melee killer squad, cannon. He has ridiculously high LDR even with dark affinity. Give him light affinity and he will straight up go past 100 CAP. His combat stats are pretty bad and doesn't provide utility, so just treat him as a worse Lysander.

Sybil: Melee killer squad, secondary juggernaut squads. She is a templar with ridiculously high hp and built in extra actions that scales with low hp ally units, so can solo carry the healing needs of an entire squad. Magic fatigue means she's not useful on the main juggernaut squad.

Abigayle: Dragon. Her entire character is about dragon, she has dragon boosting traits, and she literally turns into a dragon rider herself if you clear the last DLC mission.

Jaromir: cannon, healer, bait. He has moderately high LDR, and is a trash combat unit himself, so treat him as a broke kuroda.

Barnabas: melee killer squad, bait. Mediocre LDR, and is a trash combat unit himself. He's only a melee killer squad early game because he starts as a lvl 20 knight, otherwise he's pretty trash all around.

Jules: bait.

Narima: Melee killer squad, any juggernaut squad. Ridiculously high STR, double attacks, high SKL, and the guile trait makes her the best physical damage dealer in the game. She is also tanky enough to survive backstabs.

General Ragavi: Secondary juggernaut squads, melee killer squad. Her leadership trait is half a temporal modulator on its own, and she's a stronger than average swordmaster to boot. However, the leadership trait only lasts for 2 battles each phase, so don't expect her to be enough to turn a melee killer squad into a juggernaut squad alone.

We've dealt with how to build effective squads, but what about what squads we actually want to build?

Here, we'll concern ourselves with choosing the right squads for the army. If we want to win and win fast, there's two main concerns:

1) having enough offensive squads to kill enough enemies on player phase to be safe
2) having enough defensive squads so you have enough squads to handle jobs that involves getting attacked on enemy phase

To determine how many total offensive squads (juggernaut squads, melee killer squads, dragon squads, cannon squads) you need, first look at what you need them to do.

When you advance, any enemy squads left alive behind your lines can and will target your more fragile squads, likely killing them. So, to keep from bleeding out too fast, you need enough offensive squads to kill most/all enemy squads that comes into range of any of your non-defensive squads in a single player phase.

You only need to kill enemy melee squads and enemy cannon squads immediately, as the attack from enemy archers squads can be shrugged off with minimal loss.

There is no magic number, as it depends on how fast you advance, whether you can oneshot enemies, and on the specifics of the maps. However, you can tell if you need more offensive squads by keeping track of how often you lose your units/squads to attacks on the enemy phase from enemy melee squads, and whether that loss bars you from accomplishing whatever goal you set for yourslef.

Typically, you need to be able to neutralize up to around 10 enemy squads on a single player phase by endgame, if you are aiming for S-rank and bonus objectives.

Again, to start, consider what you want your defensive squads (juggernaut squads, tank squads, bait squads) to do.

You do not want to end the player phase with your more fragile squads in range of enemy squads to be attacked. However, enemy squads can move pretty far too, so if you start the player phase with your offensive squads far enough away to be just outside of their range, you most likely will not be able to reach and neutralize the entire clump of enemy squads in a single player phase.

Some enemy AI will run towards your army from afar, which lets you easily position such that they will end their turn deep into your army's movement range. For these, there is no need for defensive squads.

However, most enemy AI will stay passive until you trigger their aggression. For these, you can make them charge into the rest of your army by moving a defensive squad in their range, which lets you kill them on the next player phase safely with your offensive squads.

As such you only need at most one reusable defensive squad in each front you're advancing, and can substitute that with a few bait squads.

You can tell whether you need more defensive squads if you ever felt the need to trigger a group of enemy squad's aggression with valuable fragile squads.

The amount of healer squads needed depends mostly on how your offensive and defensive squads fare. If they end up with alive but low hp units often, you heal them with healer squads.

You want 1 healer squad to follow each of your juggernaut squad without the soha's bloodshard/bloodlust combo.

Usually you want 1 healer squad for every 2 dragon squads, as dragons nearly always take a lot of damage, and often without dying.

Melee killer squads don't usually need healer squads as often, since units in melee killer squads are often either healthy or dead. They can still occasionally use the extra healing, so it's nice to have an extra healer squad to follow around the main brunt of your push.

But either way, healer squads are cheap so building too many of them wouldn't really hurt, and they can be used as bait when needed.

You want the majority of your melee squads being either one of the two types. Having an even split makes your life a lot more difficult.

First, let's look at why we care about the higher base stats of infantry squads and the higher mobility of cavalry squads. When an army advance, you need to neutralize every enemy squad in range that threatens your valuable offensive squads before ending the player phase.

