Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 25. Colossal Core Campaign

Ugh.  Not my favorite map of the game.  Better than Temple of the Fallen to be sure, not by a lot.  I talk a lot about this blog that a game's difficulty always lies on a spectrum with fun at one end and frustrating at the other, and this one is definitely a registered member of the Frustrating party.

It's all about the flying mobs, as is the case with so many Alliance maps that fall in the frustrating category.  It's very easy for a Flying Sentry or a Tinkerer's Drone to slip by your defenses, and there were a lot of restarts when recording these videos - even with the most powerful heroes.  I don't think that means that the strategies I'm showing are not reproduceable, but rather this is one of those maps where your micro has to absolutely be on point.  Proper positioning of heroes, reinforcements, and the Cannoneers is crucial to make sure the Sentries get taken down properly.

This level is one of those tales of two maps.  I originally tried an all-Cannoneer build and was reasonably successful, but there were so many restarts in getting a hero over the finish line that I just felt like there had to be a better way.  Thus I settled on starting with two Cannoneers and finishing out with Arcane Wizards.  I would rather have gone with a Tricannon build, but the Sentries appear so early you have to have towers that can deal with them, and the Cannoneer's dual ranged and AoE attacks (with Incendiary Ammo) make them rather ideal for the mob variety here.

At the very least I am glad I managed a solo hero solution.  Throw in a second hero - especially one that can hit flying enemies - and this map becomes easy.  Heck, it might even move back towards the fun side of the spectrum.  But as always my priority is trying to grade the heroes on their individual merits.

Impressions

The most obvious thing about the grades is that I did not give anyone an 'A+' this time around - not even Bonehart or Broden.  Even with those powerful heroes things can go awry, and you still have to be ultra-careful with calling waves early.  This is definitely one of those maps where if you early-call a wave at the wrong time you can get the snowball effect - you end up early-calling the next wave because you desperately need your cooldowns refreshed, but then you simply end up getting overrun by all the mobs.

You'll also notice that for all my discussion about the difficulty spectrum above, no one lands in the 'C' tier.  It's not that this map is really super hard.  Difficulty is by itself a spectrum from easy to hard, obviously, but then for a given level of difficulty, a map will then lie on a spectrum of fun to frustrating.  The truth is this level is just middling in terms of its difficulty, but for that difficulty it is extremely frustrating.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 25. Colossal Core Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 24. Frantic Assembly Iron

We get an interesting iron mode this time around, where one of the required towers is the new Cannoneer Squad introduced with the DLC.  To be honest I had actually forgotten that a new tower came with the DLC, and that since it's a paid DLC I could use it in my videos.  Well thankfully we're forced to use it here, because it turns out it's pretty powerful.

Now let me caveat that a little bit: it's a powerful tower - when fully upgraded.  This is one of those towers kind of like the Eldritch Channeler.  The Channeler is honestly probably not worthwhile to build unless you prioritize also giving it Power Overflow.  So it is with this tower - you really need to go all-in with both of its abilities.  It's expensive, but the payoff is pretty worth it.  Once fully upgraded you have a tower that does over 100 ranged DPS, plus some pretty insane AoE damage with Incendiary Ammo, and of course can block up to five mobs.  That's quite a lot, and I found the best solution for this map was to commit to them fully, building out as many of them I could.  The results speak for themselves - the Cannoneers were so powerful I was able to do this map with solo heroes.

Impressions

While the Cannoneers are powerful, this map is still pretty easy, as evidenced by the fact that grades are high despite having only one hero.  Nothing surprising here - Vesper and Raelyn land at the bottom with 'B-'s, while everyone else pads their GPA some more with pretty good grades.  Even Grimson earns a very rare 'A-'.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 24. Frantic Assembly Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 24. Frantic Assembly Heroic

Once again we get a heroic mode that is just a redux version of campaign mode, where it feels just like the campaign, only shorter.  I'm really disappointed in this and feel heroic and iron modes are one of the most disappointing things about both Vengeance and Alliance.  In the original Kingdom Rush heroic modes were hard.  They were also creative.  Despite using the same group of enemies, they didn't feel like the waves from campaign mode, and usually you needed an entirely different build to deal with the challenge.  These days when I tackle a new heroic mode I by default start with the build from campaign mode, and more often than not that gets the job done with perhaps just a little tweaking.

Here the tweak is that I forgo Tricannons to just build more Arcane Wizards.  I'm sure I could have made Tricannons work, but I felt I got better results at the end of the map with two more Wizards with Disintegrate.  In any case I still can't escape the feeling I'm just playing campaign mode over.

Impressions

Nothing remarkable here, and grades even improve slightly over campaign mode because somehow they managed to make heroic mode easier.  Raelyn lifts herself out of 'C' tier, Warhead earns yet another 'A', and everything else is as you would expect.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 24. Frantic Assembly Heroic

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 24. Frantic Assembly Campaign

The fun ramps up a bit with this second level of the DLC thankfully.  I'm always happy with any map that lets me go hard on Tricannons.  This one has just the right amount of chaos to it, where I manage to get two Tricannons with Bombardment going, spraying absurd amounts of damage onto the field, but which are needed given the number of mobs thrown at you.  To me it's a callback to the feel of the original Kingdom Rush game.  In that game the ceiling on both the power of your build and the power of enemy waves thrown at you was much higher.  Ironhide has since backed off of that in subsequent games, and I think that's a shame.

There's not much to say about the waves themselves.  They're largely a standard tank and spank, with a decent bit of challenge in correctly allocating resources to various hotspots on the field.  I like the Mad Tinkerers - they're surprisingly difficult to kill (high magic resistance is part of that), and their ability to create those annoyance drones is perfectly designed.  The drones barely have any hit points, but they do distract your Arcane Wizards for a single firing cycle from hitting more priority targets, which has a surprisingly big impact.

And of course we have a boss fight at the end of all things!  I guess Ironhide took inspiration from Vengeance's pirate DLC and realized you don't just have to save boss fights for the final level.  It's not the hardest by any means - largely strategy just consists of trying to block or stall units coming from the left so your towers can focus fire on him.  Originally when I started with the more powerful heroes I left my Tricannons up, but it ends up being better strategy to replace them with Arcane Wizards when the fight begins.

