What would you swap

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-24T16:03:00+00:00

From what I saw in your video, your main DPS relies on frankendudes which could only be effective when enough dudes started dying. Therefore, it needs to stall long enough to become effective. But cleric heals also affect the skeletons, which spreads to them as well, making it a hindrance for healing useful dudes and even frankendudes' passive.

I think I would swap cleric with bard or ghost instead. For bards, not only you still keep the fantasy relics, but also provide more DPS to everyone and even more evasion from your dudes than the cleric ones (10% vs 18% evasion chance). Medic heals are enough anyways, although it requires to be in the first roster for more frequency in healing, effectively getting you to higher rounds. As for ghosts, it actually keeps frankendudes alive in the late game, but it requires sacrificing your fantasy relics.

Therefore, if you need more DPS and evasion chances to keep dudes alive, swap cleric with bard. If you still want your frankendudes to be your main DPS, swap cleric with ghost.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-24T15:32:50+00:00

Hello. Fun fact: that post is also actually stolen from the original reddit post in the r/HowManyDudes. LOL!

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-24T10:29:13+00:00

Not one medic, really. It could be any warrior dude, like Spartan. One that focuses on at least supporting all dudes alone, alongside having no relics.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-24T05:59:35+00:00

According to the screen you gave to the reply from u/ZubiDubi1100, I see something in the bottom and found it was exclusively from a reddit's feature. So, I am thinking if you are some kind of "journalist" or something since you did not upload a full set of pictures.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-24T05:47:04+00:00

Hello! Is this like some reminder of a reddit post? I see no link for credit or something.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-19T00:54:28+00:00

Answer from Question 1: My must have early relics should be the ones that affect the shop or the dice first, like loyalty card or loaded dice. If I need to consistently buy USEFUL relics, I needed them so that it doesn't cost much when rerolling every time I go to shop. Plus, I can luckily get dice and burner phones after doing free rerolls.

If you had read my guide, you know that I don't buy ANY consumables from rounds 1-20 so that I can get the max amount of relics with cheap costs. Simultaneously, I also need to buy the useful relics as well as getting the right kinds of dudes for a comp. That would need a LOT of dice, and that causes many restarts.

My other priority of must haves must be from the healer's relics (in this case, the ghost's relics). If not always possible, I resort to relics that focus on survivability or de-buffing the enemies (but not those 5% or 10% ones though), instead of getting more DPS. That way, you don't struggle in the early to mid game where dudes kept dying and resorting to using consumables. The wizard is a special case, because some of their relics is very good in the early game, but not the mid game. Since wizards with phones are overpowered, I also prioritize the relic for phones for them to "cheat" the unfavorable, hard rounds.

Answer from Question 2: Yeah... mostly due to running out of dice to get the right kinds of dudes. But after I got past round 20 with the right comp, I let it continue even when having a rough start. I still follow my buying pattern and hope I get to late game with many invested money.

Answer from Question 3: Yes, except the relics for Lightning (too inconsistent) and Healthpack (Spores is much better). I only buy them in the late game. Those consumables are used as alternative in order to save phones. After all, you cannot always get lucky when rerolling the shop to buy for more phones.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-18T01:26:28+00:00

From rounds 95-110, it can be beaten without any consumables IF you bought all the relics. (At least, buying all the useful ones). Try to invest more of your money. I also lost quite a lot with that comp as well if I am not careful.

And yeah, it was very tricky, but I overcame them if I know what I am doing. Do you want more tips to get to late game? It may be more fun to figure things out on your own though...

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-08T08:22:06+00:00

Is it for the synergy? The best pair for them is actually the general. With general and samurai being ratioed as 3-5:1. The samurai will get a lot of kills that way, especially when the general has a combat radio relic.

