History DemonicSpiders / RealTimeStrategy

* ''Junkworld'' has a number of enemies that can quickly overrun your defenses:

** Vermincharges in the Underground campaign are RatMen pushing a mortar that regularly fires capsules containing three [[GoddamnedBats fast-but-weak Krittlings]] at a spot further down the path. They come in decent enough numbers where if you don't kill them fast enough, you ''will'' be overrun by the SwarmOfRats spawned by their mortars.
** Gutterballs in the Underground campaign are Krittlings rolling on a metal ball. They have a ton of armored health but low HP, move ''very quickly'', and cannot be blocked or slowed by your troops, instead just running through them for damage. The fun doesn't end when they die, for they [[AsteroidsMonster release three Krittlings]] which can run past to the exit if you lack firepower or defenses.

** Gutterballs in the Underground campaign are Krittlings rolling on a metal ball. They have a ton of armored health but low HP, move ''very quickly'', and cannot be blocked or slowed by your troops, instead just running through them for damage. The fun doesn't end when they die, for they release three Krittlings which can run past to the exit if you lack firepower or defenses.

* ''Junkworld''
** Gator Riders, the GiantMook enemies of the Swamps. They have tons of HP, and while they're slow, they sport a very painful ranged attack from the rider's shotgun. Attempt to block them in melee combat is not effective as the gators hit hard and often use a OneHitKill bite attack to wipe out any offending troops. All this unit-killing ability allows [[ZergRush weaker but gregarious enemies]] like Radcoons to leak through. The kicker is that Gator Riders appear in relatively large numbers for giant enemy standards which means that the slow-firing Snipers will have trouble taking them down quickly enough, and often appear with Radcoons to rush through your weakened defenses.
** Vermincharges in the Underground campaign are RatMen pushing a mortar that regularly fires capsules containing three [[GoddamnedBats fast-but-weak Krittlings]] at a spot further down the path. If you don't kill these fast enough, you ''will'' be overrun by the SwarmOfRats spawned by their mortars.

* ''Junkworld'' has Gator Riders, the GiantMook enemies of the Swamps. They have tons of HP, and while they're slow, they sport a very painful ranged attack from the rider's shotgun. Attempt to block them in melee combat is not effective as the gators hit hard and often use a OneHitKill bite attack to wipe out any offending troops. All this unit-killing ability allows [[ZergRush weaker but gregarious enemies]] like Radcoons to leak through. The kicker is that Gator Riders appear in relatively large numbers for giant enemy standards which means that the slow-firing Snipers will have trouble taking them down quickly enough, and often appear with Radcoons to rush through your weakened defenses.

* For ''VideoGame/HaloWars'' there's Arbiter, the Brute Chieftain, Wolverines and Gauss Hogs. Both [[JustForPun 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 [[SiegeEngines 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.

* ''VideoGame/RiseOfNations'' has the Stealth Bombers. Incapable of being targeted by SAM systems, capable of flying at fighter speeds, and inflicting obscenely high damage with laser-guided accuracy, these are the bane of any player, whether online or playing against the computer. The fact that they can't be targeted by SAMs requires you to spam fighters in order to protect your important sites from them, thus wasting considerable amounts of population. Even worse, they're not really that expensive, meaning that after your enemy has a good infrastructure, he can ZergRush you with them, requiring constant raids against hostile airbases to prevent the damn things from destroying your cities and wonders. There's a reason why they've motivated many players to end the game by bringing the [[NukeEm Armageddon]] counter to zero (in RoN, each time nuclear weapons are used, the counter decreases by one, if it reaches zero, everybody loses).

** 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 this and the Spotty Bulbear off, if killed without being shattered, both can regenerate after their death and revive in the second game. So if you didn't take them back into your ship, well.....Have fun.

* The ''VideoGame/Starcraft'' franchise has a good few, especially the PvE exclusive units:
** Infested Terrans in the first game's campaigns, especially in the mission Into the Darkness: Self-destructive units that unburrow out of nowhere and rush you down and can instantly vaporize anything it connects with, ''including Tassadar himself.''
** Hybrids in the second game, especially Legacy of the Void.
** Propagators in the co-op missions instantly kill anything they touch and transform them into another one of their own. You simply cannot let them connect.

* Any elite unit in the '' VideoGame/TotalWar'' series is enough to give anyone a hard time, but there are a few examples.

