How to Build a Regular Dude Army in How Many Dudes?

To build a successful Regular Dude army in How Many Dudes?, recruit every basic Regular Dude offered in early shops, bank unspent gold to maintain shop economy, invest solely in squad-wide stat buffs, and deploy units across a wide frontline to avoid movement clogs.

Early-Round Drafting and Gold Economy

A swarm strategy relies on raw unit volume to clear early waves and stockpile gold. Because Regular Dudes appear frequently and carry low recruitment costs, you do not need to spend currency searching for expensive specialist units.

Follow these drafting rules during the opening stages:

Buy every Regular Dude available: Fill your active board with basic recruits whenever shop funds allow. High body counts create a physical barrier that stops enemy waves through body collision alone.
Hold gold for natural shop refreshes: Avoid paying for early rerolls. Rely on free round refreshes so your gold total builds interest for later rounds.
Ignore single-target units and items: Avoid purchasing niche high-tier units that dilute your recruitment pool, as well as items that buff only one character.

Stat Priorities and Relic Scaling

Baseline Regular Dudes lack innate special abilities. To keep their damage competitive in later rounds, stack relics and artifacts that apply flat bonuses and percentage multipliers globally across your entire army.

Stat	Recommended Source	Combat Role
Flat Damage	Universal Relics, Squad Passives	Raises baseline hit damage across every unit, turning swarms into high-output clearers.
Attack Speed	Global Attack Buffs	Increases overall strike frequency and speeds up hit-triggered effects.
Movement Speed	Formation Upgrades	Closes distance rapidly to surround targets before taking ranged chip damage.
On-Hit / Leech	Sustain Artifacts	Offsets chip damage and low health pools by healing units during sustained fights.

Board Positioning and Spacing

High unit counts can cause friendly pathing issues if your formation is too narrow. When units crowd together, backline recruits can get trapped behind the frontline without reaching attack range.

Deploy horizontally: Spread your frontline across a broad width rather than stacking units in a deep vertical column.
Layer in shallow ranks: Position a second line directly behind the forward line. This rank steps forward immediately when the frontline takes damage, maintaining constant pressure.
Stagger against area-of-effect threats: If upcoming enemies use explosive attacks or forward cleaves, leave small gaps between unit clusters so a single blast does not wipe out multiple rows at once.

Countering Bosses and Cleave Attacks

Bosses with wide sweeping strikes are the primary threat to a swarm build. Grouping your entire army directly in front of a boss allows sweeping attacks to eliminate large numbers of dudes in a single strike.

When facing major single targets:

Surround the target: Use high movement speed to flank and encircle bosses. The enemy will direct its attacks toward a fraction of your army while the rest strikes from behind.
Restock immediately after losses: If a boss cleave eliminates a portion of your frontline, use your banked gold reserves to draft replacement Regular Dudes during the next shop phase.