Radial Strike · Field guide
Know what your army can answer, and what it needs help with.
A counter is a useful interaction, not a guaranteed win. Formation, investment, upgrades, supporting troops and timing change the outcome.
Game rule
Physical armor reduces physical damage. Magic bypasses physical armor. Building fortification reduces both damage types. Armor piercing affects that attacker’s physical hit against troop armor, not allied attacks or building fortification.
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Mix damage types when a heavily armored front line stalls your army. Check the opponent’s actual defenses rather than relying on a unit’s appearance.
Game rule
Ground-only basic attacks cannot target flyers. A unit’s targeting label is separate from whether it flies. Towers and citadels hit both layers. Healers can heal flyers even when their own basic attacks are ground-only. Skywatch units stay on the ground and prioritize flyers already in range; their evolved forms add primary damage against air.
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Keep attackers that can hit air in your formation. Protect them: a ground-only army cannot answer a surviving flyer.
Game rule
Spiritcaller and Elder Shaman spend finite chants on other nearby allies recently in combat. Chants favor basic damage per second, never stack or refresh an active chant, and add damage only to primary troop hits. Spellbreaker and Runebreaker reserve a charge at projectile release, then strip a capped amount of temporary shield, own magic ward and borrowed ward before the normal hit. This stripping deals no health damage and does not remove chants.
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Keep spirit casters near damage dealers. Dispel counters protected troops; its reserved shot can be wasted if another hit removes the protection first. Neither resource refills when another wave arrives.
Game rule
Ground troops and buildings block ground movement. Flyers pass over them but collide with other flyers. Troops never retreat. Ranged hunters prefer eligible nearby ranged enemies; preference does not create a path through a solid front line.
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Use durable bodies to cover vulnerable damage dealers. Watch actual routes and arrival space before adding more troops behind a crowded front.
Game rule
Secondary attacks have fixed reach and victim limits. Catapult splash, Crypt Hurler/Cairn Reaver fragments, Drake/Dragon cone fire and Ballista piercing hit ground troops and exclude secondary buildings. The slinger family can target flyers with its primary stone; fragments hit at most one nearby ground troop. Only Catapult has a primary building bonus. Dragon breath also applies its listed burn; secondary hits never recursively trigger further attacks or lifesteal.
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Area damage can punish tightly packed groups. Position and target availability still determine how many victims an attack reaches.
Game rule
Magic wards are finite reserves against magic; physical attacks bypass them. Block can stop a direct physical basic hit; magic and secondary damage bypass it. Temporary shields granted by healing absorb either damage type and do not stack. A shared ward uses its guardian’s same finite reserve, not a new shield for every ally.
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Use the damage type that a defense does not cover. A ward or healer can buy time, but reinforcements do not replenish a survivor’s spent resources.
Game rule
Focus builds against the same troop and resets when the target changes or dies; building attacks do not gain Focus. Chill slows basic attack cooldown recovery and refreshes instead of stacking. It does not slow movement, windups, projectiles or healing cooldowns.
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A durable target can let Focus build. Attack slows can reduce sustained basic attacks, but they do not stop already-launched damage.
Game rule
Priest-family healing restores another living ally; High Priest reaches only one additional target and shields only the primary. Ghoul/Revenant lifesteal restores the caster from actual primary troop health damage, with a lifetime reserve. Archdruid adds healing over time after a successful Cleanse, including on itself. Healing reduction affects all healing. No healing revives a dead troop, and reinforcements never refill surviving troops’ healing resources.
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Keep healers near allies they can actually reach. Priest-family healers cannot heal themselves. Archdruid needs a harmful status to remove before it can start Renewal.
Game rule
One poison and one burn can affect each troop. They deal magic damage on future ticks and remain after their source dies. Stronger effects cannot be extended by weaker attacks. Nightblade poison reduces healing. Druid cleanses poison, burn and attack slows from an ally or self; Archdruid adds nonstacking healing over time. Charges are finite per life.
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Keep a Druid within reach of your front line against poison, burn or Chill. It saves charges when there is nothing to remove. Spreading troops reduces the number reached by flame breath.
Game rule
Cavalry/Knights use their lance once per life on the first unblocked primary melee troop hit. Knight Brace begins afterwards. Golems retaliate against primary melee attackers, with armor applying to the returned damage. Ranged hits avoid retaliation and Iron Golem melee protection. Revenant Last Stand requires surviving actual health damage; it cannot rescue a lethal exchange.
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Use ranged fire against Golems. Inspect whether an opposing Knight or Revenant has already used its opening strike or emergency shield.
Game rule
Evolved Gryphons gain primary troop damage when no living allied troop is close to their target. Armored Gryphon keeps that bonus briefly against the same target after its last isolated hit. Buildings never qualify.
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Keep vulnerable ranged troops near friendly support while leaving room to reduce incoming area damage.
Game rule
Siege units prioritize reachable buildings and apply their listed primary building multiplier before defenses. Citadels have finite single-target fire that reaches ground troops and flyers. Their kills award no gold.
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Support siege with an army that can survive the approach. An exposed siege unit or small early wave is not a reliable way through a defended citadel.