Troop stacking in Total Battle: the complete guide

What troop stacking is

Troop stacking is how you compose a march so it wins with fewer losses. A well-stacked army beats opponents with far more power on paper; a badly stacked one loses troops it did not need to lose. Players use the word for two different things, and it helps to keep them apart:

• Tier stacking: the same unit at several tiers, for example Rider V, Rider IV and Rider III, so the march holds several squads.
• Class mixing: melee, ranged, mounted and flying units in one march, to cover the counters of the target you are hitting.

Both work for the same reason. A squad is one unit type at one tier, and each squad attacks on its own. Ten squads land ten attacks a round; one huge squad lands one, and it is also the first thing the enemy hits.

Understanding troop types

Every unit shows three traits under its name: its race, its class and its family. An Archer I, for example, is Human, Ranged unit, Guardsman. The class decides who it beats in a fight; the family decides what it is built for.

Classes

• Melee (Spearmen and the like): strong against mounted units and beasts.
• Ranged (Archers and the like): strong against melee and very strong against flying units.
• Mounted (Riders and the like): strong against ranged units and siege.
• Flying: the class ranged units counter hardest.

Families

The counter system

The counters are not a guess: they are printed on the unit cards as strength bonuses against each class. The cycle is melee beats mounted, mounted beats ranged, ranged beats melee, with two extra lines: ranged also beats flying, and mounted also beats siege.

The bonus grows by about 1.5 times per tier. An Archer V carries +263% against melee and +339% against flying, so against a target it counters, one tier up is worth far more than its raw stats suggest. Before a fight, look up what the target is strong against and avoid sending exactly that.

Front row and back row: how targeting really works

Many guides tell you to put melee in a front row and archers behind it. Total Battle has no rows. What decides who gets hit is health:

• The enemy attacks your squad with the most total health first. Every serious stacking calculator is built on this rule, and players confirm it in battle reports.
• Initiative decides who strikes first. The official rule: troops with higher initiative always attack first, once per round. When initiative is equal, each side has a 50% chance to go first.
• Walls strike early. Fortifications carry higher initiative than troops, and they are built with a lot of health, so they take the first hits of an attack on a city.

By that rule, the squad that “tanks” is the one with the most total health. Stacking is the art of choosing which squad that is.

Tier stacking: the 1.8 rule

Two numbers from the unit cards explain the whole technique:

• On the Guardsmen ladders, health grows about 1.8 times per tier up to tier VII. Archer I has 150 health, Archer II 270, Archer III 480, Archer IV 870 and Archer V 1,560. The higher-tier lines step up differently, so read each unit’s own health there.
• Leadership does not grow with tier. Archer I and Archer V both cost 1 leadership; a Rider costs 2 at every tier.

On a ladder like this, your top tier gives the most health per point of leadership. You bring lower tiers for one reason: more squads. To make the cheaper, lower-tier squad the one the enemy hits, give it slightly more total health than the squad above it. The community rule of thumb is about 1.9 times as many troops for each tier you step down: where health grows exactly 1.8 times, the two squads would tie, and the extra 0.1 is a safety margin. It is a starting point, not a game rule: work the ladder out from each squad’s real health.

The old rule of doubling each step (1, 2, 4, 8) still works, but it spends about 11% more leadership per step than it needs to. And the “40% infantry, 40% ranged, 20% cavalry” split you may have read elsewhere is not a game rule at all: the battle never looks at percentages, only at the health of each squad.

Build your first stack, step by step

1. Pick the family. Guardsmen for monsters and Citadels; Specialists for players.
2. Pick the class. Look at what the target is strong against and choose a class it does not counter. If the target is weak to one class, lead with that class.
3. Start from your top tier. Put the troops you can afford to lose least at the top of the ladder.
4. Add the tiers below at 1.9 times. 100 of your top tier, 190 of the next, 361 of the next, until you run out of leadership or tiers.
5. Check your boosts. Strength and health boosts change the health of each squad, so a boosted top squad can end up with the most health. Keep the ladder in order after boosts.
6. Read the battle report. If your top squad died first, the ladder below it was too thin: add troops to the cheaper squads, not to the top one.

Two or three fights are usually enough to see whether the right squad is taking the hits. Adjust by small steps, one squad at a time, and note what worked for each kind of target.

PvP and PvE stacks

Monsters

Ordinary Crypts are explored, not fought: a Crypt takes Tar, not a march, so it needs no formation. The rules below are for monster squads.

• March with Guardsmen: they carry the bonus against monsters.
• Check the monster squad’s own bonus and do not send the class it counters. A squad with a bonus against melee wants ranged or mounted troops in front of it.
• Several squads beat one: more attacks per round, and the cheap squad absorbs the hits.

Attacking players

• Lead with Specialists; their base attack is doubled against players.
• Bring Engineer corps for the walls: they gain initiative against fortifications, and walls otherwise strike first.
• Scout first, then stack the class that counters your target’s main troops.

Defending your city

• By the same rule, your walls, with the most health, should take the opening hits. Experienced defenders keep their squads below the walls’ health so the walls do that job.
• Defensive losses are revived with Silver: up to 75% of fallen defenders, where an attacker revives up to 90% with Gold. Silver is far easier to replace.

Event stacks

• Ragnarök, Jörmungandr: it can be raided by several clan members in one march, and rewards follow your share of the raid. One full march beats three small ones. The guide has the whole event.
• Ragnarök, Fenrir: only one Captain can attack a Fenrir squad. Community guides treat it as a march that will fall, so they put cheap, high-health Guardsmen in front and the damage behind them.
• Epic monsters: players report that they hit your biggest health stack first too, so the 1.9 ladder matters most here.
• Boosters: the community advice is to switch on strength and health boosts first, then Valor and Experience boosts right before each march, so every boost is active when the fight resolves.

Clan CP runs

CP runs are organised by players, not by the game. In a CP run, one player tanks: the counter-hits must land on them. Because, as players agree, the battle hits the squad with the most health, every other player’s squads must each stay below the tank’s smallest squad. A participant whose squad has more health than that, because of equipment, artifacts or a health boost, pulls the hit onto themselves and loses troops. That is why participants are asked to strip health gear before a run.

Citadel attack formations

Citadels, Elven and Cursed, are monster fights with fixed defenders, so the monster rules apply: Guardsmen, the right class against the defenders’ own bonus, and several squads. Community stacking calculators plan at least five squads for a Citadel. Higher Citadels hit harder, so the cheap front squad matters more as the level rises.

Common mistakes to avoid

1. One big squad. It gets one attack a round, and by the health rule it takes the first hits.
2. Doubling every step. A 2× ladder works but spends more leadership than the 1.9× rule of thumb.
3. The wrong family. Specialists against monsters, or Guardsmen against players, gives away a bonus.
4. Ignoring the target’s bonus. Sending the exact class your target counters.
5. Mixing tiers without a plan. Lower tiers only help when each squad sits in the right place on the health ladder.
6. Late boosts. A boost that ends before the fight resolves did nothing.

Quick reference

What TB Clan Tools counts

TB Clan Tools is not a battle tool. The System counts your clan’s chests, on the member who earned them, by source: Crypts, Citadels, events and the rest, fresh every 15 minutes. A leader sees which content each member really runs, and which events the clan shows up for.

Questions

Sources

• Official Help Center: combat, troop families, initiative and reviving troops
• The game's own unit cards
• Community stacking calculators

First published Feb 3, 2026 · Updated Nov 1, 2026