Starting Out: Enlightened

SCIENCE! Abominations! Blowing up your own troops! So what if we don’t have long range, as soon as we get over there we’ll make you regret it! Also, there’s a surprising AMAZING amount of CRABS!

The direction they took this faction for Armoured Clash is definitely interesting. I wasn’t expecting a tough melee force, but it’s been fun marching across the table with a horde that just won’t die. The new Heavy Regiment really opens up the faction as well, giving more leader choices (peer review), dropships (coming for TTCombat's lunchmoney), and crabs.

My general starting out guide for Armoured Clash can be found here.

Updates:
2026/07/31: Updated for the Enlightened Heavy Regiment 

Overview

Playstyle: Hordes of (Melee) Infantry, supported by fast cavalry and light tanks. More specialized builds includes 

Offense: Very punchy in melee, and strong short range shooting. Most things have strong anti-light attacks, for anti-heavy you need specialists or melee.

Defence: Tough Infantry and Cavalry, while Tanks tend to be on the lighter end.

Movement: Slow overall since you’ll be running a lot of infantry, but the supporting units are quick for their class. A lot of our units also have Vanguard, which lets them move forward before the game begins. We also get troop transport dropships now for rapid deployment.

40K Faction: Tyranids. Hordes of infantry, with melee focus, and even morale immunity around your Commanders.

 

Buying In

I went with intro + starter because you really want to run bolstered infantry units, as you’ll see down in the sample lists. More basic infantry would probably be the first thing to pick up.

With the release of the Heavy Regiment, I'd probably go Starter + 1-2 Heavy Regiment boxes. They bring a lot of useful tools to the faction, for any kind of build. The heavy regiment also makes a no infantry*, all armour build somewhat viable. In that case you'd want a Wells Battlegroup or Starter for your required Command slot and then build from there.

*: Crabs paint up like vehicles, fill your required slots, and can hide in the Atlas until you need to jump on an objective. 

Build Choices

Enlightened, being infantry heavy, have quite a lot of monobuilds, with most of the choices just being a weapon swap. The reinforcement level in parenthesese is my suggestion for how many to build initially.

Behemoth: Horsell Super-Heavy Extractor vs Wells Super-Heavy Surveyor

I magnetized mine, but I’d probably just suggest building the one you like and proxying, the differences are very minor. Gameplay wise your choice is the Horsell’s melee vs the Wells with all the guns, with the Wells probably being a slightly better choice to anchor your lines.

Tripods: Mars Battle vs Deimos Guardian vs Phobos Assault (Reinforced)

Your choices are anti-heavy gun, anti-heavy melee, and anti-air, with all three having a strong but extremely short range anti-light attack. I think the Mars is probably the best bet as a general purpose choice to start with, since the orbat is somewhat weak on long ranged anti-tank.

Crawlers: Encladus Mortar vs Europa Artillery vs Callisto Assault (Reinforced)

Unlike the general advice of always going with the indirect anti-infantry option, here I’d actually recommend the Europa. First, it’s also indirect. Second, it still has a very respectable anti-infantry attack. And finally, you have plenty of anti-infantry options in the rest of your list. The Encladus isn’t bad at all, I just think the Europa generally works better in the context of an Enlightened list. Finally, the Callisto (after many buffs) is now a quite respectable melee brick and a cheap way to fill your required armour slots.

Creepers: Aegis Support vs Hephaestus Strike (Basic for Pandora, Reinforced otherwise)

Ideally, you'd want lots of both. The aegis toughens up nearby infantry (and tanks when it hunkers down), while the Hephaestus gives you a premium medium range anti-heavy option. It really just depends on what you think your list is missing. I'm giving the nod to the Hephaestus though because offense over defense.

Heavy Walkers: Hyperion Heavy Battle Walker vs Atlas Heavy Assault Walker (1 Model)

Both are great, bringing moral immunity to support your infantry and anti-air. The Hyperion brings solid anti-heavy shooting, while the Atlas carries crabs and hits hard in melee. It's mainly a question of what you want to do with it.

