Equipment
- Damage core
- Soldier / Paladin
- Support cards
- Farm, Blacksmith
- Enchantments / tome actions
- Steel Coat
- Board state
- Developed plan; adjust to actual draws
Skills
- Card access
- The core is in the Nothing deck. An opening can supply a different troop; use it to survive rather than assuming both supports arrive together.
- Effect condition
- Farm and Blacksmith need cardinal neighbors. A diagonal connection does not qualify.
Best for
A compact troop core for learning adjacency and surviving the early campaign.
Avoid if
The troop dies before support pays off, or the board survives but lacks damage against a larger army.
How it works
Farm develops the neighboring troop population; Blacksmith develops attack. One supported Soldier or Paladin keeps the investment readable instead of spreading upgrades across unrelated troops.
Equipment priority
| Priority | Equipment | Instruction |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Stabilize | Soldier / Paladin | Choose the first useful Soldier or Paladin as the recipient you will develop. A second early troop is a bridge only when the first cannot hold enemies; do not reserve two permanent carries before either is useful. Keep a cardinal support position available, and accept an Archer temporarily if it supplies the attack the hand is missing. |
| 2 · Connect | Farm, Blacksmith | Place Farm beside the established melee plot while there is still time for its population growth to matter. Put Blacksmith on the other side of that same recipient instead of boosting a distant second Soldier. Before taking a support, check that the next fight can be survived without the immediate troop duplicate you passed up. |
| 3 · Develop | Steel Coat | The intended relationship is one dependable troop receiving both growth and damage support, with Archer supplying complementary offense. The visible test is not the number of occupied plots: the supported troop should keep contact while the attacker finishes enemies. If it already survives, invest the next useful duplicate in the job that remains weak. |
Build order
- Choose the first useful Soldier or Paladin as the recipient you will develop. A second early troop is a bridge only when the first cannot hold enemies; do not reserve two permanent carries before either is useful. Keep a cardinal support position available, and accept an Archer temporarily if it supplies the attack the hand is missing.
- Place Farm beside the established melee plot while there is still time for its population growth to matter. Put Blacksmith on the other side of that same recipient instead of boosting a distant second Soldier. Before taking a support, check that the next fight can be survived without the immediate troop duplicate you passed up.
- The intended relationship is one dependable troop receiving both growth and damage support, with Archer supplying complementary offense. The visible test is not the number of occupied plots: the supported troop should keep contact while the attacker finishes enemies. If it already survives, invest the next useful duplicate in the job that remains weak.
How to play
Stop rerolling as soon as you find a workable frontline upgrade or missing damage source. Keeping gold for a hypothetical perfect Farm draw is a poor trade when the troop is about to vanish. Do not add a Library project before you have an enchanted troop that can actually use it.
What can break the build
Putting Soldier at B2 and Farm at A1 creates a diagonal pair with no Farm connection. Another Farm level does not repair that geometry. Move the support plan to B1, or choose a recipient already adjacent to the Farm; confirm the current placement highlight before committing.
Evidence limit
Mechanics checked against the official card reference and developer Patch #29, #30 and #31 notes on 2026-10-13. Layouts and priorities are editorial recommendations for 0.9.8; no fresh-run clears, win rates, damage benchmarks or universal difficulty guarantees are claimed.