diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 74f92d8..60783eb 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -193,7 +193,7 @@ check-creatures: OK — 102 actor specs across 8 sources, every characteristic,
 check-powers: OK — 41 powers classified, 2 wired and each one measurably changes its fight, 14 recorded as beyond the harness with a reason, 25 not fight rules
 check-anatomy: OK — 5 body plans, 36 locations, d20 complete in both modes, every location drawn, every kind handled and destructible, 20 plan changes carried 432 wounds with their severity intact, 1 flyer(s) with a survivable landing
 check-lethality: OK — 47 creatures, every one fighting exactly as recorded against the frozen party
-check-focus: OK — focus fire measured against 31 packs, helps in all of them, 31 of them by more than their own noise
+check-focus: OK — focus fire measured against 30 packs, helps in all of them, 30 of them by more than their own noise
 check-firstblood: OK — the first disabling blow is worth 40 points of wipe rate in the four-player cut, 15.4 in the six-a-side line
 check-attackers: OK — three of the four-player cut disable on 11.1% of their attacks or better, and one of them on 0.1%
 check-fight-tail: OK — a fight past 15 rounds wipes the party 1.4x as often in the four-player cut and 2.4x at six a side, and nothing was truncated
diff --git a/docs/BESTIARY.md b/docs/BESTIARY.md
index 981db32..44252e6 100644
--- a/docs/BESTIARY.md
+++ b/docs/BESTIARY.md
@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ measured in the simulator and came to nothing distinguishable from noise.
 
 **What you can do is kill them one at a time.** Against a pack, every agent putting
 their attacks into the same creature beats spreading them — in **every one** of the
-31 fights in this book whose outcome was ever in doubt, without exception, and by more
+30 fights in this book whose outcome was ever in doubt, without exception, and by more
 than the measurement’s own noise each time. It is worth about
 **8 points** of win rate against a pair and
 **11 points** against three or more; the best case in the book is
diff --git a/docs/REVIEW_LOG.md b/docs/REVIEW_LOG.md
index 7395375..89e80a8 100644
--- a/docs/REVIEW_LOG.md
+++ b/docs/REVIEW_LOG.md
@@ -6403,3 +6403,48 @@ fights solo, read the wipe column when the agents-down column was the one that m
 explained a power by a mechanism that does not hold. Each was found by somebody asking me to
 act on it. The entry is worth keeping in that state rather than tidying: it is the clearest
 example in this log of confident, internally consistent, repeatedly wrong.
+
+## R-278 — raising SCAN_RUNS found that SCAN_RUNS had never been read
+
+R-277 left the redcap's recorded pack size one seed in eight from being 2 instead of 3, so
+the instruction was to raise the scan until it stopped flipping. Measured rather than
+guessed: still unstable at 3000 and 4000, stable across twenty seeds at 6000. Raised it.
+
+**Then the re-record took fifteen seconds, which was impossible.** Fifteen times the scan
+work cannot cost what 400 runs cost, so I read the call:
+
+```js
+const winRate = (foes, targets, seed) => { for (let i = 0; i < RUNS; i++) ...
+...
+const w = winRate(Array(n).fill(spec), "random", seedFor(...), SCAN_RUNS);
+```
+
+**Three parameters, four arguments.** JavaScript discards the fourth in silence, so every
+scan this guard has ever run used `RUNS`, and `SCAN_RUNS` — declared, commented, passed —
+has never been read by anything. Changing it from 400 to 6000 also did nothing, which is
+how it surfaced: the fix I was asked to make was inert in exactly the way the thing it was
+fixing was.
+
+That is the defect this project names as its own signature — a value computed and never
+read — living inside a guard, undetected by seventeen other guards, for as long as the
+scan has existed. **No guard can catch it.** The constant is used at its one call site and
+the call site looks correct; only the clock disagreed.
+
+**What the honest scan changed.** `winRate` takes `runs` now, and the re-record costs 49
+seconds instead of 15:
+
+- **the redcap is still n=3, gain still 6.3** — the answer R-277 gave was right, and is now
+  arrived at stably rather than luckily.
+- **the_arrears drops out of the measurable band**, 31 packs to 30. Its best size was chosen
+  on 1000 runs and does not survive 6000, which means it has been carrying a recorded focus
+  gain that the scan would not now stand behind.
+- **the_committee moves n 2 to 6** and stays pinned either way, so nothing is measured there
+  and nothing changes.
+
+**The claim check still passes**: focus fire helps in all 30, all of them clear of their own
+noise. Bestiary regenerated, and it prints 30 where it printed 31.
