Art of War: Legions Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Become a Strong Commander and Triumph in Every Mode

Games with no energy caps often have short-lived success because players usually outgrow them easily. Certainly, that’s not the case for Art of War: Legions. Since its release in 2019, Fastone Games’ strategy title continues to grow and the flow of the updates, which indicates the presence of an evolving meta, proves this strongly.

It helps that players can progress quickly and smoothly; one just needs to be patient in farming resources and be wise in building an army. In this guide, our aim is to give tips, tricks, and strategies in gathering resources efficiently and in making the most out of the random troops you obtain in card draws or recruitment.

Before we jump into actual tips, let’s take a look first on the game in general so we get a better understanding of the war we are charging into. Art of War: Legions may be outfitted with the boxy 3D layout, but like other successful games with similar detail (akin to Archero and Hunt Royale), don’t be deceived by the visual simplicity, this idle battler has quite a depth to it.

Fastone Games concocted quite a combination for Art of War: Legions giving it two general modes to keep players challenged and entertained, the battle modes and Expedition. Let’s first focus on the battle modes which currently have five general types:

1. Level Battles – the standard battle option directly accessible from the Home screen where you fight against increasingly difficult AI armies. This is your main progression path, advancing through levels here will let you unlock troops at certain points. Depending on your power rating, you will be given an option to choose from Normal, Hard, or Extreme difficulty. The strength, number of enemies, and the bounty you get from kills scale up accordingly.

2. Headhunt missions – round-limited battles against AI troops with daily cooldowns. The best farming option there is (we’ll discuss more details about this later) in terms of coin gain and ease, you can comfortably beat every battle even at lower power ratings because their difficulty does not change from the moment you have unlocked them,
 
3. Arena – the primary PVP feature in Art of War: Legions. The Arena lets you pit your army against other players. The setup would equally be like standard battles except that the opposing troops will also have a hero. Arena wins lets you advance through the leaderboard and obtain bonuses for clearing a certain number of opponents.
 
4. Hero Trial – another PVP outlet with a slight variation. You may field up to 5 heroes at a time, but they will occupy troop slots. Hero Trial wins will let you climb a separate leaderboard and climbing the ranks will give you a set amount of bounty depending on how you rank as each season ends (a week).

5. Honor Hunting – a battle mode that lets you challenge a boss monster. The available boss changes periodically and the aim here is to deal as much damage as possible before your troops gets wiped out. Ranged units and sustain potential is much more important here since the longer your troops survive, the more damage you can naturally deal.

As you acquire powerful units and promote your troops, you can pretty much do well in any battle mode. A high power rating is a good indication of an army’s strength, but it is never a guarantee for victory or defeat. Still, continuously aim to increase your power rating because some features and modes require certain minimums before they’ll be unlocked.

Tweaking your deployment choices depending on which battle mode you are taking on will take a bit of time, but you can never go wrong with having a solid formation, dependable troops, and a good overall sense of the game.

Now, let’s get to bottom of it with the most important aspect of being a successful commander in Art of War: Legions, gaining wealth.

1. FUEL YOUR FORCE WITH FARMING

True to the nature of raising an army, having fat pockets is a requirement if you wish to become a force to reckoned with. The sooner you can amass wealth, the quicker you’d be able to muster a formidable battalion which translates to the ability to breeze through levels battles and see success in PVP matches.

The flow of coins is abundant, but you’d need to be quite persistent in order to afford recruiting troops regularly.  So yes, the first order of business is to maximize farming. If you’re a beginner, dedicate your earnings from the first 50 levels to buying troops directly from the Troop Card shortcut in battle, go for the cheapest one worth 15k per draw.

Note that you won’t be able to purchase troop cards after every level (due to the sheer price) and the tips we’re sharing below will help make it possible for you to recruit soldiers as frequently as possible.

