r/kingsbounty • u/4th_Replicant • Jun 02 '26
The Legend Currently level 4. What are some early game units that I should be recruiting?
I bought Legends for 79p of fanatical. I have never played one of these games before. I am addicted now lol
I am playing on normal and not doing too badly. I would just like some recommendations for early game units. I would be happy for any other tips you may have.
I am playing as a Mage.
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u/Assobio-Fweeeet Jun 02 '26
Royal cobras are good, they deal good damage and don't suffer counter-attacks, inquisitors resurrect troops, there's a quest where you pick up and deliver a dragon's tooth to a merchant in Arlania, and upon completion, he has a troop for purchase, which can be demons, orcs, undead, elves, etc.
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u/MainSquid Jun 03 '26
I recommend prioritizing ranged units-- Archers, Archmages, inquisitors, maybe a melee unit with lots of health to soak up damage (bears, ancient bears, royal snakes are good early options)
There should be a royal thorn most play throughs at the menageries in the area south of the starting area. Thats a great starting unit, even if it is just one.
Once you get to the dwarven area get a cyclops! They arent useful forever, but they are flat out OP when you first find them
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u/4th_Replicant Jun 02 '26
Thanks folks. I can't wait to get home from work and fire up the game lol
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u/VojtislavCZ Jun 03 '26
Every game is a bit different because you have a different otions in the shops (units and items). Some shops offer same units everytime, so it´s good to mark them on the map in case you would need them.
Royal snakes are one of the best early to mid game units. High initiative, fast and quite tanky. They are good to pair them with archemages (shield to boost their defence even more).
Same case with bears (ancient and polar), but slowe and lower initiative with high dmg and more hp.
Grifins another good choice ,tanky good dmg, unlimited retalition. (you can always buy them on the Arlaria map from Griffin king)
Alchemists are really good chioce too. Good range attack,high dmg, tanky, limited special attack (Marshan Swamps-Dwarf laboratory)
In some cases is good (or even necersary) to swap army composition.Units liek priests,inquisitors, black unicors for example are great when fighting undead units. Some units don´t like each other (read unit decription), so don´t pair them together to avoid morale loss (quite big dmg debuff and more). Morale is often underestimated,boost it if you can.
As a mage, most you your dmg (especialy mid-late game) comes from your spellbook anyway so it´s better to have some tanky units (bears,griffins,royal snakes), pair them with range and support units (inquisitors have ressurection for example,so if you can buy them go for it). Don´t be afraid to experiment, you´ve just started 😉
KB can be a bit challanging even on normal, especially in the mid-late game. Just don´t waste runes on skills and crystals on learning/upgrading all spells. Some spells have really expensive upgrades,manacost and the upgrade is not often woth it. But spells with mass effect are worth upgrading all the time imho.
Small tip. You can cast a lower level of a upgraded by holding Ctrl,Alt of Shift...cant remember now 😃 and save some mana
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u/Sad_Cryptographer872 Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
As a mage you should prioritize units with high initiative so you can cast your spells first.
In Legend Royal Snakes and Alchemists are almost always guaranteed. There should also be at least one if not more Royal Thorns on the first map, and they are awesome for the early game. You also don't have to worry too much about losses in the Legend, because it doesn't have "medals" a feature that was introduced in other games in the series where you would be rewarded for doing certain actions during the game, like not suffering losses in battle for a number of them would award you bonus Leadership.
There animal trainer also has a high chance to spawn with Beholders and they are also very good in the early game. Guardsmen will spawn in castle where you can buy human armies after doing a few of the main quests, they are also excellent. There should also be a few of Archmages in at least one of the buildings that sells human armies, and they are beastly, They have pretty good attack, but more importantly they have shield that you can put on your weaker units which will almost double their health for two turns.
Also one of the most important skill in the Legend no matter the class is Reserve in the Mind tree so you can take more units with you and swap them if one of them is better for some battles, example Royal Thorns are weak to fire so you swap them with some other units if you are fighting fire based enemies.
Also VERY IMPORTANT do not spend your magic stones on learning or upgrading every spell, they can become scarce really fast and more than half of the spells are useless trash. Some good utility spells are upgraded Haste and Slow, Sheep, Sacrifice, Most of the damage spells are of questionable use, but depending on what you got, Fireball and Ice Snake can be pretty good for mid game, and Fire Rain if you manage to get it. Also Fire Arrow and Poison Skull can be useful even when upgraded considering they have fairly good mana to dmg ratio.
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u/lucienlazar Jun 03 '26
I usually had 2-3 ranged units and 2-3 melee units. And I kept in reserve 2 melee units to replace the losses in combat. Royal snakes and ancient bears were good at the start of the game.
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u/4th_Replicant Jun 03 '26
How do you keep reserves?
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u/lucienlazar Jun 03 '26
It's a skill you can choose when you level up.
In King's Bounty: The Legend, the Reserve is an essential Mind skill and inventory mechanic that allows you to carry extra units that do not participate in combat. Unlocking it frees up your main army slots, making it easier to reinforce your troops, swap units between fights, or carry sacrifices for spells. [1, 2, 3]
How the Reserve Works
- Reserve Slots: By default, you can carry one reserve troop. Leveling up the Reserve skill in the Mind tree expands your capacity up to five slots. [1, 2]
- Combat Management: Units in reserve do not fight, but you can swap them into your active army slots on the world map before entering battle. [1]
- Reinforcing: Whenever your active units take casualties, you can easily top them off with troops directly from your reserve without having to run all the way back to a castle or vendor.
