Total Battle How to Level Up Captains - Fastest XP Methods

Your captains lead almost every march in Total Battle, so their level decides how fast your whole account grows. Below you'll find every way captains earn XP, the new Sands of Eternity event that now beats every other XP source, the Monument of Glory bonus, the epic monster trick using mercenaries, star upgrades, and the captains worth leveling first. Let's follow LDShop and get your weakest captains battle-ready without losing a single trained troop.

 

How to Level Up Captains in Total Battle: Quick Answer

Captains gain XP in four main ways, plus a few new 2026 bonuses that multiply what you earn. Here is how they compare in real play.

XP Method	XP Speed	Who Should Use It
Sands of Eternity (event)	Fastest in the game	Everyone, whenever it runs
Other epic monster squads (event)	Very fast	Everyone, during event windows
Common monster squads	Steady	Daily leveling
Attacking other players	High	Strong accounts only
Crypts	Grows with crypt level	Carter and crypt farmers
Experience chests (limited offers)	Instant	Players who spend

Important: Rare and heroic squads give captains zero XP. Rare monsters only accept your Hero, so never plan captain leveling around them.

Monster squads and PvP stay the most efficient XP sources overall. For free-to-play players, epic monster events still beat everything else by a wide margin. If you're still learning the basics of marches and squads, our beginner guide covers the early game step by step.

 

What Changed for Captain Leveling in 2026

Three updates this year changed how you should plan your XP. Older Total Battle guides miss all of them.

Update	Date	What It Means for Captains
Level cap raised from 500 to 600	v341, February 2026	100 more levels to chase on your core captains
Epic monsters made stronger, with better rewards	v343, April 2026	Weak mercenary hits now fail more often
Monument of Glory and Sands of Eternity added	v344, April 2026	A permanent XP boost and a dedicated XP event

The April epic monster buff matters more than most players realise. A march that killed a squad in March may now kill nothing. Since XP depends on kills, test your mercenary stack on one target before you commit a full session.

 

Sands of Eternity: The New Fastest XP Event

Sands of Eternity is now the best captain leveling window in Total Battle. It pays roughly twice the XP of comparable epic monsters, based on community testing. It also pays zero Valor Points, so it is a pure XP event.

Here is how it works:

• Who can attack: Your Hero plus all three captains in one march
• Target: The Epic Ashen Squad, which pays tournament points instead of direct chests
• Timing: No fixed schedule. It has run during Dawn of the Season and during Season's Legacy
• History: It first ran in April 2026, with more editions in August 2026
• Top 100 rewards: Titles that add +50% or +25% XP gain for 14 days

How to Use Sands of Eternity for Leveling

Since all three captain slots earn XP, fill them with your lowest-level captains. One march levels three captains at once. Keep your Hero in the march too, because the Hero earns XP from the same hits.

The Ashen Squad mixes melee, ranged, mounted, and flying units. The flying Solar Sentinels hit melee troops very hard, so avoid melee-heavy stacks here.

A smart move is to save your experience boosts and speedups for this event. Every multiplier you stack gets roughly double value compared with a normal epic monster window.

 

Fastest Way to Level Up Captains: The Epic Monster Trick

When Sands of Eternity isn't running, regular epic monster events are your next best option. They grant increased Valor and Experience points. XP depends on kills, so a hit with zero kills earns nothing.

Here is the part that makes this method so strong. Low-level captains need very little XP per level. I've watched a fresh captain jump from level 1 to level 14 in a single epic hit. A level 26 captain on the same target only climbed to 28.

So the rule is simple. Send your lowest-level captains into epic events first.

Check the Event Format First

Epic monster events change rules each time. Only one format runs at a time.

Event Format	Who Can Attack	Leveling Value
Single captain	One captain only	Best for pushing one low-level captain
All captains	All three captains	Levels three captains per march
Hero and three captains (Sands of Eternity)	Hero plus all three captains	Highest XP per march
Hero only	Hero alone	No captain XP

Hero-only events give your captains nothing, but they reward a strong Hero. Our hero tier list shows which Heroes carry those events best.

Step-by-Step Leveling Setup

1. Swap in the captain. Tap your Hero portrait at the top left, open the captain slots, and replace one with your target captain.
2. Turn on boosts. Activate the experience bonus, army strength, and army health. Six-hour versions cover a full session.
3. Load mercenaries. Select mercenaries only. Leave trained troops and your own monsters at home.
4. Test one hit. Since the April 2026 buff, confirm your stack kills at least one unit before you repeat it.
5. March. Use speedups for faster cycles.
6. Revive and repeat. Revive mercenaries with gold or Sacred Potions, then send the next captain.

Why Mercenaries Matter

Mercenaries hit hard and revive cheaply. In our testing, some event mercenaries revived for around 16 gold each. You can win them through event wheel spins, the Triumphal Challenge, and the Mercenary Exchange.

Trained troops take days to build and cost thousands to revive. Small accounts should never throw them at epic squads. Temporary mercenaries expire after a few days, so use them before they vanish.