* ''Junkworld'' has Gator Riders, the GiantMook enemies of the second world. They have tons of HP, and while they're slow, they spot a very painful ranged attack from the rider's shotgun. Attempt to block them in melee combat is ''very'' ill-advised, as the gators frequently use a OneHitKill bite attack to wipe out any offending troops. The kicker is that these guys appear in relatively large numbers for GiantMook standards, meaning that if your tower damage isn't up to par, they'll cut through your defences and allow smaller, weaker enemies to leak through.

** Orange Bulborbs in ''Pikmin 2'' are somewhat similar to their red counterparts, yet their slumber is much more easily broken. Bulborbs are best destroyed by circling to their back while they're asleep and piling purples or reds on as fast as possible to avoid the dreaded shake (which scatters your Pikmin and let's the thing rampage). Oranges, however, don't let you get close enough to actually DO this, forcing you to either waste a valuable Bitter Spray or sacrificing half your Pikmin to take it down with enough speed to save the other half. Did I mention they also tend to have their backs to the wall and be surrounded by tiny orange sentry Bulborbs?

* The ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'' series contains an inordinately large number of such mooks. For starters, nearly every enemy in the game is going to steamroll over any Pikmin not under your direct control, as a general rule. Secondly, any enemy you can't kill before it notices it's being attacked is going to kill everything attacking it when it realizes it's under fire, as a general rule. Thirdly, such DemonicSpiders are going to be positioned in such a way that either makes it impossible to reach their weak spot or impossible to avoid a direct confrontation, as a general rule.
** Literal Demonic Spiders show up in the form of Dweevils, who will steal treasures and run into the midst of the various uber-destructive enemies littering the cave, thus forcing you to either micromanage with a teeny tiny strike force of the appropriate Pikmin or risk your whole party trying to clear some space. The electrical ones are among the most dangerous since electricity is instantly fatal for non-Yellow Pikmin, but the worst one is the Volatile Dweevil. Instead of stealing treasure, it carries a bomb-rock which it will use to suicide-bomb your army.
** Orange Bulborbs in ''Pikmin 2'' are somewhat similar to their red counterparts, yet their slumber is much more easily broken. Bulborbs are best destroyed by circling to their back while they're asleep and piling purples or reds on as fast as possible to avoid the dreaded shake (which scatters your Pikmin and let's the thing rampage). Oranges, however, don't let you get close enough to actually DO this, forcing you to either waste a valuable Bitter Spray or sacrificing half your Pikmin to take it down with enough speed to save the other half. Did I mention they also tend to have their backs to the wall and be surrounded by tiny orange sentry Bulborbs?
** The balloon-riding Careening Dirigibugs carry around giant bomb-rocks, which they drop in extremely inconvenient places. To kill them, you need to wait for them to drop one in a place where you can avoid it while tossing Pikmin up to the bug itself. The catch? These tend to appear in levels with [[BottomlessPits Bottomless Pits]], as well as around enemies who use wind or other methods to scatter your Pikmin all over, making a single unlucky move into a disaster that claims your entire squad and force a reset.
** Spotty Bulbears. 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. [[UniqueEnemy It is fortunately only found once in the third game's Story Mode]], but it can take quite a few explosions to take it down, not like [[OneHitKill other Bulborb types]].
** 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 this and the Spotty Bulbear off, if killed without being shattered, both can regenerate after their death and revive in the second game. So if you didn't take them back into your ship, well.....Have fun.
** The Fiery Bulblax, simply because it's the only enemy in the game that absolutely has to be fought by a specific type of Pikmin. Being constantly on fire, only the fireproof Red Pikmin can fight them, since even a petrifying Purple Spray won't extinguish its flames and will still burn all non-reds. They're mostly notable because they're the only enemy in the game where you can't conveniently use the GameBreaker Purple Pikmin, since even Orange Bulborbs and Dweevils of any kind can be stunned to death before they can do anything. In one particularly evil decision of level mapping, one of the harder treasures in the game requires you to kill one of these with only Blue Pikmin by luring it into a pool of water, extinguishing its flames, then killing it before it eats your squad, or worse, getting out of the water and re-igniting itself.