Infantry units have better stats, and so a melee infantry squad at equal investment will always do more damage, and be less likely to lose units to counterattacks. With multiple volleys/spread target selection, it is much easier to reach the tipping point where you only need 1 infantry squad attack on player phase to neutralize an enemy squad, which lets you neutralize more enemy squads each turn. You can also shuffle melee squads with your bait squads when needed.

Cavalry squads have better mobility, and can often retreat out of range of half of the group of aggro'd enemy squads. That means you only need to neutralize the front half of the group that is in range of your cavalry squads, which is especially useful when the enemy group is way too large to kill in a single player phase.

Ironically, this means that an infantry focused army clears maps faster, while a cavalry focused army is safer when pushing into scary enemy armies.

Unfortunately, if you have a equal mix of both, you still need to neutralize the whole enemy group because half your squads can't retreat after attacking, while you can't quite as easily neutralize many enemy squads because part of your army sacrificed stats for mobility. Hence it's better to focus mostly on one movement type for your melee squads

Side note, on warlord difficulty and below, enemy squads dies a lot more easily, so the extra stats infantry squads traded their mobility for would likely be wasted.

You do not need 20 fully trained squads to complete the game.

It's better to focus on making the core offensive squads strong enough to do their job, and only make more squads when you have the resource/LDR exp/artifacts to spare.

A half strength melee squad may be able to accomplish something, but only once, as they will likely die to counter attacks. If it's a ranged squad, they may not be able to even out damage enemy healers.

With that in mind, here's the (undertrained and undergeared) final army of the 212 turn ludicrous run I showed in the introduction section.


(If you're wondering how I got a t1 unit to be a squad leader, you can have a t2 unit create the squad, then demote it for the memes.)

Juggernaut squad (1): Diana
Not-quite-juggernaut squads (2): Lindly, General Ragavi
Melee killer squads (4): Warlord Tartar, Beatrix, Stefan, Kuroda
Dragon squads (1): Abigayle
Cannon squads (2): Lysander, Calden Blackwell.

Healer squads (2): Gabriela, Sara

Bait squads (8): everything else. Jaromir and Barnabas weren't leveled, and I didn't have enough pyrocite to make Jules relevant.

Total: 1 juggernaut, 9 other offensive squads, 2 healers, and 8 baits

And the result is a turn 7 boss kill:
(that squad with a champion icon is Diana's squad)

Most of this is mentioned somewhere in the guide, but I figured this needs saying twice.

Threat rating: The threat rating assigned to each squad is NOT a indication of how strong the squad is. It informs the enemy AI just how much they want to prioritize attacking this particular squad over other squads, with the lowest threat rating being the most prioritized. That's why your cannon squads have very low threat rating no matter how strong they aer: they will always be juicy targets that the AI wants to kill first. On the other end of the spectrum, dragons have disproportionally high threat rating, which is probably why a lot of people think dragon squads are strong combatants.

Gunpowder units: Enemy gunpowder units feels significantly stronger than their normal units, but yours aren't. They are that way because of the trait/artifact/affinity disparity between you and the AI, which results in player units having better stats. The 75% armor pierce on enemy gunpowder units works better because your units have more armor to pierce, and the high weapon base damage and the lack of STR scaling benefits enemy gunpowder units more because they have very low STR, but weapon damage only scales with level and class. The result is that your normal units are much stronger than the enemy's, but your gunpowder units are only about as strong as the enemy's.

Archers at melee: Despite ostensibly being only useful for ranged attacks, archers actually do a lot more damage in melee combat than ranged combat. Keep the option in mind when you can benefit a lot from the extra damage, more than keeping this squad healthy. A good example would be to kill an enemy cannon squad that you don't have the free squad around to kill, as leaving half the squad alive will usually result in a lot of damage taken on the next enemy phase.

A few phrases I used a lot that refers to specific things, which in hindsight might need explaining:

Neutralize: to kill enough units on an enemy squad that it most likely won't be able to kill any unit in any of your nearby squads should it attack on enemy phase. Or to outright kill the whole enemy squad.

Melee squads: squads that prefers to fight on the tile adjacent to the target, not necessarily squads composed of units using stabby weapons. e.g. dragon squads

On defense: battle that happens during the opponent's phase. e.g. for a battle during enemy phase, the player squads are fighting on defense.

2024/2/24 brand new!
2024/2/26 added money laundering meme squad and a few grammar corrections
2024/3/4 archer squad updoot and more grammar fixes
2024/3/6 juggernaut squad showcase video, magic fatigue section, lanchester's law section.
2024/3/28 slimmed down the army comp sections, cleaned up bits and pieces everywhere.
2024/3/31 added enemy AI behavior section.
2024/4/2 added a tentative glossary section.
2024/4/30 added a unit class overview section.
2024/10/23 fixed mistakes about fatigue/mage mechanics, credits: purplecharmanderz