Take Advantage of the Ads

Pardon us for using an aggressive term, but it is what it is; the game is keen to give an option to show ads in exchange for something and it’s only “proper” to abuse this. The abundance of ads in Art of War: Legions is actually a breath of fresh air because free-to-play games that are somewhat pay-to-win are usually laden with forced ad viewing sequences; not this one. Watching ads, wherever one is offered is purely optional.

The length of ads varies from 5 to 32 seconds and ads that are longer than 20 seconds are not as frequent as the shorter ones. Ad watching ops are always offered after each battle against AIs and, in limited occasions, also to speed up the waiting time for opening troop and hero chests. Similar “help” present in other games just gives a measly reward; in Art of War: Legions, what you get is a x3 coin multiplier of whatever you earned from the battle, win or lose.

In our experience, what it usually does is give ads from just a couple of brand/advertiser at a time and their lengths are usually uniform. It is very rare that the game would jump across different ads or varying lengths. Our tip is to observe the duration trend, if you think that watching a 30-second ad will burn much of your time or momentum, you may opt to skip. Conversely, if you notice that you are given 5-seconders, capitalize on it and watch ads after every battle. In general, regardless of the length, watching ads will still be a win for you.

We recommend to never miss any post-battle ad watching opportunities especially on levels marked with a coin because the resulting total bounty is simply hard to pass up.

Headhunt is Gold Hunt

You are guaranteed to earn more coins from Headhunt missions than in normal battles. Apart from the bounty you’d get from killing enemy troops, Headhunt levels gives you a certain amount of coins of top of that. Past the 8^th stage of each run, the post-fight coin total can nearly rival what you’d get from normal battles with bonus coins (the levels marked with a gold coin).

With the high coin reward output, we are obliging you to ALWAYS use the x3 multiplier for viewing ads. A straight 10-stage clearance would net you more than enough coins to afford a draw 30 about twice. The Desert Treasure Hunt will be shortly available by early game and the Winter is Coming! would be unlocked when your army reaches a power rating of at least 60k.

Winter Headhunt applies a slight variation in form of introducing variables in the landscape. At times it is in a form of a chokepoint bridge or barricades; sometimes it is a water ditch or a rock barrier that forces melees to circle around it before they can engage.

Either way, the ranged units and backline ambushers will be barely impeded by terrain variations. It’s sweet to state that, once you achieve a power rating where you can comfortably finish the two constant headhunt battles, it will all be a breeze from there because their difficulty don’t scale up with your power rating or account level.

When It’s Farming Time, It’s Hohenheim

Hohenheim may not be getting enough love in the multiple hero tier lists available online, always a bottom tier. To be fair, he isn’t really designed to be a combatant. However, when it comes to raking coins down to your pocket, Hohenheim is the man or robot, anyway, you get it.

His passive, even just at level 1, promises a 1% attack damage increase to your army and a bonus 1 coin for each slain enemy troop. That means, if Hohenheim is fielded, instead of getting +10 prompts in kills, what you’ll see instead are +11s. Imagine winning against an army with 200 troops, you get +200 coins which you can triple by watching ads. The coin bounty differential with and without Hohenheim may just be under a thousand, but it will all eventually compound if you consistently use him in level battles and headhunt missions.

Before you go full-Hohenheim in level battles, though, make sure that your troops can comfortably conquer the Extreme difficulty (as this setting gives the most coins) even without the help of a damage-inclined or healing hero.

Take Advantage of the Auto-battles and Multipliers

This may be contrary to what we strongly advise about ad viewing opportunities, but the auto battle feature is undeniably a handy tool for farming too when you need to multitask. Need to go to the bathroom? Leave the game on auto-battle.Got to prepare a quick snack? Hit that auto-battle button. Turning it on, depending on how many charges it has, will let you take on level battles even when you go AFK. This feature completes Art of War: Legions as an idle battler because your progress can keep on going even without your intervention.

Once you have unlocked it, you earn free 20 charges that replenishes after 24 hours since its depletion. The charges will be exponentially augmented to 120 daily if you avail of the VIP pass. Since having more auto-battles is a VIP perk, there is no doubt this feature gives players an edge.

