Best advice I got is to do a lot of experimenting. Regardless, as your alliance gets higher level troops/better research and gear, that horde level obv will get easier and easier. I think too many folks concentrate on beating high level hordes but for us, the rewards arent worth it. Maybe try that, or Maddie if Miho is not available. With joiner heroes, since we usually fight weaker hordes, we don’t push for anything specific but I know in general (like for CC) we ask everyone to use Miho for her skills. With that said, infantry tends to give more points for whatever reason so it’s a balance between having enough hunters to damage and win the round but having some infantry to get points. Also, we usually do lower level hordes/traps as the rewards on higher tiers are eh and with lower levels everyone can make more damage points. I noticed that ppl who send no infantry get less points than people who send some. We go heavy on infantry for wave 10 and heavy hunter on wave 20 with a little bit of infantry cushion. Yep and with updates to battle mechanics the answers can change. Success comes from experimenting and then employing strategies around your results. With new heroes comes different skills but going with the rally leaders best heroes (best stats, not necessarily rank) is a good rule of thumb if you can’t keep up with hero skills for every new hero. Our alliance goes for 1/3/6 ratio (inf-rdr-hnt). Generally, the game has suggested using little to no infantry, as hunters cause most damage and riders protect them. As far as troop formation, there is debate on this. For ex, if 20 players online and rally leader of HQ (1st one in) has a max rally size of 1million, then each player should send 50k troops so everyone can fit and get points. With HQ defense, if you have a lot of alliance members online, you want to set a March size limit. More in, more points, greater chance of victory. As Zombie Builder pointed out, troops play a major role on defending settlements.

State of survival infantry troops list