Demonic Spiders/Video Games/Real Time Strategy: Difference between revisions

*** Bulbears and Gattling Groinks. You know how the aforementioned Orange Bulborbs wake up before you get a proper chance to hurl Pikmin on them? Well not only are Bulbears always awake, but they are always moving on Patrol routes. So if your Mins are carrying an item back to your ship without a guard, prepare to witness a Bulbear dinner. Oh, and if you can sneak up behind it, then you are in for a nasty surprise as they keep their young behind them, who will gladly go to town on your Pikmin while you deal with the adult. As for Gattling Groinks, for one, they have a front guard, so attacking them head-on is an exercise in futility, and you need to constantly flank them. And what's worse is that they attack by launching mortar shots in three cluster bursts, which can take out 10 Mins at the most at a point blank hit, and scattering the rest if they get caught in the splash range. And to top both these enemies off, if killed without being shattered, both can regenerate after their death and revive. So if you didn't take them back into your ship, well.....Have fun.

* Anything capable of inflicting poison or disease in the ''[[Warlords Battlecry]]'' series. Having your otherwise superpowered hero reduced to 1/8th of his normal health or having the speed and combat ability of a three-legged kitten is especially bad when you're playing as one of the [[Always Chaotic Evil]] races who have limited access to healing spells.

** On top of that, there's [[Arrogant Kung Fu Guy|Jet Chan]]—an A.N.V.I.L. super-agent who can cut through your supply of minions like a hot knife through butter, and can knock out most of your henchmen in seconds. You can't even keep him contained in a holding cell—he regularly breaks out, and when he does he'll usually drop four or five minions ''at least'' before they subdue him again. You can't get rid of him permanently until your reach the game's seventh objective, either. And if he arrives on the second island early on, before the base has been partially constructed, you're better off just reloading from your last save.

* The first ''[[Battalion Wars]]'' has Pillboxes. They're supposed to be [[Elite Mooks|super strong versions]] of the MG Bunkers, but it isn't enough that they have explosive shells and side machine guns. No. They have to come with ridiculous health and defense as well. The only reason they go down quickly on a standard run is because in the only two levels where you encounter them, you get Anti-Air Vets, who themselves had too much power and can therefore devastate big targets like nobody's business. Unfortunately, you get the AA Vets in the first place on those two levels because of air units to make your life miserable too. Joy.

** ''Battalion Wars 2'' isn't free of Demonic Spiders either. Of course, Fighters, are mostly demonic for a [[No Casualties Run]], but they have their definite responsibility for the difficulty of the 2 hardest single-player missions in the game. Nothing gets really annoying like seeing no enemies nearby and 2 seconds later, one of your air units is destroyed. This forces you to manually control a Fighter, which means if you don't have your ground forces Wait or keep themselves preoccupied (especially irksome to do with the lack of a command like in the first Battalion Wars where it sends troops to a specified location), they will move stupidly (either in circles or into a bad situation) just to try to follow you. Under Siege's second half gives you only air units anyway, but the problem is that you're expected to bomb targets and air units are pretty much [[Glass Cannon|Glass Canons]] now. And just to make this even worse, Fighters can [[Memetic Mutation|do a barrel roll]], which throws off the lock-on of weapons that you need to use to kill the Fighters. None of this would be so bad if your air units would actually try at all to pick up Jerry Cans, though that wouldn't help much with your Fighters occasionally ''crashing into the enemy Fighters and instantly dying as a result''. At least Call Sign Eagle in the original isn't [[That One Level]] for anybody who can adjust to the aerial warfare, and that level had plenty of targets for the enemy Fighters and Strato Destroyers. But just for icing on the cake, in The Reckoning, the game's final mission, you don't even get any Fighters yourself to avoid needing to use anti-air units that can get ''[[One-Hit Kill|one-shotted]]'' by the Battlestation. {{spoiler|At least until Pierce provides you with 3 Fighters in his [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment--that comes after destroying the 3 Generators they're guarding.}} And Anti-Air Vets have ''horrible'' lock-on range, especially for their job. Argh, argh, argh.

** Of course, Strato Destroyers in ''Battalion Wars 2'', having their [[Elite Mook]] status discredited as an excuse by the Battlestations, aren't going to be off the hook. Even getting past the borderline [[Guide Dang It]] of their weakness in their lack of rear armor plating combined with the fact that they're only in the last part of one freaking level in the ''entire'' game--the last one in single player, no less--it doesn't change the fact that they take ridiculous punishment for an air unit, when you already have Fighters, as well as a strict Speed time limit if you're going for rank, to contend with. What is worse is that the Strato can blow most of your forces, including your mission critical Battlestation, to Kingdom Come. It doesn't help that the air units regenerate infinitely and the Battlestation under AI not only targets the {{spoiler|lasers defenses}} (which you can't even lock onto) instead of the {{spoiler|Mining Spider}} itself to get the bloody thing done with sooner to give you more grief if you manually control one of {{spoiler|[[Big Damn Heroes|Pierce]]'s Fighters}}, but also still takes notable damage from heavy {{spoiler|laser}} fire.