If you aren’t keen to watch ads and you want the speediest level progression, the auto-battle feature is your friend. If you have plenty of x2 bounty multipliers to spare, all the better. Coin multipliers are straightforward bounty boosts which fully stacks with the x3 ad watching multiplier.

It is important to note to only do the auto-battle + coin multiplier trick when you are confident that your army is strong enough to tear through the upcoming battles; in the event that you went AFK and lose, the reattempts would consume your auto-battle charges. Additionally, also watch out and try to avoid auto-batting through levels with bonus coins because the next one may come just after 20-40 levels (yes, their spacing are random too).

Clear the Quests

As you need every single resource to expand and upgrade your army, you wouldn’t want to pass up on what the quest rewards offer. The coins, gems, Epic troops, and Super Vouchers you can obtain daily will work towards your ability to acquire more troops and resources. What’s good with the quests is the fact that you can passively accomplish most of them as you engage in battles.

Accomplishing quests will be your constant supply of diamonds. Clearing the standard 7 quests a day guarantees at least 390 diamonds (290 directly from quests, 100 from a checkpoint gift) which will contribute to make our next recommend tip possible.

Leverage the Lucky Spin

Diamonds is the chief resource in the game which you can use for almost everything: buying troops/heroes, fusing troops, acquiring certain boosts, retries on limited events and PVP battles, purchasing coins, and shortening wait times. There really isn’t an absolute best place to spend them, it is all up to your preference.

However, in our opinion, the best place where you can get the most value out of your diamonds is the Wheel of Fortune. See to it that you will use the lucky spin at least 6 times a day. Your first single spin of the day will be discounted at 50% off and going for the bulk 5 spins comes at a discounted price of 540 diamonds.

Even in the earlier versions of Wheel of Fortune, the “worst” reward is 15k coins which is still a better deal compared to trading your diamonds for coins in the Shop (where the base rate is 100 diamonds for 5k coins). Each Lucky Spin will surely be a win for you.
 
Note, however, that the availability of Wheel of Fortune is seasonal (usually when a new hero is released), so make sure to liberally go for Lucky Spins when it’s available.

Grab the Freebies

Every day, the Shop and the Mystic Store will have a free item in them. The freebies do cycle randomly, but the common loot would be coins, diamonds, and a troop card at the Shop. Meanwhile, the Mystic Store is as mystic as it gets because the freebie is totally unpredictable, it can sometimes be troops, resources, keys, or boosts.

Note that the Mystic Shop has a certain power rating requirement, so you need to meet that first to take advantage of the awesome free loot daily.

With every single farming tip available all shared now, we’re hoping that you can efficiently gather the funds to raise a dominant army. Remember that nobody starts strong and being tenacious with tanking those ads, especially in the first 100 levels, is your means for quick progression. Now, let’s discuss the concepts surrounding battles.

2. BATTLE BLUEPRINTS

Approaches to battles vary depending on which point of the game you’re at and the type of battle you are participating in. Some strategies may shine in a few circumstances, but may completely be useless in others. Here are pointers and tips that will help you wrap your mind around the dynamics of combat in Art of War: Legions.

2.1 Early game

If you are still within the beginner’s range (below level 100), you can play with your rally point marker. Tapping anywhere on the battlefield will remove it from its default placement at the lower left corner.

The rally point banner will be the spawn point of the fresh infantry that trickles as the battle rages on. As ranged threats like archers can hurt your troops, you can help your melees by putting the rally point right at them so they can eventually be flanked and eliminated.

In some occasions at latter levels, dropping your rally point near a focus-fired unit may sometimes draw some aggro away which is helpful to preserve your damagers. This tactic, however, will eventually fade as infantry can be easily erased by AoE attacks when you get to level 400 and above.

