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* ''VideoGame/NintendoWars'':
** ''Super Famicom Wars'' features Trains. They're fast indirect attackers with the same range as a Battleship, plus a decent direct attack and the ability to transport other units. But the main problem is their ridiculous movement range of 15 - nearly twice as much as a Fighter jet, the second fastest unit. It takes a lot of work to corner these things, especially when the tracks they move on will slow down other land units. They've also got insane durability on top of that - if it's sitting on a depot, only a metric ton of concentrated fire can destroy it, and you'd better hope the opponent doesn't just build another one right afterward. The only limiting factors are that each player can only have one Train out at a time, and that the CPU isn't very well-programmed for using them, with a habit of not moving the unit at all if there's any enemies on the tracks.
** ''Advance Wars: Dual Strike'' has Piperunners, which are like the Train's smaller cousin. While significantly downgraded in terms of movement, range, and defense, they have the advantage that the pipes they move on act as solid walls to every other unit in the game, giving them many spots where they can attack with impunity. They can also attack every unit except a dived Sub or cloaked Stealth. They're often considered too [[AwesomeButImpractical impractical]] to use in multiplayer [[note]]maps have to seriously compromise their design just to accommodate them, which is rarely done[[/note]], but enemies in the campaign are given major advantages that turn their Piperunners into absolute menaces.
** In ''Advance Wars: Days of Ruin'', Anti-Tanks can become this if there are no air or sea units. They're like an Artillery with the ability to ''counterattack'', and exist to counter the other units that dominate land battles; but the only land-based counters for Anti-Tanks themselves are Rockets and infantry types, both of which have serious problems making it into range without getting destroyed. Although they take a while to reach the frontlines, once one is set up and defended, it all but requires a coordinated pincer attack to destroy (which is quite demanding for their relatively cheap price), or a more expensive investment than the cost of the Anti-Tank. Even with air and sea units the second point still applies, as they're actually capable of attacking the cheaper Battle Copters.
** ''Super Famicom Wars'' features Trains. They're fast indirect attackers with the same range as a Battleship, plus a decent direct attack and the ability to transport other units. But the main problem is their ridiculous movement range of 15 - nearly twice as much as a Fighter jet, the second fastest unit. It takes a lot of work to corner these things, especially when the tracks they move on will slow down other land units. They've also got insane durability on top of that - if it's sitting on a depot, only a metric ton of concentrated fire can destroy it, and you'd better hope the opponent doesn't just build another one right afterward. The only limiting factors are that each player can only have one Train out at a time, and that the CPU isn't very well-programmed for using them, with a habit of not moving the unit at all if there's any enemies on the tracks.
** ''Advance Wars: Dual Strike'' has Piperunners, which are like the Train's smaller cousin. While significantly downgraded in terms of movement, range, and defense, they have the advantage that the pipes they move on act as solid walls to every other unit in the game, giving them many spots where they can attack with impunity. They can also attack every unit except a dived Sub or cloaked Stealth. They're often considered too [[AwesomeButImpractical impractical]] to use in multiplayer [[note]]maps have to seriously compromise their design just to accommodate them, which is rarely done[[/note]], but enemies in the campaign are given major advantages that turn their Piperunners into absolute menaces.
** In ''Advance Wars: Days of Ruin'', Anti-Tanks can become this if there are no air or sea units. They're like an Artillery with the ability to ''counterattack'', and exist to counter the other units that dominate land battles; but the only land-based counters for Anti-Tanks themselves are Rockets and infantry types, both of which have serious problems making it into range without getting destroyed. Although they take a while to reach the frontlines, once one is set up and defended, it all but requires a coordinated pincer attack to destroy (which is quite demanding for their relatively cheap price), or a more expensive investment than the cost of the Anti-Tank. Even with air and sea units the second point still applies, as they're actually capable of attacking the cheaper Battle Copters.
