Order AutomaticaTeam Comps & Unit Reviews
Dark Tactical Roguelite Auto-Battler · 3×3 Ritual Grid
The Four Roles Every Team Needs
Because battles resolve automatically, the win is decided in the preparation phase — which means your team shape matters more than any single unit. A sound Order Automatica roster covers four roles, and a board missing one of them tends to collapse exactly where you need it:
- Front-line soakers — durable units that absorb the first engagement and protect your back line. The developer’s own principle is “roles over raw power”: a run without a reliable front line folds fast.
- Control — stun / redirect units that preserve your back line when enemy tiers climb. Pure-damage boards get punished late, so one control piece is what keeps a comp relevant deep into a ritual.
- Damage — your finishers. With no mid-fight input, you need units whose triggers actually close the fight before the candle dies.
- Sustain — healing and shielding that scale better than raw HP once enemies hit harder, the anchor that lets a board outlast the scaling.
These roles are not tiers of quality — they are slots a team must fill. See Difficulty & Team Advice for how the mix shifts as the ritual deepens.
Demo-Verified Unit Reviews (what you can draft today)
The free Steam demo (AppID 2577030) hands you 14 playable units, so these are the pieces you can test real team shapes with before spending anything. Read them by role, not rarity:
| Unit | ATK | HP | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bloodkeeper | 4 | 2 | 3 |
| Caregiver | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Cat | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Crow | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Droid Assassin | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Friar | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Ghoul | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Executioner | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Hermit | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Lifegiver | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Little Imp | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Madame | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Miner | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Fish | 1 | 1 | 2 |
The demo economy is flat — thirteen of the fourteen cost the same 3 essence (only Fish is cheaper, at 2) — so your early decisions are about which unit you take, not whether you can afford it. By recovered base stats, Droid Assassin and Ghoul (HP 3) are your durable front line; Lifegiver (HP 3) and Caregiver anchor sustain; and Bloodkeeper (ATK 4) is the single highest attack value in the pool — the natural core of any attack-buff theme. Exact per-unit ability assignments were not decodable from the demo’s config, so we score units by recovered base stats and role, not by guessed abilities — no fabrication. The full roster and the 13 units flagged not-in-demo are on Unit Compendium.
Place the Team, Don't Just Pick It
Roles only pay off if the board is built to trigger them. Front-line soakers go where they engage first; control and sustain sit behind them; damage triggers need the adjacency or numbered-cell positions their abilities key off. A comp is therefore two decisions — which units and where they stand — and the second one is the game. Work the placement plan on the 3×3 Grid Placement guide and the trigger map on Unit Synergy.
Starter Team Templates
Three shapes cover most early rituals, all buildable from the demo pool:
- Newcomer comp — durable front line (Droid Assassin, Ghoul) + one reliable damage piece (Bloodkeeper) + a sustain unit (Lifegiver / Caregiver). Low-skill, high-tolerance.
- Scaler comp — pick one complete synergy chain and layer forbidden / cursed relics that amplify it between fights; buffs multiply while stats only add.
- High-ritual comp — lead with control + burst and plan placement so triggers fire before the candles run out.
For the full build framework and the ‘five checks’ to judge any comp, see Best Builds.
Re-check After Every Patch
Post-launch support has been active — the studio shipped hotfixes within 48 hours of launch and the build version moved from 1.00.19 to 1.00.23 in roughly ten days. Any unit evaluation here should be re-checked after each update; track News & Updates for the version log. This page stays deliberately honest: it reviews the demo-verified pool you can actually draft, and flags launch-shifted values when they arrive.