2.2 Two-fronted Threat

Commonly, the straightforward goal in a war is to vehemently charge forward in a bid to steamroll the enemy’s frontline, however, in Art of War: Legions, that is not the only method for victory. Attacking the enemy from behind is an effective way to deal with any opposition because, as generals would agree, the only thing worse than a war is a war with multiple fronts.

There isn’t a long list of units capable of directly attacking the enemy backline. Such able ambushers only include troops Magic Apprentice (Rare), Ghost Assassins (Rare), and Demon (Legendary); as for heroes, it’s only Diana (Rare), Miller (Epic), and Poseidon (Legendary).

You may notice that as you crank up the difficulty of level battles from normal then hard and then extreme, the number of backline attackers increase. This is a clear confirmation that the dynamic they bring to the battlefield is a straight up gamechanger.

As such, it is fundamentally smart to have a handful of squads that prioritizes the enemy backline. This gives you the chance to quickly erase whatever units the enemy hopes to protect further behind their lines.

Formations in Art of War: Legions is an essential element in winning battles. Most troops have an ideal placement to increase their effectiveness or survivability. Backline attackers break from the formation at the onset of battle, so it does not matter where you place them, essentially easing away some of your worries on unit positioning.

2.2.1 Ambushers’ Synergy

Since ambushers disperse pretty quickly, the grids they occupy will take little time to be vacant. With this in mind, think one step ahead on how can the chaos mold into your favor. We were fortunate to have recruited and leveled up plenty of ambush units, so we’re sharing here an offense-minded formation that we use.

Our priority in the position shown above is to put a solid frontline with plenty of supportive backline firepower. We purposely placed the ambushers in the middle so they don’t bump off formation any frontline-material troops and not take up backline slots that are reserved for squishy units that could quickly get trampled if they are closer to the frontline.

In foresight of the grids the ambushers will vacate, we placed a charge-inclined hero at the back, essentially creating what we call a “hero highway.” This centerline void will allow any charging, melee hero to advance quicker and do their thing sooner. Such formation is also applicable if the hero you will use is not quite tanky because the void will allow them to ease into your own crowd, thus lessening the chances for it to be intercepted by enemy ambushers.

2.2.1 Defense Against Ambushers

Knowing now how potent ambushers are, it is smart to set defensive measures against them. For that, we’re showing a variation of the formation we shared above.

The placement of tanks and capable fighters at the backline is meant to take the shock against hostile ambushers, see how the enemy Demons, Magic Apprentices, and Ghost Assassins were met by the melees we designated to cover our rear. Also note how the rear “closed” as our non-combative hero, Hohenheim, got defensively boxed in with nothing but a scratch.

Generally, it is always better to have some backline tanks, but be wary to not thin out your first two rows because it is a nightmare scenario if your frontline gets overwhelmed quickly. As such, we only recommend hybridizing defense in your two-front threat formation if you have already recruited the troops for it.

2.3 Shield and Siege

If the RNG gods does not bestow you with ambushers yet (yes, we are optimistic you will obtain some), using a traditional formation is also fine. By traditional, we mean simply having front-attacking melee and ranged units. Like what is true in games of many genres, the tanks go front and the damagers take the back.

Nothing too fancy, just the old concept of distancing the ranged units from the frontline shock because they usually have less health, but they deal more damage. Just to draw a basic example, a level 1 archer has 120 damage, 600 health, and 25 defense while a level 1 infantry has 100 damage, 800, health, and 30 defense. As you advance through levels and increase your power rating, you can brew an early game army that will somewhat resemble what is shown below.

In such case, you are obligated to deploy your hero at the back, so it can take on any ambushers. Heroes have a ton of HP after all and everyone’s OG, Kelvins, is a tanky fighter.  If he is your best and only hero as of yet, let him stay at the back. His protection and damage skill makes him fare good even when surrounded.

Also, if he ever gets pushed in by the ambushers, his aggressors will be within the range of your ranged units which will then likely provide cover fire. Should you get an overabundance of melee engagers, follow the same concept shared in an earlier sub-section, provide a defensive line to cover your rear.