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* ''VideoGame/NintendoWars'':
** ''Super Famicom Wars'' features Trains. They're powerful indirect units with the same huge attack range as a Battleship, plus a decent direct attack and the ability to transport other units. But the main problem is their ridiculous movement range of 15 - nearly twice as much as a Fighter jet, the second fastest unit. It takes a lot of work to corner these things, especially when the tracks they move on will slow down other land units. They've also got insane durability on top of that - if it's sitting on a depot, only a metric ton of concentrated fire can destroy it, and you'd better hope the opponent doesn't just build another one right afterward. The only limiting factors are that each player can only have one Train out at a time, and that the CPU isn't very well-programmed for using them, with a habit of not moving the unit at all if there's any enemies on the tracks.
** ''Advance Wars: Dual Strike'' has Piperunners, which are like the Train's smaller cousin. While significantly downgraded in terms of movement, range, and defense, they have the advantage that the pipes they move on act as solid walls to every other unit in the game, giving them many spots where they can attack with impunity. They can also attack every unit except a dived Sub or cloaked Stealth. They're often considered too [[AwesomeButImpractical impractical]] to use in multiplayer [[note]]maps have to seriously compromise their design just to accommodate them, which is rarely done[[/note]], but enemies in the campaign are given major advantages that turn their Piperunners into absolute menaces.
** In ''Advance Wars: Days of Ruin'', Anti-Tanks can become this if there are no air or sea units. They're like an Artillery with the ability to ''counterattack'', and exist to counter the other units that dominate land battles; but the only land-based counters for Anti-Tanks themselves are Rockets and infantry types, both of which have serious problems making it into range without getting destroyed. Although Anti-Tanks move slowly and take a while to reach the frontlines, once one is set up and defended, it all but requires a coordinated pincer attack to destroy (which is quite demanding for their relatively cheap price), or a more expensive investment than the cost of the Anti-Tank. Even with air and sea units the second point still applies, as they're actually capable of attacking the cheaper Battle Copters.
** ''Super Famicom Wars'' features Trains. They're powerful indirect units with the same huge attack range as a Battleship, plus a decent direct attack and the ability to transport other units. But the main problem is their ridiculous movement range of 15 - nearly twice as much as a Fighter jet, the second fastest unit. It takes a lot of work to corner these things, especially when the tracks they move on will slow down other land units. They've also got insane durability on top of that - if it's sitting on a depot, only a metric ton of concentrated fire can destroy it, and you'd better hope the opponent doesn't just build another one right afterward. The only limiting factors are that each player can only have one Train out at a time, and that the CPU isn't very well-programmed for using them, with a habit of not moving the unit at all if there's any enemies on the tracks.
** ''Advance Wars: Dual Strike'' has Piperunners, which are like the Train's smaller cousin. While significantly downgraded in terms of movement, range, and defense, they have the advantage that the pipes they move on act as solid walls to every other unit in the game, giving them many spots where they can attack with impunity. They can also attack every unit except a dived Sub or cloaked Stealth. They're often considered too [[AwesomeButImpractical impractical]] to use in multiplayer [[note]]maps have to seriously compromise their design just to accommodate them, which is rarely done[[/note]], but enemies in the campaign are given major advantages that turn their Piperunners into absolute menaces.
** In ''Advance Wars: Days of Ruin'', Anti-Tanks can become this if there are no air or sea units. They're like an Artillery with the ability to ''counterattack'', and exist to counter the other units that dominate land battles; but the only land-based counters for Anti-Tanks themselves are Rockets and infantry types, both of which have serious problems making it into range without getting destroyed. Although Anti-Tanks move slowly and take a while to reach the frontlines, once one is set up and defended, it all but requires a coordinated pincer attack to destroy (which is quite demanding for their relatively cheap price), or a more expensive investment than the cost of the Anti-Tank. Even with air and sea units the second point still applies, as they're actually capable of attacking the cheaper Battle Copters.