Impressions

No single hero solution for this map, nor am I expecting any for the rest of the DLC.  The grades are pretty standard, with Raelyn once more earning the dunce hat being the lone hero in the 'C' tier.  Everything else is by the book, with perhaps the exception of Warhead earning a very rare 'A'.  His tankiness, physical damage to deal with the Tinkerers, and hero spell - which works very well on this map - all make him shine in a rare way.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 24. Frantic Assembly Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 23. Darksteel Gates Iron

Iron mode is slightly more difficult than heroic mode - as it should be - but still pretty much a repeat of the first two modes in terms of strategy.  Given the Arcane Wizard and Ballista Outpost, we choose to go all-in with Wizards, and yet again it's just a matter of steadily upgrading all of them at your two choke points.  I'm wondering if Ironhide meant the Ballistas to be used for Flying Sentries - using the Final Nail ability to stun them to keep them from escaping - but their physical DPS would then be rubbish against all the armored enemies.  Disintegrate is such a better ability anyway, so as mentioned we just ignore the Ballistas.

You might be thinking the free level 4 Paladins in the middle is meant to implement a kind of "swinging gate" choke point strategy, but honestly you're overwhelmed by the mobs most of the time so that all they really do is just slow up the mobs somewhat.  They're nice, but not worth investing any more money in.

Impressions

Grades are pretty bog-standard and unremarkable here, and not too bad all things considered.  Stregi earns the only 'C'-tier grade.  Drowsy Return is a nice hero spell, but when both exit lanes are getting overwhelmed simultaneously on the final wave it's not as much of a game changer as you might think.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 23. Darksteel Gates Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 23. Darksteel Gates Heroic

Heroic mode is once more a redux of campaign mode, featuring very similar wave compositions.  Here, however, there is enough gold to support an AoE solution consisting of one Tricannon and one Arcane Wizard at each chokepoint.  The Wizards are still needed to take down the flying Sentries, but the Tricannons go a long way towards taking everything else down far more easily.

Impressions

To avoid what happened last time I started with Raelyn, and it was quickly very obvious that I would again need a two hero solution for her.  Thus I just went with two heroes for everyone, although this map is so borderline in that regard that it ended up generating a lot of grade inflation.  That's fine though and I'm just not going to lose sleep over it.  This game has 35 levels to it at present, so I'm not worried about the grades being slightly skewed every now and then - the law of large numbers will ensure that the heroes will get sorted properly in the end.  None of the grades are particularly notable and everyone gets a slight boost to their GPA as a result.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 23. Darksteel Gates Heroic

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 23. Darksteel Gates Campaign

The first paid DLC for Alliance gets off to an okay start with this map.  There's certainly no ambiguity about the build plan here - with no magic-resistant enemies, lots of high armor enemies, and a few flyers, it's painfully obvious you have to go hard on magic towers.  I'd have loved ideally to go with a mixed artillery/magic build, since there are certainly lots of chances for AoE, but the map is just a bit too poor for that.

With the build pretty straightforward this is much more of an exercise in good micro to survive the really tough parts - i.e., the Darksteel Guardians and the Brute Welders.  One key I found was to use reinforcements away from my barracks to block these mobs.  Both have a powerful AoE attack, so if you stack reinforcements on top of barracks it just means they both get killed at the same time.  Every second of stalling on the Guardians is precious here, so you really have to maximize your micro.  This also means placing reinforcements slightly behind Guardians so that it stalls them for an extra half second or so while the reinforcements walk into blocking position.

There are two distinct make-or-break points on this map.  The first is the first Darksteel Guardian.  You have to have killed him or at least mostly killed him by the time the next wave starts.  The following wave hits the left choke point pretty hard and you really have to devote your resources to it once it begins, which means the Guardian better be almost dead on the right side.  This is definitely a map to be grateful that the teleporting crystals at the exits do work on mini-bosses.

Impressions

Let's just rip the bandaid off on this one - I did something on this map I've never done before.  When I started working on this one I was convinced I could do it with solo heroes.  I knew it was going to be really hard for the bottom end heroes, but as you know if you've been following along, I always prefer a solo solution for this challenge when I can get it.

I started with the high-end heroes so that I would have plenty of practice with the map by the time I got to the struggle bus.  A lot of the low end heroes were hard to get the win with, and there were a decent number of retries, but ultimately I got it to work for all of them.

Except Raelyn.

Raelyn just doesn't have the DPS to do this map solo.  It doesn't matter that she can tank the Guardians for a decent amount of time, it just doesn't make up for the lack of damage.  A lot of the waves are basically on a timer - you have to have mostly killed all the mobs before the next wave begins or you risk getting overwhelmed.  I gave the example of the first Guardian above, but the Sentries are another good example.  With any Sentry wave, you need to have finished off all the mobs from the previous wave first so that when it starts you can play your hero and reinforcements forward to block the ground mobs.  By screening the ground mobs this way you give your towers time to DPS the Sentries down before they get to the exits.

This was Raelyn's downfall.  She could actually get through the first Guardian (with difficulty), but it was the first Sentry wave she just couldn't handle.  With her low DPS she was always behind the 8 ball, desperately trying to catch up with the previous wave's mobs.  When the first Sentry wave hit she was always still fighting mobs back at the choke point, which meant the Arcane Wizards couldn't target the Sentries until they were already too close to the exit.

So I had to break down and make an exception for her, which was to bring in Nyru.  The additional DPS made it quite easy to finish the map, although I didn't use Nyru's hero spell to keep things from being too easy.  Still, she gets a 'D' for having to bring in an additional hero.

As for the other heroes, by the time I dealt with Raelyn I had finished all the rest, and I simply had no desire to go back and re-record them all using a second hero, so we're left with a playlist where only one hero uses a second hero.  I don't know if I'll do this again in the future or not.  Technically the top end heroes could do just about every map solo, but I don't know if I want to get into this bifurcated situation again or not.