2.4 Hero Heavy

Heroes can greatly affect the complexion of combat, which is why advanced players would often seek for formations meant to cater to specific heroes. Like RPG characters, heroes also have roles, some have skills with insane damage, others offer tactical advantages for the troops (stat boosts), and a few have sustain potentials (healing). Given that, adapting an approach that would favor them is a chief ingredient to victory.

The hero highway formation we shared earlier can work for most heroes because it facilitates charge-types’ advancement and can box-in for protection. Still, there is no such thing as best formation because the composition of the armies you will face (especially in the Arena) varies a lot. In general though, if you are using a ranged hero that is purely for support, like Seondeok who is very popular now, the best way to preserve her in order to maximize her heals is to make her sit at a flank.

With the exception of fighting against dedicated assassins, like Diana and Miller, heroes at the flank will have a brief time of safety, because ambushers would have to defeat your backline first before reaching your hero. If your backline guards are formidable, they can peel off troops attacking your hero allowing it to cruise into mid-battle still with ample health.

Then again, the flank designation isn’t a panacea, if your army is outnumbered, there is a high chance that your hero would be eventually dealt with. If you are really keen to secure wins, you may want to do micro-rearrangements in your formation taking into account what troops the enemy has. In the matchup above, we did not do any adjustments and as a result our hero died sooner than her counterpart.

Although our hero died, the flank designation allowed Seondeok to last a bit longer and provide a heal which enabled our troops to outlive our foes and win.

If your goal for deploying a hero at the flank is preservation, it would help to designate tanky troops throughout the exterior column because doing so would increase a number of units that can peel off attackers. Additionally, if you are running a sustain or healing-inclined army lead by Green, Kriss, Harrison, or Seondeok, it will be brilliant to assign Nuns and Pilgrims by their side. Note that healing-capable troops are quite tricky to acquire as they belong to Epic class.

We reckon we shared quite a handful here, so to summarize the lessons in this subsection, here are the pointers:

1. Do not force to adapt a deployment blueprint that is not available to you. If your ambushers are yet few or under-leveled, only use the most leveled up squad or wait until you have recruited plenty to organize your own backline breaking party. In the same way if you do not have enough melee fighters, resist the urge to designate ranged damagers in the frontline because they will just be ran over.

2. Work with what you have been given. Use a formation where your best hero can shine. In concept, heroes and troops must synergize, but if what you have heavily inclines to one side, you do not have an excellent hero yet, but your troops are formidable on their own, simply treat the hero as an extra tank with abilities.

3. Do not hesitate to take extra time to rearrange your troops especially for Arena battles. There is no time limit, the enemy troops will be visible to you before you hit the battle button. In the same way, if you do not like your chances after seeing the enemy’s power rating, number of troops, and hero in the field, you can always hit back and look for a different opponent. You will not be penalized for fleeing and remember that the smart outlives the strong.

3. DECISIONS 101

The number of decisions you have to do as a commander will make you realize of the game’s depth. From planning your battles to meeting your unit recruitment and promotion needs to spending your resources, it is all up to you. This section is meant to give you useful guidelines to help you become a successful commander in Art of War: Legions.

Arena and Hero Hunt

In the Arena, a power rating differential don’t really spell much of a difference. Taking on an opponent with a power rating that is thousands lower than yours does not guarantee you will win; in the same way, the opposite is no certain defeat. However, the constants do remain as okay, constant.

By that, we’re pertaining to having superior units, unit effects, and troop count, in that order of importance. These are the mainstay variables that will help you forecast if your troops has a chance to rout the opposition.

When we were looking for an opponent in the picture above, our power rating was 224160. There were two opponents on the list with a power rating lower than ours, but we challenged the one with a superior power rating at 246360. The reason for doing so? The trophy count. The number of trophies is a strong indication of an army’s effectiveness. Strong players, of course, win often so they will naturally have a high trophy count. The decision making does not stop here yet, however.