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* Anti-Tanks in ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Advance Wars]]: Days of Ruin'' qualifies to a slight extent. If there are only land units, what makes it the epitome of CripplingOverspecialization (killing tanks efficiently, short range, weak against an infantry swarm) makes just one of them a pain to deal with properly. This can apply somewhat to indirects, but the Anti-Tank is the case worth mentioning, considering that it slows you down way worse. At least you get Anti-Tanks first though.
** Don't forget that they can just as easily blast Battle Copters out of the sky, surprising at first, considering that the only ground unit that could handle them before were Anti-Airs and Missiles.
** Ironic that the game's Demonic Spider is vulnerable to the games' GoddamnedBats...
** ''Advance Wars: Dual Strike'' also features Piperunners, which are typically [[DifficultButAwesome too tricky]] for the player to use, but the enemy makes ''deadly'' use of them in maps intended to showcase them. Firstly, they have ''huge'' range, second only to the battleship, and a ton of fuel and ammo. Secondly, they are one of the few units in the game that can hit ''anything'' except submerged submarines and cloaked stealths and do a lot of damage. Finally, since they move on the otherwise impassable pipes, they can be quite difficult to approach and hit.
** ''Super Famicom Wars'' features Trains. They're basically the precursor to Piperunners, with a very long-range indirect attack, plus a decent direct attack and the ability to transport other units. But the main problem is their ridiculous movement range of 15 - nearly twice as much as a Fighter jet, the second fastest unit. It takes a lot of work to corner these things, especially when the tracks they move on will slow down other land units. They've also got insane durability on top of that - if it's sitting on a depot, only a metric ton of concentrated fire can destroy it, and you'd better hope the opponent doesn't just build another one right afterward. The only limiting factors are that each player can only have one Train out at a time, and that the CPU isn't very well-programmed for using them, with a habit of not moving the unit at all if there's any enemies on the tracks.
** Don't forget that they can just as easily blast Battle Copters out of the sky, surprising at first, considering that the only ground unit that could handle them before were Anti-Airs and Missiles.
** Ironic that the game's Demonic Spider is vulnerable to the games' GoddamnedBats...
** ''Advance Wars: Dual Strike'' also features Piperunners, which are typically [[DifficultButAwesome too tricky]] for the player to use, but the enemy makes ''deadly'' use of them in maps intended to showcase them. Firstly, they have ''huge'' range, second only to the battleship, and a ton of fuel and ammo. Secondly, they are one of the few units in the game that can hit ''anything'' except submerged submarines and cloaked stealths and do a lot of damage. Finally, since they move on the otherwise impassable pipes, they can be quite difficult to approach and hit.
** ''Super Famicom Wars'' features Trains. They're basically the precursor to Piperunners, with a very long-range indirect attack, plus a decent direct attack and the ability to transport other units. But the main problem is their ridiculous movement range of 15 - nearly twice as much as a Fighter jet, the second fastest unit. It takes a lot of work to corner these things, especially when the tracks they move on will slow down other land units. They've also got insane durability on top of that - if it's sitting on a depot, only a metric ton of concentrated fire can destroy it, and you'd better hope the opponent doesn't just build another one right afterward. The only limiting factors are that each player can only have one Train out at a time, and that the CPU isn't very well-programmed for using them, with a habit of not moving the unit at all if there's any enemies on the tracks.
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* Anti-Tanks in ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Advance Wars]]: Days of Ruin'' qualifies to a slight extent. If there are only land units, what makes it the epitome of CripplingOverspecialization (killing tanks efficiently, short range, weak against an infantry swarm) makes just one of them a pain to deal with properly. This can apply somewhat to indirects, but the Anti-Tank is the case worth mentioning, considering that it slows you down way worse. At least you get Anti-Tanks first though.
** Don't forget that they can just as easily blast Battle Copters out of the sky, surprising at first, considering that the only ground unit that could handle them before were Anti-Airs and Missiles.