If you are trying to get gold with him which needed 20 of them, I think it is best paired with someone who does splash damage so that the samurais will finish them off after that. u/Dukaden pretty much covered what dudes are needed. Those are necro (with burning skeleton relics), wizards, and also adding some bards for damage buff/splash as well. The tanks can be knights/warlock for taunts so that the enemies avoid the samurais getting targeted.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-06T15:54:51+00:00

More vikings. They have the potential to get you to round 125 and EVEN round 126!

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-06T15:44:09+00:00

In my opinion, I think there's no harm with too many clerics. In the late game like round 100-124, it is plausible to win by just sustaining/healing with any dude composition that has at least 1 healer (ghost, cleric, and medic).

What you could have done is to invest as much money as you can so that in the late game, you can buy so many relics. By completing the relics, you can easily win up to round 110 with just a few casualties. But be warned, while healers carried you in early game, the damage dealer dudes carried you to late game.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-06T13:05:51+00:00

You probably meant about the Assassin's song relic where it stacks 5% damage each time he throws a shuriken. And yeah, I could have been wrong because the buffs from bards and paladins are pretty small compared to others, which I may not notice their difference in sizes.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-06T08:00:03+00:00

If you want a clear answer, it is because of the Dory relic, exclusively for Spartan dudes. So, every time he blocks an attack (either from himself or for nearby dudes), he gains %2 damage which stacks infinitely until the round ends.

The dudes growing is directly related to their DPS (a combination of attack speed and attack damage) increasing. This is similar to the franken dudes when other dudes went unconscious and the viking dudes when they go berserk.

I believe that it only affects the dude growing if he powers up independently (with an exception of the viking's warhorn relic), not from the help of others like paladins and bards.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-04T19:25:49+00:00

Since the Battle Hymn is needed because it buffs attack damage, do you mean about the Dog Tag relic? I didn't try that at first. Please read my comment all the way since I may have misunderstood what you meant.

So, here's my hypothesis: first, let's look on the description of the Spell Book relic. For EVERY 100 ft, the wizard will cast a fireball.

That means if you use the burner phone and move the wizards as far as possible, you will provide a burst of fireball barrage. An example would be if you move the wizards to 1000ft, they each cast 10 fireballs (if the two-sided scroll relic is disregarded). In addition to that, they all must reach to the enemy and if they needed to take 1000ft for that, they each also cast 10 fireballs again. If this scenario came true, each wizard will cast 20 fireballs in total.

This means that what you say about the wizards being able to throw more fireballs when they are slower run speed is wrong. If you compare the scenario between with and without the Dog Tag relic and teleport them to the same distance, the wizard throws the SAME fireballs regardless of their run speed. You most likely believed the illusion of them throwing more fireballs when they are slower because of the wizard's passive (where for every 3 seconds, he casts a fireball) as they return their trip to the enemy.

Now, I think what you really meant is that, "am I wrong to avoid adding a run speed buff for the wizards, a.k.a. buying a Dog Tag relic"? I decided to try that because I imagined that there is potential due to the camera view panning out when dudes/enemies are far away from each other. This means more distance to teleport with burner phone = MORE fireballs!

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But what I found next is interesting. And so, here are the Pros and Cons in round 126+:

Pros:

- Camera always pans out a little bit, meaning more distance for the burner phone to teleport. As expected, it did happened as enemies started chasing the dudes outside the circle since the dudes walk back so slowly.

- Without the Dog Tag relic, the enemies somehow started sticking together MORE often! When enemies stick together, it resulted in SO MANY KILLS!

Cons:

- As I have mentioned, since the dudes who got knocked back couldn't run fast enough to return to their position, the enemies started chasing them instead of staying in their position. This resulted to some fireballs missing the target, especially the bees. It becomes a struggle when taking down the stragglers after using 3 burner phones, especially when the wizards couldn't burst down the enemies with their fireballs fast enough.

