THE FIELD NOTES · CRITTERFRONT

Hermit King and Treant: the historical shell

A historical reference for a remarkably efficient taunt-and-scythe pair. Hermit King has since been nerfed, so the old score is not a current recommendation of equal strength.

Pre-nerf simulation snapshot · 6–7 September 2026

Every score below predates Hermit King’s 7 September change to 10%/20%/30%/50% defender reflection and 5% less health in both forms. These guides do not claim post-nerf win rates. They also predate the balance update in the 2026-10-07 snapshot: synergy breakpoints moved to 2, 3 and 5 families, trait effects were reworked and many unit stats changed. The battles also ran on the earlier five-row board; the game now has six rows, with a longer route to the Nexus and one more marching row.

This lineup includes Hermit King and needs a retest. Its recorded strength is historical, not a recommendation based on the new values.

The unit reference uses the 2026-10-07 project snapshot. The current playtest build was built 2026-10-14 and may use different rules. Read what was tested ↗

Test budget12g

Net roster investment12g

Base-copy purchase total20g

Round rules testedRound 7

Net investment deducts merge refunds from the purchase total. 0g of the test budget is unspent. This is an owned-roster comparison, not a starting purse or a promise you can find these copies in that round. Shop rolls, reroll costs, liquidity and other players’ purchases were not simulated.

Historical reference · 2 DEPLOYED RECRUITS

The exact roster

Hermit King

Star IV · 8 base copies

Ironplate / Binder

A destructible taunting defender that reflects direct attacks; its marcher reflects every fifth direct tower shot, with or without Plate.

Treant

Star II · 2 base copies

Ironplate / Hatcher

Close-range scythe coverage on defense and healing from nearby friendly marcher deaths.

Open this roster in the planner ↗

Exact families and stars, with an illustrative starter layout. Edit both formations before playing. This is not a recorded simulation layout. The planner’s base-copy value is the 20g purchase reference, not 12g net investment.

What the families activate

Attacking threats

Ironplate: 2 distinct families · 2-family bonus

Defending roles

No active threshold on this side. Individual abilities still matter.

Duplicates do not add faction members. These are current rules interactions, not proof that a particular bonus caused the recorded score.

Give each side a job

Placement notes below are practical interpretation of the abilities, not experimentally optimized hex positions.

YOUR DEFENDING TOWERS

Cover the route

Placement suggestion, not a tested hex layout: keep Hermit King reachable so enemies can engage its taunting shell, and cover that approach with Treant’s range-one scythe.
Treant hits the target hex and its two lateral neighboring attack hexes. This pair has only one Hatcher family and no built-in summon source, so do not expect a self-starting growth engine.

YOUR ATTACKING MARCHERS

Plan the approach

The two distinct Ironplate families provide marching Plate; Hermit King’s marcher reflects every fifth direct tower shot with or without Plate.
Keeping Treant near a friendly marcher can enable its death-triggered healing, but this two-unit roster offers few such triggers.

Recruit toward it, without forcing it

This is a conditional recruitment plan, not a tested shopping sequence. Keep a playable board while the shop decides which copies are available.

Suggested collection priority, not a tested buying sequence: view four-star Hermit King as an expensive copy commitment, even though its base purchase price is low.
Hermit King requires eight base copies and Treant requires two. Twelve net gold does not include rerolls, liquidity or the difficulty of securing those copies from the shared pool.

Where it can struggle

All quoted battles predate Hermit King’s defender-reflection change to 10/20/30/50% and its five-percent health reduction in both forms at every star.
Hermit King has no defender auto attack. Ability damage does not feed its direct-basic-attack reflection; ability-heavy opposition is an interaction to test, not a proven counter from this panel.

Recorded matchup notes

The historical panel recorded 860 wins and four draws in 864 battles. It tested 48 generated opponents, not all legal armies or optimized placements.
Hermit King’s health has since been cut again: the current star-I bases are 160 for the tower and 145 for the marcher. The frozen evidence has not been rerun after those changes.

What the experiment measured

99.8%

Historical points
A win is 1 point. A draw is ½.

Opposing compositions: 48
Battles in this comparison: 864
Opponent-panel 95% interval: 99.4%–100.0%
Cap or allocation-drop battles: 0

Each opposing composition spends at least 85% of the test budget. Each opposing composition has equal weight. Repeated seeds and swapped seats are not independent opponent strategies. The interval describes this tested panel, not ranked players or a guaranteed result.

Formation sensitivity · the same roster under three placement policies
Test policy	Historical points
Planned defense · front-row offense	100.0%
Random legal defense · randomized Nexus	100.0%
Planned defense · randomized full-depth offense	99.3%

Scores pool many placements. None of these numbers is a result for the editable starter layout linked above. They compare both armies’ applied Nexus damage, not total DPS.

Evidence source and reproducibility

Frozen run: validation-20260906
Stage: validation
Roster: r-76be931cd2226cf99f85

Download the compact evidence snapshot, including source SHA-256 hashes. Read the method and limitations.