City Burning: Best Solo-March Ratio Is 60:40 — It All Comes Down to Ambusher (Ton)
For burning cities, run 60% infantry / 40% lancers. Lancers' Ambusher (20%/turn) chews through the enemy's marksmen first, and with no marksmen in your march the enemy's Ambusher has nothing to hit. Hero picks (Bradley > Alonso ≈ Greg ≈ Lynn), lancer-hero roadmap, pros & cons, PCB report.
TL;DR — one troop skill decides it: Ambusher
Lancers have a 20% chance per turn to skip the enemy infantry and strike the marksmen behind them. With 60/40, your lancers chew through the enemy's marksmen while the enemy's lancers have no marksmen of yours to hit. They have to grind through your infantry the honest way, and your lancers delete their damage dealers in the meantime.
Gen 1–3: keep the standard ratio (50/20/30). F2P default is still 48/4/48. If you want to be a city burner, go 60/40 — realistically from Gen 6 Renee. For the stat and gear investment priorities of this ratio, see the companion "60:40 Lancer Ratio (PCB edition)" guide.
1. Why 60/40 the turn engine and Ambusher
Combat looks simultaneous but is turn-based under the hood. The base rule: everything attacks enemy infantry until it is dead. Only two exceptions — ① the lancer troop skill Ambusher (20%/turn, hits marksmen behind infantry), ② hero skills that hit "all troops" or a specific troop type.
Your 60/40 march → enemy city
Your lancers hit the enemy marksmen about once every 5 turns (no guarantee — it can fire two turns in a row and then nothing for ten).
You erode their damage dealers before you ever finish their infantry.
Your infantry holds for a long time; your lancers do the work meanwhile.
Enemy city → your march
The city has lancers too, but your march has no marksmen, so their Ambusher has no target.
They must grind through your infantry the honest way.
If you had brought marksmen, their lancers would delete those first — which is why marksman ratios feel like they "never get going" on cities.
Ton's experience, and the limits
- Hitting the same city with 60/40 and 48/4/48 back to back, 48/4/48 needed a few more attacks (not a clean comparison — gear swaps, bubbles, reinforcements and accumulated injuries change the conditions every time). Losses come back at 90% from the hospital, so the cost is the extra attacks themselves.
- Attacking a 3M-troop city with a 200k march: the game scales the engagement down (separate video coming). Either way the enemy infantry wall is thick, which is exactly why Ambusher matters.
- Ton calls Ambusher "probably the most powerful skill in the game". But on an open-field march with no marksmen it is lancer vs lancer on raw stats — cities always have marksmen, so this ratio shines on city burning.
- Follow-up idea: with 60/40 on cities, hero skills that hit the back line directly (e.g. Wayne) may be worth more than usual — worth testing.
2. Solo-march heroes marksman heroes: all-troop buffs only
Line-up = best infantry hero + best lancer hero (from Raina on) + a marksman hero that scales with lancers. There are no marksmen in 60/40, so any marksman-only skill on a marksman hero is dead weight.
| Marksman hero | Gen | In 60/40 | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bradley | G7 | Best | All-troop buffs + increased damage to enemy lancers and infantry (captions: lancers +30%). Almost always first choice once you have him |
| Alonso | G2 | Current favorite | All-troop lethality + 20% chance to reduce damage by 50% (≈25% expected reduction). Viewer feedback puts him slightly above Greg |
| Greg | G3 | Good | The old standard, still works |
| Lynn | G4 | Good | All-troop skills, works well |
| Gwen | G5 | Partly dead | Has marksman-only skills (marksman grenades etc.) → those do nothing here |
| Blanchette | G10 | Avoid | Two of three skills are marksman-only → in a 60/40 Alliance Championship solo march only one skill works. Bradley is better |
Lancer heroes start to have real punch from Raina (G4). Renee (G6, Lucky Wheel) is the key piece. Norah (G5), in Ton's opinion, looks better with marksmen than with lancers (not certain).
3. Roadmap by generation when to switch to 60/40
Gen 1–3: not yet
You don't have the troops (Ton's two F2P test accounts: still short on troops near Gen 2) and lancer heroes lack the damage for the ratio to work. Grow on the standard ratio, gather information, decide later. Don't abandon the third troop entirely (no Lv.1 marksman charms or green chief gear).