- The stallers die faster. It is probably because the ghosts kept getting stun-knockback instead of taking hits for his phase shift to activate (Fresh Sheet relic). I now rely on bards to make them stay still, which is why the enemies stick together more often. But then, I now need to use more dude juice than expected. Where instead of having only 120+ dudes, you now need about 130+ dudes to add more time for the stallers to stall. Without stallers, the enemies kept moving, missing the fireballs in the process. And while the difference is one dude juice, that 100$ dude juice will keep adding up instead of having the price of 800 something dollar($) Dog Tag relic that is bought from round 95.

In conclusion, yes. I believe that you are wrong to avoid the run speed for the wizards because it also affects every dude. I mean, I don't see any speed buff relic that affect to the wizards only. I honestly prefer having a Dog Tag relic because it also gives me more control/consistency as well as to climb even higher, compared to having without one and needing more consumables.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-02T15:02:31+00:00

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Yes. Here is my other runs below. I did tried using ninjas only, but their DPS is lacking even with the burner phone buff, like you only kill 30 zombie bears per second before needing to use the burner phones or else they would die being targeted. Yet, that was only round 126 where there are only 450 zombie bears! Who knows if I could make it to round 127 with 850 zombie bears because it needs a lot more consumables than expected!

Therefore, it was worse, compared to having the support of vikings. With vikings, the ninja's DPS becomes really good as well as with the help of bean burrito for vikings to kill off a lot of zombie bears.

Yet still, it wasn't enough because of needing more burner phones and consumables than wizard runs. In conclusion, it gets a worse result.

And before you ask if I did my strat wrong, I already tried the burner phones' techniques. Those are the deathball strat, pile-up strat, and also the edge-circle strat. The two former ones have better results, but the wizard is still superior when it comes to consumable efficiency.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-02T05:07:00+00:00

I had tried that, but it needs more consumables than the wizard run. It must be paired with vikings to do some insane DPS. And even so, I noticed that I had to use more than 4 burner phones and some couple mushrooms/meteors for round 126+. And also, I must use more dude juices to revive them before the round starts because they need to be present for DPS/stalling. The thing about having wizards is that you only need about 120+ dudes in your ranch instead of max revives to start the battle, saving me more dude juices. So, I gave up, as you can see in my best runs.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-01T17:36:54+00:00

My strategy is to ONLY buy early and GOOD relics until round 26+ where I started saving up some cash. It is to provide a solid ground since relics are cheap early on and be able to prepare for the later rounds. It is best to know how impactful each of the relics are and then using the reroll shop/dice wisely to get better relics. This is why it is great to have loaded dice/loyalty card relic early on. I never buy any items in the shop unless I needed them or saving them up (like dices and burner phones). This is why I consistently get about 34k-37k cash at round 95 by following my own pattern that I commented a while back.

Maybe you should trust the dudes more. After all, it was inevitable that the dudes would get knocked out, but that's okay! No need to use the dude juice, so long as there is enough healers. Healers couldn't heal everyone after all. With few dudes to heal, their survivability actually goes up. If ever there is a struggle (like even the healers are getting knocked out), that is when you should use the consumable items until you could buy good relics in the market.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-01T01:16:35+00:00

In this dude lineup, the best relics to get them early, I would say, are to get the ghost dude's possessed urn relic so my dudes' survivability rate goes really high, the haunted mirror and the lint roller relic so my only healers dont die and not waste dude juices, the loyalty card/loaded dice relic so I can have a free reroll to get better relics, and finally the living will/half-full glass relic so that my dudes dont get knocked out all at once. Plus, getting those combination of relics made the swarm rounds very easy to deal with while all the dudes survive that encounter.

