Goddamned Bats / Kingdom Rush

Due to the nature of the game, these easily slain, frequently encountered foes actually ARE a threat, as they can come in a Zerg Rush that your towers may have a bit of difficulty handling. A good number of them also have their own unique abilities to compound the situation further.

Kingdom Rush

• In the Heroic Challenges and Iron Challenges, Worgs can cause hair loss. Since in these modes you become a One-Hit-Point Wonder, they are easily able to slip past your defences for an easy win.
• Shadow Archers will force you to move your soldiers into attacking range, as they use rather painful long-range attacks which your soldiers can't counter.
• Tainted Treants in the Rotten Forest. When they start appearing, they may be tough, but then they get easier as your towers get better. The reason they fall under here is because starting from wave 11 onwards, they randomly pop out of the ground, often near the exit, and the number that appear gets more and more as the waves go on. Also, those that randomly appear do not give any gold when killed.
• Gargoyles are quite aggravating in Iron and Heroic mode, as they FLY. If archers and mages are allowed, they aren't very annoying. Then you get to Icewind Pass...
• Troll Pathfinders in Glacial Heights and Ha'Kraj Plateau. They're only slightly stronger and bulkier than regular trolls, but their special ability makes them a pain to deal with. When walking on ice, their speed is boosted and they become unblockable, meaning they can pass right through your soldiers, reinforcements and heroes. This is especially aggravating in Ha'Kraj plateau, when there's an ice path leading directly into one of your exits.

Kingdom Rush: Frontiers

• War Hounds are exactly as annoying as their predecessors, the Worgs. Just as fast, just as much health, and just as much magic resistance. Also the cause of much balding in Iron mode.
• Desert Archers are the game's counterpart to the Shadow Archers above, again forcing you to move your soldiers to attack them.
• Dune Terrors can't be attacked when they're tunnelling, and you need barrack soldiers to draw them out. The problem is that they also tend to appear in huge numbers, and some of them can easily slip through your barracks defences. Thankfully, they have no armor, deal little damage to troops, and have quite low health.
• Parasytes. You have to encounter them on only one level^note Or another one if you guess the codes wrong, but their "attack" renders a soldier useless and will make them explode into a tough Reaper if not removed. This pretty much kills your barracks defences as a facehugged soldier isn't considered dead yet and more will not respawn. Worse still, they will be periodically spawned in groups during later waves, and worst of all, don't give any gold when killed.
• The Fish People in Rising Tides can throw a net over a character, immobilizing them completely for a period of time.
• Taken literally with the bats from the Shadowmoon campaign. They are The Goomba of the flying enemies, and the only threat they actually pose is on the full moon, when they get a MASSIVE speed boost. It still makes them Goddamned Bats, though.
• Ghosts are immune to physical damage, and have a special ability that makes them completely ignore troops. Thankfully, a strong Mage tower will destroy them in one hit.
• Saurian Deathcoils. They have quite a bit of health and their attack is a painful, armor-piercing crossbow bolt with a range of nearly half the screen, easily picking off your Barracks Troops and Skeletons (and your Hero if you're not careful) for their friends to pass through. They're not very tough to defeat, are pathetic in close combat, and despite taking two lives on leaking it's almost impossible for them to reach the exit, though.