The next step, just like in any fight (the real world included), is to size up the enemy. As the battlefield opened, we saw that our opponent has 36 more troops and has a leveled up hero. Things don’t initially look good; we are behind in power rating, the enemy has more soldiers, and his hero is a way much more powerful attacker than ours, worse, he is an assassin class that focuses hero targets.

We fret a bit, but took hope with the sign if we’re fighting a strong army, how come he only has 1053 trophies? We charged into the battle trusting that our 2215 trophies at the time is a telltale sign that we are superior.

Our forecasts were correct, both the good and the bad: Miller was able to crush Seondeok, but the effects of her skills and our higher quality troops painted the battlefield green with a win!

The same idea may be applied in Hero Trial. The format of Hero Trial is exactly like what you get in the normal battle, except that all of your Heroes are pre-deployed. If the number of your total troops and heroes exceed the tiles, the game will preselect the troops, giving usual priority to upgraded units.

You can, of course, open your barracks to change the predetermined line-up and then rearrange your units’ formation. Ideally, you must set at the front any hero with damage and defense potential and then set behind anyone else with supportive skills, much like what is usually done in strategy games. The aim is to create space between the combat-inclined heroes and the supportive ones, so by the time that the enemies reach the supports their abilities will be ready by then to reinforce your team’s shock-absorbers.

In the particular match above, we just rearranged the formation a bit and included a Yasha to fill the remaining vacant slot. Take note how we set Kelvins as the solo hero in his row and that we fielded 4 support-capable heroes with him instead of choosing other pure damagers. The power rating differential for this one is slim and we were outnumbered.

Nonetheless, we soldiered on trusting a concept that works even in way more complexed games like DotA, wherein multiple supports may be utilized to groom a carry. We pulled it off, winning the battle with Kelvins at full health!

To summarize, here are our pointers when tackling on PVP matches:

1. Check the power rating and more importantly, the trophy count. What you will see in the list when looking for challenges are based on the players’ active lineup, the actual army you will face.

2. In the Arena, size up the enemy troops; if the troop differential reaches 50, you might want to reconsider especially if your hero has a chance to be deleted early. Do assign durable troops near your hero to help with survivability. In Hero Trial, always use the 5 hero slots and adapt a strategy based on who’s available to you.

3. Make micro-adjustments in the formation considering the number of enemy ambushers and how strong and capable their heroes are.

Recruitment

Like what we have mentioned earlier in this guide, your ability to recruit depends on how excellently you can farm. Assuming that you already got the groove in gaining gold, here are objective considerations on how you can spend your wealth in acquiring more troops.

Similar to spending diamonds, there is no better or best choice to use your coins for recruitment. It will all depend on your current need. If you have a lot of troop slots to fill, we recommend that you farm up  240k gold and go for the draw 30 option in the recruit camp.

The draw 30 offers the best bang for the back as you are only paying 8,000 coins per troop. The cheaper alternative or the draw 3 is also quite economical as you’re just spending 9,000 per troop. Just to be clear, we’re comparing the prices to the only other direct option to get soldiers which is the Troop Card shop directly accessible through the battle. In the Recruit Camp, the chances for drawing a rare card is also higher at 70%. The Troop Card path can only beat this probability if you go for the 3-star option which is priced at 60k coins per draw.

In bird’s eye view, the points for deciding whether to acquire troops from the Recruit Camp or Troop Card is based on what benefits you seek. Purchasing troops from the Recruit Camp is 1) much cheaper, 2) has higher probability to turn up rares for spending less, and 3) you get more account XP per purchase. Choosing the Recruit Camp path then is better if your aim is to level up and acquire more common troops.

On the other hand, Troop Card purchases may be more expensive, but they work toward achieving Lucky Time. Each time you earn 200 points in Troop Card, Lucky Drawing activates which lets you choose one of three random troops for free. The options can only be Epic or Legendary and this is a great way to build an army of higher quality soldiers. This is, honestly, how we have acquired stronger units, we farm hard only to go for the less economical recruitment option. If you’re feeling lucky, aspire for Lucky Time draws!

