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THE FIELD NOTES · CRITTERFRONT

A team is more than its creatures.

Five attacking threats. Five defending roles. Two connected puzzles in every team.

Count distinct deployed families.

Every recruit has one threat trait for its marcher and one defending role for its tower. The breakpoints are 2, 3, and 5 contributions. Each distinct deployed family is one contribution, and every threat and role has exactly five families, so families alone reach every breakpoint. A deployed unit carrying that faction's trait item, a round reward described below, adds one more. Duplicate copies count once, regardless of star. Bench creatures and summons add no faction members.

A pair can therefore help one side without activating the other. Mushroom and Seed share Evergrowth, but their tower roles are Blaster and Binder. Dog and Pollen share Catalyst, but their attacking threats are Swiftclaw and Brood. The planner displays those counts separately.

Attacking threats

MARCHER THREAT

Swiftclaw

  1. 2 families Marchers move 50% faster. Pounce: they deal +1 Nexus damage when they breach.
  2. 3 families Swiftclaw marchers move 60% faster, and every other allied marcher also moves 30% faster.
  3. 5 families Swiftclaw marchers move 90% faster, and every other allied marcher moves 60% faster.

Families: Bat, Dog, Cat, Birdie, Bunnie.

MARCHER THREAT

Nightveil

  1. 2 families Marchers are Veiled: distant turrets cannot directly target them until they are Revealed. Every 8s one random enemy turret within 2 hexes of an allied Nightveil marcher is stunned for 2s (shared owner cooldown).
  2. 3 families Every 4s, one random enemy turret is stunned.
  3. 5 families Every 3s, two random enemy turrets are stunned.

Families: Spider, Wyrm, Bomb, Lurker, Petal.

MARCHER THREAT

Ironplate

  1. 2 families Marchers gain Ironplate equal to 35% max health. When it breaks, enemies on adjacent hexes are stunned for 1s. Blast removes Plate at 2x efficiency; other non-pure damage at 0.5x.
  2. 3 families Ironplate increases to 50% max health and its break stun increases to 1.5s.
  3. 5 families Ironplate increases to 75% max health and its break stun to 2s; every other allied marcher gains 30% Ironplate.

Families: Cactus, Treant, Scorpion, Dragon, Hermit King.

MARCHER THREAT

Evergrowth

  1. 2 families Marchers continuously regenerate 10% max health per second. Taking damage does not interrupt regeneration.
  2. 3 families Regeneration increases to 15% max health per second.
  3. 5 families Regeneration increases to 20% max health per second, and every other allied marcher regenerates 10%.

Families: Mushroom, Seed, Demon, Hydra, Angel.

MARCHER THREAT

Brood

  1. 2 families Each non-summon Brood marcher hatches two temporary Broodlings when finally defeated. A Broodling that reaches the Nexus deals 1 Nexus damage.
  2. 3 families Each defeated Brood marcher hatches three Broodlings.
  3. 5 families Each defeated Brood marcher hatches three Broodlings, and every other non-summon allied marcher hatches one.

Families: Pollen, Bee, Egg, Ghost, Soul Mage.

Defending roles

TOWER ROLE

Blaster

  1. 2 families A tower hit that damages multiple marchers leaves a telegraphed 100%-damage Blast Aftershock in a 1-hex radius (shared 1s cooldown).
  2. 3 families Blast Aftershock deals 150% damage in a 1-hex radius and has no cooldown.
  3. 5 families Blast Aftershock deals 300% damage in a 1-hex radius and has no cooldown.

Families: Mushroom, Cactus, Birdie, Soul Mage, Bomb.

TOWER ROLE

Binder

  1. 2 families A Binder tower impairing a marcher Tethers its hex with a strong slow for 4s.
  2. 3 families The Tether lasts 5s and also occupies one available adjacent hex.
  3. 5 families Tether hexes persist for the rest of the battle and occupy two adjacent hexes.

Families: Bat, Seed, Ghost, Hermit King, Lurker.

