Formation Orders Explained — Attack, Block, Heal, Dismount

The most common first-hour complaint in any army command game is “my troops just stood there.” In Command An Army, that is not a bug — it is the skill floor. Your units are disciplined, literal, and completely dependent on the orders you issue: the game’s own feature list leads with “Order formations,” and its promo clips showcase the command vocabulary — attack, block, heal, dismount — applied at formation scale. This guide is the vocabulary lesson.

What does each order do?

The core commands, as showcased by the developer through launch week:

• Attack — commit the formation to the offensive. Units advance and engage with intent rather than waiting to be engaged. This is how a push actually pushes.
• Block — brace for impact. The line locks shields and holds ground, trading mobility for survivability against a charge. Block is to defense what attack is to offense: the anchor order.
• Heal — restore your troops’ fighting condition mid-fight. Between-blocks healing is what lets a defensive line survive successive waves instead of slowly grinding down.
• Dismount — take mounted units off their horses to fight on foot. The existence of a dedicated dismount command tells you the game wants terrain and situations where foot combat beats mounted combat — points to contest, tight approaches, or a lost mount.

Each order is a stance, not a one-off animation. The art of the game is matching the stance to the moment of contact.

When do you use each order?

Mapped to the two sides of the match:

• Block when the collision is coming to you. A defender watching a cavalry approach should have the line blocked before contact, not clicking as it lands. Pre-timed blocks are the difference between a wall and a pile.
• Attack when the enemy’s stance breaks. A blocked line that turns to chase a feint, or a formation caught mid-reposition, is the window — attack orders convert those windows into ground. Objective flow is covered in the capture points guide.
• Heal in the gap between waves, not during one. Healing mid-collision is a lost order; healing as the enemy regroups buys you the next exchange at full strength.
• Dismount when the terrain argues for it. Mounted speed wins open approaches; dismounted solidity wins cramped ground. If you are contesting a point’s interior with cavalry and losing, the dismount order is the experiment to run.

How do you read the enemy’s stance?

Orders are visible: a blocked line looks braced and stationary, an attacking formation leans forward and commits, a healing formation briefly disengages. Three reads worth training:

• Blocked but alone — the line is waiting for something (a flank, a heal cycle, a wavemate). Do not feed it bodies; swing around it or force the ranged duel.
• Attacking while scattered — an eager commander committed before the formation settled. This is the window for a pre-timed block of your own, then a counter-attack as their momentum dies.
• Mounted units tightening on a point — a dismount is probably coming. Meet it with your own stance change, not with a charge into what is about to become a spear-equivalent wall.

The meta-skill is timing your response order to land just before contact — which you can only do if you are reading their stance during the approach, not at the collision. That is also why chasing kills away from the capture points is doubly costly: you cannot read a stance you have walked away from.

What two-order combos win fights?

The bread-and-butter sequences from launch week:

1. Block → attack. Absorb the charge with a braced line, then commit the moment their momentum is spent. The most reliable trade in the game.
2. Heal → block. Disengage a wounded line, restore it between waves, and be braced again before the next push arrives. The pattern that makes defense win long matches.
3. Flank order → dismount. Ride past the line, force defenders to turn, then dismount to fight in the space you created. The cavalry play the dismount command exists for.

Every combo is just stance-matching applied in sequence — which is why the drills below beat raw unit quality in week one.

How do formations interact with your lineup?

Orders are issued to formations, which makes your army composition the other half of the system. A shield-heavy line blocks beautifully but needs a damage source to make attackers regret the collision — that’s the Ranged and Spears bracket from the unit type overview. A cavalry-heavy build lives on approach orders and dismount decisions. The army building guide maps the four-slot system against these stances.

One launch-week observation worth internalizing: mixed formations dilute orders. If your four units want contradictory stances at the same moment, you will issue half-orders all match. Coherence — four units that share a plan — beats collection. That is also the core argument of the rarity guide: a cheaper, coherent, Ascended lineup outperforms an incoherent pile of rare pulls.

How do you drill this without boring yourself?

Fight alongside your troops and narrate your own orders out loud — “block… hold… now attack” — for five matches. It feels ridiculous and it works: the narration forces you to notice when you issued an order late, early, or not at all. Most new commanders discover they are reactive (ordering during contact) when the game rewards preparation (ordering before it).

The tips and tricks page collects more of these cheap drills, and the beginner guide has the full first-hour path — codes, first recruits, and when to stop dueling and start commanding.