Badge Dojo Rock stage 1

Rock Dojo opens on a thin board: five units, no healer, and nothing on it beyond its first evolution except Snoozebo. That is the real difficulty. Every unit has to survive on its own health, so the order you place them in matters more than raw damage.

Lineup 1 puts the bodies at the corners. Snoozebo takes row 1 of lane 1 and Rubblet takes row 1 of lane 3, so both outer lanes meet a blocker first. Drilleroo stands one row back in the middle lane, where enemies that slip between the corners still run into its claws. The two shooters, Shardsnail on the left and Taptail on the right, wait in row 4, as far from the fighting as the board allows.

The plan is simple to read. The front pair soaks the waves, the middle unit shoves enemies around, and the back row adds damage while the front holds. If either corner falls, the shooter behind it is exposed with three empty rows in front of it.

This exact grid stays in place through Rock Dojo 1-7, so you can set it up once and keep it for the whole opening run. Spend your early upgrades on the two front units before anything else.

Nothing moves from 1-1, so this page looks at the one unit the board cannot lose: Snoozebo, the only second-form tatari on it.

Snoozebo stands in row 1 of lane 1 and fires piercing thorns while it naps, healing itself as it snores. On a board with no healer, that self-recovery is the whole reason the left corner holds. The thorns also pierce, so a queue of enemies pressed against it takes damage down the line, and Shardsnail three rows behind gets time to work.

The trade-off is that Snoozebo is slow to kill things on its own. It wins by outlasting, not by bursting, which is why levels on it pay off longer than levels on any back-row unit.

An alternative layout for this stage moves Snoozebo into the front of the middle lane and gives its lane 1 cell to Gibber, a base-form shell thrower whose spinning shell pierces down the lane. In that alternative Rockhog stands in row 3 behind Gibber, while the right side keeps Rubblet and Taptail.

Either way, Snoozebo ends up on the front row. If your copy is weaker than the rest of the team, put it in the lane that sees the most pressure.

The weak spot on this board is the gap in lane 1. Snoozebo holds row 1, Shardsnail waits in row 4, and the two rows between them are empty, so anything that gets past the front has a free walk to the back.

Shardsnail is a base-form shooter that plants a crystal block as the fight starts and then fires crystal shards. The block is out before the first wave arrives, which gives the left side a little extra presence early. What Shardsnail does not have is any way to slow or stop an enemy that reaches it, and it cannot take many hits.

The fix seen in another layout is to fill that gap. In that alternative, Rockhog, a second-form mud shooter, goes into row 3 of lane 1 and fires quick mud balls that slow whatever is walking down the lane. That keeps enemies inside Snoozebo's thorns longer and puts a body between the front and the back. That same alternative moves Rubblet to row 1 of lane 1 and Snoozebo to the middle, with Gibber in lane 3 instead of Rubblet.

If you keep Lineup 1 as it is, the simplest fix is levels on Snoozebo, so fewer enemies ever reach that gap.

The middle lane holds just Drilleroo, and it is easy to underrate. It stands in row 2 of lane 2, one row behind the corner blockers, with empty cells all around it.

Drilleroo is a base-form specialist. It claws an area, and every so often a heavy blow throws enemies into a neighbouring row; the ones that cannot be moved get shredded instead. On this board that shove is useful, because a neighbouring row here means lane 1 or lane 3, where Snoozebo's thorns and Rubblet's beam are waiting. Drilleroo does not need to kill much. It just keeps the middle from becoming a straight road to the back.

Its weakness is that nobody covers it. With no healer on the board, it lives on its own health, so when it falls it is usually because a corner gave way first and enemies started arriving from more than one side.

An alternative layout replaces Drilleroo and stacks the lane instead: Joeyo, a base-form puncher, in row 1 and Gopher right behind it firing mud balls. That gives the middle a real blocker, at the cost of the shove.

Rubblet is the right side's wall, and unlike Snoozebo on the left it has no way to heal. From row 1 of lane 3 it fires a hot blue beam that damages an area, so groups that bunch up against it take the beam together.

That difference decides which corner breaks first. Snoozebo recovers while it fights; Rubblet only loses health. On longer waves the right side is usually the first to go, and once Rubblet falls Taptail in row 4 is left exposed.

Rubblet is also the start of a line that matters later. Its evolved form, Cobbledon, fires beams that split across a wide area and becomes a regular on the later Rock Dojo boards. Levels put into it now are not wasted.

An alternative layout for this run swaps the corners: Rubblet goes to row 1 of lane 1 with Rockhog two rows behind it, and Gibber stands in row 1 of lane 3 instead. Rubblet keeps a front-row cell in both versions, which tells you how much the board relies on it.

If lane 3 is where you lose, level Rubblet before touching anything else.

Taptail sits at the back of lane 3, three rows behind Rubblet, and its damage comes in bursts rather than a steady stream. It fires a few slow sound waves, then a fast volley, then starts over.

