Goblin Army

The Goblin Army is an event that has a roughly 1/16 (which is 6 hours and 24 minutes of gameplay +/-) chance of happening at dawn if the player has met certain criteria. When the Goblin Army event starts, a warning message will appear on the bottom left of the screen that says "A goblin army is approaching from the west/east!'. It will repeat the warning message 5 times to ensure the player is aware of the event. Note that right is east as the compass is based on your vantage point.

When the goblins arrive, a new message will pop up:

When this happens, goblins will come towards you to kill you and/or invade your houses and try to kill the NPCs.

Once all the goblins are dead, this message will pop up:

This means the Goblin Army event has ended. If any NPCs have died, they should respawn soon after this message.

Warning Message Times are the following: (The time may differ dramaticly)
 * 4:30AM (Dawn)
 * 5:30AM
 * 6:30AM
 * 7:00AM (Goblin Army arrives, changing music to that of a boss battle)

There are 4 different types of goblins:
 * Goblin Peon
 * Goblin Thief
 * Goblin Warrior
 * Goblin Sorcerer

The amount of goblins is calculated like so: 100 goblins + 50 for each player in-game with 200+ life.

Drops include 8-30 gold (in total), 150+ spiky balls, harpoon (rare), and rocket boots(rare).

Goblins hunt down the original spawn point. So if you moved away from your original spawn point before making your base(s), then you should be able to avoid NPC casualties.

Another way to avoid civilian casualties is to use the same technique to harvest stars to fight them, it makes it very easy as they all funnel on the flat surface, you can literally take zero damage doing this if you stay alert and jump over goblins as they come in from different sides.

An even more effective strategy is to create lava moats that kill but do not destroy items on either side of your original spawn. Due to the fact that Goblin Peons, Thiefs and Warriors spawn off screen,they will most often come charging from either side, ending up in your lava. This significantly aids both your and the NPCs' survival, as you will only need to deal with the Sorcerers and occasionally one of the other 3 types of goblins.

Another good strategy is to set up a wall (anykind) to the opposite direction of where the goblins are coming and use any type of gun with meteor shots (or Thorn Shakrum) to hit and ricochet off, hitting them twice.

Another way is to stay on the top of your building and keep using your flail (Ball o' Hurt, Blue Moon, Sunfury) downwards, preventing goblins to climb up and make casualties, the only problem you will face in this tactics are the teleporting goblin mage.

Though it is extremely rare, Goblin Armies and Blood Moons can occur at the same time. (as shown in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch )

The criteria for a goblin invasion to occur is as follows:
 * You must have at least one person in the game with 200+ current life.
 * You must not have had an invasion within 7 in-game days.

Trivia
Most likely due to a bug the goblins will come from both east and west (more will come on the main side).

Media
thumb|right|290pxthumb|300px|left|Goblin Army invading