** Apart from the Saracen unique units, Mamalukes, which take down elephants, as well as every other cavalry unit (as well as practically every other non ranged unit) with ''ridiculous ease''. Even siege weapons weren't effective, because they were cavalry themselves, and could just charge them down. In online play, ''these'' were the real demonic spiders.

* For ''[[Halo]] Wars'' there's Arbiter, Brute chieftain, Waolverines and Gauss Hogs. Both [[Just for Pun|Arby and the chief]] can destroy half an army with ease. (The former assumes you have infantry or aircraft.) Engineers can make them as powerful as a [[Siege Engines|scarab]] with the same number of Healers. Wolverines are inordinately powerful against almost everything but main tanks and counter units.Gauss hogs are DS's for the exact same reason.

* [[Paradox Interactive]] games have not necessarily specific kinds of enemies, but certain nations can take on this trait. ''[[Europa Universalis]] III'' has France (though not as much anymore) and ''[[Crusader Kings]]'' has the Mongols.

** The most recent expansion of [[Europa Universalis|EUIII]], ''Divine Wind'', has put all of the Horde-type nations as this. Austria also counts if you intend to expand at the expense of the Holy Roman Empire.

* ''[[Dawn of War]]'' has a few of these: Tau Fire Warriors, which have ridiculous range and stopping power for an infantry unit and is the Tau's ''basic infantry''. Ork Flash Gitz, which have the same resilience as other Orks but with incredible firepower and accuracy, something Orks [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy|tend to lack]]. Chaos Obliterators, [[Mighty Glacier|Mighty Glaciers]] effective against all unit types which can ''teleport''. And of course the Necron Lord, which is powerful even for a Commander and becomes a relentless [[Boss in Mook Clothing]] with enough upgrades. The necrons also have Pariahs, which have a very powerful melee attack, a decent ranged one, a lot of health, and are ''immune to morale damage'', as well as causing a slight maximum health reduction on enemies they attack but do not destroy. The main thing that stops them from being a [[Game Breaker]] is their slow movement and inability to teleport like other necron infantry, the limit of one squad and their cost.

** ''[[Dawn of War]] II'', meanwhile, has the Zoanthrope, a [[Glass Cannon]] that can obliterate vehicles in a few shots, even the Dreadnought in the campaign (otherwise a [[Game Breaker]]).

*** Eldar Seer Council and Warlocks are even worse, since they can do that AND move incredibly fast and hold their own in melee.

** In the earlier levels, [[Michael Jackson|Dancing Zombies]] are deadly because of the multiple backup dancers they spawn. It is very easy for a backup dancer zombie to spawn right behind your plants, and the zombies force you to micromanage.

* [[Brutal Legend]]'s Campaign mode has one in the ranks of the Drowned Doom army: the Reapers. They move ridiculously fast, can one-shot most of your non-vehicle units with their melee attacks alone, and they have some strange blue fire burst attack that tears you apart in seconds. Oh, and did I mention that there's at least one of them around ''every time you have to face the Drowned Doom''? At least they can be taken down somewhat quickly by Double Teaming with a level 2 Razor Girl...

* In [[Sacrifice]] theres the Death spell, not a unit itself but when summoned it will instantly kill any unit it can reach by touching it, this includes the monsters of the wizard that summoned it. Still wizards are not targeted by it.

** Two of the most dangerous units are Pyro's Warmonger and Charnels Styx both are Glass Cannon that deal great damage the former has a short range machine gun that rips apart any target in seconds, and the later has a long range dark lazer beam that can obliderate souls.

** Also, the {{spoiler|Furies}}. Their main attack is a bolt of lightning that's hard to dodge, and they have ''huge'' missiles with massive damage radii. Worst of all, the regular ones can drop out of the sky on top of you with no warning. The tank versions at least lack the mobility of the regular ones, but they're substantially tougher.

* In [[Command and Conquer]] there are Spiders aplenty.

** In the Red Alert 2 expansion ''Yuri's Revenge'', the Allied Robot Tanks are the bane of the Yuri faction's existance. They are faster than the land-bound Grizzly Tank and can cross water with their hover-jets. The worst part, however, is that it is completely immune to the [[Mind Control]] units and structures that Yuri loves to use.