** Ironic that the game's Demonic Spider is vulnerable to the games' GoddamnedBats...
** ''Advance Wars: Dual Strike'' also features Piperunners, which are typically [[DifficultButAwesome too tricky]] for the player to use, but the enemy makes ''deadly'' use of them in maps intended to showcase them. Firstly, they have ''huge'' range, second only to the battleship, and a ton of fuel and ammo. Secondly, they are one of the few units in the game that can hit ''anything'' except submerged submarines and cloaked stealths and do a lot of damage. Finally, since they move on the otherwise impassable pipes, they can be quite difficult to approach and hit.
''VideoGame/NintendoWars'':
** ''Super Famicom Wars'' features Trains. They'rebasically the precursor to Piperunners, with a very long-range fast indirect attack, attackers with the same range as a Battleship, plus a decent direct attack and the ability to transport other units. But the main problem is their ridiculous movement range of 15 - nearly twice as much as a Fighter jet, the second fastest unit. It takes a lot of work to corner these things, especially when the tracks they move on will slow down other land units. They've also got insane durability on top of that - if it's sitting on a depot, only a metric ton of concentrated fire can destroy it, and you'd better hope the opponent doesn't just build another one right afterward. The only limiting factors are that each player can only have one Train out at a time, and that the CPU isn't very well-programmed for using them, with a habit of not moving the unit at all if there's any enemies on the tracks.tracks.
** ''Advance Wars: Dual Strike'' has Piperunners, which are like the Train's smaller cousin. While significantly downgraded in terms of movement, range, and defense, they have the advantage that the pipes they move on act as solid walls to every other unit in the game, giving them many spots where they can attack with impunity. They can also attack every unit except a dived Sub or cloaked Stealth. They're often considered too [[AwesomeButImpractical impractical]] to use in multiplayer [[note]]maps have to seriously compromise their design just to accommodate them, which is rarely done[[/note]], but enemies in the campaign are given major advantages that turn their Piperunners into absolute menaces.
** In ''Advance Wars: Days of Ruin'', Anti-Tanks can become this if there are no air or sea units. They're like an Artillery with the ability to ''counterattack'', and exist to counter the other units that dominate land battles; but the only land-based counters for Anti-Tanks themselves are Rockets and infantry types, both of which have serious problems making it into range without getting destroyed. Although they take a while to reach the frontlines, once one is set up and defended, it all but requires a coordinated pincer attack to destroy (which is quite demanding for their relatively cheap price), or a more expensive investment than the cost of the Anti-Tank. Even with air and sea units the second point still applies, as they're actually capable of attacking the cheaper Battle Copters.
** Don't forget that they can just as easily blast Battle Copters out of the sky, surprising at first, considering that the only ground unit that could handle them before were Anti-Airs and Missiles.
** Ironic that the game's Demonic Spider is vulnerable to the games' GoddamnedBats...
** ''Advance Wars: Dual Strike'' also features Piperunners, which are typically [[DifficultButAwesome too tricky]] for the player to use, but the enemy makes ''deadly'' use of them in maps intended to showcase them. Firstly, they have ''huge'' range, second only to the battleship, and a ton of fuel and ammo. Secondly, they are one of the few units in the game that can hit ''anything'' except submerged submarines and cloaked stealths and do a lot of damage. Finally, since they move on the otherwise impassable pipes, they can be quite difficult to approach and hit.
** ''Super Famicom Wars'' features Trains. They're
** ''Advance Wars: Dual Strike'' has Piperunners, which are like the Train's smaller cousin. While significantly downgraded in terms of movement, range, and defense, they have the advantage that the pipes they move on act as solid walls to every other unit in the game, giving them many spots where they can attack with impunity. They can also attack every unit except a dived Sub or cloaked Stealth. They're often considered too [[AwesomeButImpractical impractical]] to use in multiplayer [[note]]maps have to seriously compromise their design just to accommodate them, which is rarely done[[/note]], but enemies in the campaign are given major advantages that turn their Piperunners into absolute menaces.