As for the rest of the grades, there aren't too many surprises.  The 'C' group had lots of friends to keep each other company.  Onagro earns a rare 'C-', but it's not terribly surprising - this is a map where slow speed and physical DPS are pretty severe handicaps.  Grimson earned a slightly shocking 'B+'.  I was worried his frailty and low physical DPS would be huge handicaps, but his high mobility and true damage AoE hero spell offset his liabilities quite nicely.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 23. Darksteel Gates Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 22. Starving Hollow Iron

This bonus campaign closes out with a reasonably challenging iron mode.  Despite being a map that needs a decent amount of AoE, I had trouble getting a Battle Brewmaster build off the ground and found it easier to go all-in with Twilight Longbows.  They really come into their own as the fight progresses, being invaluable in taking down Killertiles and Tankzards.  Besides that there's really no trick to this one other than just fighting as hard as possible.

Impressions

We have some very surprising grades this time around.  Stregi being at the bottom with a 'C' isn't surprising of course, but Anya joining her somewhat is.  This is just one of those maps that highlights heroes with DPS problems, and Anya is definitely one of them.  Normally her great survivability and solid hero spell keep her from hitting rock bottom, but this time around that just wasn't the case.

Of course I say all that and then Warhead somehow earns himself a very rare 'A-'.  Of course his hero spell is pretty clutch on this level, but still I was shocked how easy it was to do this one with him.  But then to prove it truly is Opposite Day, Onagro only manages a 'B' here.  Throughout campaign and heroic modes I worried that his mobility issues would be a big problem and they just weren't, but again this map for whatever reason really hits that weakness hard.

And then as the cherry on top, Broden does not earn his usual 'A+', only getting an 'A'.  His performance just didn't have the trivializing feel that it normally does.  And while Kosmyr is usually the one coming in just below him with an unadorned 'A', he somehow tops him to get the 'A+' himself.

I'm certainly not going to complain about a map that shakes things up grade-wise, I just wish I could identify the particular aspects of it that make it that way.  It's not like the map has a particularly unusual wave composition, or that they're asking you to do something really hard like take down high armor enemies with no magic towers, but man this one was just weird.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 22. Starving Hollow Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 22. Starving Hollow Heroic

We bounce back from campaign mode to a pretty trivial heroic mode.  I believe that a single hero solution here is probably possible, but honestly I just didn't have it in me to spend the time searching for it.  I'm feeling so terribly behind on this series with the recent release of the second Alliance DLC that I desperately just want to get caught up.  Fortunately I have no intentions of playing the imminent new game, Kingdom Rush Battles, so it's release cycle should buy me the time I need to get caught up on the franchise.  In case you're wondering why I'm not going to play it, it's a PvP-focused game, and I'm avoiding PvP games in this stage of my life like the plague for multiple reasons I won't bore you with right now.

Right, back to the map.  As usual, the only tricky part are the Winged Croks coming in from the top right.  Two level four Royal Archers are almost enough to deal with them by themselves, so as long as your hero can contribute a little something to taking them down - hero spell or otherwise - everything else is pretty straightforward.  There's only one exit to deal with, thankfully, so we load up the choke point with Tricannons with Bombardment, and I can't tell you how much that warms my heart.  Even Hydras can't withstand three Tricannons constantly raining death on them, and for most of our heroes we don't even really need to upgrade the Paladins much if at all - easy peasy.

Impressions

Since it was pretty easy using two heroes everyone gets a chance to pad their GPA a little.  In case you haven't figured it out, I've really stopped trying to account for using the second hero in the grades.  It was just getting too hard to adjudicate and account for, and the result is that everyone but Stregi lands in 'B' tier or better, with quite a number in 'A' tier.  That includes Anya and Warhead, which is a bit of a rarity for them.  Even Raelyn earns a rare (for her) 'B+'.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 22. Starving Hollow Heroic

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 22. Starving Hollow Campaign

Well, that was...a lot, in more than one sense of the word.  First of all I'm referring to the length of the level, because holy cow.  Most of my videos were pushing if not exceeding the 30 minute mark, which I think is a new record for Kingdom Rush (I'd check for sure, but YouTube does not allow you to sort videos by length for some strange reason).  Second I'm referring to the difficulty of the level itself, as they definitely bring the heat on this one.  And though I'm utterly exhausted at the end of it all, it was exhausting in a good way.

Despite not being terribly impressed with the rest of the campaign, it at least finishes strong on this boss level.  I'll even go so far as to say that this is the first map in Alliance that's given me vibes similar to the Pirate Kings DLC for Vengeance.  That DLC is fantastic, and this is the closest they've come so far to recapturing the feel of it.  We'll see if they can maintain that through the next two paid DLCs and the other free elite campaign.

As always, the Winged Croks are the biggest threat here, although here at least I felt the challenge was reasonable instead of just frustrating.  The waves coming from the top left are the most difficult, as there are really only two good build points that can solidly DPS them before they get to the exit, with a couple of other build points that can briefly hit them as they pass by.  One of them is the bonus tower in the top left.  You'll notice that I don't really control for RNG on which tower I got, with one exception.  The only tower you can't get is the Tricannon.  This is one of the two build points that can really DPS the Winged Croks, so you have to have a tower that can target flyers.  The best option is honestly Royal Archers, with Arcane Wizards close behind.  Eldritch Channelers are acceptable if one or both of your heroes has a ranged attack that can help bring the Winged Croks down.

You'll notice also that I don't really try to control for RNG on the boss's tower disabling ability.  Throughout most of the heroes I just accepted that I was going to have to pay to free the tower most every time he used his ability.  It wasn't until I got to the last two heroes (Raelyn and Torres, the two hardest to complete the map with) that I switched the build plan to building out level 1 of every planned tower at the beginning to try to bait the boss into targeting an unimportant tower.

I like the Abominor fight itself, even if he is pretty easy.  It's just too easy to stall him almost indefinitely throughout his first three phases and let your towers whack on him.  They should have reduced the time on the animation where he eats a blocker so that he could make more consistent progress.  Even once he gets to his fourth and final phase where he can't be blocked he still moves so very slowly that it's just not a problem to DPS him down, even if there are other distracting mobs on the field.  Still, he has terrific animations and is a lot more fun to fight than Navira.