** While the Yellow ones are not so bad, the regular white Wollywogs are an absolute pain to deal with, especially when they unexpectedly fall from the ceiling. They are very aggressive and will attack your Pikmin with almost no provocation, leaping ridiculous distances in attempts to flatten them.
* Anything capable of inflicting poison or disease in the ''VideoGame/WarlordsBattlecry'' 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 AlwaysChaoticEvil races who have limited access to healing spells. Then you have the titans, one of a kind units that have terror, an even stronger form of fear and overshadow everything on this list in regards to sheer damage and HP. Also, they explode on death, killing everything and everyone nearby once they finally go down. As to race-specific demonic spiders, there's plenty:
** Minotaurs have the Minotaur king, a huge minotaur that deals huge damage ignoring armor, has a high health pool, and can inflict fear on lesser units, making those afflicted weaker, slower and sometimes gets them running away from these beasts.
** Dark Dwarves have a whole set: Bronze Golems will refuse to die no matter what you throw at them, and their [[GoodOldFisticuffs right hook]] is strong enough to kill just about anything that moves. They also have the best siege weapons in the game, with Flame Cannons that will devastate bases in seconds and Hellbores that eat Dragons for breakfast.
** Dwarves: Dwarven Lords are even ''tougher'' than the above Bronze Golems, as on top of their upgraded armor (shared with the aforementioned Golem), they can resist half of ''any'' elemental damage. They're slow, sure, but once they get to your base, the damage bonus they have against buildings will wreck everything you have better than any siege engine could. On a lesser note, Berserkers are about as indestructible while much easier to mass, and will not go down unless you have lightning. And finally, while Crossbowdwarves don't qualify, towers garrisoned with them definitely do, by way of shooting arrows that deal over a hundred points of damage (which usually needs Titans to accomplish).
** Dark Elves: Dark Elf Assassins are frail, but they can be massed, and have a small chance every hit to kill ''anyone'', including your hero. They also have the most horrific poison in the game.
** The Empire has elephants, which should only ever be confronted with larger units, as they will stomp the everloving hell out of smaller creatures, including your starter units, and your hero.
** Ssrathi can breed T-Rexes, who may be somewhat frail for their size, but have a bite that outdamages almost everything else in the game. Four of them can devour entire armies.
** Barbarians have Reavers, which are basically [[Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982 an army of Conans]] with a huge bonus against any large unit on top of huge damage and beefy resistances, making it so that just ''four'' of them can take down a titan for one fourth of its cost. Despite qualifying as small, they can take down the above Elephants with zero trouble.
** Knights: Knight Lords are as tough as a golem, their swords are similarly strong, can get upgrades to level up faster, and have a nasty bonus against evil-aligned enemies, so it's quite possible your army of undead and demons will be slaughtered. Oh, and they also get EXP upgrades that make them earn up to six times the experience from every kill, so a failed attempt at killing one will only result in an insanely powerful knight that can hack a base apart alone. They also have Archons, which are essentially good versions of the Daemons (see below), that can cure poison and also completely neutralize ranged attacks just from being there as well as killing running speed.
** Undead: Take the Knight Lord, flip the alignment, give them an aura that kills stat bonuses and armor, and trade mobility and a little toughness for even more damage, and you get Doom Knights. Expensive as they may be, if your enemy has enough resources every single set of skeletons you see can become a deadly squad of Death Knights in the blink of an eye, adding some ParanoiaFuel to the mix.
