Feral Warden

Feral Warden

 **unit** (see more) (Prompt: blocks immediately)
 (Fragile: does not heal)
: gain

 Cost:

[data page]

**Feral Warden** is a Green-red unit which can act as a blocker or provide constant  damage.

## Strategy

**Feral Warden** is a versatile unit able to significantly help both your defense and attack, especially in low economy games. At its best, it brings you both **pseudo-absorb** on its 3 Fragile Health and constant  damage.

If you use a Feral Warden to take 2 damage through its Prompt block, it won't heal and the Warden will remain at 1 (since it is Fragile). However if you keep on buying a Feral Warden to take 2 damage every turn, you are effectively absorbing on Feral Wardens continuously. This is referred to as Feral Warden's **pseudo-absorb**, which technically differs from real absorb only when you can't afford Feral Wardens anymore (except that you will have 5 less to spend on defense each turn).

Making use of Feral Warden's pseudo-absorb leaves you with a pile of 1 Wardens. Those can in practice be thought of as Tarsiers (with the option to block, but just like with Tarsiers you would almost never want to do that). So all-in-all your Feral Warden is a Wall on its Prompt block turn, and then becomes a 5 Tarsier with only 1 turn of build time. Considering it costs only 5, this makes Feral Warden extremely efficient in the right setup. (An attacker for 4 is extremely efficient, while an extra 1 off the economy for a Wall is no big downside.)

Given the fact that to get full value out of your Feral Wardens you want to use them as final blockers, they look a lot less attractive if you already have a large absorber on the board (such as Energy Matrix or Infusion Grid). As a result Feral Wardens are useful mostly in games that lack bigger absorbers, or early on in the game when damage is too low for a bigger absorber to get full value, for 2 to 4 turns. They are still more interesting than Rhinos in gold-to-health ratio if you buy them simply to die on defense though (you get 1 more for the cost of 1).

Another use of Feral Warden that can apply even in games with larger absorbers is to defend against threat. For example, if you have a Centurion and the opponent is massing Frostbites, buying Feral Wardens is like buying Gauss Cannons (they cost more or less the same) except that they block first and thus delay the need to buy Walls by one turn. If you buy Feral Wardens every turn, then you will never need to buy those Walls. They share this use with Rhinos.

It should be noted that in the late game of low-econ games, when you are struggling to defend, you might prefer constructing a Rhino and a Forcefield instead of a Feral Warden, since that combo provides 4 Health worth of defense at nearly the same cost. In that same situation you might sometimes prefer using a Rhino as final defender instead of Feral Warden, as the Rhino isn't Fragile and will still offer 2 Health of defense on the next turn.

## Openings

Player 1:

1. DD
2. DD
3. DDA
4. TTC
5. Feral Warden +TD
6. Feral Warden +TC

Player 2:

1. DD
2. DA
3. TTD
4. TDC
5. Feral Warden +TD
6. Feral Warden +RE

Player 1 Hellhound cruising.

1. DD
2. DD
3. DDA
4. TTC
5. Feral Warden +BE (Floats R)
6. Feral Warden +Hellhound (2 gold left)

Gives tempo to spam the efficient units.

Player 2 Hellhound cruising.

1. DD
2. DA
3. TDD
4. CBT
5. Feral Warden +Hellhound +E

Spam the efficient units.

Player 2 Hellhound and Doomed Drone (1) cruising.

1. DE1
2. DDD
3. A111
4. TCB1
5. Feral Warden +Hellhound +111

Player 1 rush with Perforator (1)

1. DD
2. A
3. TD1
4. CT
5. Feral Warden (5 gold left)

Player 1 rush with Blood Phage (1)

1. DD
2. A
3. T1
4. TT
5. RC
6. Feral Warden +R