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Kingdom Rush presents players with 12 stages worth of enemy waves, and 24 different challenges that will get players to don their thinking caps in order to come up with the most viable solutions for beating the game. With that said, the answers that will help you finish the stage will not always be obvious, and sometimes, it takes a few tries in order to get the order of building towers just right.
Do it perfectly however and you can earn that much needed three star rating â"with which you can gain new upgrades that will help you earn and perform even better. This here is our little generalâs Kingdom Rush tips and tricks walkthrough for beating all the stages and being able to collect as many stars as possible in order to finish all the challenges.
First Up: the Basics
The gameplay pans out in a very simple single screen scenario: enemies come out of designated areas from the map and will slowly march towards a single exit. If enough enemies pass through to the exit, you will lose the stage. In order to prevent these enemies from making it through, you have to build defense towers, deploy troops and cast meteor spells in order to whittle down the enemy forces. Once you survive enough enemy waves, the stage is won and you are rewarded with stars (the number you gain depends on how many enemies managed to slip past your defenses).
Depending on your skill, you might want to consider switching the game from normal difficulty to easy â" since the amount of stars won in either difficulty is the same, it may be a good idea to upgrade some of the most basic structures first then returning to normal difficulty once your troops are more ready. The reason for going back to normal is for players who wish to complete all badges â"since three will require that certain tasks be accomplished in normal difficulty.
Field Overview
No Kingdom Rush tips and tricks walkthrough would be complete without a quick breakdown of your defensive resources. So here it is: the complete guide to all the forces you can deploy against the enemy forces.
Archer Tower â" the most basic of all towers, cheapest to create and deals the least amount of damage against enemies. It is very fast shooting and this makes it very effective against groups of enemies with low HP (such as wargs) that will otherwise get past other defenses just because of sheer speed. When upgraded, the Archer Tower increases in both damage and range â"making it a key part of any defense strategy even late in the game.
Mage Towers â" more stronger than the archer towers, the Mage towers are your best bet against armored troops (expect those with magical shielding of course). Slow firing, these towers are best complemented by archer towers as they are no able to keep up with larger enemy waves, but can dispatch slower, tougher enemies better than the archers. It is important that players try to earn the final general upgrade for the mage tower which adds a bonus slow-down effect to any target hit by a mage shot. You can earn this about mid-way through the game and is an important factor for many of the challenges. Also, the mage tower is slightly more expensive than the archer tower, so be sure to save up for it.
Dwarven Bombard â" these towers are your crowd control towersl; slow, powerful and has a decent area-of-effect damage, they are best used in the late game (early on, you can rely on archer, mage and barracks). Late in the game, when the better types of dwarven cannon upgrades become available (such as the Big Bertha), then it may be a good time to start investing in the cannon type towers. At level one, these cannons are hardly any use, so be sure to upgrade it as soon as you can â"the earliest they become reliable is at level 3. Employing these towers is best in the later stages where gold is a lot easier to earn (since they are the most expensive of the bunch).
Barracks â" the most unique defense tower of them all. A barrack can take on three enemies at the same by deploying three soldiers to the front lines. These soldiersâ stats will be determined by the level of the tower used to spawn them. At level 1, they are simply plain clothes fighters with very little use aside from distracting enemies. At level three, they get geared up with armor and better swords, allowing them to withstand enemy attacks a lot better. Be sure combine different towers to support a barracks in order to create a bottleneck where you can take down enemies one at a time. The cost of barracks is the same as the archer towers â"making them very economical to have.
All the four buildings above can be upgraded two times in order to increase their various stats. More often than not, damage and attack range is increased. In the case of the barracks, the soldierâs damage, overall HP and rally point range will all be increased. After reaching level 3, each building can be upgraded for the last time into one of two completely new structures. Each of these two options has its own strengths and weaknesses and heavily boosts the offensive and defensive traits of the towers.
Archer Tower: Rangerâs Hideout
The Rangerâs Hideout shoots fast and hard, placing even a single one at a critical location ensures that any enemy that passes by gets hit by a literal rain of arrows â"each dealing plenty of good damage. It is so effective that a single ranger tower can easily wipe out a large pack of low level wargs or gargoyles. Even better is that fact that this tower can be improved with an entangle spell that can hold down several enemies in place while dishing out plenty of damage. The rangers can also coat their arrows with poisons which will slowly damage any target over a small period of time.
