What early squads look like in the captured sources

One player describes the situation this page is for: six squads of three characters, everyone around level 8, still in the first region, and too many choices to feel manageable. The replies that followed are the backbone of the early advice here.

The consistent three-part answer is that each squad wants one character who can be hit and survive, one damage dealer, and one heal source. Soldiers and healing items are offered as acceptable coverage for your stronger squads, with a real healer suggested for the rest. Once squads reach four or five characters, the extra slots are meant for a support that covers a weakness and for a character that keeps generating action points by finishing enemies off.

The second consistent point is that early squads should have a job. Replies describe a knight pair or trio for taking towers, a shield-and-debuff pair for holding a garrison, an archer and a mage behind a durable front for general fights, and flying units paired with a character who eats the arrows aimed at them.

Steps: set up one early squad

  1. Count what you have

    Note how many characters you can field per squad and which of them can survive being attacked. Early squads start at three and move to four, so do not plan around a bigger squad yet.

  2. Fill the front slot with a survivor

    Evasion types, guard types and hybrid profiles all appear in the captured advice. One reply names Thief-type, Hoplite-type and Lord-type characters as front answers, with the caveat that leaning on evasion alone is rough before the character has gear.

  3. Put your cheapest heal source behind them

    A dedicated healer where you have one for that squad; otherwise soldier-type healing or healing items are written up as enough for squads that already win their fights.

  4. Add one damage dealer with a purpose

    Choose by map: a caster for armoured enemies, an archer for flying characters, a knight-type for infantry that can also grab towers.

  5. Set two tactics rules

    Basic attacks on the lowest-HP target so the squad focus-fires, and control skills on the highest-HP enemy or one with action points available.

  6. Spend unlocks on squads you already have

    A deployment slot in an existing squad was suggested over unlocking another squad, because a wider army levels more slowly and splits your AP and PP items.

Why this order matters early

Early on you are short of everything: characters, gear and levels. Spreading across more squads makes each one weaker, which is why the same advice about fewer and fuller squads recurs in several threads. It also explains why the front slot comes first. If the character being attacked cannot survive a round, the healer and the damage dealer do not get to act.

The same shortage explains why cheap heal coverage is acceptable here. A squad that already wins its fights can keep going on a soldier-type heal or healing items, which frees a dedicated healer for the squad that actually struggles.

Signs the early setup is working

  • Each squad wins ordinary map fights on its own, instead of one squad being dragged everywhere.
  • Every squad has some form of sustain.
  • You have a designated answer to the two enemy types that stall early armies: armoured units and flying units.
  • Your attackers hit the targets you intended, because the lowest-HP condition is doing its job.

When an early squad falls apart

  • The front character folds in one round: whoever is up front is not built to be hit. Warriors and housecarl-type characters are repeatedly described as back-row units in the captured threads.
  • Armoured enemies stall the fight: there is no caster in the squad.
  • Fliers or evasive enemies run you around: there is no archer or true-strike option.
  • Fights drag on and every turn feels tight: no attacker recovers AP on a kill, so the squad runs out of action points and stalls.
  • Levels rise slowly: too many squads are deployed, splitting the experience.

Branches and the templates that exist

Guide-site templates from this period are worth reading as examples rather than answers. A formations page captured for this site lists three-slot squads with one character in front and two behind, for instance a lord-type with a witch and a sellsword, or a hoplite-type with a cleric and a knight. That page's description text does not match its own rosters, so only the rosters are usable and the prose should be ignored. A separate guide article published in the launch window, on 2024-03-17, printed four early templates with names and roles: an all-rounder squad, a cavalry squad, a flying squad and a defensive squad. None of them was labelled by stage in the source itself.

Players also route around the roster instead of using it. One reply says a named shaman becomes available early once you reach the mainland, and that only one such named character exists, so extra copies have to be hired. The quest and the location in that reply were single-source and unverified, so treat it as a lead rather than a schedule.

  • Anti-air branch: flying units plus a fighter-type in front of them to absorb arrows.
  • Tower branch: two or three knights in one squad to take structures quickly.
  • Garrison branch: a shield-type with a debuff unit to hold a position.
  • Low-cost branch: soldier-type healing or healing items instead of a dedicated healer.
  • All-round branch: an archer and a caster behind one durable front character.

Version scope and what is still open

The two main sources for this page are a launch-window guide article dated 2024-03-17 and a community thread whose two timestamps disagree with each other, with no absolute date recovered. Both sit before the 2024-04-25 patch, and the latest patch that can be confirmed from the capture is v1.05, in place from 2024-05-27, with PS4 and PS5 served first and Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X|S awaiting platform review. No early-game source carrying a current-version label was captured, so the advice above is 2024-era practice.

How many squads to run early is also unsettled. The capture contains individual habits, such as one player running six small squads, but no rule. Slot caps beyond four are mentioned in a single reply and nowhere else, so this page does not promise a specific ceiling.

Finally, the guide-site templates were not labelled with a stage by their own publisher, and the sources that mention early pickups give conflicting or unverified details. Read the examples as layouts to copy structurally, then confirm who you actually have in your own roster.