Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 9. Wicked Crossing Iron

Finally, it took us nearly half the game, but we at last arrive at an iron mode worth playing!  Wicked Crossing truly is a turning point in the game all around it seems.  For once we don't have an iron mode with a set of towers with a braindead obvious solution.  With both flying enemies, hordes of lesser enemies, and a few big enemies thrown into the mix, the ratio of Arcane Wizards to Demon Pits is not immediately obvious and takes some trial and error to get right.  Also an issue is how to deal with the Nightmares appearing on the lower path.  Unlike campaign and iron mode, here it's definitely non-optimal to let them transform into Bound Nightmares.

All in all this was quite a worthy challenge, and one that I really struggled with with the bottom-tier heroes.  And not only was it hard, but it also managed to find the sweet spot of fun as well.  Now fun is a subjective measure for each person, but I personally found it here, which is what helped me to keep persevering in the beginning when I was really struggling, trying to figure out to handle this map with Torres.

Impressions

What we have here is a map that very neatly divides the heroes into three tiers.  Raelyn and Torres fill out the bottom with 'C-'s.  It was very hard to complete the map with them - as hard as it can be without having to rely on good RNG, which is what a 'C-' is under this grading system.

Above them we have Vesper, Nyru, Anya, and Grimson with 'B's.  I did give Anya a 'B+' as I felt her performance did stand out compared to the others, but it definitely did not approach that of the 'A'-tier heroes.

And speaking of the 'A'-tier, three heroes earn standout 'A+'s for their effort.  Broden and Kosmyr are of course not surprising, and I've already realized these two will be duking it out pretty much uncontested for the #1 ranking.  However, Onagro really had a strong showing here.  Mobility to be able to support both lanes is what elevated the performance of heroes like Nyru and Grimson into the 'B' tier, but despite having none, Onago simply tore up the bottom lane by himself, freeing up resources to be poured into the top lane so that he didn't have to be there personally, leading to an overall outstanding performance.

Final Grades

• Vesper - B
• Raelyn - C-
• Nyru - B
• Torres - C-
• Anya - B+
• Grimson - B
• Broden - A+
• Therien - A
• Onagro - A+
• Warhead - A
• Lumenir - A
• Kosmyr - A+

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 9. Wicked Crossing Iron