Goblin Machine

Goblin Machine is a 5-Elixir Legendary troop that fights with two independent weapons at once: melee fists that pound whatever ground target it's engaged with, and a rocket launcher riding on its back that fires on its own separate timer at any target — ground or air — within a 2.5-to-5-tile band, splashing nearby enemies for extra damage. Since its June 2024 launch it has gone through several rounds of balance changes — starting with an emergency rocket nerf two days after release and a hitpoints cut two weeks after that — before culminating in an August 2026 rework: a slower-firing but faster-flying, harder-to-dodge rocket paired with a tankier, harder-hitting melee body.

• Goblin Machine costs 5 Elixir and deploys as a single melee troop with 2,265 hitpoints and 232 damage per hit (up from 2,150 hitpoints and 212 damage before an August 2026 rework), landing a hit roughly every 1.2 seconds for about 193 damage per second. It moves at Medium speed, takes 1 second to deploy, and its fists can only hit ground targets — it has no answer to air troops with this attack alone.

• Beyond its fists, Goblin Machine carries a rocket launcher on its back that fires on a completely separate timer and can hit air or ground targets 2.5 to 5 tiles away, splashing for 304 damage in a 1.5-tile radius (152 against crown towers). The first rocket takes 1.5 seconds to fire, noticeably slower than the fists' quick 0.5-second opening punch. An August 2026 rework slowed the reload from every 3.5 seconds to every 5 — dropping sustained rocket damage from 86 to roughly 61 per second — but sped up the rocket's flight by 40%, making each shot considerably harder to dodge.

• Goblin Machine launched on 17 June 2024 as a Legendary troop, part of the Goblin Queen's Journey content update alongside the Goblin Demolisher troop and the Goblin Curse spell. Supercell's own description sums it up simply: it 'has two arms for melee attacks and a big rocket for faraway targets.'

• Just two days after release, Goblin Machine's rocket got hit with an emergency nerf: its damage was cut from 588 to 391 (about -33%), its damage to crown towers was halved, and its hit speed was slowed from 3.5 to 4 seconds. Supercell pushed the change out quickly because the card was overperforming right out of the gate.

• Two weeks later, Goblin Machine was nerfed again: its hitpoints dropped from 2,598 to 2,196 (about -15%), and its first attack — previously landing in a snappy 0.2 seconds — was slowed all the way down to 0.5 seconds. Supercell said the card was simply too hard to kill before its rocket started paying off, and wanted it to die as easily as other 5-Elixir melee troops.

• In August 2026, Supercell reworked Goblin Machine as part of a pass aimed at cards that had been repeatedly nerfed into an awkward spot. Rather than a straightforward buff or nerf, the rocket was deliberately slowed down to fire less often while the melee side was made tankier and harder-hitting — trading rocket spam for a slower, more deliberate threat that's tougher to punish on defense.

• Because the rocket launcher targets air units independently of the Goblin Machine's ground-only fists, this single card effectively threatens both lanes of a fight at once — it can be punching a ground troop in melee while its rocket locks onto a flying target somewhere else on the battlefield entirely.

• The rocket can't fire at anything closer than 2.5 tiles away, so troops that rush all the way up next to the Goblin Machine actually dodge the rocket entirely and only have to deal with its melee fists. Staying at a medium distance — inside the rocket's 5-tile max range but outside that 2.5-tile dead zone — is the one place guaranteed to eat a rocket hit.