Hearth and Hamlet Raids: Defense, Guards & Enemies
Hearth and Hamlet raids are timed attacks on your town. Learn how to recruit soldiers, train guards, build walls, and fight all 12 enemies in the game.
Hearth and Hamlet raids are timed attacks on your settlement that you survive by recruiting soldiers, training guards, and building defenses before the enemy arrives. Defense is not a separate layer from the economy — every soldier and fortification draws on the same workers and resources that would otherwise grow your town.
The short answer
- Raids arrive with a warning and a deadline; read the timer the current build shows
- Defense is economic: soldiers and guards cost workers, Food, Gold, and Iron
- Recruit soldiers and train guards through the Town Guards screen
- Demo v1.0.46 officially rebalanced combat, so old videos are not a launch formula
- Enemy and cost data below comes from build 0.80 static data, not final full-game values
- Losing is a setback with resource loss and a penalty, not a deleted save — exact release outcome is not fully documented
How raids work in Hearth and Hamlet
The official Steam page says you “Recruit soldiers as your realm expands to protect what you’ve built,” and its policies list “city guard drafts to protect your population.” That framing matters: raids turn ordinary production decisions into a deadline. A town that builds fast but keeps no reserve can look strong economically and still be helpless when an attack begins.
The Demo v1.0.46 patch notes confirm combat was rebalanced for Steam Next Fest in June 2026, so older enemy counts, costs, and penalties may already be outdated. Read the numbers the version in front of you actually displays.
Soldiers, guards, and the Town Guards screen
The Town Guards screen combines recruitment, training, armour, and unit strength. Recruiting draws from your own population, and pulling too many people into the military drags on happiness and on the jobs they leave behind. Demo footage shows conscription lowering happiness past a certain soldier count, though the exact threshold is a demo observation, not a confirmed rule.
The full distinctions between the military roles still need release verification. The useful model is simple: soldiers meet raiders in battle, guards and fortifications protect people and stockpiles, and raids are deadlines that change which workers and purchases are correct right now.
Pre-raid checklist
Work through these checks before the warning arrives:
- Read every warning. The build shows you how much time remains; do not guess.
- Keep Food positive. Recruiting while the population is already going hungry creates two crises at once.
- Reserve the required resources. Delay cosmetic or low-impact upgrades that compete with defense.
- Free workers deliberately. Pull from the least urgent production line instead of dismantling everything.
- Finish one defensive step at a time. Confirm it is staffed or active before spending on the next.
- Keep a recovery margin. Emptying every stockpile may win the fight but leave you unable to restart production.
Defensive research adds another demand on Gold, Iron, and other materials, so a military push competes directly with economic research. See the mechanics reference for how combat is actually calculated.
Town Guard building tiers
The community game database records five tiers for the Town Guard building, drawn from build 0.80 (Steam build 23713558). Only the first tier is enabled; the rest are later-game entries, not final numbers.
| Level | Building | Cost | Reward |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Watchman’s Post | 8,000 wood · 2,000 stone · 8,000 food · 2,000 iron | Unlocks the military button for recruiting soldiers |
| 2 | Sentry Hall | 24,500 wood · 24,500 stone · 7,000 gold · 14,000 iron | Faster training, unlocks military research |
| 3 | Guard’s Barracks | 48,000 wood · 48,000 stone · 24,000 gold · 40,000 iron | Faster training, unlocks military research (1 advanced blueprint) |
| 4 | Town Garrison | 54,000 wood · 180,000 stone · 36,000 gold · 90,000 iron | Faster training, unlocks military research |
| 5 | Royal Bastion | 121,500 wood · 405,000 stone · 121,500 gold · 162,000 iron | Faster training, unlocks military research |
A separate Military Camp with five tiers also appears, all embedded later-game data with no cost and no defined reward yet. Treat it as placeholder content, not a build plan.
Walls and fortifications
Walls are the other half of defense. The Northern Wall and its Southern mirror share five tiers that progress from wooden palisade to stone wall to moat. Both must be built together for the bonus to apply, and none of these tiers are enabled in build 0.80 — they are embedded later-game data.
| Level | Wall | Key effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wooden Palisade I | +10% defense, defenders get first strike |
| 2 | Wooden Palisade II | Defenders get 2× first strike |
| 3 | Stone Wall I | +10% defense, defenders get 3× first strike |
| 4 | Stone Wall II | Defenders get 4× first strike |
| 5 | Moat | −10% enemy attack damage, defenders get 5× first strike |
First strike means defenders act before attackers, and higher tiers stack more strikes. These numbers come from the same build 0.80 package and are structural hints, not confirmed launch balance.
All 12 enemies in Hearth and Hamlet
The build 0.80 data defines 12 enemy profiles, each with attack, defence, attack speed, travel speed, and difficulty. Only the Goblin is enabled in that build; the Ashenholt Soldier is embedded later-game data, and the rest carry a “runtime varies” label. The demo itself shows only goblins and, later, Ashenholt soldiers.
| Enemy | Attack | Defence | Atk speed | Travel | Difficulty | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skeleton | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1.5 | 10 | Runtime varies |
| Rat | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2.8 | 12 | Runtime varies |
| Ancient Skeleton | 3 | 10 | 1 | 1.2 | 15 | Runtime varies |
| Plague Mosquito | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2.9 | 15 | Runtime varies |
| Zombie | 4 | 8 | 1 | 1.4 | 18 | Runtime varies |
| Goblin | 5 | 4 | 2 | 2.2 | 20 | Build enabled |
| Giant Bat | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2.6 | 22 | Runtime varies |
| Sinister Eye | 6 | 6 | 1 | 2.5 | 25 | Runtime varies |
| Monstrous Mushroom | 8 | 9 | 1 | 1.3 | 28 | Runtime varies |
| Shambling Plant | 7 | 12 | 1 | 1.1 | 30 | Runtime varies |
| Ashenholt Soldier | 12 | 15 | 1 | 1.8 | 45 | Later-game data |
| Orc | 10 | 20 | 1 | 2.0 | 50 | Runtime varies |
A Goblin is the enemy behind the demo’s guardhouse quest, and it resolves through the battle system rather than a script. Treat every stat above as build 0.80 data that can change in future patches.
The video above runs the demo’s early progression through the guardhouse and the first goblin warning.
What happens if you lose a raid?
Older demo discussion describes defeat as a setback — resource loss plus a temporary penalty — rather than the end of the save. The exact release consequence is not fully documented. After a loss, restore Food and baseline production first, then rebuild military strength; replacing every lost resource at once usually recreates the same worker shortage.
Demo vs build 0.80 data
Two data sources matter. Demo v1.0.46 rebalanced combat for Next Fest, while build 0.80 is newer static data that marks most military buildings, walls, and enemies as later-game content rather than verified current values. Use the released game for current behavior and build 0.80 as a structural reference.
For the core loop that gets you to your first guardhouse, start with the beginner guide, then read the workers, buildings, and mechanics references when you plan a defense.
Sources: Steam store page · Steam Next Fest patch notes · Hearth and Hamlet game database — town guard · game database — northern wall · game database — enemies