Archer Tower: Musketeer
Musketeers are a cross between the dwarven bombard and the rangerâs hideout. With this upgrade, the once very fast archer towerâs firing rate has been brought down to a humble slow. In exchange, players get a massive damage bonus: the attack is raised to 35-65 (a vast improvement over the Rangerâs 13-19 damage per shot). For those counting DPS, the rangers have the advantage, but that does not take into account the superior range of the musketeer â"which means it can shoot at a single target for a longer period of time. Also, they get bonuses for crowd control with their explosive shot ability and an anti-boss skill: a chance for instant kill shot (if the chance fails, the attack deals massive damage instead).
Mages: Arcane Wizard
After the Rangerâs Hideout, the Arcane Wizard is the next high level tower that becomes available to you. This is a straight forward upgrade of the mage tower (though it does get penalized with a âvery slowâ firing rate. The trade off comes in the form of massive damage per shot at around 76-140 and with two very useful abilities. The first is a sure death spell (much like the Musketeer, but with 100% certainty), and the second is a teleport spell which will send off a small number of enemies backward â"forcing them to march towards the exit once again â"obviously, a good strategy is for players to set an Arcane Wizard with teleport near the end of the stage, which will force back any enemy that slips past the initial defenses.
Mages: Sorcerer Mage
The sorcerer mage is the perfect early to mid-way stage defense tower. First, it deals a default penalty to enemy armor effectives by halving it. This enables your other towers to deal even more damage. The support abilities of the sorcerer mage enables players to summon a single powerful stone golem per tower and a polymorph spell that will temporarily change a single enemy into a sheep. Do remember that sheep will not be attacked by your own infantry units, so best leave the polymorph spell for when it is needed.
Barracks: Holy Order
Providing a barracks with Holy Order will allow you to summon Paladins instead of regular knights. These armored soldiers have plenty of health and can learn some really useful defensive skills such as a permanent boost to armor and more importantly, a heal spell that will keep them active on the battlefield a whole lot longer. The holy strike attack is powerful, but it does cost plenty of gold that is often better spent on improving other towers or upgrading the healing spell.
Barracks: Barbarian Hall
The Barbarian Hall is the structure to build when it comes to building troops that have a serious penchant for dealing damage. These loin-cloth clad warriors will charge bravely into the field brandishing axes and dealing death with each stroke. To further add to the carnage, barbarians can have their damage levels increased. But the most useful application of the barbarians is the fact that they can learn to throw axes, allowing them to attack enemies at long range and more importantly, take down flying creatures. Also, they can learn to use nets to slow down fliers â"useful against the higher level gargoyles of the later stages.
Dwarven Bombard: Tesla X104
The Tesla X104 is a straight forward device: it fires a chain lightning spell. Extremely useful when it comes to dealing with mobs, the Tesla ensures that as long as there are enough enemies on the road, it will deal massive damage. The tower does not cast any additional abilities, but focuses simply on dealing as much damage per shot that it can give. Each tower upgrade increases the number of enemies affected by the chain lightning and will also provide the tower with a passive perimeter attack that damages any enemy that walks near it.
Dwarven Bombard: 500mm Big Bertha
If it was not for the horrendous cost of upgrading Dwarven Bombards, then the 500mm Big Bertha would have been a great addition to the defensive line. Straight out, the tower deals out a large amount of damage per shot over a small area â"easily halving the lives of mid level enemies. This is further improved by bomblet upgrades that will rain fire over a small area and also by the addition of super homing missiles that will always seek out a target before exploding. Aside from being always hitting an enemy, the missiles have huge range â"often encompassing almost the entirety of the stage.
Player Abilities and Overall Upgrades
Aside from building and upgrading defense towers, players have two additional abilities and a host of upgrades (which can be gained in the gameâs map menu) to choose from.
The two abilities are a meteor spell and summon reinforcements. The meteor spell works by designating an area of effect and waiting for the heavens to start raining fire. Early in the game, this ability is not that useful (though it will take care of a few armored enemies if you aim it properly). Once you have earned a sufficient number of stars however, this ability can be upgraded to literally rain hell on your opponents. Midway through, the meteors will burn the ground and will cause damage to any enemy passing over it. At full upgrade, the meteors will scatter all over the pathways (but will concentrate on the target area), the damage will be doubled and the amount of time the ground burns will also increase twofold. Even better is the fact that if you upgrade the spell, the cooldown time for the spell decreases from 80 seconds to a mere 60.
The other ability is summoning troops. Every 10 seconds, the player can summon two footmen to a specific area which they will defend. At the initial levels, these footmen can only serve as temporary blocks. At full level, they can hold up pretty well against armored enemies and can even take down fliers with thrown spears. Sadly, these troops will not stay permanently on the map. Even will if they still have plenty of health, the troops disappear after a few seconds (though it is possible for a player to be able to have up to four reinforcements summoned, note that one pair will disappear soon).
