Hey all, not sure if anyone other than me has actually really worked on hard, even though this game was top 25 and (briefly) loved here on TA. Anyway, I am stuck on The Duck boss. The strategies that work on normal dont work too well on hard. The basic tension/problem is that The Duck eats all melee including rhinos, while the swarm of pumpkin chuckers eats lesser monsters (i.e. mice) to such a degree that its hard to feed the duck enough to slow its march across the screen. Keeping the Paladog alive is a real challenge with only 2 points in Paladog defense (wish I had more) and I cant find a wand combination to kill enough pumpkin monsters to allow focus on The Duck. The only thing I can think to do is try to go as slowly as possible before I get to the cave and duck, and build a fairly large number of penguins (or monkeys?) behind a rhino/turtle combination. I tried just two rhinos, they were hard to heal, but managed to build 5 penguins. Maybe 1 rhino and 2 high leveled turtles would be easier to go slowly with, but I havent really leveled turtles enough to do this, and its not cheap. The 5 penguins + 2 rhinos wasnt enough, but probably I could have managed it better. And maybe level mice (or bears?) up to survive the pumpkin swarm long enough to feed the duck. Any tips would be appreciated, I have already leveled up 4 or so times while I try and get through this. Would really like to get a third defense point, but have also realized that I need more wand kill power for the pumkins. Edit: Close to giving up on this. Last game I had 5 or so penguins and 3 rhinos when the duck emmerged. Managed to kill the pumpkins with the Turn Undead mace, BUT it took too long...4 penguins died before there were few enough pumpkins that the Duck could be fed bears. (The bears die before feeding the Duck when the pumpkin swarm is alive.) The 1 surviving penguin didnt do enough dps, and the duck pushed us to the edge and killed us. No idea what can be done other than leveling up A LOT, and maxing, for example, mace mastery to kill quicker.
The strategy that worked for me was the following: - Rings: Regeneration (+7) and Cultivation (+6) - Maces: Wind (+5), Undead (+6) and Poison (+7) (Frankly, I don't think that the Mace of Wind or the Ring of Regeneration were all that important, but just wanted to let you know what I used.) First, I didn't bother with any penguins. I know they can be useful, but I just stuck to Rhinos (Lv. 11) at first. Once you get to the point where you are smashing down the enemy castle, I started sending in Mice. It doesn't take too long for a few Rhinos to get it smashed and the Duck Boss emerges. Next, I used the Turn Undead Mace a few times to kill all the Pumpkins around the Duck Boss. (Fyi, try to build up as many manna points as possible before getting here so you can use a lot of maces once the Duck Boss comes.) Once I had a clear shot at the Duck Boss, I hit him with the Mace of Poison. I don't know exactly how long the poison works, but it does wear off, so you'll have to keep using it. In the meantime, I just kept sending in Mice as quickly as I could manufacture them. This slows him down, and they are able to do some damage before they get eaten if you have many of them. (I also threw in the odd Bear, Kangaroo and Monkey when there were a lot of Mice waiting to be "sacrificed", but I don't know if they did all that much.) I also kept using the Turn Undead Mace to kill the Pumpkins. Hopefully you will have a decent manna regeneration rate and you will have reduced the amount of manna needed (using this cost me 25 manna points). Just plugging away using the Mice, making the Duck Boss stay poisoned, and killing the Pumpkins with the Turn Undead Mace eventually led to victory. Hope this helps - it is a great game and I wouldn't want anyone to get discouraged by it. Chris
Thanks, was able to clear it with your help. I wasnt starting mice production soon enough. Seems like it should have been obvious, but I somehow thought that the problem was the pumpkins were killing the mice, and didnt think more mice could be the solution (it was.) With enough mice in place, the rhinos actually live a little while and do some damage. I assume the mice do hardly any damage (mine arent even levelled very far), but the poison is very deadly given enough time, and the Turn Undead mace likely has some effect, even if its not really visible on the boss.
Sidescrolling strategy/defense. Much like Cartoon Heroes, Crystal Wars, Legendary Wars and many others. Its very polished and appealing if you like the genre at all.
