Look like dropping soldiers for a small rally (8)
I believe the answer is:
assemble
'rally' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'look like dropping soldiers for a small' is the wordplay.
'look like' becomes 'resemble' (I've seen this before).
'dropping' is a deletion indicator.
'soldiers' becomes 're' (Royal Engineers).
'for' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other) (I've seen this in other clues).
'a small' becomes 'as' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'resemble' with 're' removed is 'semble'.
'semble' put after 'as' is 'ASSEMBLE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for assemble that I've seen before include "Manufacture" , "Put together all the components" , "Meet" , "Collect in one place" , "fit together" .)