Map upgrades require the player to spend stars â"stars which are earned at the end of each stage. Many players make use of this feature by going as far as they can and earning any stars as possible. At the end of which, they upgrade anything they need then come back to any stage that they did not get full ratings on. It is a viable strategy for players who have the time too.
Knowing which upgrades are important is a matter of practice, and also for player preference. In a general term, upgrades will simply improve the base stats of all buildings and the two abilities â"these include improving the defenses, raising HP, increasing damage dealt and moving the maximum firing range a little further. Aside from these useful stat boosts, some upgrades do a little more. Artillery towers get a discount on their costs and the splash damage deduction is lifted (granting full damage to all enemies caught in the blast). For the archer towers, each arrow gets a chance to score a critical hit. Mage towers get a slowdown effect on enemies, and the barracks upgrade enables troops to reflect some of the damage they receive. The abilities also get unique upgrades too â"which is the scorched earth ability for the meteor and the addition of throwing spears for the reinforcements.
One key factor about these upgrades is that you can press the reset function at any time. This means that if you accidentally bought an ability you do not need yet, or have to take on a challenge maps it is in your best interest to change your star allocation. Take for instance a challenge map that does not allow archer towers, if you used 10 stars on archer towers, you can get these back by resetting and placing the stars on different tower upgrades instead.
Moving on in our Kingdom Rush Tips and Tricks walkthrough next we have the stage strategies.
Stage Strategies
Stage 1: Southport
Southport is a pretty easy stage to beat, simply deploy enough archer towers as needed and you will be fine. There is also plenty of sheep here so before you press the âstart battleâ icon, it is a good idea to earn the Ovinophobia trophy here. To do so, simply keep on clicking on a sheep until it explodes. Pretty cruel, but if you plan on collecting all the badges, you might as well do it as early as possible.
Finishing the heroic challenge for this map will require a good balance of mage and archer towers and a couple of barracks. Be sure to place a small gauntlet of archers and a mage at the large curve in order to maximize the damage you deal.
The iron challenge makes this a little challenging by limiting you to dwarven bombards and barracks â"this is best complemented by upgraded meteor spells and summoned troops. Also make sure to complement the barracks chokepoint using a dwarven bombard.
Stage 2: The Farmlands
This stage introduces armored enemies â"which are best dealt with using mage towers. Use a couple or so mage towers and an archer tower early on and you can easily deal with the initial waves. For the rest of the stage, you will need to balance out the defense with barracks. We recommend establishing a choke point midway and to the end of the stage (near the first massive turn, and near the last) in order to keep up with the hordes.
For the heroic challenge, do not forget that you can upgrade to level 2. This is very crucial for the part where armored troops come marching in as low power towers will not be able to defeat them.
This map has an easy iron challenge. Even without the option to use the barracks, players have the archer and mage towers at their disposal. Once again, make sure to use the upgrades whenever possible â"especially on the mage towers (if you have earned enough stars for the mage tower cost discount, better get it).
Stage 3: Pagras
New players will find the layout of this stage particularly confusing due to the fact that the two paths converge at an odd angle. The primary chokepoint here is the final bend before the exit. But it is also advisable to place a mage tower in between the two paths where the enemies originate. Also, look out for the shaman type enemies â"take them out with a meteor spell if you can and use troop reinforcements to block their path and separate them from the rest of the enemy waves as they will use their heal spell pretty often.
Taking one the heroic challenge early is not recommended. It is best that you have earned sufficient upgrades to mage and barracks towers before taking this on as the waves are plenty and the shamans will need to be killed fast.
The iron challenge for this state requires that you set up a chokepoint near the bottom and whittle down enemy life as they spawn from the top. Be sure to have increased the archer and mage towers and use the summon reinforcements to support the barracks troops.
Stage 4: Twin Rivers
Before you begin this stage, try to observe the river and you will find that fish are leaping from the water. There is a fish that spawns every few seconds between the fishing camp and the north bridge, keep an eye on this and try to click on it when it jumps to earn the Twin Rivers Angler achievement.
For the most part, the faster enemies will be taking the route on the right than the left. Reinforce the left path with single mage tower, a barracks and an archer tower while keeping the right area defended with as much towers as you can (best place a mage tower at the very opening of the two paths). When you have enough gold, upgrade your initial towers and place two archer towers at the exit to kill any enemies that manage to survive the initial defenses.
Once again, this is a challenge map that we recommend you face when you have got better upgrades. The key upgrades here are reinforcement troop boosts and slowdown plus additional range for the mage towers. Wargs will be your biggest issue with the left path so be sure to have enough archer towers there.