That rhythm explains how the right side works. During Taptail's slow phase Rubblet's beam is doing most of the killing; when the fast volley comes, a group stuck on Rubblet gets hit hard all at once. The pair is at its best when the front holds long enough for several cycles to land.

Across the board, Taptail and Shardsnail share row 4, one in each outer lane, with Drilleroo two rows ahead in the middle. That back row is where the team's damage builds, and it only works while the corners stand.

The alternative that swaps the corners keeps Taptail in lane 3 but moves it up to row 3, behind Gibber instead of Rubblet. Being a row closer means its bursts reach enemies sooner, but it also puts it nearer the fighting.

Taptail is the base form of its line; Rattlecoil and Clangnaga are its evolved forms, and their fast waves can stun. It is worth keeping and levelling for the dojo boards ahead.

The last stage of the opening run is a good moment to ask how strong your team needs to be. Lineup 1 only asks for one second-form unit, Snoozebo; everything else is a base form.

An alternative layout for these stages goes even lighter on evolutions, replacing Snoozebo and the rest with base forms: Drilleroo at the front of lane 1, Joeyo at the front of the middle with Gopher behind it, and Momopo at the front of lane 3 with Punchimp behind. In that alternative, Momopo blows kisses for area damage that hurt fragile enemies more and pauses to heal after a kill, so the right side still gets a little sustain. Gopher, in the middle instead of Drilleroo, keeps firing mud balls but burrows when enemies get close.

That version fights at the front instead of keeping shooters in row 4, which suits a team that has not built up its back line yet.

If the original grid is still failing here, the cause is rarely placement. Check that Snoozebo and Rubblet have had their upgrades, since the corners carry the whole run. The next stage moves Snoozebo into the middle lane, so this is the last time this exact board appears.

After seven stages on the same grid, rock-1-8 shuffles the front. Snoozebo leaves lane 1 and moves to row 1 of the middle lane, with Drilleroo directly behind it in row 2. Rubblet still holds row 1 of lane 3 with Taptail at the back, and lane 1 is left with Shardsnail alone in row 4.

That empty left front is what makes this stage harder. Enemies in lane 1 meet nothing until they reach Shardsnail, whose crystal block and shards have to do the work on their own.

The middle stack is the strong point. Snoozebo soaks hits and heals while dozing, and Drilleroo swipes from right behind it; its heavy blows throw enemies sideways, and on this board a sideways throw often lands them in front of Rubblet's beam.

The alternatives answer the left side. One puts Gibber in row 1 of lane 1 and Rockhog in row 3 in place of Shardsnail, so the lane gets a shell thrower up front and slowing mud behind. A heavier swap fields Drilleroo and Punchimp in lane 1 instead, Joeyo with Gopher in the middle and Momopo up front on the right.

If you keep Lineup 1, give Shardsnail its upgrades first, since it holds lane 1 by itself.

This stage keeps the 1-8 shape but changes the second unit in the middle: Gibber now stands in row 2 of lane 2, right behind Snoozebo, replacing the claw unit from 1-8.

Gibber is a base-form guardian that throws a spinning shell straight down its lane, piercing everything on the way. Paired with Snoozebo's piercing thorns, the middle lane now hits the whole queue twice: enemies stacked against Snoozebo take thorns from the front and a shell from behind. Because Snoozebo heals itself while it naps, Gibber rarely has to worry about losing its cover.

What the board gives up with that swap is the old claw shove, so enemies are no longer thrown out of the middle into the outer lanes. Each lane has to handle its own traffic.

Lane 1 is still the soft side, with Shardsnail alone in row 4. The alternative layout fixes it by moving Snoozebo to row 1 of lane 1, sending Gibber to the middle front instead and putting Rockhog in row 3 of lane 1 in place of Shardsnail. The right side, Rubblet up front and Taptail behind, stays the same throughout.

Levels on Snoozebo still pay off most, since two lanes lean on it in one version or the other.

The first Rock Dojo chapter ends with a lopsided board. Lane 2 is empty, and lane 1 becomes a column: Snoozebo in row 1, Gibber in row 3, Shardsnail in row 4. Lane 3 keeps Rubblet up front and Taptail at the back.

The left column is the strongest lane in the chapter. Snoozebo blocks and recovers health, Gibber's shell flies forward and pierces the queue that forms against it, and Shardsnail adds its crystal block and shards from the very back. Three layers of damage hit anything that comes down that side.

The right side is the problem. Rubblet has no self-heal, and with the middle open, enemies that would have walked down lane 2 drift into the outer lanes, so Rubblet often faces more than its share. Once it falls, Taptail stands alone.

The alternative layout spreads the team out instead: Rubblet in row 1 of lane 1 with Rockhog in row 3 in place of Gibber, Snoozebo at the front of the middle, and Gibber moved to row 1 of lane 3. That version has a blocker at the head of every lane.

With Lineup 1, put levels into Rubblet before anything else. The next chapter leans on evolved forms, so start levelling Rubblet towards its second form now.