Impressions

There are certain maps which just especially highlight heroes whose DPS is lacking and this map definitely did it for both Stregi and Warhead.  While they didn't have the worst grade (Torres takes that honor with a 'C-'), man do you feel the struggle while playing with them.  This is one of those maps where your heroes are constantly needing to hurry up and finish what they're currently working on in order to get to the next hotspot before it spirals out of control, and it was definitely difficult to do that here with them.

I think this map also highlights the duality of Stregi's hero spell.  On the one hand it was clutch in situations where a Hyrda or Tankzard was getting too close to the exit (which happened a lot because her DPS sucks), but on the other there are a lot of situations where it just doesn't really do anything for you.  This is especially true in the early game where I was trying to keep waves confined to the top half of the map.  Using it there just sends mobs back to the entrance where towers can't hit them, which is almost counterproductive.  Yes it buys you time, but it's time you can't really afford, as like I mentioned this is a very time sensitive map where you need to quickly burn down the current mobs so you can prep for the next group.

On the flip side, Onagro impressed yet again this map.  Like in the previous map, I was worried his lack of mobility and blocking would be a severe hindrance, but he honestly kind of tore it up.  This is definitely a map that rewards heroes with AoE hero spells though, so he obviously benefitted greatly from that.

Finally, you'll notice in Torres' video that I got the speed glitch on him fairly early on.  This was completely accidental, but while it is a glitch, I had no desire to start over.  This map is already so long and it's hard enough to do with Torres (since neither he nor either of the free Dark Army heroes have a ranged attack) that I just rolled with it.  I definitely think it is doable with him without the speed glitch, but I also doubt that it would drop him down to a 'D'.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 21. The Sunken Ruins Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 21. The Sunken Ruins Iron

This was a weird map all around.  Iron mode feels more like what heroic mode should have been, while heroic mode feels more like an iron mode.  But despite that I've enjoyed both, and it's rekindled my enthusiasm to pick up the pace on these maps after the chore that was Arborean Hamlet.

I enjoyed trying out the Bog Hermit for the first time.  I like the design, as it's a very versatile tower.  Both magic mode and AoE mode feel powerful and useful, and the special abilities are pretty good as well.  I wish I could continue to use it going forward, but alas, this is probably the last time I will since it's a premium tower.

The only real trick to this map is holding off the Hydras at the top right exit, and it's not really a trick, just a matter of good micro and endurance.  The other lanes are pretty straightforward.  I will say that I appreciate that Ironhide went back to including very powerful and mini-boss level mobs in Alliance.  In Vengeance it's like they were afraid of putting them in, and when they did they were just too easy to deal with.  Enemies like Bone Carriers and Crystal Demolishers were ridiculously slow as well as vulnerable to either Possession or insta-kills.  A single Spectral Mausoleum with Possession could kill a Bone Carrier solo as a result.  Hydras are a real-deal threat though, and they remind me of Cerberuses from the original game in their deadliness.

Impressions

It's a pretty easy map altogether, so there's no one in 'C' tier and everyone gets the chance to improve their GPAs.  Even Raelyn gets a rare unadorned 'B' due to her superior ability to tank the Hydras.

The only really notable grades were Onagro, who managed to land an 'A-' despite my worries that he wouldn't do well due to his inability to block, and Lumenir, who again did a leapfrog of Kosmyr, earning a rare 'A+'.  Despite her lack of blocking, Lumenir's hero spell does a fantastic job of both stalling and damaging Hydras, and she was able to eliminate them all quickly with extreme prejudice.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 21. The Sunken Ruins Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 21. The Sunken Ruins Heroic

After venting my frustrations with the Alliance bonus campaigns in my last post, this map was a welcome breath of fresh air.  For one, no flying enemies.  That means I'm free of Royal Archers and also Dwarven Flamethrowers, getting to finally go back to the Tricannon for the first time in what feels like forever.  Just having a moment's peace from having to account for "the flying wave" and getting to use a tower I like was immensely rejuvenating.

And besides the build, this map eases up on the difficulty enough that I was able to go back to one hero.  "Easy" might not seem like the right description as you view the grades below, but it's quite telling when a map is doable with only one hero.  When I first started the map I did two heroes, as I just had accepted that all the maps from here on out were going to require two, but then I aced it on my first attempt without breaking a sweat.  I literally thought, "Really, that's it?" in my head.  So I realized that one hero was probably in reach, and in fact it managed to just about hit the sweet spot of being challenging without being overly frustrating.

Unusual for this map was the need to build a forward choke point on one of the islands.  If you've watched any of my videos, you know that I lean towards a traditional choke-points-at-the-exits kind of strategy for my builds.  But this is one of the rare maps that I feel rather demanded it.  It's hard to tell from the video only, but an early barracks there during wave 2 is crucial for slightly delaying the Quickfeet so that they can't turn an Crok into a Killertile at the upper right exit lane, which basically is a game over if they do.  Then in wave 4 it's best to try to contain all the enemies coming from the lower left on that island, because if they advance to the upper center exit your defense is likely to get overrun with Wise Croks constantly disabling your towers.  I appreciate so much genuine difficulty like this based on clever wave composition over "here's a bunch of spongy flying enemies".

Impressions

The grades may seem brutal but they're also more honest, being single hero.  Raelyn really sucked it up as usual, but what was really surprising was Vesper's dismal 'D' performance.  I don't know what it was, but he really stunk at this map.  To be fair he was one of the first heroes I did, and I probably should have gone back and redone him at the end once I had more experience with the map, but I just didn't have it in me to do so.

This is definitely one of those maps that tells a story of heroes who dominate and those who don't.  All our 'A+' heroes were able to insta-call all waves, which would have been unthinkable for all other heroes.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 21. The Sunken Ruins Heroic

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 21. The Sunken Ruins Campaign

I know my pace has slowed down a lot lately, for which I apologize.  Some of it has to do with life factors, but some of it has to do with the fact that I'm just not really getting into these Alliance bonus campaigns.  The first one was okay at best, and I made my feelings on the boss map abundantly clear.  I'm not particularly enjoying this one either, and today's map I've started referring to as "the slog in the bog" in my mind.