** In ''Advance Wars: Days of Ruin'', Anti-Tanks can become this if there are no air or sea units. They're like an Artillery with the ability to ''counterattack'', and exist to counter the other units that dominate land battles; but the only land-based counters for Anti-Tanks themselves are Rockets and infantry types, both of which have serious problems making it into range without getting destroyed. Although they take a while to reach the frontlines, once one is set up and defended, it all but requires a coordinated pincer attack to destroy (which is quite demanding for their relatively cheap price), or a more expensive investment than the cost of the Anti-Tank. Even with air and sea units the second point still applies, as they're actually capable of attacking the cheaper Battle Copters.
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** Arthrons are supposed to be basic bullet sponges, but between the fact that they are the first enemies to appear with armor, carry multiple weapons and can gain the "counter-attack" ability make dealing with them a pain at best and a nightmare at worst. Towards the mid-game, Arthrons can appear in pods of three, and such a pod can very well be more scary than any of the designated heavies.
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** Any long-range attack -- which is to say, any attack with at least 3 range -- is going to make you gnash your teeth in frustration since the only ways to defend against them is to keep any unit that is likely to die to them as far away from the action as possible, or to simply charge in with some tanky unit. Special mention goes to long-range magic in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'' (which never runs out), the Berserk staff in any appearance (inflict a status which causes the afflicted unit to attack the nearest unit, friend or foe), and stoneborn from ''Fates'' (high damage, high defense -- most long-rangers are {{Squishy Wizard}}s).
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** Any long-range attack -- which is to say, any attack with at least 3 range -- is going to make you gnash your teeth in frustration since the only ways to defend against them is to keep any unit that is likely to die to them as far away from the action as possible, or to simply charge in with some tanky unit. Special mention goes to long-range magic in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'' (which never runs out), the Berserk staff in any appearance (inflict a status which causes the afflicted unit to attack the nearest unit, friend or foe), and stoneborn Stoneborns from ''Fates'' (high damage, high defense -- most long-rangers are {{Squishy Wizard}}s).
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Added Phoenix Point entry.
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* Enemies with Virus weapons in ''VideoGame/PhoenixPoint''. Virus damage affects Willpower the way Poison damage affects HP: it drains its value in Willpower and goes down by one per round. When a character's Willpower reaches zero, they panic and become uncontrollable. Since medkits can't remove Virus, an affected character is useless until it wears off.
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** Advance Wars: Dual Strike also features Piperunners, which are typically [[DifficultButAwesome too tricky]] for the player to use, but the enemy makes ''deadly'' use of them in maps intended to showcase them. Firstly, they have ''huge'' range, second only to the battleship, and a ton of fuel and ammo. Secondly, they are one of the few units in the game that can hit ''anything'' except submerged submarines and cloaked stealths and do a lot of damage. Finally, since they move on the otherwise impassable pipes, they can be quite difficult to approach and hit.
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** Advance ''Advance Wars: Dual Strike Strike'' also features Piperunners, which are typically [[DifficultButAwesome too tricky]] for the player to use, but the enemy makes ''deadly'' use of them in maps intended to showcase them. Firstly, they have ''huge'' range, second only to the battleship, and a ton of fuel and ammo. Secondly, they are one of the few units in the game that can hit ''anything'' except submerged submarines and cloaked stealths and do a lot of damage. Finally, since they move on the otherwise impassable pipes, they can be quite difficult to approach and hit.hit.
** ''Super Famicom Wars'' features Trains. They're basically the precursor to Piperunners, with a very long-range indirect attack, plus a decent direct attack and the ability to transport other units. But the main problem is their ridiculous movement range of 15 - nearly twice as much as a Fighter jet, the second fastest unit. It takes a lot of work to corner these things, especially when the tracks they move on will slow down other land units. They've also got insane durability on top of that - if it's sitting on a depot, only a metric ton of concentrated fire can destroy it, and you'd better hope the opponent doesn't just build another one right afterward. The only limiting factors are that each player can only have one Train out at a time, and that the CPU isn't very well-programmed for using them, with a habit of not moving the unit at all if there's any enemies on the tracks.