Kingdom Rush: Origins

• Gnoll Burners come in packs and have a ranged attack that sets troops on fire.
• Hyenas. They're like Wulves/Sand Hounds with a bit more health... and the ability to dash past troops, which means that trying to use Barracks to stop them will make them get a short burst of speed instead! Like Worgs and War Hounds above, they're also a good cause of hair loss in Heroic and Iron Challenges.
• The Twilight Elves (Drow) may as well be an entire race of Goddamned Bats.
  • Harassers live up to their namesake- they have low armor and good health for a weak-tier mook, come in large numbers, have a burst damage ranged attack, and Teleport Spam backwards to avoid troops and to use said burst damage ranged attack.
  • Scourgers make enemies get a speed buff, and when killed turn into a ghost that temporarily curses a tower, preventing it from acting. Later on, they appear in large groups, so expect your towers to get cursed often.
  • Avengers have a lot of health, do a decent amount of damage to units, have a lot of armor, and can turn other mooks into ActionBombs.
  • Evokers have a wide area heal, disable tower special abilities, and come in groups, prolonging the demise of the enemies.
  • Heretics have a lot of health and screw around with your troops- they souldrain troops to kill them and give themselves a speed buff, and can also bind + cause a Damage Over Time on troops with dark tendrils.
  • Finally, all of them have either good physical or magical resistance, thus discouraging you from concentrating a large amount of physical/magic towers in an area.
• Satyr Cutthroats come in huge numbers and have a ranged attack. Thankfully they're weak.
• Gloomies. They combine the Desert Wasps' low health and flying ability with the Demon Legions' ability to clone themselves, making an annoying huge swarm if not taken care of quickly.
• Boomshrooms, Munchshrooms and Fungus Breeders. The first are Action Bombs that attacks in huge groups, the second is an Asteroids Monster that explodes and becomes two Boomshrooms on death, and the last can turn Boomshrooms into Munchshrooms and explodes and becomes two Munchshrooms on death.
• Most of the Spider enemies count. Spiderbrood are the average Zerg Rush Fragile Speedster, Sword Spiders are like the spiders from previous games but with more attack power and health, and Sons of Mactans can drop in anywhere on the path and have a poison bite to drain your soldiers' health. But worst of all are Webspitter Spiders, which are fast, have good health and magic resist, and act like the Fish People from Frontiers by immobilizing troops (except they can affect groups), making it extremely difficult to block them.
• Cloud Stalkers. Basically like Parasytes, except as an Airborne Mook- they facehug your soldiers to breed, draining their health and making the soldier useless, and spawn another Cloud Stalker should they successfully kill the soldier.
• Ogre Magi. They have a lot of health, and their lifelink ability basically allows them to take some of the damage that nearby enemies receive, allowing even stuff like Hyenas and Gnolls to take a much longer time to die.
• Literal ones in the form of Screecher Bats. Fast Airborne Mooks that appear in numbers and have the ability to temporarily stun your troops.