+
+**The lesson is not about arity.** It is that the only signal was a number being too small,
+and I nearly did not look — a fifteen-second re-record is good news, and good news is what
+nobody investigates. The same instinct that made the README quieter as the build got worse
+(R-268) made this cheaper as the scan got weaker.
diff --git a/tools/check-focus.mjs b/tools/check-focus.mjs
index 99e8806..31071a4 100644
--- a/tools/check-focus.mjs
+++ b/tools/check-focus.mjs
@@ -51,7 +51,13 @@ const RUNS = 1000;
 const SEEDS = [11, 4242, 90210];
 const SEED_MODE = "per-creature";
 const SIZES = [2, 3, 4, 5, 6];
-const SCAN_RUNS = 400;
+/* R-278. 400 was enough to find a size and not enough to find the SAME size twice. For
+   the redcap the criterion is near-tied — |win-50| is about 25 at two of them and 23 at
+   three — so a 400-run scan picked 2 instead of 3 roughly one seed in eight, and the
+   recorded gain moved 6.3 to 4.9 with it. Measured rather than guessed: the pick is still
+   unstable at 3000 and at 4000, and stable across twenty seeds at 6000. This is --update
+   only, so the build pays nothing; re-recording pays about half a minute. */
+const SCAN_RUNS = 6000;
 /* A pack whose spread-fire rate falls outside this cannot move enough to measure, and a
    row that cannot move is a row that would pass this guard whatever happened to it. */
 const MEASURABLE = [15, 85];
@@ -71,12 +77,16 @@ const party = PARTY_KEYS.map(k => {
    to roll its own LCG, so the two guards described the same game with different dice and
    no figure here could be reproduced from simulate.mjs. */
 const rngFor = makeRng;
-const winRate = (foes, targets, seed) => {
+/* R-278: `runs` was not a parameter. pickSize has always passed SCAN_RUNS as a fourth
+   argument to a three-argument function, so JavaScript discarded it and every scan ran at
+   RUNS instead — the constant was declared, documented, passed and never read, which is
+   the defect this project keeps finding in itself, sitting inside a guard. */
+const winRate = (foes, targets, seed, runs = RUNS) => {
   let won = 0;
-  for (let i = 0; i < RUNS; i++) {
+  for (let i = 0; i < runs; i++) {
     if (runFight(rngFor(seed + i * 2654435761), party, foes, { partyTargets: targets }).won) won++;
   }
-  return (100 * won) / RUNS;
+  return (100 * won) / runs;
 };
 const mean = a => a.reduce((x, y) => x + y, 0) / a.length;
 
diff --git a/tools/focus-baseline.json b/tools/focus-baseline.json
index 0c6ef2c..6649217 100644
--- a/tools/focus-baseline.json
+++ b/tools/focus-baseline.json
@@ -94,11 +94,11 @@
     },
     "supporter": {
       "n": 2,
-      "pinned": 4
+      "pinned": 4.7
     },
     "hollow_man": {
       "n": 6,
-      "pinned": 91.8
+      "pinned": 92.3
     },
     "the_tenant": {
       "n": 2,
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@
     },
     "the_choir": {
       "n": 6,
-      "pinned": 99.4
+      "pinned": 99
     },
     "precedent": {
       "n": 3,
@@ -138,7 +138,7 @@
     },
     "quarantine_unit": {
       "n": 2,
-      "pinned": 0.2
+      "pinned": 0.1
     },
     "cuckoo_array": {
       "n": 2,
@@ -149,7 +149,7 @@
     },
     "long_walker": {
       "n": 2,
-      "pinned": 0.1
+      "pinned": 0.6
     },
     "auditor": {
       "n": 4,
@@ -175,7 +175,7 @@
     },
     "knockers": {
       "n": 6,
-      "pinned": 99.7
+      "pinned": 99.8
     },
     "spriggan": {
       "n": 3,
@@ -186,11 +186,11 @@
     },
     "nuckelavee": {
       "n": 2,
-      "pinned": 8.2
+      "pinned": 8.5
     },
     "hedley_kow": {
       "n": 6,
-      "pinned": 97.8
+      "pinned": 97.3
     },
     "apple_man": {
       "n": 2,
@@ -200,8 +200,8 @@
       "noise": 0.8
     },
     "the_committee": {
-      "n": 2,
-      "pinned": 100
+      "n": 6,
+      "pinned": 99.9
     },
     "night_registry": {
       "n": 4,
@@ -244,7 +244,7 @@
     },
     "switchboard": {
       "n": 6,
-      "pinned": 86.9
+      "pinned": 85.9
     },
     "the_census": {
       "n": 3,
@@ -269,7 +269,7 @@
     },
     "the_stanchion": {
       "n": 2,
-      "pinned": 5.8
+      "pinned": 5.2
     },
     "the_yield": {
       "n": 2,
@@ -287,10 +287,7 @@
     },
     "the_arrears": {
       "n": 2,
-      "spread": 14.7,
-      "focus": 21,
-      "gain": 6.3,
-      "noise": 1.5
+      "pinned": 14.4
     },
     "the_margin": {
       "n": 5,