Squad Building

[flame.of.illusion]

Can I get some squad building tips? Should every group have a healer and a tank? etc

[Dancing Dragon Games]

There's a ton of flexibility! Most players would say that healers are a backbone, and they definitely help with sustain. Heavy classes (tanks) do indeed survive the best, but there are several times when Light classes or Archery classes can do just fine without a single heavy, or even a healer around. Depends on how you use em!

[Olinser]

Originally posted by flame.of.illusion:

Can I get some squad building tips? Should every group have a healer and a tank? etc

If you're starting the game, pay attention to their elemental attributes, they make a BIG difference in stat growth, particularly for getting early rank ups to advanced classes because the 3rd rank classes have some pretty hefty stat requirements. A Fire attribute fighter should be able to rank up immediately to Sentinal, for instance, while an Earth one will take 5+ more levels to be able to change class.

You want Water/Dark for healers/mages (save any Dark attribute books for your mages), and fire/lightning for your male infantry/cavalry, and lightning for your female infantry.

Mages in particular newer players tend to neglect - this is a mistake, the 'make mages available' should be one of your first buys, they're weak at first but Fire mages are king of the squad wipes. You need to start stockpiling properly attributed mages ASAP. They start out very underwhelming, but as soon as you get fire mages (or lightning mages) the T3 talent for casting at the start

Check the market every single time you're back in town, and always snatch up any properly attributed units, particularly mages and lightning female warriors. Snatch up any resources and good trait books as well, you don't need to use them right away but if you see one of the top tier ones like Precision (absolute DEATH on Narima or female swordmasters - in my Warlord run mission 11 I literally just 1 shot Beatrix with a Precision Narima) then snatch that baby up.

For the high requirements there's not even a point to buying and leveling up a non water/dark mage or a non-lightning swordmaster because they take SO MANY MORE LEVELS to get their critical break points for their tier 3 classes, and then are so much weaker even after they change.

Every single unit should have 1 healer at the start. They simply can't survive without them, and even if they lose some of their units, they can continue to provide the out of combat healing for still viable units. I usually added a 2nd healer at around #7 or maybe #8 squad size.

My typical death ball for pretty much all of my main frontline characters - MC, Diana, Narima, Stefan were all the same unit composition - front line named char, 1 tank (either Sentinal or Paladin), and 1 Centurian, 2nd rank is 2x Templar, 1x Fire mage, back rank is 2x fire mage, 1x Swordmaster. This will 1 cycle pretty much anything through the final map barring poor RNG and the mages all hitting the same row. Some people run with 2x fire, 1x lightning.

I'll typically have Barabas leading a full melee cavalry unit of 8x melee cav and 1 healer in the middle. He tends not to take that much attacks when used properly so the Templar double heal does a fine job of keeping them up. Works really well as bait for assassin enemy units they don't do much damage to a rear line of Knights.

I also made 2x Dragon Rider units with the named unique dragon you get from the side mission, and the unique Dragon Rider hero. If you have half the squad Dragon Riders then the squad will be flying and can totally ignore walls and terrain, highly useful, so make a squad of 3x Dragon Riders and 3x Templar and it will still be flying and just a massive brick frontline that never dies (I gave them all Healing Attuned as well).

Archers are honestly pretty bad. They have SOME use with proper positioning, and since Jules is an archer leader anyway typically I'll just have him with 1 archer unit. They can sometimes be useful for softening up some squads but the main issue with archers is their damage is so low at even T3, that the typical hardpoint defenders with healers won't even take meaningful damage, and in fact you risk them healing MORE damage than you're doing.

Assassins suck, don't use them. Their target selection is very poor, and unless you stack multiples of them, you may or may not actually get a kill, they just don't have the damage to reliably wipe squads, and they're just not very good in general. Nothing is worse than having 2 assassins target 2 different units in the backline and killing neither, and then you don't wipe the unit because you didn't have enough damage to kill their frontline. Female Swordmasters are so much higher single target damage its not even funny, they're not even in the same league.

Likewise stay away from ice mages. They do pathetic damage and the chill is simply not useful. Why would I stun them when I could have just killed them all? Same with respect to the Siren/Sorceress. They just don't do comparable damage to the Fire/Lightning mages, and the stun/daze is just not enough to make up for the significantly less damage.

Valkyrie kinda has some AI problems with when they choose to heal and when they choose to attack, they're good units but they often make bad choices.

Gunpowder units are also just not particularly great. They have very high damage at the start, but they don't scale very well at all, and even if you get the double shot talent, they just can't compare to the single target damage a good Swordmaster can do.

Cannons can be kind of OK but they're incredibly expensive and utterly useless on defense because they do not fire, the headache necessary to deal with moving and protecting them is just not worth their moderate usefulness, why woudl I deal with it when I could just get another mage deathball that kills units just as well and can actually take attacks?