One trade-off to remember: a leveling captain kills less than a specialist like Hercules or Heimdall. If you're chasing event rankings, land your big hits with the specialist first. Use the leftover hits to level weaker captains.

 

Captain XP Boosts to Activate Before Every Session

Boosts turn a decent hit into a big one. Always stack them before your first march, not midway.

Boost	How It Helps Captain Leveling
Experience bonus	Directly multiplies XP from every kill
Monument of Glory	Permanent XP bonus on all battle types
Army strength	More damage means more kills
Army health	Units survive longer and keep killing
Valor bonus	No XP, but the same march fills Triumphal Challenge goals

A quick tip from experience: time six-hour boosts with an event window. The event already increases XP, so the boost stacks on top of it.

Monument of Glory: Is It Worth Building?

The Monument of Glory is a city structure added in April 2026. It gives a 6% to 50% bonus to XP gain, depending on its level.

• Build cost: 100 fragments
• Each upgrade: 20 fragments
• Main source: 140 fragments from a Seasonal Kingdom Mythic Reward Chest
• Other source: The Guardsmen IX division of Sands of Eternity

Our take: build the base level if you get the fragments. Be careful with the Mythic Reward Chest choice, though. Many experienced players pick captain or artifact fragments there instead, since those raise power permanently. Choose the monument only if XP is your main bottleneck.

Leveling several captains a day burns through gold fast between revives and boost purchases. A quick Total Battle top up keeps your gold stocked, so a strong event window never goes to waste. The best platform to make the top-up is LDShop, it lets players top up for less and it is a great way to save money.

 

Leveling Captains Through Crypts

Crypts give experience, and higher-level crypts pay more. Carter is the crypt specialist, so his XP builds up naturally through daily crypt runs.

Crypts work best as passive leveling. They won't match an epic event jump, but they add XP every day without costing troops.

 

Season's Legacy: Plan Your XP Around It

Season's Legacy is a 28-day tournament that starts after a Seasonal Kingdom ends. It ranks players on the XP they earn, and Sands of Eternity can run inside it.

This creates a double reward. Every captain level you gain during Season's Legacy also climbs you up its ranking. If you know a Seasonal Kingdom is closing soon, hold back XP chests and boosts until the tournament opens.

Star Levels and Captain Level Cap in Total Battle

Levels and stars are two separate upgrades. You need both for a strong captain.

• Level cap: Captains now cap at level 600, up from 500 in February 2026.
• Bonus cap: Carter's and Doria's bonuses stop growing after level 300.
• First milestone: Level 45 unlocks a captain's faction buff, based on community reports. Push every captain you use past 45 before chasing higher levels on one.
• Star upgrades: Tap the arrow beside a captain's stars to see the fragment and Essences of the Immortals cost.
• Star limit: Seven stars is the maximum. Extra fragments keep dropping after that.
• Fragment sources: The Summoning Circle and Triumphal Challenge shop offers.

Save summoning scrolls for Summon Mastery events. They usually give better fragment value than random daily pulls. Also redeem the latest Total Battle codes regularly, since free rewards add up over time.

 

Best Captains to Level Up First

Spreading XP across every captain slows you down. Pick four or five and focus on them.

Early game priority:

• Carter for crypt exploration efficiency and tar capacity
• Farhad for research speed
• Aurora for construction speed
• Stror for gathering speed and carrying capacity

Mid and late game priority:

• Helen for training speed and food production
• Heimdall for army-wide strength, with stars that are easier to collect than Hercules's
• Hercules for fighting epic monsters, and he pulls ahead of Heimdall from six stars
• Beowulf for army strength and health, a top pick for PvP
• Cleopatra for army-wide strength if you lack Heimdall or Hercules
• Amanitore for group marches, raids, and reinforcements

Farhad and Aurora shine early but fade once your clan supplies plenty of speedups. Move their XP to combat captains after that point.

Skip Ye Ho-Sung, Bernard, Lucius, and Brunhild if you own Leonidas, Minamoto, Alexander, and Wu Zetian. Those four cover the same troop types better.

 

Common Captain Leveling Mistakes

• Sending captains at rare squads for quests and expecting XP
• Using trained troops on epic monsters when mercenaries work better
• Launching weak hits that kill nothing, a bigger risk since the April 2026 buff
• Forgetting the experience bonus before a session
• Burning XP boosts right before Sands of Eternity or Season's Legacy starts
• Pushing Carter or Doria past 300 for their bonus
•  

Conclusion

Leveling captains in Total Battle is about targeting the right XP source at the right time. Sands of Eternity now gives the biggest jumps, so save boosts for it and fill all three slots with low-level captains. Between those windows, epic monster events with mercenaries remain the best free option. Stack your experience bonuses, build the Monument of Glory when fragments allow, and let crypts add steady XP. Pair levels with star upgrades, focus on a small core roster, and your marches will hit harder within weeks.