** ''Super Famicom Wars'' features Trains. They're basically the precursor to Piperunners, with a very long-range indirect attack, plus a decent direct attack and the ability to transport other units. But the main problem is their ridiculous movement range of 15 - nearly twice as much as a Fighter jet, the second fastest unit. It takes a lot of work to corner these things, especially when the tracks they move on will slow down other land units. They've also got insane durability on top of that - if it's sitting on a depot, only a metric ton of concentrated fire can destroy it, and you'd better hope the opponent doesn't just build another one right afterward. The only limiting factors are that each player can only have one Train out at a time, and that the CPU isn't very well-programmed for using them, with a habit of not moving the unit at all if there's any enemies on the tracks.
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** Brigands are pushovers in the early-mid game, but their Marksmen have the potential to one-shot your brothers and capable of outshooting your own ranged specialists too. Even in end-game play, a Marksman could take out a high level brother with a [[YourHeadAsplode lucky headshot]]. Marksmen also tend to be backed up by Raiders, which are a significant step up in challenge to lowly Thugs.
** [[WhenTreesAttack Schrats]] are also absolutely brutal to fight, and might qualify for BossInMookClothing. Slow on the move, a Schrat attacks with a telegraphed burrowing roots attack that is liable to one-shot wallop a brother even if he is wearing high-level armour (or at the very least horrifically injure him to take him out the fight for a while). They also have an absurdly high armour stat that makes any weapon short of a greataxe near-useless, ''and'' when you manage to kill them, [[MookMaker they spawn tree sapling mooks!]] If you see one or two schrats wandering around and you haven't got two or three skilled axemen, just steer clear.
** [[WickedWitch Hexen.]] While not especially tough or hard-hitting or fast (in fact they are quite frail for "human" enemies), they have two particularly annoying and dangerous tools: Charm and Curse. Charm makes one of your men switch sides for two turns (one if he has Resilient), tying up yout battle line and possibly killing one of your other men in the meantime. As for Curse, it's a debuff that ties the health pool of a brother with the Hexe that casts it - she takes damage, he takes the same amount, and if the brother hasn't got a particularly high HP pool then he can die with the attack that kills his Hexe. And unlike Charm, Curse cannot be mitigated or resisted. Not only that, but Hexen often have familiars with them, from lowly Direwolves and Raiders all the way up to Unholds and Schrats!
** [[WhenTreesAttack Schrats]] are also absolutely brutal to fight, and might qualify for BossInMookClothing. Slow on the move, a Schrat attacks with a telegraphed burrowing roots attack that is liable to one-shot wallop a brother even if he is wearing high-level armour (or at the very least horrifically injure him to take him out the fight for a while). They also have an absurdly high armour stat that makes any weapon short of a greataxe near-useless, ''and'' when you manage to kill them, [[MookMaker they spawn tree sapling mooks!]] If you see one or two schrats wandering around and you haven't got two or three skilled axemen, just steer clear.
** [[WickedWitch Hexen.]] While not especially tough or hard-hitting or fast (in fact they are quite frail for "human" enemies), they have two particularly annoying and dangerous tools: Charm and Curse. Charm makes one of your men switch sides for two turns (one if he has Resilient), tying up yout battle line and possibly killing one of your other men in the meantime. As for Curse, it's a debuff that ties the health pool of a brother with the Hexe that casts it - she takes damage, he takes the same amount, and if the brother hasn't got a particularly high HP pool then he can die with the attack that kills his Hexe. And unlike Charm, Curse cannot be mitigated or resisted. Not only that, but Hexen often have familiars with them, from lowly Direwolves and Raiders all the way up to Unholds and Schrats!
