Every troop in Total Battle carries two separate labels, and confusing them is the most common reason a march comes home worse than it should have. Category is what a troop is for. Class is what it beats. They are set independently, and you need both to read a fight before you commit to it.
Category: what a troop is for
There are five trained categories, plus the dragon, which is an asset rather than a troop.
| Category | Built for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Guardsmen | Monsters | Your general-purpose backbone — roughly 90% of a typical army |
| Specialists | Players | Base attack doubles in a fight against another player |
| Engineer Corps | Fortifications | Catapults and the like, for citadel and wall work |
| Monsters | Higher base stats | Commanded by dominance rather than leadership |
| Mercenaries | Either, by type | Exchanged weekly, commanded by authority |
That doubling on Specialists is not a rounding bonus. A Specialist swordsman walking into a player fight hits at twice its base attack, which is why kingdoms that take PvP seriously field a Specialist corps that almost never sees a monster.
Two structural details are worth carrying: Specialists only offer swordsmen and spies for tiers one through four, and unlock ranged, mounted and flying types at tier five. And Guardsmen start as archers, spearmen and riders, with the flying battle griffin arriving at tier five.
Class: what a troop beats
Class is the matchup layer, and the counters are a triangle that does not change with tier:
- Ranged beats melee and flying
- Melee beats mounted
- Mounted beats ranged
The bonuses are large enough to decide fights on their own — spearmen against mounted around 39%, archers against flying around 67%, riders against ranged around 65% — and the modifiers grow as tier rises. Every troop also shows three unique traits under its name, and those traits are what the matchup is actually computed against.
Matching class against a target's weakness costs nothing. No research, no gear, no silver. It is the cheapest power in the game and it is available on the very first march you ever send.
Read the monster before you march
This is the habit that separates commanders from clickers. A monster squad's info tab lists its percentage bonuses against your subclasses before you commit a single troop.
The list is specific and it is often counter-intuitive. A fire horse rider carries a bonus against mounted. A death rider carries roughly +50% against ranged. A werewolf carries around +45% against mounted. And some monsters exist precisely to punish the habit you have just been taught — Cerberus carries +65% against ranged units, so the archers that handle almost everything else are the worst possible answer to it.
There is no way to reason your way to these from first principles. You read them, or you lose troops finding out.
Strength is what turns into damage, and damage is what your score is built from. Health keeps troops alive. Against an epic monster your army dies regardless, so health bonuses change nothing about the result — take them off and switch to strength before an epic fight, then switch back for the fights you expect to survive.
Command pools, and why your march is the size it is
Troops do not draw on one pool. They draw on three, and they are not transferable:
- Leadership commands guardsmen, specialists and engineer corps.
- Dominance commands monsters.
- Authority commands mercenaries.
Your march size is the summed leadership, dominance and authority of the hero and captains you send, which is why swapping a captain changes how many troops fit. Adding the dragon to a march raises those command scores too.
One quirk worth budgeting for: riders cost two leadership each. A rider stack takes half the troop count of a foot stack the same size on paper, which changes the arithmetic of every mixed march you plan.
The order things die in
The game kills groups in a predictable order rather than at random, and that predictability is a tool. Arrange a march so the groups carrying the smallest bonuses absorb losses first, and your best troops survive fights that would otherwise have cost them.
That principle is the whole basis of the next lesson.
Knowledge check
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Which category doubles its attack against another player?
CorrectNot quiteA Specialist's base attack doubles in PvP. Guardsmen carry their bonuses against monsters instead.
The counter triangle runs…
CorrectNot quiteThe triangle is identical at every tier. Only the size of the modifier grows.
Before attacking a monster squad, where do you find its weaknesses?
CorrectNot quiteEvery squad publishes its bonuses before you commit. Cerberus, for instance, carries +65% against ranged, which makes archers the wrong answer.
Why does a rider stack contain fewer troops than a foot stack of the same march size?
CorrectNot quiteLeadership is spent per unit, and riders cost two. It halves the count a given leadership pool will carry.
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