THE FIELD NOTES · CRITTERFRONT

Wyrm and Petal: a mixed counter package

A five-unit mixture of burst, summoned protection and scythe coverage. It emerged from direct counter-search against a Hatcher-heavy army.

Test budget27g

Net roster investment27g

Base-copy purchase total35g

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.

Placement-sensitive · 5 DEPLOYED RECRUITS

The exact roster

Cactus

Star I · 1 base copy

Ironhide / Blaster

Short-range defensive needles and marching punishment when nearby towers become stunned.

Cat

Star II · 2 base copies

Swiftclaw / Ravager

A second Ravager damage source and marching pace support.

Petal

Star III · 4 base copies

Nightveil / Hatcher

Three-hit shields for allied summons created anywhere on the battlefield.

Treant

Star II · 2 base copies

Ironhide / Hatcher

Scythe coverage that also grows when allied summons appear.

Wyrm

Star III · 4 base copies

Nightveil / Ravager

Wide fifth-attack earthquake damage and a burrowing, blocker-bypassing marcher.

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 35g purchase reference, not 27g net investment.

What the families activate

Attacking threats

Nightveil: 2 distinct families · 2-family bonus
Ironhide: 2 distinct families · 2-family bonus

Defending roles

Hatcher: 2 distinct families · 2-family bonus
Ravager: 2 distinct families · 2-family bonus

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: cover Wyrm’s two-hex blind spot with Cat, Cactus or Treant instead of letting enemies sit inside it unchecked.
Treant and Petal activate the first Hatcher bonus. Their shared Guardling gives Treant a summon-growth trigger and receives Petal’s battlefield-wide shield.

YOUR ATTACKING MARCHERS

Plan the approach

Wyrm can bypass ordinary blockers and burrow while moving; a reachable Hermit King taunt remains an exception.
Cat’s Pack Leader is conditional on actually leading. Petal does not need to march beside every summon for its shield to work.

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: establish functional Wyrm coverage, then develop the Petal/Treant support pair as offers allow.
Three-star Wyrm and Petal each require four base copies. This five-body composition is an owned-roster target, not a promised 27-gold shopping route.

Where it can struggle

Wyrm loses normal firing opportunities when targets enter its minimum-range blind spot.
A unit-composition result does not establish which individual faction bonus caused the advantage.

Recorded matchup notes

In the separate adaptive counter-search, this exact army beat the Bomb/Bunnie/Egg/Hydra/Petal/Treant guide in all six direct seed/formation/seat battles. That small test is evidence of a counter, not a universal guarantee.
Its later 92.1% holdout points come from 48 new opponents and must not be confused with those six direct fights.

What the experiment measured

92.1%

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

Opposing compositions: 48
Battles in this comparison: 864
Opponent-panel 95% interval: 88.4%–95.4%
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	93.4%
Random legal defense · randomized Nexus	87.8%
Planned defense · randomized full-depth offense	95.1%

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-9b540b7f16ee4873ded0

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