It will take a while to rack up 200 points, but each draw gives you a chance to earn a Lucky Bonus. This bonus basically multiplies the corresponding points you earn based on how many stars a Troop Card purchase has. For reference, below are their point values and prices.

1-star = 4 points at 15,000 coins
2-star = 8 points at 30,000 coins
3-star = 16 points at 60,000 coins
4-star = 32 points at 120,000 coins

The equation is purely commutative so there is no best option here either. However, in line with the apparent chances we have observed in our playing experience, we usually go for the 60,000 coins per draw. It’s all purely RNG, but if fortune favors you too (like what happened to us a few times already), spending 500k here is often enough to earn 2 Lucky Times. For that though, you may have to mix up 2-star and 3-star draws to budget accordingly.

Now that you have an idea which recruitment mode to take base on what you aim or wish (you know, luck and wishes belong to the same universe), let’s set our sights on the troops which we think can compose a powerful army.    

4. NOTABLE UNITS

Since acquiring heroes require a huge deal of luck OR investing quite a hefty sum of real currency, we’d rather focus on the battlefield units that don’t depend on much luck in recruiting the troops. Here are the units the we believe can create an impact in the battlefield and could tame the flow on combat in your favor.

Ogre Warrior

Class: Rare
Ideal placement: Frontline or backline (to protect your rear)
Strong points: durability, AoE attack, and can prolong the battle

Ogre Warriors are big, bulky beings that are easy to notice in the battlefield. They are tanky and can take a squad or two of units with lower levels. They also have a crowd splitting heavy attack that happens every other hit. The scattering effect of such heavies could cut the enemy formation into smaller, more “digestible” pieces. This scattering effect is perfect if an Ogre Warrior still has surviving teammates that can pick off the scattered enemies (ranged, preferably).

Even though they are only classified as a Rare troop and generally ranking low in troop tier guides, we are considering Ogre Warriors as notable troops because they are easy to acquire (hence, promote too), can withstand a ton of damage, and they are able to hold their ground against higher class or multiple opponents all at once.

Demon

Class: Legendary
Ideal placement: Anywhere
Strong points: AoE damage, relative durability, and can help divert agro by mid-battle

The most terrifying, non-hero backline ambushers; Demons are immune to damage when they fly toward their targets and they shoot a cone-shaped AoE nuke that can hurt multiple enemies. At times, when their desired target has been eliminated, they may decide to swoop at a prey that are quite distant from them, the flight they take makes them reenter the damage-immune state.

They are often one of the last units that stand in the battlefield. If the enemy formation has no durable melee types in their backline, Demons can wreak absolute havoc and ravage enemies before they themselves fall.

Necromancer

Class: Epic
Ideal placement: middle of formation
Strong points: may prolong the battle, provides “warm” bodies to keep enemies distracted

Carrying the infamous reputation of Necromancers from the archaic masterpiece of a game, Diablo II, Necromancers bring trouble to enemies with their summoned units. While Necromancers in Art of War: Legions cannot deal damage directly, their normal attack would instead summon a squad of skeleton warriors which are surprisingly quite sturdy. In a war of attrition, having the ability to augment your forces in the heat of the battle is an undeniable asset.

If Necromancers would not be eliminated early, their summons can provide ample distractions to help an allied damager turn the tide of battle. Their impact on the battlefield is so immense that newer players would not have an idea that they were once the laughingstock of Epic class troops.

Soul Hunter

Class: Epic
Ideal placement: second row of frontline or backline
Strong points: survivability, ability to handle multiple attackers

If they weren’t dealt with early, Soul Hunters can be an absolute menace because they would usually require to be focus fired by multiple enemies for them to die. They are able to deal reliable damage and their self-sustaining AoE lifesteal making them an absolute unit! At level 3, due to their life steal, they are essentially much durable than level 2 heroes.

