The King: Crowning a Circle Commander
How to crown The King in We March as One, what his aura actually does, and where to place a 10x health circle so the buff reaches the whole army.
Every army in We March as One has one unit that is not like the others: a circle you can crown. The game calls him The King, and he is the only unit in the campaign with an ability rather than just a stat line.
How to crown him
The tooltip in the upgrade tree states the rule directly:
Double-click a circle in Setup to crown him · 10x health and damage · nearby troops 30% faster
Three things follow from that sentence:
- The King must be a circle. No other shape can be crowned.
- Crowning happens in Setup, by double-clicking a circle you have already painted.
- The effect is threefold — ten times health, ten times damage, and a movement speed aura for nearby troops.
Because it is a double-click in Setup rather than a purchase, the King costs nothing beyond the circle he replaces. What limits him is that there is one of him.
What the King actually changes
The headline number is 10x health and damage, which sounds like the game handing you a win button. In practice, the aura is the more interesting half.
A single very strong unit in a battle where every soldier is simulated individually does one thing well: it anchors a point. It does not kill an army. It creates a place where the enemy line cannot advance, and everything else in your formation can manoeuvre around that fact.
The 30% speed aura is the multiplier. Troops near the King move faster, which means they arrive at the contact line sooner and reform faster after a push. In a game whose battles are decided by who gets more bodies into contact first, that is not a small buff.
Do not think of him as your best unit to be protected. Think of him as a place on the map where your army is faster and the enemy cannot break through. Place him where you want the fight to happen.
Where to place him
Three placements cover almost every level:
Centre of the line, behind the front rank. The default. The aura reaches the widest part of the formation, and he is close enough to the front to anchor it without being the first thing the enemy touches.
At the tip of a MARCH wedge. The aggressive version. A 10x health unit at the point of a wedge does not break, which means the wedge does not stall. The aura follows the spearhead.
On the flank that keeps collapsing. The repair version. If one flank loses every battle, put the King there and the flank stops being a problem. This is often the fastest fix for a level you have failed twice.
Do not put him alone on a far flank with no support: 10x of a cheap unit is still a cheap unit, and a surrounded King is a wasted King.
The King and the upgrade tree
Crowning is free; making the King part of a plan is not. The King sits on a branch of the upgrade tree, and the nodes around it are what turn him from a strong unit into an army-wide buff engine.
The practical order:
- Buy the nodes that increase the number of circles you can field. The King is only as good as the army around him.
- Buy the King node itself.
- Buy anything that increases the aura's value or his survivability.
The upgrade tree buy order→ covers where this fits in the broader spending plan.
King and formation
The King rewards a formation that is tight rather than spread. A dense block puts more troops inside the aura, which means more units moving 30% faster.
That interacts with the standard composition advice in an interesting way:
- Wide formations cover more ground but include many units outside the aura.
- Dense blocks put almost everything inside the aura but expose fewer units to the enemy at once.
The compromise most players settle on is a dense centre around the King with wider, thinner flanks that are expected to trade rather than hold. The centre is where the battle is decided; the flanks are there to buy time.
What the King does not do
- He does not make a bad formation good. A King in a formation with no depth still gets surrounded.
- He does not replace damage units. Ten times a circle's damage is still circle-tier damage; triangles are still your answer to a solid line.
- He does not carry between modes. The King is a Campaign and Command feature; Tactics hands you a fixed army.
You cannot crown multiple circles in a single Setup. The choice of which circle becomes the King is a real decision, because the aura's position determines which part of your army gets the speed buff.
Official source: We March as One on Steam ↗ — the store description confirms the branching upgrade tree that unlocks new unit types, which is where the King node sits.
The King in one paragraph
Crown a circle by double-clicking it in Setup. He gives you a 10x health and damage anchor with a 30% speed aura, for free. Place him where you want the fight to happen — centre of the line by default, wedge tip when attacking, collapsing flank when repairing — and keep troops dense around him so the aura is doing work. Everything else is upgrade tree.
Sources
- We March as One on Steam (official store page) ↗
- Steam global achievement stats for We March as One ↗
- Steam Community discussions for We March as One ↗
FAQ
How do I crown The King?
Paint at least one circle in Setup, then double-click it. The unit is crowned immediately and the 10x health and damage plus the movement aura apply from the start of the battle.
Can any shape be crowned?
No. Only circles can become the King.
Does the King cost gold?
Crowning itself is a Setup action, not a purchase. The related upgrade tree nodes do cost gold.
What does the King's aura affect?
Nearby troops, giving them a 30% movement speed increase. Keeping your formation dense around him maximises how many units benefit.
Can I crown more than one circle?
No. There is one King per battle.
Does the King appear in Tactics mode?
Tactics gives you a fixed army for each puzzle, so crowning is not part of that mode's decision space.