Rallies
How rallies work — leading vs joining, hero selection, formations by generation, march sizing, and timing coordination.
A rally is a coordinated group attack where one player (the Rally Captain) initiates and up to 14 alliance members join before the march launches. Rallies can target Terrors, Bear Traps, Castle buildings, or other players’ cities.
The fundamental asymmetry: the leader’s full stat sheet governs all troops in the rally. Joiners contribute troops and up to 4 hero skills. Joiner research, gear, charms, and consumables are ignored.
TL;DR
- Don’t lead rallies until you’re top 10–15 in alliance power — a weak leader wastes every joiner’s contribution
- Your impact as a joiner comes from: troop count, the right Hero 1, and Regimental Expansion research
- Only your first hero’s first skill matters for the skill contribution — Heroes 2 and 3 only add troop capacity
- The game picks the 4 highest-level first skills across all joiners — get your key hero’s first skill as high as possible
- Prioritize Regimental Expansion (Growth Tree) over combat research — your combat stats don’t apply when joining
Your role: Rally Joiner
As a joiner your personal combat research, gear, and charms don’t apply — the leader’s stats do. That changes what’s worth investing in.
High ROI for joiners:
- Regimental Expansion (Growth/Battle Tree, 6 tiers): +1,000 to +13,400 troop deployment capacity per tier. More troops per joiner slot = more rally contribution.
- Command Tactics (Growth Tree): Unlocks additional march queues. More queues means joining multiple rallies simultaneously during Bear Hunt or KvK — essential for high event scores.
- VIP 6: Grants +1 march queue. Reachable F2P in 6–8 months of consistent play (~90,000 cumulative VIP XP at ~350–500 free XP/day). The single most impactful VIP milestone for active joiners.
Lower ROI for joiners (until you’re leading regularly):
- Battle Tree combat stats — don’t apply when joining
- Gear upgrades for rally stats — ignored by the rally damage formula
Hero selection for joining
Only Hero 1’s first expedition skill is eligible for the rally’s 4 joiner skill slots. The game picks the 4 highest-level first skills across all 14 joiners. Heroes 2 and 3 in your lineup contribute only troop deployment capacity — send your strongest troop-capacity heroes there.
Best joiner heroes for F2P (accessible):
- Chenko, Yeonwoo — flat Squad Lethality boost (25% each); these stack additively with other copies
- Zoe, Petra, Marlin — chance-based skills; solid but do not stack multiple copies
Never send to offensive rallies:
- Jabel, Helga, Longfei, Diana — defensive/construction skills do nothing in an attack
- Sending no hero is genuinely better than the wrong hero
Defensive heroes (garrison / defend only): Helga and Howard are examples of heroes whose value is in defense, not offense. Helga’s skills are tuned for garrisoning; sending her in an offensive rally wastes a slot. Howard’s primary role is gathering speed — he has defensive applications but zero offensive rally value. Keep these heroes in your city when joining or leading attacks; use them when holding a position or defending an alliance structure.
Same-type skills (same effect_op) stack additively. Four Chenkos as joiners = 100% combined Squad Lethality bonus. Mixing skill types (e.g., 2× Chenko + 2× Amane) compounds multiplicatively — a 25% bonus on top of another 25% produces more than 50% total.
TL;DR
- Your role is Rally Leader — your stat sheet governs the whole rally, so gear, heroes, research, and Widgets all matter here
- Widgets (Mythic hero exclusive gear skills) are multiplicative, not additive — the primary power gap between leaders
- Maximize Regimental Expansion research to increase your march size and total rally capacity
- Use generation-appropriate formations; at Gen 4+ maintain at least 5,000 Infantry in absolute count regardless of percentage
- Coordinate joiner hero assignments to avoid wasting skill slots on duplicate types
Your role: Rally Leader
As a leader, your full stat sheet applies to every troop in the rally: all research bonuses, gear stats, hero skills, Chief Gear, charms, consumables, and pets. Joiners benefit from your stats, not their own.
Widgets (Mythic hero exclusive gear skills) only activate in rallies and garrisons — not in solo attacks. Their effect is multiplicative, compounding on top of all other stats. This is the primary power gap between well-equipped rally leaders and everyone else.
Your 3 leader heroes: All 9 expedition skills (3 per hero) apply to the rally. Exclusive Gear skills (4th ability) also apply. Hero order doesn’t matter for the leader — all skills are active.
Maximizing rally capacity:
- Upgrade Command Center aggressively — it directly sets both total rally capacity and your march size
- Research Regimental Expansion fully (6 tiers, up to +13,400 deployment capacity)
- Total capacity scales with CC level; at CC20 the base is ~195,000; at CC30 it’s ~840,000
Coordinating joiner skill slots
The rally accepts exactly 4 joiner skill contributions total, chosen from the highest-level first skills across all joiners. As a leader, coordinate with your alliance to maximize this:
- Confirm which 4 heroes fill those slots before the rally launches
- Once 4 Chenkos (or equivalent) are confirmed, a 5th is wasted — track this in alliance chat
- Mixing two skill types is multiplicatively stronger than stacking four of the same type when the skill types have different effect identifiers
How to initiate a rally
Rallies require the Command Center (unlocks at TC10, requires Embassy Lv 1 at matching level). Tap the target on the map, select Rally, choose your 3 heroes, set a timer, and confirm.
Timer options:
- 5 minutes — standard, gives time for alliance coordination
- 3 minutes — faster, requires pre-coordination
- 1 minute — surprise attack or when the alliance is already assembled
Only the Rally Captain pays the stamina cost. Stamina is refunded if the rally fails. Bear Hunt rallies cost zero stamina and cause no troop injuries or deaths.
Rally capacity
Total rally capacity = base (2,000) + Command Center bonus + leader’s Troop Deployment Capacity.
The remaining capacity after the leader’s march is divided across up to 14 joiner slots. Communicate the per-joiner troop cap in alliance chat before rallies open to prevent early joiners from locking out later members.
| CC Level | Rally Capacity | Leader March Size |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | ~35,500 | ~8,000 |
| 20 | ~195,000 | ~38,000 |
| 30 | ~840,000 | ~67,000 |
Formations
Formation varies significantly by activity — check the guide for the specific content you’re doing (Bear Hunt, Castle Battle, Terror rallies, etc.) for the recommended Infantry/Cavalry/Archer ratios.
Timing and coordination
For events requiring simultaneous rally arrival (Castle Battle, KvK), the player with the longest march time to the target opens their rally first. Others launch later, staggered by their time difference from the base, so all arrive within the same second. The rally timer tool at kingshot.net/rally-timer calculates this automatically.
For back-to-back rally chains, gap launches ~2 minutes apart to synchronize impact on sequential targets.
Common mistakes
- Leading a rally before you have the power to carry it — a weak leader multiplies nothing
- Sending the wrong joiner hero (defensive hero in an offensive rally)
- Multiple joiners unknowingly sending the same hero, wasting skill slots
- Running too many half-filled rallies — 3 rallies with full joiners outperform 5 rallies with sparse joiners
- Forgetting the 5,000 Infantry floor at Gen 4+