My feelings about Alliance and how the Kingdom Rush series has evolved overall are gradually crystallizing as I keep playing, but one thing I've begun realizing is that as the series has progressed build variety has been steadily decreasing.  I've done several one-tower challenges on my channel for the original Kingdom Rush on some of the most difficult levels, and I realized that that would just not be possible on most of the harder maps in Alliance.  I'm not entirely sure why that is, but I will say it's sucking the fun (for me, at least) out of a lot of these levels.

Part of the charm of the original Kingdom Rush is that you generally had a lot of flexibility in terms of your build.  Every tower was powerful, and so every tower could - generally speaking - get the job done.  Now you would think that would be an indication that the game was easy - you can just throw any old build at a map and it will work - but for whatever reason that was not the case.  Hard levels were still hard, even though with enough experience you could have the skill to do challenges like one tower.

In Alliance I generally have the feeling with any new map that there's the One True Build that I have to figure out.  That's putting too fine a point on it, and of course there is wiggle room for variation, but I still feel cramped in terms of playstyle.

Part of that may be due to the fact that I limit myself to non-premium towers only.  I do that of course so that these videos can serve as walkthroughs for mobile players who don't want to spend money on the game.  It could very well be that if I was using those towers I would feel the freedom to do something crazy like a Stargazer-only build.  But as it is I feel like I'm treading the same rut just with different scenery every time - okay, the Royal Archers have to go here to deal with the flying enemies, I need a Dwarven Flamethrower here to deal with large packs as well as provide additional flying enemy support, etc.

That's a lot of prologue, but I just don't have a lot of enthusiasm for discussing this map.  It's a different premise, I'll grant, given that non-flying heroes are confined to the exits.  I'm possibly forgetting, but I don't think that's been the case on a map since The Sunken Citadel in Frontiers.  Given the similarity in names, perhaps there was a deliberate attempt to recreate that experience?

Besides that the only new gimmick here is the Hydra, who is quite the tough customer.  I thought the flavor text on its card was a hint that fire could prevent it from transitioning to its second phase, thus I originally started trying the Dwarven Flamethrower, but alas it appears Ironhide was just trolling us.  It turns out the Flamethrower is the best DPS option for the upper right chokepoint anyway, since it hosts both magic resistant enemies like the Hydra as well as some Nesting Gators at one point.  And yes, in the Bonehart video I did forget that the Hydra had good magic resistance when I replaced the Flamethrower with an Eldritch Channeler.

Impressions

Grades are unsurprising and largely unremarkable.  I will say I don't feel I'm doing a very good job of accounting for the fact that I'm relying hard on the second hero in these grades.  I'm slightly resentful that the game is forcing me to have to use two heroes, ruining my perfect grading scheme, but at the same time I'm also grateful that it's challenging enough to require me to do so.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 20. Arborean Hamlet Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 20. Arborean Hamlet Iron

This iron mode is a tale of two maps, as occasionally is the case when I'm doing these challenges.  When I first started doing this map I struggled mightily, and for the longest time I could not get a win at all (although I was using the weakest hero pairs, like Grimson and Torres, since that's what I do my initial testing with), despite trying several different strategies.  I got really frustrated and put the game down for a couple of weeks as a result.  Then when I went back to it, for some reason everything just clicked and I was able to beat it fairly easily.  It's an important reminder that when you're really struggling with something - whether it's a video game, job task, or anything else - sometimes the best thing you can do is just walk away for a while.  When you've been beating your head against a wall and then give yourself some space, your brain often will silently level up during the break, so that when you return the problem magically goes away.

This is still a difficult map, make no mistake, although less so than heroic mode.  It's all about investing in the Arboreans to handle the Winged Croks, then doing everything you can to keep them alive so you're not wasting money repurchasing them.  Properly timing the Old Trees is a key part of the strategy, and it makes me miss maps from previous games where figuring out the precise timing of Rain of Fire / Thunderbolt was the key to winning.

Impressions

Grades are much better here than in heroic mode, with only Raelyn ending in the 'C' tier.  Sadly I was not able to give Broden his usual 'A+', as it just felt like he didn't bring the heat like normal.  Thus we have a rare instance where Kosmyr earns a better grade than him, as he definitely tore it up.  Other than that the heroes pretty much ordered themselves appropriately based on their GPAs so far.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 20. Arborean Hamlet Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 20. Arborean Hamlet Heroic

We have another two-hero map here, and I'm beginning to suspect that will probably be the case through the rest of this campaign, and probably all of the elite campaigns, unfortunately.  I certainly prefer to finish maps with a single hero when I can, not just for the flex but because it also makes the job of grading heroes so much more straightforward.

The only subtlety to this map is figuring out the tear-down build, which is an extreme rarity in Kingdom Rush games, surprisingly.  We have to build a couple of Royal Archers to handle the Winged Croks of the first two waves, but after surviving wave 2 they can then be torn down and we can go all-in on Tricanons.  Surviving wave 2 is largely the win condition here, although things can get a bit dicey at the very end of the final wave.

Impressions

Again the grading strategy is to assign a normal grade, then deduct accordingly based on how much the second hero had to carry the day.  The result is that while a lot of the wins look fairly easy the actual grades are pretty brutal, with half the heroes ending up in 'C' tier due to them relying strongly on the second hero, for which I would deduct up to one and a half letter grades.  Thus while Stregi's video, for example, felt like a 'B', I knocked her down to a 'C-' just because Grimson was so critical to her performance.

On the opposite end, the top tier heroes really don't need a second hero, although I keep using them to keep things consistent.  Broden, Kosmyr, and Bonehart all wreck this map pretty hard with their AoE ability, and so I didn't feel the need to dock anything from their grades.  This is definitely going to a lead to a "rich get richer" and "poor get poorer" dichotomy in the final GPAs, but I'm fine with there being a strong separation in the final analysis, as there's no question (as usual for KR games) of the giant gulf between the top and bottom heroes.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 20. Arborean Hamlet Heroic

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 20. Arborean Hamlet Campaign

After a long hiatus we're finally back to doing new maps.  We begin the Ancient Hunger campaign today, and crocodiles are on the menu.  Unfortunately I ended up not caring for this map all that much.  I don't hate it like I do Temple of the Fallen, but we have the same problem here where I feel like I'm pigeonholed into using towers I'd rather not.  Don't get me wrong, the Dwarven Flamethrower is brilliant, but I like the Tricannon (bonus points if you get the meme reference).  And then of course we have to fall back on the Royal Archers yet again to deal with the flying enemies.  At least the Winged Croks don't have any gimmick like other flying enemies.

