In Rise of Castles: Ice and Fire,  there is no single definitive “tier list” for generic troops because their effectiveness depends entirely on their counter-units and the specific heroes leading them. The primary objective is to reach the highest tier of troops available, currently T10, and combine them effectively with S-tier heroes for maximum synergy. 
 
 
Troop Types Overview
 
Different troop types excel in specific roles and are vulnerable to others in a rock-paper-scissors dynamic. 
 
  • Cavalry: Excellent for speed and typically used for resource gathering and rapid attacks. They are strong against Footmen.
  • Footmen: Possess high defense and demolition power, making them effective for sustained combat and breaking down city defenses. They are strong against Archers.
  • Archers: Excel at long-range attacks and high damage output, making them a primary damage source in most legions. They are strong against Cavalry. 
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Hero Synergy and Tiers
 
The strength of a troop type is largely determined by the heroes you pair them with. Heroes are ranked by quality (color: Green to Orange/S-tier) and season. S-tier and Seasonal heroes offer powerful unique skills that significantly boost specific troop types. 
 
  • S-Tier: God-tier heroes that dominate most game modes and are essential for competitive play.
  • A-Tier: Strong, reliable heroes that are solid options in many situations. 
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Must-have heroes (S1-S4 example) for F2P players, depending on your preferred troop type:
 
  • Archers: Pacer (S1) or Jade Eagle (S4).
  • Cavalry: Lion Heart (S1).
  • Footmen: Iron Hand (S1). 
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Ultimately, the best approach is to focus on unlocking T10 troops and building specialized legions around your highest-tier heroes to exploit unit advantages in battle. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

How to assign your troops

 

A lot of people ask about the best assignment of troops in a legion. The answer will generally depend on what you are doing or who you are attacking.

In general the troops strengths are:

Footmen – Good defense, work well in the front row. – High destructive power for taking out structures.

Cavalry, good speed and load carrying.

Archers, good range and attack

 

For attacking monsters and npc enemies in the game a good general formation is to run Footmen in the front, cavalry in the middle and archers in the back row. This is going to be probably the best way to set up when you have limited troops at the start of the game and will get you going against the lower level enemies. It gives a good mix of the troops advantages.

There are benefits though to using a single type of troops in each row. The game does offer a buff when you do this and as you level up you will also unlock War room buildings that give further buffs to a formation when it uses a single troop type and you will also be able to craft and equip accessories that enhance certain troop types and give similar single troop type formation buffs.

Popular Formations

 

Using the standard formation as described above is a good way to start the game. As you progress you will probably want to try out the following and use them when it is best.

By far the most popular formation for general activities is to use only Cavalry. This will give your formation the fastest matching speed to and from an enemy (its better to get in and out quick) and also the highest load capacity. This helps when raiding players and also when gathering.

 

When playing Reign of Chaos you will often find yourself having to attack honor structures which have a durability that needs to be worn down, Or you may need to capture enemy plots that also have a durability to destroy before you can take them. In this case using all footmen will give you the highest destructive ability. The trade off here though is speed. It will take much longer to reach the target.

Finally the archers have the highest attack stat, Running a legion with only Archers will give you the best chance to kill enemy troops and can work very well in the Heroes duel event. If you have the archer war room at a high level and the right heroes this can be the strongest formation in a head to head fight, depending on the enemies defense.

Heroes Placement

 

Once final thing to check on your formations is the placement of the heroes that you have unlocked. Certain heroes have fixed range skills or skills that only work with certain troop types. It is a good idea to check these and make sure they are being used effectively. We will discuss the skills in more detail in our heroes guide.

When placing the heroes you need to check the skills that you have unlocked for it. The ones to check are skills 2, 5 and 8. These skills can be affected by the type of troops that the hero is leading and more importantly they will have a range. The range determine how far forward the skills can work in battles.

 

During a battle the enemy formations face each other with the front rows directly in front of each other. A hero with a skill of range 2 can use it against enemy rows 1 or 2 rows directly in front of it. If this hero is placed in your back row then when the skill activates it will not damage any enemy troops. If it is in the front row then it can affect the first 2 rows of the enemy.

When assigning heroes to the formation, check the rang and where possible place heroes with range 1, 2 or 3 in the front. 3 or 4 in the middle and 4 or 5 at the back. Depending on your heroes this may not always be possible but as you unlock more heroes you will have more options to use.

Type of legions:

  • Each legion type has its own tech tree so investment in “extra legions can become very expensive and time consuming
  • Each legion also has its own Fatigue Measure so while moving troops and heroes around is possible, the various legions themselves must “rest up” when fatigue becomes too low.
  • Fatigue is incurred when a legion is dispatched so time consuming chores like gathering resources
 

Basic Legion

  • The first legion you unlock will be Legion 1, a basic legion
  • Basic Legions will NOT be able to plunder gold from PVP enemies

Class Legion

  • The second legion available will be the Class legion
  • It is recommend to focus on Class Legion as soon as you unlock it. Class Legion has the ability to raid gold when your class is ‘raider’.
  • Many players suggest focusing on upgrading Class Legion research to the maximum so that you unlock 3 spots for heroes.
  • Others suggest unlocking the second hero spot in legion 1 & 2 before maxing out Class Legion.

Basic Legion 2

  • A Second “Basic” Legion becomes possible at Castle Level 15?

Basic Legion 3

  • A Third “Basic” Legion becomes possible at Castle Level ??

Basic Legion 4

  • A Third “Basic” Legion becomes possible at Castle Level ??

Troops

There are three basic troop types

  • All the troops have their unique advantages. And there is a circle of the troops that are advantages versus other troops, a comprehensive summary down here.

Footmen

Cavalry

  • Cavalry: Ideally for raiding, due to speed & carrying capacity

Archers

Comparative Troop Advantages

  • What is strongest against what is a sort of rock/paper/scissors game

Footmen > Archers > Cavalries > Footmen

  • Footmen: Strong against Archers / Weak against Cavalries
  • Archers: Strong against Cavalries / Weak Against Footmen
  • Cavalries: Strong Against Footmen / Weak Against Archers

Legion Set-up

4 Main Set-ups of Formations are the common used ones. (Front- / Middle- / Back- row)

  1. Footman / Cavalry / Archers
  2. Footman / Footman / Footman
  3. Cavalry / Cavalry / Cavalry
  4. Archers / Archers / Archers

With Castle Level 17 and Garrison Hall Level 17 you get access to Cavalry / Footman / Archer – war rooms, which adds Might and Defense bonus to Formations 2-4. Formation 3 is mostly used as Class Legion formation, since with their high march speed and troop load raiders can raid other players resources quick before they get a chance to shield or get reinforced.

Heroes

Introduction

  • The game has 2 basic types of heroes, Combat & Development heroes.
  • For purposes of this section we’ll focus on the Combat Heroes.
  • Some would advise that it’s important to recognize from the early game it’s not worth it to invest too much experience & nor too many resources in green, blue or purple heroes. Combat heroes are the most important ones. It’s also not worth investing in development heroes in the early game. Investing means spending wisdom medals to unlock or upgrade their skills. By the time you reach Castle level 15 you will probably have one or two orange heroes.
  • Heroes also have different levels of potential that can be identified by their color.
  1. Green (weakest)
  2. Blue
  3. Purple
  4. Orange (strongest)
  5. S or Seasonal Heroes (Stronger still but tough to get and expensive to advance)
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