Lancer hero picks (F2P to low spender)
| Gen | Lancer | Ton's call |
|---|---|---|
| G1 | Molly | Comes naturally. F2P usually skips her |
| G3 | Mia Lucky Wheel | Always (essential rally joiner) |
| G4 | Raina | Default is skip her for G5 Norah (if your state runs marksmen + infantry, rallies may demand 3–4 Norahs → without her you get left out). But if your goal is city burning, take Raina — Patrick / Jessie / Jasser can cover joining |
| G6 | Renee Lucky Wheel | The real starting point of 60/40. Leveling takes time → usable from mid/late G6 |
| G7 | Gordon | Skip — you only start using Renee mid/late G6 |
| G8 | Sonya | Right at the start of the gen → Renee (1.5 gens) → Sonya with no gap |
| G9 | Fred Lucky Wheel | From mid/late G9 |
| G11 | Lloyd | Reportedly very good (Ton doesn't have him yet, unverified) |
The pattern
Anchor on the Lucky Wheel lancers (Mia, Renee, Fred…) and slot one extra lancer in between. Skip the gen right after a Lucky Wheel hero, take the next one. Picking a lancer hero means you don't get that gen's marksman hero — which is the root of the downsides below.
4. Pros and cons
| Type | Item | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Pro | Best for city burning | The Ambusher mechanic. Ton's #1 reason to run 60/40 |
| Pro | Alliance Championship | Very strong in solo marches |
| Pro | Garrison (fortress / castle) | Many alliances fill fortress garrisons with T1 infantry + lancers. A widely used ratio |
| Pro | Two-troop focus | Research, chief gear, charms, hero gear, War Academy (T11) all concentrated on two troops → stronger for the same money. How far you let the third troop lag is your call (Ton, focusing marksmen now: lancers T1 / Lv.8 while mains are T2 / Lv.10–11) |
| Con | Lower Bear damage | Neglect marksmen and bear damage drops. Bear damage is the biggest thing an F2P brings to the team → the biggest con for many players. Long term it fades (around Gen 11, 10–12 minutes already gives max bear damage) |
| Con | Weaker Arena & Exploration | At equal power, two marksman heroes beat two lancer heroes (no exception in Ton's Gen 10 experience). In Exploration swapping in Bradley clears 20–30 extra levels; swapping a lancer rarely clears any. Exception: Gen 1 triple lancer Molly / Jessie / Patrick works thanks to Patrick's heal — ends once Alonso shows up |
| Risk | Balance patch | A two-troop account is exposed to a meta change. December's skill adjustments barely touched rally leaders and not solo marches at all. No troop rebalance in three years → small risk, but be aware |
5. Report PCB attacking a city with 50/20/30
A report PCB shared of his own city attack. He won but lost a lot — shown as the counter-example of why you don't bring marksmen.
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Attacker ratio | PCB ran 50/20/30 (20% lancers, 30% marksmen) — not 60/40 |
| Defender | Garrison heroes not his latest, gear not his main set (so he got crushed harder). About 20% lancers |
| Ambusher procs | defender 13 vs attacker 7 — the defender got lucky |
| Reading | No turn-by-turn log, but the natural read is that the defender's lancers deleted PCB's marksmen via Ambusher. Many defender kills came from marksmen; Wayne (back-line hits) did his job too. PCB won because he is stronger, but 60/40 would have lost far less |
Ton himself burned cities on 50/20/30 until Gen 7 and "it works". He thinks 60/40 works noticeably better, but 50/20/30 and 48/4/48 are not wrong choices either.
6. Decision guide
Gen 1–3 → standard ratio (50/20/30). Decide later. F2P / team contributor → 48/4/48 (better Bear, Arena, Exploration) City burner / fighter → 60/40, seriously from Gen 6 Renee. Lancer line: Mia → (Raina) → Renee → Sonya → Fred → Lloyd Want both → keep all three troops; 60/40 for cities, marksman line-up for Bear
Solo-march heroes in one line
Best infantry + best lancer + an all-troop-buff marksman (Bradley > Alonso ≈ Greg ≈ Lynn). Avoid heroes with marksman-only skills such as Gwen and Blanchette.
Source: Ton (TontonYouTube) · (PVP) City Burning: BEST Troops Ratio for Your SOLO March · summarized from auto-generated captions; figures as spoken · for the stat and gear priorities of this ratio see the companion "60:40 Lancer Ratio (PCB edition)" guide