However, I will say there is one thing I liked and that I expect to continue to like as the campaign progresses.  The enemies here have a couple of transformation tricks - Crokinders transform into Gators, and Gators can be transformed into Killertiles by Quickfeet.  Now normally in the Kingdom Rush series when this kind of thing happens you don't get the normal gold for killing a transformed mob but just the base value of the mob it transformed from.  However, that's not the case here, meaning a 3 gold Crokinder can transform into a 50 gold Killertile.  This gives you the option of pursuing a high risk / high reward playstyle by deliberately letting transformations happen.

Because of this the videos are somewhat of a story of two maps.  When I did the Dark Army heroes first, I played very conservatively, using Nyru's hero spell to kill Crokinders wherever possible to avoid getting overwhelmed.  Then as I continued through the Linerean heroes I realized the above fact and started playing far more aggressively, rarely trying to kill Crokinders before they hatched, and even letting them get turned into Killertiles for extra gold.

You'll notice that I ended up using both secondary heroes to their maximum potential this time around, unlike previous maps.  This map justified it with it's ridiculous enemy count.  While the upper end heroes could probably do it solo, there's just no way Raelyn has the tools to do so.

Impressions

Unfortunately using both heroes makes the grading extremely difficult, because you have to account for how much the secondary hero is contributing.  Both Nyru and Grimson did a lot of work as the secondaries, and Nyru in particular as her hero spell is clutch in taking out waves of Crokinder.  What I settled on was figuring out a grade the normal way based on how the map felt, then deducting up to a full letter grade based on how much I felt the hero needed to rely on the performance of the secondary hero.

Thus Raelyn takes a 'C' here, as Nyru performed a hard carry, both with her hero spell as well as taking down the Flying Croks.  On the flip side, I still awarded Broden and Bonehart 'A+'s here, deducting nothing.  While I did use the secondary hero, it was clear that I didn't have to, and couldn't have finished the map solo, and for that reason I felt they deserved to keep their 'A+'s.

The Linerean heroes we definitely worse off here, and the grades reflect it.  Nyru is just very well suited to this level as discussed.  But while Grimson certainly contributes a lot as well, it's nowhere near the same amount.  I considered bumping the Linerean heroes grades up one notch (like a 'C+' to a 'B-') to account for this, but ultimately decided the grades were muddled enough already and didn't need this extra layer of futzing.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 20. Arborean Hamlet Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - Mid-Term Report Card

As I mentioned in my update post a while back, I really should have done a report card after completing the main campaign.  My S.O.P. for these challenges has generally been to do a report card at that point, and then again after each bonus campaign.  And while I have the data to go back and present the grades as they were at the end of the campaign, at this point I think it's just better to give all the grades through the end of the first bonus campaign, Undying Fury.  A single three-map campaign generally doesn't shake things up too much anyway.

As a reminder, we use a scale of 'A' = 4, 'B' = 3, etc.  Of course new to this challenge is that I started adding pluses and minuses to the grades.  I decided that pluses and minuses would be worth 0.25 in terms of adjusting the base grade.  This allows them to have a measurable impact on the grade, while still maintaining a solid separation between the grade tiers (e.g., there's still a difference of 0.5 between an 'A-' at 3.75 and a 'B+' at 3.25).

Without further ado then, here are the GPAs in descending order:

• Bonehart - 4.21
• Broden - 4.20
• Kosmyr - 4.04
• Lumenir - 3.85
• Therien - 3.44
• Warhead - 3.41
• Anya - 3.23
• Nyru - 3.21
• Onagro - 3.21
• Stregi - 3.20
• Vesper - 3.02
• Torres - 2.88
• Grimson - 2.88
• Raelyn - 2.42

Surprising no one, Bonehart and Broden stand head and shoulders above the competition, with Bonehart edging Broden out by a mere 0.01 and Kosmyr as the only other hero to finish in 'A' territory.  I like how these grades delineate the heroes into three distinct tiers.  You have the top performers in Bonehart through Lumenir, then a distinct drop before getting to a well-defined middle tier in Therien through Stregi, and finally a bottom tier from Vesper on down.

It also shouldn't be a surprise that Raelyn takes the bottom spot by a wide margin.  She is the epitome of a one-trick pony, and as the trick is just tanking, it's not a very good trick.  There's just not a lot you can do with a hero with horrible DPS and no other tools.

Originally when I started this series I though that Torres would be the bottom hero - or at least compete with Raelyn for that dubious distinction.  However, he got a pretty decent buff in an update fairly early in the series.  While his grades in videos prior to the buff technically could have been a little higher with his improved kit, I lack the motivation to go back and do them over again.  After all, it only affected maps in the first half of the series which are pretty easy to begin with.  He might tack on a few hundredths of a point to his GPA, but I highly doubt it would be anywhere near enough to leapfrog Vesper above him.

As for our new heroes, they ended up pretty much where I though they would when I started using them.  Bonehart rocketed to the top with his insane AoE DPS, and Stregi is clinging to the bottom of the mid tier.

Now that we're into the bonus campaigns and the difficulty has gone up, GPAs really have nowhere to go but down.  The story will be all about who runs into a rough patch and plummets faster than everyone else.  If I had to make a guess as to the hero most likely to do so, my money would be on Warhead.  I can just see him really struggling more as the difficulty ratchets up, and while he has a decent lead on Anya at the moment, it's not out of the question that he could drop below her if he starts racking up 'C's with regularity.  But that's why we do these challenges, so I hope you'll stay with me for the rest of Alliance.

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - Update

So if you've been following my channel you know that after completing the Undying Fury elite campaign I've gone back and started working on getting Stregi and Bonehart caught up in the series.  I've decided this is how I'm going to handle bonus content going forward - after completing a bonus campaign that introduces one or more new heroes, I'm going to go back and do all the previous levels with them so that they're up to speed going into the next bonus campaign.