The lack of a mage tower in the iron challenge require that you be able to set up good choke points â"one barracks and three archer towers per path is a good amount to start with, just be sure to have set your upgrade points for the archer towers â"having the critical shot ability will certainly help a lot here.
Stage 5: Silveroak Forest
Repair the Sylvan Elf building and recruit four elves to guard the leftmost path. Afterwards, set an archer tower adjacent to the one that is already on the map. The Elves will easily dispatch any enemy that comes their way during the early waves and all you will need to do is add another archer tower between the left and middle paths. Once the game notifies you that you can create a ranger hideout, upgrade as soon as you can. The rightmost path will often have spiders so it is important to have archer towers guarding that path, the left and center will mostly be filled with bandits, orcs and other armored enemies.
The good thing about the heroic and iron challenges for this map is that you have the use of the Sylvan elves. If you position them near the edge of the left path, their arrow will reach enemies passing by on the center path â"this will allow you to spend more resources on the right towers. Just be sure to provide reinforcements for the elves later on.
The iron challenge takes away the barracks â"which means that you will not have a natural chokepoint. Be sure to have archer towers near the exit and remember that the meteor spell does wonders on waves of spiders (it also helps if you have the scorched earth upgrade).
Stage 6: The Citadel
Linirea has the benefit of being guarded by 7 un-upgraded paladins; two on each of the side paths and another three near the exit. While they are quite strong, their health regeneration rate is low and after a few waves, they will most certainly die unless they are properly supported. Be sure to add barracks to create chokepoints on both the left and right sides. Meteor spells are best cast on the center path below (just as a new wave spawns) and near the exit (if any enemies manage to make it there). Be sure to have archer towers upgraded to ranger hideouts to keep up with the later waves.
This is where you will first get arcane towers, while there is little point in making them early in the stage, they are pretty useful once the Juggernaut arrives. This creature will bring out small batches of enemy reinforcements which will run towards the exit â"best protect the exit with upgraded archer towers. To kill the juggernaut, simply keep blocking its path with knights and reinforcements while the mage and archer towers eat away at its life.
The heroic challenge of this stage still provides you will the 7 paladins â"but they will not be much help with the massive waves. Be sure to heavily support both sides with mage towers and at least two barracks. Archer towers will be useful near the exit.
The iron challenge in this stage limits you to barracks and nothing else â"so be sure to reset your stars and place them all in barracks upgrades (as well as your meteor and summon reinforcement abilities as well). The key areas to watch out for are the left and right pathways and adding as many upgraded barracks as soon as you can.
Stage 7: Coldstep Mines
This stage introduces a new element to the game, the addition of cave-paths which enemies can take as a shortcut. One of the cave mouths leads directly the bottom path towards the exit so be sure to line up that route with plenty of defenses early on. New warg types will also be appearing here, particularly ones with plenty of HP. So make good use of both your reinforcements and meteor spell in order to make quick work of these enemies.
The heroic mode will require a good degree of upgrades and plenty of careful planning in the bottom of the map. Aside from that, this stage plays out pretty much like it did in the story mission so it should not be that hard as long as you set up proper chokepoints.
The issue in the iron challenge is that players cannot make new barracks outside of the three already available. As a starting move, send all troops to the path lower than the one they start out in. Afterwards, place plenty of defenses on the route below. As you earn enough gold, create new defenses in the upper area of the map to help weaken enemies before they approach â"once again, the meteor spell is useful against large groups of small wargs.
Stage 8: Icewind Pass
This stage introduces the Sasquatch bonus unit and the barbarian type barracks. Ironically, it is not that much recommended getting either one during the first try. To get the Sasquatch, use a meteor spell on the ice blocking the cave near first turn of the northern path. This will enable players to access the option to recruit the giant warrior. Once purchased, the Sasquatch serves as a basic infantry unit â"except it has a monstrous amount of armor, health, and of course damage.
For strategy, the key factor here is being able to set up a good chokepoint in lower path right before the exit. To do so, line up two barracks with two mage towers and two archer towers. To upgrade, it is recommended that the mage towers get priority as they can deal more damage per shot.
This stageâs heroic challenge can benefit heavily from the use of the arcane tower and the teleport spell â"but that is only if you can strategize using the enemy call button for each wave. Best set a good defense near the exit at the start of the challenge.
To earn the iron trophy, focus on making a barbarian hall within the first few waves. For the bombard, an upgrade to level 3 is good for about 4 towers in order to take out most of the enemies. The real challenge here are the flying gargoyles so it is best to get those barbarians with throwing axe upgrades.