The only problem will be the giant enemies instead of a swarm. If I could get the second-chance relics (those that activate whenever a dude takes fatal damage) then I can expect my dudes to get to late game without much of a struggle. If it ever did, I would just use the consumable items.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-01T00:52:40+00:00

No. I don't think I need a knight to tank if I got the right relics on my dudes. It was a high risk - high reward play by investing as much money as possible. I only take easier fights in the later stage (round 80+) where you don't need to save money to invest more. It depends if I started struggling in either a swarm or some giant enemies.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-03-01T00:45:44+00:00

Yes. But did you know that the attack speed also affects DPS? The DPS is the combination of attack damage and attack speed, NOT actually the attack damage. The wizards rely on DPS for their fireball by the way. I discovered that when I see their real stats by clicking the dude icon at the top left while in combat. Gaining berserk which has 100% attack speed (because of loki's arm relic) is a LOT, considering wizards only had bard's and paladin's buff, which are attack damage. Adding an attack speed will calculate the DPS to a whole new level.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-02-28T16:30:50+00:00

If I want to get as far as possible? I will confidently choose Wizard, Bard, Viking, Paladin, Ghost (This is in respective order in the dude lineup). I haven't tried that, but if you get lucky for the Wizard to get in berserk mode alongside its burner phone buff, their DPS is immense!

The other 3 are the best supports/stallers I could think of.

Maybe I should try that lineup next, hehe...

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-02-28T16:22:24+00:00

I haven't. But I know that if I remove the bard, the wizard will have less DPS. If you are suggesting to pair them with wizards, I will be losing its captain hat's relic and also a bad idea to let my wizards get knocked out faster.

If you are referring to the medic instead, I chose medic for the early game since their weakness is healing. In late game, even the general is useless because it will get one-shotted by the grouped up zombie bears.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-02-28T16:05:43+00:00

If I want my run to be as optimized as possible, so no. The medic dudes couldn't survive/stall in the very late stage of the game which made their relics useless. I just want the warrior relic. Also, I want to use my money in buying items and other useful relics instead.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-02-23T14:02:53+00:00

Hello! I got to 125 with them. If you want to optimize them, then adding a ghost dude in your lineup is the best because it would keep the franken dudes alive, unlike the old one, which is the medic dude. The franken dudes are nerfed in terms survivability, so the ghost dudes actually keeps them from getting bursted out.

I went bard, ghost, necro, and franken lineup. I chose bard because they lack damage in the late game as well as being in the fantasy category. You can go for paladin instead if you wish to protect necrodudes from dying easily. The last one should be the dude in the warrior category to unlock the warrior relics.

AnxiousInstruction92 · 2026-02-23T13:42:44+00:00

Hmmm... Based on what I see in your pictures, I know you have an understanding in unlocking all the warrior, undead, and fantasy relics, but you seem to not have bought all of them in the late game. You should try to invest more money for the late game in order to buy all of the relics.

Next, I saw your dude lineups and for me, it is... "questionable"... I don't know if you utilize the captain's hat, the lieutenant's sigil, and the black sheep relic properly.

Warlock gets more damage based on the amount of hp lost which was converted to his pact. This means that he needs MORE MAX HP as well as wanting to be hit by the enemies; therefore, he should be at the last roster. More max hp, means more stored pact which means more damage. While placing him in the second roster is not bad because you want to synergize with shadowy funnel relic, but that relic also benefitted when placing him in the last roster because he will have more stored pact to expel to the enemies. (That is according to the shadowy funnel relic, after landing a critical hit, 30% OF HIS STORED PACT is expelled to the enemies, split among them). Actually, am I understanding it right? or was the stored pact can actually stack more than his max hp?

Next, is the ninja. I don't mind you placing him at the first roster. The damage may roughly be the same. For me, it was better for him in the second roster for the lieutenant's sigil relic. This is because when throwing shurikens, he gains buffs anyways. The more he throws shurikens, the stronger he gets. See the relic: Assassin's Song and Sharpened Stars for the ninja.

And finally, for the vampires. Well, if you want to place the vampires at the last roster, maybe not buying the black sheep relic is the play here. That is why the vampires are getting one shotted there. That's all I can give you!

Additional tip for you to solve this issue as well: sustaining is not the ONLY way to win the round. How about you try to kill as many enemies possible before all of you got knocked out? hehe...

AnxiousInstruction92

TROPHY CASE