I originally did this just because I felt like I needed a break after finishing the Undying Fury bonus campaign.  Life has been exceptionally busy lately - as you've no doubt noticed by my haphazard upload schedule - and I just wanted some easy, mindless content to do before diving into the next bonus campaign.  And nothing says easy and mindless like replaying the first half of the main campaign - especially with new heroes who are at least mid-tier or better.

I really like Stregi and Bonehart.  So far both of them are coming out about where I initially predicted them to grade-wise - Stregi is a pretty middle-of-the-road hero, while Bonehart is the Dark Army answer to Broden - an AoE powerhouse who trivializes maps (sorry Kosmyr, you're awesome, but you just can't quite hang with Broden).

Something I've been neglecting so far in this challenge is report cards.  I really should have done one after finishing the main campaign, but life was just a little crazy around that time and I just didn't get to it.  However, I promise that once I get Bonehart and Stregi caught up through the Undying Fury campaign I'll do a mid-term report card so we can see where everyone stands.

As for the rest of the channel content, I promise I will get back to my Skyrim series soon.  I've just been devoting the remainder of my time recently to some works in progress that I needed to do just for a change of pace.

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 19. Temple of the Fallen Iron

To finish up this elite campaign we bounce back yet again from a pretty easy heroic mode to a decently challenging iron mode.  This is one of those maps where I have a sneaking suspicion that there is an easier way to do it that I'm not quite seeing, but I did try several different possibilities and didn't find anything that worked more reliably than what I show in the videos.  The main challenge of course is that the two towers you're given don't have any blocking ability.  The Twilight Longbows do, of course, but as I said, I tried using them in various ways and didn't feel like they gave a better solution.

I do really like the Twilight Longbows as a new tower, and I feel I'll be using them going forward since they are free on mobile, but they're just not the right choice here.  They just can't get enough work done against the high armor Animated Armors and Deathwoods, and Thrill of the Hunt just can't scale them up quick enough to make up for it.  So while the Harassers are good blockers, having to fully upgrade the towers to get them feels like a waste.  Thus we go for dual Tricannons supported by an Arborean Emissary to do all the work here.

Impressions

This was one of those maps where the grades don't adequately reflect the difficulty.  Therien stands out here as the lone 'C' - a rarity for her - while everyone else does pretty well.  However, what you don't really see is how much practice was required to hone the micro for this map.

Therien scores so low because when teaming her up with Nyru there is zero blocking ability, which is really needed to some extent from heroes here.  She would have done a lot better using Vesper as the free Linerean hero, but Nyru is the better choice all around for Dark Army heroes due to her magic damage, and I always like comparing apples to apples as much as possible when doing these videos.

As usual Onagro suffers from the same difficulty, but his long range ability to attack multiple lanes coupled with a solid AoE hero spell helps move him up to a 'B-', the next lowest grade.  And of course all the flying heroes are more than powerful enough to make up for their lack of blocking.  Once again Lumenir edges out Kosmyr for a better grade, which is a pretty rare occurrence, but her hero spell is rather ideal for Animated Armors and Deathwoods, stunning and doing a great deal of damage to them.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 19. Temple of the Fallen Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 19. Temple of the Fallen Heroic

After a dreadful and difficult campaign mode we come back to a rather straightforward heroic mode, continuing the trend of the difficulty of this elite campaign bouncing around all over the place.

The Cryptid presence here is minimal and manageable without having to contort our build to accommodate it.  We go with the centralized strategy from campaign mode again, where our DPS towers do double duty on choke points on either side of them.  Other than that there's nothing particularly remarkable here.

Impressions

Grades are all around good, with Raelyn and Grimson filling out the bottom tier with 'B-'s.  Other than that nothing is surprising other than Lumenir leapfrogging Kosmyr to take an 'A+' to his 'A'.  Lumenir rarely scores better than her dragon compatriot, but this is one of those maps where it really felt like she tore it up.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 19. Temple of the Fallen Heroic

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 19. Temple of the Fallen Campaign

Get a drink, grab a snack, and take a deep breath, because we've got a lot to talk about.

The Kingdom Rush series is now five games long (not counting Legends, anyway).  I have played every level in every single one of them (aside from the levels I haven't yet completed in Alliance).  There have been many levels I have not cared for, for various reasons - because they were too easy, too tedious, I didn't care for the mob designs or wave compositions, etc.  Of course sometimes it is because of the difficulty, but usually this is because - for me, at least - the difficulty landed on the frustrating end of the "fun challenge vs frustrating challenge" scale.  But despite the fact there are many levels I do not particularly like, there has never been a level I hated.

Until now.

I hate this level.  It's one of the worst designed levels in the entire franchise, and it has finally cemented my opinion on an issue I've been wavering on ever since starting Alliance.  Why do I hate it?  Because your entire build plan has to be completely centered on dealing with wave 8, which is the wave with the large number of Dust Cryptids.

Now I will say that I think Dust Cryptids are well designed as an enemy.  In fact I think pretty much all the flying enemies in Alliance are well designed.  In previous games most flying enemies are low HP mobs who are just there to keep you honest from doing an all-artillery build - as long as you build a few ranged or magic towers they are not a problem.  The flying enemies in Alliance though are cut from a different cloth.  For one, they tend to have significantly more HP than in previous games.  Most flying enemies in previous games have 100 HP or less on the hardest difficulty, while Corrupted Stalkers have 200, and other mobs just go up from there.

But flying enemies in Alliance also come with gimmicks.  Corrupted Stalkers teleport forward the first time you hit them, so you need multiple towers staggered along the path to make sure they get finished off.  Tamed Stalkers introduced the concept of a flying tank to the franchise - a behemoth that requires significant planning to DPS down.  Finally Void Blinkers try to stun your blockers at just the right time so other mobs can slip through.

And of course the aforementioned Dust Cryptids leave behind a temporary area when they are killed that prevents other mobs from taking damage.  This is clever because it forces you to spread your anti-aircraft towers throughout the map to gradually take them down, as opposed to grouping them all near your choke points like normal - if two Cryptids are approaching an exit at the same time, killing the first will just leave a dust cloud that will cover the second, allowing it to escape.