[flame.of.illusion]

Thanks! I'll definitely have this open while playing :)

[Serendipitous]

Originally posted by flame.of.illusion:

Thanks! I'll definitely have this open while playing :)

I would suggest taking advice here with the grain of salt. Try to explore what squad composition works best for you, believe it's very rewarding. Game is not so hard that you would cripple yourself without advice and you can always rearrange squads at moment notice if something doesn't work.

I will give you advice that cav is very good units on the battlefield and you should aim to make as much units of cavalry as possible. They are fast and what is more important, they can reposition after action, which is incredibly valuable from tactical perspective. For having a cav unit you need to have more horsies (horsed healers work too) than walkies, so 3/2, 4/3 or 5/4 ratio. You should strive to never have more horse units than strictly necessary to qualify for cavalry unit, because horses are very limited for like first 2/3 of the game

And a general advice - you need to learn how and when your units attack to make proper composition. You get 2 turns in a single battle, so if you are having unit of, say, 8 knights and a healer, you will only be able to kill two front lines of the enemy, meaning not wiping it's squad completely even if your total damage would theoretically allow you to do so. So you would need to change some of the units for something like fire mage (can attack any line), centurion (attacks tow units in a row) or assassins (attack backline units on the first turn when you attack). This way you can attack more than single line in a turn, meaning that you can wipe a squad withing a single battle. Also, 8 horses in a unit is too wasteful.

[buchecker]

Originally posted by Olinser:

Assassins suck, don't use them. Their target selection is very poor, and unless you stack multiples of them, you may or may not actually get a kill, they just don't have the damage to reliably wipe squads, and they're just not very good in general. Nothing is worse than having 2 assassins target 2 different units in the backline and killing neither, and then you don't wipe the unit because you didn't have enough damage to kill their frontline. Female Swordmasters are so much higher single target damage its not even funny, they're not even in the same league.

I beg to differ. Assassins and Rogues are early game incredible money makers and combining them with tank surrender squads (low threat and tanky) they usually dont get targeted and can wipe healers and backline mages, while being able to tank a hit if outfitted with atleast one healer and frontline tank.

[Ishan451]

Originally posted by flame.of.illusion:

Can I get some squad building tips? Should every group have a healer and a tank? etc

Depends on the traits of your Units and your RNG luck in getting the traits and artifacts. There are artifacts in the game that will heal a unit at the start of the turn or when they kill enemies.

There are traits in the game that will heal your units.. so you won't need a healer. You can also have a squad that only forces "Surrenders", like when you get the Silver-Tongue trait on a unit... thanks to how threat works its unlikely this unit will ever need healing.

There is utility in having Cavalry, Cavalry Archers and even Warbows. If you play on the higher difficulty then softening up the enemy before you hit them can be useful. Just like it can be useful to have low Threat healer Units, with a strong frontrow, to attract the enemy.

It really depends on your playstyle.

Personally i do have Tank Units, which have at least 2 healers and 1 Templar. I have Pincushion Units, with low threat to and 2 healers to soak ranged attacks of the enemy behind my tanks and to heal the Tank units when i need a line being held.

And then i have a variety of damage dealers. Dragon Squads, Mage Squads... Ambush Squads for various uses.

I always have at least 1 Heavy Cavalry and one Archer Unit... I use these to soften enemy choke points. First the Archer Unit, then the Cavalry charge and then i move a tank unit in. If their "Boss" is still alive after that the tank will be in position to take any retaliation.

I tend to have a Mage Squad, behind some Sentinels... 2+ Fire Mages, 2+ Lightning Mages. 2+ Sentinels. Usually this one chews through the backrows of the enemy's tough units.. and don't need an artifact to deal with archers on the wall.


I tend to put Ice mages with my Ambush Squads, as Chill lowers the enemies ability to hit, and with the great dodge of the Ambusher i feel it works best. Also i feel like it might increase the Crits.

Sirens go with Tanks Squads, as their daze reduces Strength damage.


Kitties Squad i always turn into an Assassin Tank Unit. Kitty goes into the backrow, the Ice Artifact, a Frost Mage... and a bunch of Rangers with Disarm.

Stefan is always an Ambush Squad. When i can afford it and get my hand on it, he gets the Temporal Artifact.

Julian always leads my Warbow squad. 4+ Warbows with Samurai Frontline. (I tend to have at least one other Archer unit, usually Cavalry) But i am always tempted to turn him into a Archer Cavalry Squad.

Lysander always gets into a light cavalry ambusher.

Barnie and Jeromir generally become my Dragon Hunter Heavy Cavalry. With the upcoming change i might be tempted to go another Route with Jeromir and might turn him into an Ambushleader.

Narima, i am always unsure what i want to do with her. Sometimes Ambushleader sometimes Tank.

Diana always leads a Tank squad of 2 Templar and 2 Healers, plus some damage dealers.

Beatrix gets the Artifact that drops damage of her squad for a 2nd action for her. She is accompanied by Sentinels and a Healer, and later she gets Cannon support.

Main Character leads a Mage Squad.