Sacred Swordsman

Class: Legendary
Ideal placement: second row of frontline or backline
Strong points: hard to kill; can help mount a late-battle comeback

Equipped with notorious damage and brief invulnerability, a Sacred Swordman is almost guaranteed to win a 1v1 battle against any other troop (except when severely under-leveled). They can damage multiple enemies in an area making them efficient in handling small clusters of hostiles.

Ghost Assassins

Class: Rare
Ideal placement: anywhere
Strong points: may work to burst enemy heroes, efficient attackers

With the ability to instantly blink behind enemy troops, they are able to create an early-battle damage head room with max efficiency. At level 4, you will have 9 assassins per squad and having just two squads is often enough to create an impact and hurt enemies with formations that have no backline tanks. At level 7, a squad or two of Ghost Assassins can swiftly take a hero down.

5. EXPEDITION MODE

This Art of War: Legions guide will not be complete if we do not discuss the other play mode available in Art of War: Legions, the Expedition. The checkpoint rewards from it will be handy toward your battle mode efforts, so it’s a good idea to not ignore this aspect of the game. This mode sets you on a literal base race. You have to conquer all enemy-owned structures (red) before the timer expires in order to achieve victory. In contrast to battle modes, you need a good sense of timing and focus to win in expeditions.

In expedition mode, you are set on a map with a base or two to start with. Your enemy may have more starting bases than you, but yours will always be a level higher than the AI’s. The first order of duty is to quickly upgrade your starting bases to the next level. You are practically able to max the level of your starting bases if you will waste no time in upgrading them.

Your next objective after upgrading is to mount an attack. Keep an eye on the number of troops present in your bases. If there is a neutral (gray) structure directly accessible from a base of yours, aim to send troops to that base to prepare a siege. The key idea is that your troop count should ALWAYS be twice of whatever number is displayed on a structure you are trying to conquer. For example, if you’re conquering a neutral base with 20 HP, you would need at least 40 troops to successfully seize it.

If you have two bases that has a direct access to a target structure, that is even better because troop accumulation time will be shorter. Should it happen that the enemy also has direct access to the same structure you are targeting, you can play the waiting game, simply secure a high troop count on the base(s) you will launch an attack from. If you do that, all you must do is time your siege, make your troops march as soon the enemy troops are about to make contact with the target structure.

If the enemy succeeds in that siege, that base would likely have a low HP and your volume of troops should be able to overwhelm and takeover. On the other hand, if the enemy’s attack fails, you are given a “primed” target which will require less of your troops to conquer it.

Note that you can always focus fire a target by issuing a swipe that would go through your structures. Doing so will draw multiple “ghost” arrows signaling that those structures of yours (be it a barracks, castle, or outpost) are sending troops to the target structure.

The keys to victory in Expedition is to be patient in upgrading your bases, send troops to the battle front (or bases the enemy can directly access/attack) and then amass a troop count that would be enough to conquer a target building. A max level base can gain up to 50 troops/health and in order to conquer a maxed out enemy base, you either have to time that they are yet replenishing troops or you can set 3 bases of yours to funnel all their troops to it.

Excelling in expeditions may take you a few trial and error attempts. Know that it’s totally okay to not get things right at your first try. If you feel that you have miscalculated your timing of sending troops to an outpost or castle and have multiple failed invasion attempts, feel free to hit pause then quit and then do the necessary adjustments on your next run.

And that’s a wrap! We hope you have enjoyed reading our Art of War: Legions guide. All the tips, tricks, and strategies we shared here are the tenets we lean on to become a successful commander.

We may not have played the game as long as other veterans have, but the knowledge we imparted here is what have set us in a quick upward trajectory. If you have been a commander for a long time now and just happened to browse this Art of War: Legions guide (likely in a bid to look for a Seondeok formation), feel free to share any lessons or tactics we may have missed. Our aim is to help commanders rise and improve our legions together. Join us as we aspire to dominate and conquer. See you in the battlefield!