And that brings us back to this map.  Wave 8 consists of 2 groups of 10 Dust Cryptids coming out of two different entrances - the top right and the bottom center.  This is already challenging, as there are few build points along the bottom of the map between the bottom center entrance and the lower left exit they head for.  But at the same time multiple Specters come out of the mausoleum in the center, distracting a large number of nearby towers away from the Cryptids.

The result is that I had to literally design my entire build plan around dealing with this wave, which meant that after getting a bare minimum Eldritch Channeler up and running to try to deal with everything else beforehand, I then had to spam Royal Archers over the entire map to attempt to create a defense that could take all the Cryptids down.  Even then it is very hard, and heroes who do not have a ranged attack or a hero spell that can damage flying enemies to help out (*cough*Raelyn*cough*) really struggle here.

This gets me back to the opinion I mentioned earlier that I've been wavering on since Alliance came out.  A significant portion of the player base has complained about the flying enemies in the game.  As for myself, I've been torn since the beginning as to whether I liked or disliked them, unable to make up my mind.  After playing this level though I realize why I've been wavering.  On the one hand I really like the design of the flying enemies as discussed above.  On the other hand I've also felt they are overused in the game.  Well this level takes "overused" and cranks it up to 11.

But it also made me realize that I do not like the flying enemies because they force me to rely on Royal Archers so much.  Archers are just neither powerful nor interesting as a tower.  Yes, Armor Piercer is a fairly powerful ability, but ultimately I just resent ever having to use this tower.  But that's the problem - there just isn't a good free-on-mobile alternative to it. Ballista Outposts are the other free ranged tower, but they are worse in every way.  Their unique firing pattern is prone to overkill and just plain letting flying mobs slip through in between bursts.  There aren't any magic towers that can do a better job either.  Like Ballistas, Arcane Wizards waste too much DPS on overkill with their slow firing pattern.  Arborean Emissaries have the kind of fast attack needed for flying enemies, but they are a support tower and can't get the job done by themselves.  And finally Eldritch Channelers are awesome and can usually deal with flying waves (at least with Power Overflow), but they're so expensive to get going they're usually dedicated to your choke point and will be occupied with other mobs there when flying enemies come through.

This is another difference from previous games - in previous games flying enemies tended to appear in waves by themselves.  They were the aforementioned "build check" to make sure you weren't just building choke points with nothing but barracks and artillery.  But in Alliance flying enemies are much more commonly mixed in with other non-flying enemies, such that your choke point towers will usually be occupied with the non-flying enemies and you must build auxiliary towers elsewhere specifically to deal with the flying enemies.

Now again, I think this is clever design from an abstract standpoint, but when it comes to Alliance, I've settled on my opinion regarding flying enemies - I don't like how they are used in the game.  They are 1) overused, and 2) force me to use a tower I would otherwise never build because it's boring and underpowered.  Just as a note, I did try this level with the new Twilight Longbows, and while I was able to win with them as well I didn't feel like the performance was any better or more reliable than the Archers.

This map would only be moderately challenging if not for wave 8.  As it is, wave 8 turns the entire map into an unenjoyable chore that I thoroughly detest.  Not even a boss fight with a returning Arivan (rather challenging all on its own) can redeem this thing.  Let's just get on with the heroes and get this over with.

Impressions

None of the grades are surprising at all, except perhaps Nyru.  For some reason even with her pretty decent ranged attack I found it difficult to take down all the Cryptids.  Raelyn gets the sole 'D' here because she cannot help with the Cryptids in any form or fashion.  Her performance was not so awful that I truly felt like I was relying on RNG to get me through, as is our normal definition of 'D', but I docked her down from a 'C' for having to rely on Vesper to carry her.

I will also say that this is one rare map where Dark Army heroes have an edge over Linerean heroes due to Ominous Curse, and that's reflected in the grades below.  The slowing ability on the Curse is a real boon in surviving wave 8, giving towers time to get all the Cryptids down.  While I didn't do it with every hero, the best strategy for the map is to time your hero spell so that you can get back-to-back spells off in this wave.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 19. Temple of the Fallen Campaign

Legends of Kingdom Rush No Combat Damage Challenge

So it's definitely been a hot minute since I've put out any Legends of Kingdom Rush content.  I remember I was trying to get my hero challenge rushed out the door before Alliance dropped last July.  I managed to do that, and I managed to get the first two videos in this challenge done, but then I got caught up in Alliance and the new DLC that dropped for Vengeance and this got shelved.  Well, the other day I happened to think about it and was inspired to go back and get it finished.  Thus I give you my no combat damage challenge.

The point of this challenge is to do all four adventures without taking any health damage in combat.  I explain this in the video descriptions, but I'll repeat the rules here:

• Armor damage is allowed, just not health damage (although I don't remember how often this point really comes up in any of the videos),
• Health damage outside of combat - i.e., from dice encounters and the like - doesn't count.  Avoiding that kind of damage is an exercise in pure RNG, not skill
• Damage to summoned and allied units doesn't count, since their whole point is to take damage for you.

For all four adventures I've assembled a team of the most elite heroes in the game - Oloch, the Zapper, and the Ranger.  As I've explained in previous LoKR posts this game is all about the ranged damage, and these guys are the kings of it, as well as coming with kits full of summons and stuns for utility.

For the first two adventures I had to make due with the Knight of all characters as my fourth hero, but I just consider that to make my achievement in those adventures all the more impressive.  For Extradimensional Menace I managed to nab the Bombardier, who is the ideal fourth for that adventure and it's final boss, and in The Wild Moon I was fortunate to get the Arcane Wizard, who is the best fourth hero in all other situations.

It was a lot of fun to pick up this game again after many months' hiatus.  But on the other hand it also made me sad, as this is a really fun game and I hate that it didn't get more love from Ironhide.  I'm assuming it just didn't perform well enough sales-wise, but I will forever remain an advocate for it.  In any case, I hope you enjoy:

Legends of Kingdom Rush No Combat Damage Challenge