** Demons: Daemons can fly, their whip is a hard-hitter, and have a bonus against good creatures as well, so watch your units if you qualify as such, as well as the same bonus-killing aura as Doom Knights. They also have the distinction of having a Demonic Spider building in the Lightning Spire, which blasts everything in range with huge bursts of Magic damage, which is almost entirely impossible to resist.
** Orcs: Orcish giants are skull-bashing, splash damaging cheaper Minotaur King knockoffs, while Goblin Shamans can freeze whole armies in their tracks with their cold damage, and call lightning on them right afterwards.
** Wood Elves: Elder Treants are some of the deadliest trees you'll ever see, and also [[AsteroidsMonster split into regular Treants on death]], which almost qualify on their own through toughness and high-powered strikes.
** Fey: Unicorns are tankier than average for Fey units, they have Mass Healing to make sure just one unicorn can undo a ton of damage on the entire herd (and the game has options to let them cast it automatically on low health, one by one, to make the most efficient use of it), and their horns are ''sharp'', with deceptively high damage and devastating critical hits that come fairly often. They also have a diminished version of the aura Archons have, to make sure outrunning and outranging them isn't an option.
** Plaguelords: Hydras [[SplashDamage eat up armies like nothing else]] while not upgraded, and they have even stronger elemental variants which can chill armies into uselessness, or burn through soldiers and buildings alike. Eyes of Flame are also SplashDamage abusers, the equivalent of bringing a flamethrower to a swordfight.
** [[TheLongList And, to top off this list]], the absolute ''worst'' of them all are campaign-only, thrown against you, and impossible to build for yourself: Gorgon's Floating Skulls. They outrange towers, fire fast, move quickly, hit like trucks, and worst of all, they bypass any and all resistances by way of magic-typed damage. [[GlassCannon They're somewhat frail once you do actually get to them]], but you probably ''won't''.
* ''VideoGame/EvilGenius'' features soldier squads who will arrive on your island if your heat rises too high with any of the world alliances. They travel in large groups of four to ten men, and can easily gun down most of your henchmen and minions in ''seconds'', and there's so many of them that even a single skirmish with a single squad of soldiers is often enough to seriously deplete your supply of {{Mooks}}—and if you try to use social techniques on them, there's usually so many of them that most of them will withstand exposure to your social minions and continue on their mission to wipe your base out.
** On top of that, there's [[ArrogantKungFuGuy 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.
** All the super-agents are like this. John Steele (a Film/JamesBond {{Expy}}), for example, randomly resets the security settings on all your doors and can temporarily sabotage your power generators, disabling most of your base (including leaving all the doors open and traps deactivated). Unlike Chan, you can't ''ever'' get rid of Steele until the very end of the game.
** Ironically, the easy way to avoid the soldiers starting shooting everyone and everything is to set all the doors to security level 1 (i.e. open to everyone). Soldiers really don't like closed doors and will shoot them. Then, when the doors [[MadeOfExplodium blow up]], the soldiers will go into a shooting frenzy. As long as you don't have any closed doors, trap triggers, turrets, or cameras, the soldiers will ''not'' start shooting. In fact, they won't even try to kill your evil genius if they see him, as they're not Assassins. Eventually, they'll just go. The only thing you have to fear is other types of agents screwing up your base in the process.
* The first ''VideoGame/BattalionWars'' has Pillboxes. They're supposed to be [[EliteMooks 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 NoCasualtiesRun, 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 [[GlassCannon Glass Canons]] now. And just to make this even worse, Fighters can [[MemeticMutation 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 ThatOneLevel 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 ''[[OneHitKill one-shotted]]'' by the Battlestation. [[spoiler:At least until Pierce provides you with 3 Fighters in his BigDamnHeroes 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 EliteMook status discredited as an excuse by the Battlestations, aren't going to be off the hook. Even getting past the borderline GuideDangIt 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:[[BigDamnHeroes Pierce]]'s Fighters]], but also still takes notable damage from heavy [[spoiler:laser]] fire.