Rotorcraft: Pandora Transport Rotors vs Selene Attack Rotors (Reinforced)

These are fairly easy to magnetize, consisting of separate top and bottom sections. The transport rotors finally give you a way to move your troops forward quickly, which is probably the most important thing we were missing. The Selene gives you a fast option for moral immunity and anti-heavy wherever you need it, but I think it's going to be somewhat hard to use due to the overall fragility.

Sample Lists

1K Skirmish (Starter or 2x Intro)

ENLIGHTENED FACTION BATTLEGROUP
	COMMANDER
		Citizen-Soldier Command Contingent (Reinforced)		90
	INFANTRY
		Brute Warden Cohort (Reinforced)		95
		Hellion Cohort		40
		Heavy Construct Devastator Cohort		85
		Brute Enforcer Cohort		60
	CAVALRY
		Strider CAV Cohort		70
		Mono CAV Cohort		70
	ARMOUR
		Mars Battle Tripods		130
		Phobos Assault Tripods		125
	ARTILLERY
		Europa Artillery Crawlers		105
	ROTORCRAFT
		Sickle Gyro Cav Cohort (Reinforced)		110
	BOON
		Forlorn Hope		15
			Total:	995

A standard bit of everything list, with a good block of infantry, a lot of tripods, and a strong rotorcraft contingent. Your tide of infantry can march forward to take objectives, while your tripods, cavalry, and rotorcraft harry the enemy. 

 

Some tips:

Having multiple melee units next to each other (possibly at a slight angle facing away from each other) makes it much harder for your opponent to evade your charges.

Tripods are quite short ranged. Reserves and Flank Attack work quite well with them.

Don’t overextend your rotorcraft. It’s easy to get carried away trying to get the perfect shot, but they don’t have the surviveability to operate within your opponent’s AA envelope.

Don’t hit the big red button (Overcharge). Only when you’re sure the unit will get wiped anyway, or when you really need the target gone.

1.5K Battle (Intro + Starter)

ENLIGHTENED FACTION BATTLEGROUP
	COMMANDER
		Wells Super Heavy Surveyor		425
	INFANTRY
		Brute Warden Cohort (Full Strength)		145
		Hellion Cohort		40
	ARMOUR
		Mars Battle Tripods (Reinforced)		220
	ROTORCRAFT
		Sickle Gyro Cav Cohort (Full Strength)		170
ENLIGHTENED S.U.R.G. AUXILIARY BATTLEGROUP
	COMMANDER
		Citizen-Soldier Command Contingent (Full Strength)		120
	INFANTRY
		Heavy Construct Devastator Cohort (Reinforced)		145
		Hellion Cohort		40
	CAVALRY
		Strider CAV Cohort (Full Strength)		180
	BOON
		Forlorn Hope		15
			Total:	1500

1.5K is a somewhat tough spot for Enlightened. The behemoths take up a lot of points, but building without it is hard if you only have limited models to chose from. This list doesn’t have nearly as many activations as I’d like, but needs must. This is aimed to be a bit of a start to a stronger list, or at least one that hits hard. 

The Hellions should be placed so they can threaten an objective grab round 1, while still staying hidden. Your big infantry and cavalry blocks, and possibly the Wells, should aim to be taking/contesting objectives Round 2, when possible in pairs. The Wells is not as tough as it looks though, so it should be played more defensively. For flank attacks, I would consider the Mars or Strider units, depending on what your opponent is bringing and what the mission is.

To expand to 2K, I would add more infantry, artillery, and cavalry. Enforcers, Europas, and Mono CAV would probably be the best choices out of what’s still available from the starter + intro.

Closing

If you have any other ideas for what should be in a starting out article, let me know. Thanks for reading!

Lists were written with the 1.03 Orbat. The list layout was adapted from the Warcradle blog.