Command An Army Tier List (October 2026) — Every Unit Ranked

The Command An Army meta through September 2026 was defined by the four 4★ units — Spartan, Immortal, Samurai and Berserker — with the Flaming Archer standing next to them as the best evolved unit in the game. Update 3 just broke that ceiling: the first 5★ (Laestrygonian) now tops the game, and two new evolution lines are reshuffling the rest. This ranking merges three community tier lists published after the NEW UNITS update; where creators disagreed, the disagreement is shown instead of smoothed over. Verdicts are community consensus, not in-game-tested numbers. Community report · 2026-10-07

A Samurai-featured Standard Banner with Super Luck Potions on the shelf — footage by ItzVexo, September 2026.

⚠️ Update 2 Just Rewrote Part of This Meta (September 19)

The GUILD/RANKED update changed the inputs this list was built on: Seen in footage · 2026-09-19

• Archers took a range nerf — "a mad nerf" per competitive coverage. The Flaming Archer stays top-tier, but counter-play against ranged stacks just got easier.
• Knight is post-patch A tier — the new Mercenary → Squire → Knight evolution line turned a filler unit into a serious melee threat.
• Rapier / Rapier Knight arrived — parry makes them interesting, but early lists do not recommend the base Rapier for ranked play.
• Ranked is live — the first competitive tier lists are already being rewritten "for ranked," where the Star Limit and counter coverage matter even more.

The table above reflects the pre-Update 2 consensus; a re-ranked Update 2 table lands here as launch footage accumulates. Watch the Archer nerf especially — it shifts several of the B-tier verdicts below.

⚠️ Update 3 Just Broke the Ceiling (Live — Mongols Update)

The Mongols update shipped September 22-23 and every anchor of this list moved. Full unit details live on the Update 3 page and the units database; here is what it does to the ranking — including the October re-rank signals from a 100-hour tier video that maxed every new unit and consulted ranked players: Seen in footage · 2026-10-09

• A 5★ now exists — and it launched rough before being buffed. Laestrygonian (0.01% pull rate, 700 HP / 120 damage at level 1) was called weak at release, then patched to hit four units with heavy splash — "S tier for damaging and shock trooping" when escorted, terrible when run alone (only 9 units). Community report · 2026-10-09
• The current meta is a shield meta. "The best-in-slot units are just shield users" per the October re-rank — which demotes all-harassment picks (Khorchin horse archers, raw archer stacks) and shields (literally) the top of the list.
• Spartan is no longer best-in-slot. Still "very amazing" and versatile on attack and defense — but with Phalangite walls, Imperial Guard and counters everywhere, the September anchor of this list lost its undisputed crown. Community report · 2026-10-09
• Myrmidon is the dark horse of the update. "Spartans but faster" — 24 units, regenerating shield, splash/cleave damage; the 100-hour video calls it best-in-slot DPS while most players still sleep on it. Community report · 2026-10-09
• Phalangite launched S, got nerfed, landed A. Less damage and its charge caps at 3 targets now — but it remains the best pure defense unit (28 units, arrow-immune shield wall). Imperial Guard ("the undisputed best tank right now") and Imperial Halberdier (S for attack) round out the wall meta. Community report · 2026-10-09
• Lancer is still indisputed S — "a must-have" cavalry until another melee cavalry ships, now stronger with Skill Tree investment. Samurai is now ranked above Berserker (range 7 vs 4 means its top-tier DPS actually connects); Immortal and Berserker both slip toward B for dying too fast. Community report · 2026-10-09
• The 4★-adjacent verdicts reshuffled: Knight "underrated" (can even beat Berserkers/Immortals), Rapier Knight upgraded to genuinely underrated A (parry 30% → 35% with Skill Tree, range 8, top-four total DPS), Morningstar A-to-S for shield-breaking, Flaming Archer A (S in normal matches, B/C in ranked against shield stacks). Community report · 2026-10-09
• Khorchin and Bataar enter via the Battle Pass — both niche. Khorchin is a 15-unit horse archer (lowest damage AND HP in the game, map-dependent); Bataar a micromanage-heavy "cavalry on foot" charger. Neither is a must-have per the October verdicts. Community report · 2026-10-09
• The Skill Tree adds a per-unit customization axis. Nodes trade HP for buffs (including parry chance) and can be reset — the tier gap between two copies of the same unit can now differ by investment. Seen in footage · 2026-10-07
• Update 4's balance patch (Oct 11) keeps the shuffle going: Knight buffed hard (block boost 33%→45% plus HP/damage — the underrated Mercenary endpoint moves toward ranked viability), Javeliner and Elite Javeliner gain HP/damage/range, while Spear Vanguard and the Phalanx line take another nerf (attack cooldown 2.0s→2.4s). The wall-and-mid meta is consolidating around Imperial Guard and a resurgent Knight — details on the Update 4 page. Community report · 2026-10-14
• The Update 5 meta (Oct 17-) is a 23-unit wall-fest. A post-Pavise tier list ranking all 23 units describes the ranked defense as a stack of Imperial Guard, Spear Vanguard, Spartan and Phalangite — "and there is only one way to break that wall" — while the 4★ Pavise Crossbowman enters as the first 4★ evolution and early testers claim it out-damages the Flaming Archer. The defense stack is the meta; anti-shield and burst tools are the whole tech tree now. Full breakdown on the Update 5 page. Community report · 2026-10-20