** Also Huscarls, the Goths' unique unit. They have pretty solid attack, are almost immune to archer fire and they also can be built from barracks, meaning that you'll end up with a [[ZergRush near neverending swarm]] if you fight them. But they have no defense to melee units, so a swarm of Swordsmen or even Cavalry can kill them without problem.
** Woad Raiders are the Celtic Unique Unit, [[LightningBruiser they are as tough (and cheap) as champions, but can move about as fast as calvary.]]

* For ''VideoGame/HaloWars'' there's Arbiter, the Brute Chieftain, Wolverines and Gauss Hogs. Both [[JustForPun 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 [[SiegeEngines 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.
* Creator/ParadoxInteractive games have not necessarily specific kinds of enemies, but certain nations can take on this trait. ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis III'' has France (though not as much anymore) and ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings'' has the Mongols.
** The most recent expansion of ''Europa Universalis III'', ''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.
* ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}} 2'''s Vaygr Laser Corvettes. A cheap, yet highly efficient alternative to the faster but frailer Bomber squadrons, a single squadron of Laser Covvettes can tear through frigates and capital ships in fewer hits than two Bomber squadrons can do. The difficulty lies in the fact that frigates and capital ships are a cornerstone of Hiigaran war doctrine, so when that asset's lost, the Hiigarans would've lost a lot of ground. Given that the two best Hiigaran counters to this corvette class (Pulsar Gunship squadrons and Torpedo Frigates) are also easily overwhelmed by their own weaknesses in the TacticalRockPaperScissors chain, Laser Corvette attack runs become very difficult to deter. Due to DynamicDifficulty, the Vaygr will have generous amounts of Laser Corvettes in comparsion to the Hiigaran fleet.
** The singleplayer-only Progenitor Keeper, a LightningBruiser at its finest, is an AttackDrone [[DroneDeployer carrier]] whose ''on-board'' firepower and armor, surpassing anything short of a MightyGlacier Battlecruiser, is kept in a package that's smaller and nimbler than a common Destroyer. To make things difficult for the Hiigaran Fleet during the encounter, Battlecruiser technology is still unavailable and the Keeper is scripted to fully recover upon a quick TacticalWithdrawal.
* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' 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 [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy tend to lack]]. Chaos Obliterators, {{Mighty Glacier}}s 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 BossInMookClothing 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 GameBreaker 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 GlassCannon that can obliterate vehicles in a few shots, even the Dreadnought in the campaign (otherwise a GameBreaker), and Tyranid Warrior with venom cannon - an annoyingly precise weapon that deals damage on par with the best heavy guns in the game, except that it's fast, doesn't have a minimum range and ''doesn't need to be deployed''.
*** Eldar Seer Council and Warlocks are even worse, since they can do that AND move incredibly fast and hold their own in melee.
** The Tau also love to spam Stealth Teams which sit there and pick away at every unit you have unless you have a special detector to sniff them out. And thanks to Dark Crusade changing how Infiltration works you could conceivably have a whole army unable to see and therefore unable to attack the stealth teams whittling down your army.
* ''VideoGame/MiniRobotWars'' has the Titan. Like the [[MightyGlacier Giant]], it's huge, slow, has a lot of health, and kills your minirobots in one hit. Unlike the Giant, it has about twice as much health and it can kill ''three'' minirobots in one blow!
** The Mole is this if you don't have anti-stealth units. These are stealthed, and their claw attacks hit an entire column of minirobots, hurts a lot, and hits rapidly. Thankfully, a Radar minirobot or some Surveyor minirobots will lessen the trouble.

* ''VideoGame/{{Sacrifice}}'':
** 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 Charnel's 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 latter has a long range dark lazer beam that can obliterate souls.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Battlezone|1998}}'' there are the Soviet Light Tanks. They come equipped with the TAG Cannon, a weapon that fires a small tracking projectile. If said projectile hits, they'll unleash a huge, almost-impossible-to-dodge wave of missiles. Two good hits can take down basic [=NSDF=] tanks and turrets.
** 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.
* The spider virii in {{VideoGame/Darwinia}} can leap over long distances and tear through Darwinians like a laser cannon through butter. Annoyingly, they target Darwinians over player-controlled units, so it's easy to accidentally lead them back to your incubator and watch in horror as the army you've been building up for the last ten minutes is torn apart.

** The Soviet Terror Drone is this in the early stages of the game. They can't harm buildings, and base defenses tend to kill them quickly. However, they have a one-hit-kill melee attack against infantry. What they do to vehicles is even worse - they jump ''inside'' the vehicle, and destroy it from the inside out. Once the vehicle dies, the Terror Drone is free to continue its rampage. The only way to save a vehicle that has become "infested" is to get it to a Service Depot, which the player will often have neglected to build yet. Yuri has it worse - he doesn't ''get'' a Service Depot, so all he can do is destroy his own vehicle, which kills the Terror Drone as well. A single Terror Drone can wipe out an entire unit of tanks, or put a serious crimp in your economy by going after your ore miners. The Terror Drone also gets bonus points for ''looking'' like a spider.

* ''VideoGame/RiseOfNations'' has the Stealth Bombers. Incapable of being targeted by SAM systems, capable of flying at fighter speeds, and inflicting obscenely high damage with laser-guided accuracy, these are the bane of any player, whether online or playing against the computer. The fact that they can't be targeted by SAMs requires you to spam fighters in order to protect your important sites from them, thus wasting considerable amounts of population. Even worse, they're not really that expensive, meaning that after your enemy has a good infrastructure, he can ZergRush you with them, requiring constant raids against hostile airbases to prevent the damn things from destroying your cities and wonders. There's a reason why they've motivated many players to end the game by bringing the [[NukeEm Armageddon]] counter to zero (in RoN, each time nuclear weapons are used, the counter decreases by one, if it reaches zero, everybody loses).