Kingdom Rush: Vengeance

• Clockwork Spiders, Glacial Wolves and Watchdogs are the game's equivalent to Wulves/Worgs, all three being fast and appearing in numbers with the latter two having magic resistance. Again, they can spell the end of a Heroic or Iron Challenge and cause hair loss if one of them even slips through. Glacial Wolves in particular explode into ice when killed, which has a small chance to temporarily freeze any nearby barracks troops, making them unable to block for a short while.
• Tinbeard Gunmen, Northern Huntresses, and Elven Rangers are essentially the Good Counterpart to Shadow Archers and Desert Archers, attacking your troops from a distance. Again, you're forced to move your soldiers into attacking range.
• Smokebeard Engineers have decent physical armor and can revive the disabled but not destroyed bodies of machine enemies, such as the swarms of Chomp Bots and worse still, the MechaDwarf MK.9s (at low HP for the latter). Even more annoying, the Mecha-Mooks only give gold when they fall apart, and not when they're disabled, meaning that the Engineers can also deny you of income. The only reasons why they're not Demonic Spiders is because they take a bit of time before the machines are fixed, and if they're stunned or forced into combat during this it'll cause the machine they're fixing to instantly break apart.
• Sulfur Alchemists are similar to the Gunmen in terms of having ranged capabilities, except that they can also heal allies including each other by throwing a healing potion too.
• Like Dune Terrors, Quarry Workers burrow underground to become immune to your towers. Unlike Dune Terrors, they don't surface when encountering troops and they're faster underground too. Fortunately they have to pop up after a short period and will not burrow if engaged in combat or if they're near the exit.
• Ice Witches have high magic resistance, a decent amount of HP for a mage-type enemy, and spawn Apex Shards often. These shards are weak but fast and have high magic resistance, and thanks to the witches' slow speed and immobility when attacking/summoning they often avoid being the target of your towers while spawning more shards to overwhelm you. If you do use units to stop them from spawning shards, the Ice Witches' ranged attack will freeze them making it irritating to take care of them directly. Thankfully, Ice Witches give an absurd amount of gold for a rather low-HP enemy.
• Leap Dragons can fly quickly for short bursts at a time to evade your troops, they also have medium physical armor which can make them annoying to kill before they reach the end of the area if you rely purely on physical towers. Furthermore, they tend to appear either in pairs or alongside Blue Wyverns which makes them more irritating to block compared to Quarry Workers.
• Svell Druids can disable your towers for a period by encasing them in ice. Unlike Frontiers' Blacksurges, they only can affect one at a time, and you can free that tower by tapping it enough.
• The Linirea stages have Hunting Eagles, fast flying units that appear in numbers and have almost as much HP as the previous flying units (which had medium speed). Not a problem in the normal modes, but more irritating in the Heroic and Iron Challenges where you only have 1 life.
• Gryphon Bombardiers. They're the only flying enemy in the main campaign that can attack troops, and their ranged attack not only hurts a lot thanks to moderate damage and rapid rate, it also deals area damage too. They can easily clear your barracks, goonies and even heroes fast if they reach your troops, and their rather slow speed allows their allies to catch up and draw fire away from them. Thankfully, Gryphon Bombardiers don't have too much HP.
• The Subaquatic Menace expansion brings us a good number of these:
  • Crystal Amphitheres are medium-speed flying mooks, but they come in numbers and can sometimes be spawned near your exits. Most notably, they can get a speed boost from the Infusers, who are also a danger.
  • Anurian Infusers. They're ranged magic units with medium magic resistance and the capability to infuse their allies with magic. On the Anurian Wardens, it gives them Deflector Shields. On the Crystal Amphitheres, it gives them a speed boost like Rocket Riders. They're also capable of activating crystals that will stun one of your towers for a considerable period of time. Thankfully their health is relatively low.
  • Anurian Channelers are ranged magic units with good magic resistance and will passively buff the attack of Anurian Erudites and grant armor to Crystal Demolishers. They also appear in groups, which is bad news for barracks troops especially because their ranged attacks penetrate all armor. Like the Infusers, their health is thankfully quite low.
• Ghosts return from Frontiers in the Cursed Bargain campaign, and retain their immunity to all physical damage and immunity to being blocked by troops. They also appear in larger numbers now. Fortunately, the purple towers can be tapped on to one-shot up to three of them, no matter the difficulty.
• Haunted Skeletons are the average Zerg Rush Mook with high magic resistance, but their most annoying ability comes from healing and getting a permanent stacking damage boost whenever an ally is killed near them, prolonging the survival of the rest.
• Screecher Bats from the last game return in the Cursed Bargain campaign, and are every bit as numerous and as irritating as they were with their stunning screech.
• Mogwais are just about as weak and numerous as Dwarf Bruisers in terms of health and numbers, although faster. However, like their inspiration, they multiply on contact with water on the river path, turning a Zerg Rush into a far larger one. If one thinks to just kill them near the entrance, they also tend to be paired with Arcane Magi, which teleport large groups of them forward and likely onto the water.
• Velociraptors. While they're rather squishy, they're extremely fast, hit hard, and appear in numbers. If the unit they're facing is at 20% or below health, they'll execute and eat the unit then pop out an egg that hatches into a fully-grown full-HP velociraptor, adding to their ranks. They become even faster and hit harder if a Prehistoric Dwarf buffs them with a primal shout, and some of them can spawn near the exits via the raptor nests. Naturally, they're quite a headache on Heroic and Iron Challenges if not dealt with properly.
• Falconers in the Hammerhold campaign. They're a standard mid-sized unit, but after they notice troops or move some distance, they release their Desert Eagle as a fast but fragile Airborne Mook. Unlike the Hunting Eagles, the Desert Eagle will harass your units and deal constant damage over time to the unit they target.
• Nomads in the Hammerhold campaign may be rather squishy, but they appear in large numbers, throw painful knives at your troops from mid-range, and can shadow jump backwards to disengage melee combat. They're the game's equivalent to Satyr Cutthroats/Twilight Harassers, two already-annoying enemies from Origins.

Legends of Kingdom Rush

• Wulves are fast enemies that appear in numbers, deal low damage and have a chance to dodge melee attacks, but are still easily felled by ranged attacks. Winter Wulves take this even further by also having the ability to freeze units and cause them to lose their turn.
• Orc Archers shoot at your units from a range and have just enough health and armor to survive a hit from most physical attacks. However, they fall easily against magic damage, most of which deal just enough damage to their health and bypass their armor.
• Unblinded Priests attack with Armor Piercing magic attacks from a range, but have low enough health to be taken out quickly. If they're reduced to 1 HP (via a 3 damage attack) and their turn comes, they turn into a much more dangerous Abomination.
• Skeletons are relatively fast and appear in numbers but are easy to kill. However, on their first death they collapse (and still take up a space) and will reanimate two turns later with less health.
• Skeleton Champions are similar to Skeletons with their reanimation capability, only slower, but with more HP, armor, and a Shield Bash attack that stuns your units.