Archmage One Camp into Expansion

Archmage and Footmen creep one camp with Militia, then five more Militia meet the army at the natural and build the Town Hall at 28 food. Flexible into any two-base play.

By GotQuail· Updated 23 September 2026

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About this build

Full guideArchmage First One Creep Camp into Expansion

A very common and flexible expansion build that works on most maps. You quickly creep one camp before expanding, which gives you some extra safety compared to an immediate expansion, and it can transition into any two-base play. Most commonly used against Undead and Night Elf, whose usual harass timings give you enough time to creep one camp first.

Always keep a Peasant in production until the stopping point, and unless stated otherwise every Peasant that builds goes to lumber after. It is a little map dependent: you want a creep camp between your main and the expansion.

Build order · 15 steps

#	Food	Instruction
1	5	Send 4 Peasants to gold, 1 builds an Altar of Kings. Train one Peasant at your Town Hall.
2	6	1st Peasant builds a Barracks.
3	7	2nd Peasant builds a Farm.
4	8	3rd Peasant mines gold.
5	9	4th Peasant builds a Farm.
6	10	Altar finishes: start training an Archmage.
7	15	All Peasants from here on are rallied to lumber.
8	16	Barracks finishes: start training a Footman. Keep producing Footmen until the stopping point noted below.
9	18	When you have 20 lumber, build your third Farm.
10	21	First Footman finishes: send it to scout the enemy.
11	22	When the Archmage is about to finish, call 3 Militia and creep the first camp with the Archmage and 2nd Footman.
12	27	About halfway through the first camp, call 5 Militia from your main and send them to the expansion. They link up with your army as you finish the first camp.
13	28	Stop production of Footmen and Peasants. You should have 15 Peasants (5 gold, 5 lumber, 5 creeping the expansion), 4 Footmen and 1 Archmage.
14	28	After creeping the expansion, build a Town Hall with 4 Peasants and a Scout Tower with 1. Upgrade the tower to an Arcane Tower when it finishes.
15	28	Make Peasants if you expect to be harassed, or a 5th Footman if you want to be aggressive. When in doubt: make Peasants.