I play as malefactor, no armor. I had around 12,5hp.
All the corpse runs made that day had the wolves get me in 1 hit when arriving at the place of gratuitous violence or their attack speed and high damage just felt as instantaneous death. It took me 4-5 corpse runs so I had my teeth grinded out in the aftermath and did them the same from a distance with spears and bow. Next time I'll check the combat log but I only found out its existence yesterday when monkeying around with that prospecting pick.
Anyway thank you all for the helpful hints, insights, shared experience and right mindset for this game. I'm sure we'll carry some of 'em over in our games.