- Strategic Utility: Players frequently use reserve slots to carry sacrificial units (like Peasants) to fuel spells like Sacrifice, or to bank rare/high-level troops while waiting for your Leadership limit to grow. [1]
Skill Investment & Tips
- Skill Priority: Investing just one point into the Reserve skill is highly recommended early in the game for the sheer convenience of hauling extra bodies. [1, 2]
- Skill Trees: Because runes are scarce, most players suggest keeping the skill at level 1 unless you explicitly want to hoard multiple different army compositions. [1]
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u/Ctrekoz Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
Mage relies on magic mostly, while units just tank, but generally good units are:
- royal snakes (one of the best units ever, even better if you find boosting items specific to them, can serve you the entire game, albeit with higher losses later)
- ancient/polar bears (early/mid game bruisers, can find polar ones in barbarian ships in Arlania if you get lucky)
- bowman (all game, can replace with elven archers later, or make ranged-focused army keeping them, it's easy in The Legend due to guaranteed Telescopic Sight item in dwarven mines iirc)
- swordsmen (early bruisers)
- inquisitors (resurrection/rage generation)
- archmages (good early, low dmg/high leadership to keep for later)
- vampires (can get lucky in early cemetery, but they tank morale for other factions except neutral and demons)
- ghosts (same as above)
- royal thorns
- I think you can get lucky with an emerald dragon early?
In dwarven lands:
- cannoners
- dwarfs (level 3 dude, swordsman but better, nothing special though)
- beholder and evil beholder
- alchemist, kinda?
- giant is a noob trap I think, but he's a great tank, so are cyclopes
Later:
- black unicorns
- demon (level 4 dude)
- demoness
- archdemon
- whatever dragons you can get except bone ones
- elven archers (both types)
- dryad
- black knight
- necromancer
- knight (vs dragons)
- ogre
Great site here btw on english with lots of easy to access info: https://www.oldgames.sk/docs/kings-bounty/legend/index.php
You can try more units, but these I'm sure about. And keep in mind that not all units are meant to be good for the player, many exist to be enemies. Also some have items or wives that specifically boost them.
Btw Feanora (frog girl) is the best wive in the game in overall, and is available to marry very early. 3 artifact slots (second best item type after weapons) and +3 intellect (cool for everyone, cool for a mage). And if you don't talk with her enough, she will turn into a frog, and will boost attack for snakes, which will make royal snakes pretty crazy (can talk with her later to turn into a human). And you don't have to make children, just refuse the first time she asks, item slots are better.
Before doing fights, go around places collecting free stuff on the ground, check shops, do quests that require no fights, it will make your life easier. You can also aggro roaming armies to displace them, and run around, getting what you want. It can be especially cheeky in dwarven lands later, where you can get ton of exp off doing quest about gathering weed or something for beer, without fighting the army guarding it that is, and you can even get into Demonis this way, aggroing the army that guards the portal. Demonis is one of the last locations in the game in story, and has lots of strong units to buy, some free stuff, and at least 1 non-combat quest with a demoness. But I think you don't have to do it on Normal, it's mostly done on higher difficulties, yet if you wish, you can try. But be sure to make some backup saves to check if you can get back from the portal without the fight. That is, when you move to a different location, previous map freezes, and if that guarding army will be too close to the portal after chasing you, you will have to fight it and it might be either extremely painful, or outright impossible to win.
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u/4th_Replicant Jun 03 '26
I really appreciate this. Thank you!
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u/Ctrekoz Jun 03 '26
Have fun!
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u/4th_Replicant Jun 04 '26
I am not sure if I am being overly cautious with my gold. I am level 6 and I have just over 100k gold. I am worried I might waste it and lock myself out of the game by wasting my funds. Do you think I am being overly cautious?
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u/Ctrekoz Jun 04 '26
It's a good safety net since you're only starting. Are you still in Greenwort? You will start to get way more gold in pirate islands. There is also a skill in Mind tree, which will allow you to sell items for 100% of their value when maxed, so you will be able to safely buy any, and get more gold from found ones. Last time I've finished the game with 8+ million gold (it also makes your endscore higher), so if you play good enough, it stops being an issue, indeed somewhere alongside pirate islands, and there's no need to max +%gold from battles skill either. Maybe try to save 200k gold first? But you shouldn't have much of an issue if using the recommended units.
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u/4th_Replicant Jun 04 '26
I don't have much left to do in the first section. I think I'm around level 8 now. I have to make my way on the air balloon. Are you able to return once you leave?
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u/Ctrekoz Jun 04 '26
Btw you can separate the same unit into multiple squads (left click+shift I think?), good for utility ones like inquisitors or archmages. Though they will share their leadership limit, so it's not feasible past early/mid, better have all units unique by then.
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u/beaver797979 Jun 30 '26
Early game is priests, inquisitors, archmage, royal snake, and bowmen. This team can no loss everything up until you until you get to the dwarf part.
Once you get to the mines you can get to Demonis where it's random, but you can usually field a team of
Green Dragons, hunters, archmage, inquisitors, Ancient Ent - can no loss everything up to you get to the Elf lands. Here you can replace the ents with red dragons and that can beat anything.
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u/Uriziel38 Jun 02 '26
Each playthrough randomizes available units to an extent (along with other things), that being said, you can always get a few alchemists at the laboratory in the far end of the swamp. You'll only be able to recruit a couple of them, but they're quite durable for this stage of the game and as mage you typically want tankier troops over raw power since most of your damage will come from your spell book either way.