Kingdom Rush Level 10 summary

This stage introduces a stage concept: the Graveyard. When a humanoid baddie dies, a Skeleton is spawned from it and actually, it's an annoyance to take out. Not only that, but if the baddie has 300 or more max HP, it will be a Skeleton Knight that gets spawned, and good lord is it a Demonic Spider thanks to its 400 HPs AND 30% armor. When the Skeletons are bad enough on their own, especially when the game throws WOLF WAVES ALONG THE SAME PATH AS THE GRAVEYARD. Seriously, tell me it's fun that Skeletons sponge your soldiers allowing the wolves to keep moving.

It's telling when I'm infinitely less worried about the Demon Spawns and Demon Lords, both of whom have high magic defense with decent HP, AND if they are killed, they BLOW UP FOR CONSIDERABLE AREA DAMAGE. The Demon Lords shouldn't be underestimated, though, because they can provide free damage sponging to his minions. Now both scream "use leveled archers and barracks", and honestly I'm actually fine with that because it tests how well you spend your funds, which ends up keeping the Tesla x104 under control, which is ironic, I'll get to that. It's also a misconception, though understandable, that these guys are responsible for Barracks being trash in the later portions of the game, but proper maneuvering of your guys does wonders to make a much needed mess of the enemy formations.

Unfortunately, there's also Demon Hounds. Take Winter Wolves and give them the Demon Spawns/Lords' exploding ability, and you have yourself a Demonic Spider that gets obnoxious fast. You already need soldiers to stagger them, but as soon as one Demon Hound explodes in their faces, that's the end of that Barracks' defense for a while, and these jackholes really enjoy being together to make sure that one of them dying isn't crippling at all.

The level does have a tactics theme, though: namely, you manage your money involving archers and soldiers. How do I come to this conclusion? Well, first, Skeletons have poison immunity, which leads to a strategic factor with the Rangers Hideout: do you want Poison Arrows on the Hideout to have them shoot the actually vulnerable baddies who are covered by the boneheads, or do you want to avoid getting that upgrade so that the Rangers will keep shooting the front guys? Anything that makes the Rangers Hideout less mindless in their own field is a boon to balance. As to the Demon baddies, you really want to devote plenty of money to archer fire. It's actually tempting to call this bad design until you realize that it keeps payoff towers like the Tesla x104 under control by making cost a worthwhile weakness. The Skeleton Knights and Demon Hounds, though, are still bothersome.

Of course, naturally, the annoyances provided by thse jackholes make it even more satisfying to whip out the final tower type of the game, the Tesla x104, my second favorite tower in the game, and anybody who can't guess the first... *ahemusername* The Tesla doesn't seem like much because while it has higher base damage than the Big Bertha, it also hits only upwards of 3 baddies at a time, 5 with capped Supercharged Bolt. However, get Overcharge and the payoff can easily become GODLY. Overcharge hits *ALL* baddies near enough the Tesla every time the Tesla attacks. The damage input is minor but when the area is riddled with baddies, it adds up, and giving every single baddie a health toll makes it much easier to focus on durable baddies, when the Tesla even focuses on THAT to begin with. What especially helps is being able to hit backliners repeatedly, making them much less capable of causing problems. Oh, and if that isn't a sufficient selling point, the Tesla's bolt attack even targets flying baddies, so you don't need an upgrade for hitting things like Rocket Riders, which even suffer from the multitarget hitting. The linking lightning (I actually am NOT fake-cursing there) has very nice potential range too, as you can see during the Rocket Rider wave.

What keeps Tesla under control is that it doesn't deal as much damage to thick clumps as Big Bertha does, it costs MORE for even working crowd control (when it's an artillery to begin with!), and its ability depth is lackluster to the point of having issues with things that do shake it off, but Overcharge 2 Tesla is certainly worth every single piece of the 1400+ Gold to have around to shut out a lot of problems.

Seriously. Tesla x104 rules.