Stage 9: Stormcloud Temple
The Stormcloud Temple introduces the sun tower, a massive obelisk high up in the mountains capable of harnessing sun energy into a focus beam of yellow destruction. It is pretty cool to have and free to use so be sure to make use of the towerâs beam whenever you can. The beam charges up every 10 seconds (if you buy four mages as soon as you can â"and you should), and will instantly kill most weak enemies. This tower is best used on armored and high HP enemies (or for stragglers that manage to make it near the exit). At the end of this stage, a special boss named JT will come from the top. If you have a sorcererâs tower near that area, you can easily bring down the life of the boss (the musketeerâs snipe may also instantly kill JT). When the boss raises both fists, it will freeze some of your towers, click on those rapidly to break the ice. While JT is running around, several wargs will spawn â"so be sure that you keep your lower defenses ready and running. Naturally, keep firing the sun tower on JT whenever it is available.
Like the Silveroak forest, the challenges for this map are aided by an existing structure â"in this case, the sun tower. This is a big help when holding off tough enemies as well as for removing those pesky shamans.
The iron challenge for Stormcloud limits players to using only mage towers (be sure to move all your stars before taking this on). A good combination of arcane and sorcerer towers will weaken and kill most enemies. Fortunately, the sun tower will be available allowing you to make quick work of some heavier enemies.
Stage 10: The Wastes
One thing to look out for in this map is the graveyard on the upper left. With it being positioned so close to the exit, it is important to set a tower near it (we recommend a mage and archer tower, though you can also use an artillery tower if you prefer using it). The skeletons that come out from the cemetery are not predicted or announced in the enemy wave indicator so it is important to keep an eye on that part. The left path will have faster enemies while heavier fighters appear on the right. For necromancers, fire a meteor spell on them when they stop to cast summoning spell.
The heroic challenge is made easier with the scorched earth upgrade and artillery on the left. The right side will require strategically placed mage towers on the top and bottom parts of the path.
The iron challenge takes away the mob control abilities of the artillery which originally makes short work of skeletons. This means that mob control would require good chokepoints and properly placed towers â"the teleport spell and tangle abilities are effective against masses of skeletons.
Stage 11: Forsaken Valley
One of the toughest challenges that the Forsaken Valley Provides is the presence of lava golems, these big creatures have plenty of HP and high defense, so best have mage towers near their spawn points (place these towers in the lower center of the map). Also, archer and mage towers near the end are important for those fast wargs and flying gargoyles. The death ray and snipe shot abilities of level 4 towers will make quick work of the lava golems in the later part of this stage, the real challenge is surviving long enough to make the upgrades.
The heroic stage sets several waves of heavy enemies, so barracks and mage towers will be very effective. Coincidentally, the same type of defense is needed for the iron challenge as well.
Without archers and artillery, players will have to rely on barracks and mage towers for this stage. As expected, the death ray and teleport upgrades are needed, but so is the armor-penalizing sorcerer tower (which is good to have near the start of the path).
Stage 12: The Dark Tower
The final stage of the game, naturally this is also one of the toughest. We recommend setting up mage and archer tower defenses along the right path, the center path and lower left (just in front of the grave yard) and upgrade as much as possible. This will be enough to hold off the initial waves. As you earn more gold, focus on adding mage towers on the left and right sides of the dark tower and for providing upgrades on the lower towers. Add new defenses on the lower part of the screen after about 4 waves to prepare for the next waves of enemies and the ones that spawn from the pentagrams. As you progress through the stage, the boss will cast stasis spells on your towers. To cancel the effects, rapidly click on the affected towers to keep them running. Lastly, be wary of the necromancers (three will spawn from each side). In their long walk to the exit, they will summon and amass quite a number of skeletons. To bring them down, kill the ones from the right with a fully upgraded meteor. The one on the left can be stalled by reinforcements â"and hopefully, they will get targeted by a mage tower or caught in ranger tangles.
After clearing all the waves, players will have to face off Vezânan, the final boss. This enemy first spawns as a small mage with powerful spells (do not bother with troops, he will instantly kill them). The death ray, snipe and teleport spells however, seem effective for the situation. once you bring his HP down to zero, his real form emerges and with an even higher life. Just keep attacking the boss relentlessly (and use the meteor whenever you can) in order win the stage before he reaches the exit.
The best thing about the challenges for the Dark Tower is that they can be won with the same strategy as the story stage. The only difference is that the final boss will no longer present (a âfor saleâ sign will be posted on the dark tower, reflecting the fate of the Vezânan at the hands of the player). Since the original strategy does not call for artillery, the tips above will prove useful when dealing with both the heroic and iron challenges.