Finally we get a good challenge, and this map is a breath of fresh air, because this is what I remember iron modes being like after the degraded version in Vengeance. This one all about how you can handle large swarms of enemies when artillery is off the table.
This map is a tale of two strategies. Long-time readers (ha! I crack myself up) will know that sometimes I end up reworking a map when I get to one of the weaker heroes and start having trouble with them. That's what happened here. I'll give you one guess which hero it was.
Dierdre. It was Dierdre.
I'm already sensing this is going to be an ongoing thing. It's not that Dierdre couldn't finish the map, but I was prepared to give her the first 'C' of the series. Then I started feeling it's just a little too early to start handing out 'C's (although technically we did in the fifth map of the Origins challenge), so I went back to see if I could improve my build. Sure enough I did, and now I had a more solid strategy that everyone gets an 'A' on, Dierdre included.
It's amazing how a little tweak can make such a big difference in importance. My original strategy just involved using mage towers plus the hero to cover the left side - no Buccaneers. Dierdre really struggled holding down the fort, so I went back and tried adding the lower left Buccaneers before starting on the mage towers, and that's all it took.
This is one of those maps that starts out hard and gets progressively easier as the map goes on. If you can survive until all the mage towers are up, there shouldn't be any problems finishing the map.
Impressions
While we don't need to hand out grades, I did still want to comment on several of the heroes. Every hero can execute on the strategy sufficiently to get an 'A', but some performances were more notable than others. Some heroes had to hang back with the left side Buccaneers and just guard the exit, but others were powerful enough to take the fight to the enemy ship.
Cronan surprised me with his utility here. He did a great job of helping stem the horde. This might be the map where he gets the biggest bang for his buck out of Stampede. Bruxa also impressed with her ability to DPS mobs down quickly, needing little support, although I already knew she was a top-tier hero. Grawl was amazing. I don't think I realized how big an area of effect his Stomp ability has. It's huge, and he would take down enemies a dozen at a time with it.
The true top performers were the dragons though, unsurprisingly. Bonehart in particular absolutely tore it up, such that I don't think any enemies really made it onto the left side exit path.
Kingdom Rush Frontiers Impossible Hero Challenge - Buccaneer's Den Iron
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