Bottom line: the September table below is now a baseline, not a ranking. The practical plays right now — redeem the eight live codes before they expire, build a Phalangite or Imperial Guard wall for the shield meta, and treat Myrmidon, Rapier Knight and the freshly buffed Knight as the value picks everyone is underrating.

Head-to-Head Test Results (September 23)

A controlled 1v1 test series (max ascension, same star levels) is already overturning parts of the table above: Community report · 2026-09-23

• Spear Vanguard beats Spartan 1v1. Three maxed Spear Vanguards beat three maxed Spartans — the anti-cavalry unit out-duels the supposed S-tier anchor in a straight fight. The tester called the debate "over."
• Samurai outlasts Berserker. In the Berserker vs Samurai mirror, the Samurai side had nearly double the army standing at the end — the Berserker's high DPS does not survive contact as well in a controlled fight.

Treat these as single-creator controlled tests, not server consensus — but they are exactly the kind of evidence to watch before the next re-rank.

Why the Archer Ranks C But Is Still the Best Pick

This is the counterintuitive core of the current meta. Raw Archer is bottom-tier: low damage, fragile, replaceable by the Crossbowman. But it is also the first step of the Archer → Longbowman → Flaming Archer chain, and the Flaming Archer — burn damage, giga range, more damage than the Crossbowman — is what every ranged player is climbing toward. One creator measured the full climb at roughly 20 hours of gameplay — the complete chains are on the units database. If you like ranged play, evolve Archers early and do not waste resources maxing the Crossbowman, which (unlike the Archer) has a shorter evolution line. Seen in footage · 2026-09-15

The 4★ Reality Check

• You cannot field them all early. The Star Limit gates how many 4★s you can equip, and it rises every five player levels — a fresh account runs one 4★ at most. Seen in footage · 2026-09-15
• Banners rotate. Each banner features specific 4★s (Immortal and Samurai have shared a banner; Berserker and Spartan appear on others), with per-banner odds shown on the summon screen — the same unit has been observed at 0.15% and 0.19% on different banners. Seen in footage · 2026-09-15
• Pity protects the grind: a guaranteed 4★ at 400 summons, and the counter persists across sessions — top up your gems via the codes tracker before the Update 2 banners you want. Seen in footage · 2026-09-15
• 4★s do not evolve — duplicates feed Ascension (capped at 3) instead. Seen in footage · 2026-09-15

Situational Picks the Tier Letters Hide

• Imperial Guard (A) — the single best answer to a cavalry-heavy meta; nothing stops horses like a braced Imperial wall. Seen in footage · 2026-09-15
• Javeliner (B, disputed) — one creator calls its shield-breaking S-tier, another says plain Archers do the job better; both agree it folds to arrows and cavalry charges. Community report · 2026-09-15
• Mercenary (B) — not a keep-forever unit, but the fastest way to fill a fresh army, and duplicates sell back for gems (full rules in the units database). Seen in footage · 2026-09-15

What This List Is Based On

Rankings merge three mid-September tier-list videos (including two published within days of the NEW UNITS update) plus recorded gameplay. The ranking dimension differs between creators — one ranks by raw combat value, another weighs evolution potential — which is exactly why the Archer sits in C here while its endgame unit sits in S. Exact HP/DPS tables are not public; the only on-screen stat confirmed so far is the Berserker's 38 DPS. Inferred · 2026-09-15