** The British in ''Tales of Valor'' can swap out their Cromwell tanks out for the Kangaroo carrier. That is, lose a fairly rubbish tank and gain what is bar-none the best AwesomePersonnelCarrier in the game. It's basically a Sherman tank with the turret chopped off and the compartment hollowed out and filled with seats, so it's very well armoured. It can hold 15 men - two Infantry Sections, one Sapper squad and a Lieutenant, and they can all fire out of the top. And what's worse, flamethrowers and snipers do jack against then because they're hard-coded as vehicles. 'Roo Rushes are the source of a great deal of a German player's crushed hopes and dreams.

* ''VideoGame/IronBrigade'':
** The Volt Dropper, boss for the second map and from then on a [[DegradedBoss recurring enemy in regular waves]]. Circling the battlefield out of range of your mecha, toting a massive amount of HP, only being able to be targeted by a select few turrets and bombing the hell out of your base, this flying nightmare will - unless you spam AA turrets - probably survive into the next wave and still be flapping about whilst you're trying to deal with new enemies, all the time knocking down the health of your installation. When your commander tells you to look up, [[OhCrap worry]].
** Jacobs. They make ''all'' [[{{Mooks}} Tubes]] near them NighInvulnerable [[NoSelfBuffs except other Jacobs]]. They have low health, but the trouble is that they're found in groups of other Tubes, and since they can't attack, they're the ''lowest'' priority for your towers. One needs to [[ShootTheMedicFirst prioritize and manually get rid of them]] ''fast'' or the other mooks will waltz past your towers/overrun them, and this is not easy because they stick within or behind their invincible group as a form of protection.
* ''VideoGame/YuGiOhTheFalseboundKingdom'' has Labyrinth Tanks. If they're the leader of a team, they move incredibly fast, and once engaged in combat they hit very hard and are pretty tough to take down. It usually takes a few rounds of combat in order to take down a team with a Labyrinth Tank.

* Clan [=OmniMechs=] in any of the ''VideoGame/MechCommander'' games. Any individual Omni isn't particularly special--unlike something like ''Franchise/MobileSuitGundam'', they're not some kind of SuperPrototype and are in fact generic, mass produced designs. The problem is that a single Clan heavy Omni can boast the same firepower as some Inner Sphere assaults, while moving at the speed of most Inner Sphere mediums, and ''still'' carrying the armor of other heavy 'Mechs. This makes a single heavy Clan 'Mech hideously lethal to lesser Inner Sphere 'Mechs and a viable threat to even the largest of IS assaults... and none of the three games is shy about throwing hordes of these LightningBruiser designs at you. Expect to take severe damage if more than one ''Vulture'' or ''Thor'' shows up, and prepare for losses if you're attacked by multiple ''Mad Cat''s. Fortunately, all three games will also let you salvage these monsters for your own use if you're good enough to take them down without also [[GoingCritical blowing their fusion reactors to bits]].
* Any elite unit in the '' VideoGame/TotalWar'' series is enough to give anyone a hard time, but there are a few examples.
** The Roman legions in Rome Total War are literally impossible to defeat head on and fighting even against the computer will be very difficult to win without heavy losses. In some instances they are a boss in Mook's Clothing
*** Some of the unique units in Medieval II: Total War will take forever to destroy if positioned correctly.
*** Any infantry unit in Britian in Napoleon Total War will take forever to rout unless outflanked.

** You encounter Cyclops early on in Patapon 3, and they're easy enough to deal with - retreat when they tap the ground, advance or guard when they grab at the ground. But the Purple Cyclops has a habit of smacking you around multiple times per command, and can even outlast a Defense Command, dealing heavy damage to your Shield and/or Spear unit(s). They also have more health and higher offense than normal Cyclops.

** Golems are a massive pain to deal with, namely because of their deadly arm attack. Your Shield and Spear units can hopefully survive the attack, but the problem is the range. The arm attack can, and will, hit your Arrow units - the ones with the least amount of HP, usually knocking them down to either yellow or red health, if not killing them outright. This is merely annoying to deal with if, say, you only encounter one golem per level. But this is not the case. ''You will encounter several golems in several levels.'' Not only that, but they can be truly massive in size, will retreat into the ground between attacks for total invulnerability, and staggering them makes them reset their attack pattern so they can hit you AGAIN.