Hello, new player here.

I've played about 10 games now. First a couple against AI, then some customs online. I've a bunch of experience with the regular RTS games, so I'm not a complete newbie. 

Anyway, my understanding is that in this game you're supposed to group your forces into armies, which then intelligently sort themselves out and do their thing, to lessen the need for micro. But I don't have success with that at all. It takes such a long time for them to get into formation, then they slowly roll forward almost in a nice, thin line (many even go the opposite way for some sight-seeing) with more than plenty of personal space for everyone, and on top of that I notice artillery tend to just drive forward to the frontline and lob their stuff from point blank range. It's all a bit frustrating.

I find it much better to just babysit my units and manually send the swath of 'meat' forward, keeping the artillery and such at a distance and selecting targets with them. To some extent, of course. In late game with battles on multiple locations that's a bit hard. But even then I'm still not sure if forming an army offers an advantage over making a regular control group and 'a-moving' the blob of units in. That way they stay responsive and compact, which is pretty important.

Also, for some reason I can't form armies that include multiple dreadnoughts? When I select a group and attempt, only a small portion plus a single dreadnought forms an army, with the rest excluded. 

But maybe I'm doing it wrong. So, can anyone shed some light on this? Are issues like this acknowledged and is it still a work in progress? Do veteran players also avoid forming armies for these reasons, or does it work fine? Maybe some tips on when and how (with which units) to form armies, and when not to?

Thanks.