TOWER ROLE

Hatcher

  1. 2 families At battle start, hatch one Guardling (130 health, 6 attack per star scale) on the hex next to your Nexus that the enemy marchers walk through; its health and attack scale with your Hatcher towers' stars like unit stats. Marchers stop to fight it.
  2. 3 families The Guardling grows to 220 health and 11 attack and blocks its next 4 hits.
  3. 5 families The Guardling grows to 780 health and 52 attack and blocks its next 16 hits.

Families: Egg, Treant, Hydra, Bunnie, Petal.

TOWER ROLE

Catalyst

  1. 2 families Every qualifying Catalyst tower buff or debuff echoes to up to two additional valid targets within 1 hex.
  2. 3 families The effect echoes to four additional valid targets within 2 hexes.
  3. 5 families The effect echoes to five additional valid targets within 3 hexes.

Families: Dog, Pollen, Spider, Scorpion, Angel.

TOWER ROLE

Ravager

  1. 2 families Frenzy: a Ravager tower kill gives every allied Ravager tower +50% attack speed for 5s.
  2. 3 families Frenzy gives +75% attack speed, and the kill also orders another Ravager tower to make an immediate 50% bonus attack (shared 2s cooldown).
  3. 5 families Any allied tower kill triggers Frenzy for every allied tower (+100% attack speed); the bonus attack deals 100% damage with no cooldown.

Families: Cat, Bee, Demon, Wyrm, Dragon.

Use the roster matrix.

Every threat-role intersection contains exactly one family. You can follow an attacking row, a defending column, or combine both. Remember that a fifth member competes with other needs in a team capped at six deployment slots, and that the third breakpoint needs all five families, or four plus a deployed trait item.

One family in every threat × tower role combination
Marcher threatBlasterBinderHatcherCatalystRavager
SwiftclawBirdie4 gold · tier 3Bat3 gold · tier 2Bunnie5 gold · tier 4Dog2 gold · tier 1Cat2 gold · tier 1
NightveilBomb2 gold · tier 1Lurker5 gold · tier 4Petal2 gold · tier 1Spider3 gold · tier 2Wyrm4 gold · tier 3
IronplateCactus3 gold · tier 2Hermit King2 gold · tier 1Treant2 gold · tier 1Scorpion4 gold · tier 3Dragon5 gold · tier 4
EvergrowthMushroom2 gold · tier 1Seed2 gold · tier 1Hydra4 gold · tier 3Angel5 gold · tier 4Demon3 gold · tier 2
BroodSoul Mage5 gold · tier 4Ghost4 gold · tier 3Egg3 gold · tier 2Pollen2 gold · tier 1Bee2 gold · tier 1

Try a four-family exercise.

Dog, Cat, Pollen, and Bee give you two Swiftclaw and two Brood families on attack. Their tower roles give two Catalysts and two Ravagers. This makes a useful way to inspect four different thresholds in the planner. It is a mechanics exercise, not a proven competitive composition, and needs sufficient deployment capacity in a real match.

Then replace one family and see which thresholds disappear. Read ability conditions alongside the badges: a Catalyst echo still needs a qualifying effect and valid targets; Ravager Frenzy still needs a tower kill.

Positioning decides whether many of those conditions occur often enough to help.

Rewards and items.

After rounds 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15, every player whose Nexus is still standing chooses one of three rewards at the start of the next preparation phase. After rounds 3, 9 and 15 the choice is gold (10, 30 or 50), one/two/three random trait items, or the same number of random combat items. After rounds 6 and 12 it is gold (20 or 40), +1 permanent team size, or +8 Nexus health. Gold is the default if no choice is made before the battle.

Items are permanent. A trait item grants one extra threat (attacker side) or one extra tower role (defender side) to a unit that does not already have it, and every deployed bearer adds one contribution to that faction on top of the distinct-family count. A trait item can therefore stand in for a missing family: four distinct families plus one deployed bearer reach the five-contribution breakpoint. Combat items—Guardian Angel, Little Angel, Plate Armor, Explosive Shots, Focus Lens and Saboteur Kit—change one combat form instead. Every roster unit has one attacker-item slot and one defender-item slot. Equipped items stay on the same creature between rounds. You can unequip them during preparation; selling a creature or consuming it in a merge returns its items to the inventory. When the battle locks, items on benched creatures return to the inventory and loose items go to random eligible deployed creatures with a free matching slot. The planner and these reference pages do not model items.