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** Finally, Missile Carriers. Fans might remember their ButtMonkey status in earlier games based on the franchise, and be in for a rude awakening. Missile carriers come in two varieties, short-range SRM carriers and and long-range LRM carriers. Both varieties are 60 tons, and dish out 60 missiles per volley (using three [=LRM20s=] or ten [=SRM6s=]), whilst having enough ammo reserved for multiple volleys. LRM carriers have a potential Alpha Strike of 240 damage and SRM carriers have one of ''480'' damage. Anything that one of these monsters decides to aim at will drown in a MacrossMissileMassacre, almost certainly losing most of its armour and getting knocked on its ass in the process. The worst part? LRM Carriers don't even need to be able to see you to do it, as they are capable of indirect fire.
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** Finally, Missile Carriers. Fans might remember their ButtMonkey status in earlier games based on the franchise, and be in for a rude awakening. Missile carriers come in two varieties, short-range SRM carriers and and long-range LRM carriers. Both varieties are 60 tons, and dish out 60 missiles per volley (using three [=LRM20s=] or ten [=SRM6s=]), whilst having enough ammo reserved for multiple volleys. LRM carriers have a potential Alpha Strike of 240 damage and SRM carriers have one of ''480'' damage.damage (for reference, the above-mentioned "Demolisher" and "Schreck" max out at 200 and 150, respectively.). Anything that one of these monsters decides to aim at will drown in a MacrossMissileMassacre, almost certainly losing most of its armour and getting knocked on its ass in the process. The worst part? LRM Carriers don't even need to be able to see you to do it, as they are capable of indirect fire.
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** Schreks are 80-ton Assault Tank/Mech Destroyers mounting three [=PPCs=], which hit hard, have extremely long range, and cause minor accuracy debuffs. Thankfully, they overheat fairly quickly if they attempt to fire all guns every turn, and have fairly light armor for their weight class, but good luck getting close enough to exploit that. Schrecks can chew up and spit out anything lighter than themselves, mech or vehicle, and laugh.
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** Schreks are 80-ton Assault Tank/Mech Destroyers mounting three [=PPCs=], which hit hard, have extremely long range, and cause minor accuracy debuffs. Thankfully, they overheat fairly quickly if they attempt debuffs, along with enough heat sinks to fire all guns every turn, and turn. They have fairly light armor for their weight class, but good luck getting close enough to exploit that. Schrecks can chew up and spit out anything lighter than themselves, mech or vehicle, and laugh.
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*** Any [[Anime/FafnerInTheAzureDeadAggressor Festum]] successfully hitting an allied unit drops the pilot's Will and armor value. While these StandardStatusEffects aren't such a big problem, the "demonic" part lies with all Festum units having an ability that grants them greater accuracy and evasion rates against ''non-Fafner units'' (except Heroman).
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*** Any [[Anime/FafnerInTheAzureDeadAggressor Festum]] successfully hitting an allied unit drops the pilot's Will and armor value. While these StandardStatusEffects StatusEffects aren't such a big problem, the "demonic" part lies with all Festum units having an ability that grants them greater accuracy and evasion rates against ''non-Fafner units'' (except Heroman).
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** Schreks are 80-ton Assault Tank/'Mech Destroyers mounting three [=PPCs=], which hit hard, have extremely long range, and cause minor accuracy penalties. Thankfully, they overheat fairly quickly if they attempt to fire all guns every turn, and have fairly light armor for their weight class, but good luck getting close enough to exploit that. Schrecks can chew up and spit out anything lighter than themselves, 'mech or vehicle, and laugh.
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** Schreks are 80-ton Assault Tank/'Mech Tank/Mech Destroyers mounting three [=PPCs=], which hit hard, have extremely long range, and cause minor accuracy penalties.debuffs. Thankfully, they overheat fairly quickly if they attempt to fire all guns every turn, and have fairly light armor for their weight class, but good luck getting close enough to exploit that. Schrecks can chew up and spit out anything lighter than themselves, 'mech mech or vehicle, and laugh.
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** First, the Manticore: A 60-ton Heavy-class Tank armed with a PPC, a Medium Laser, an [=SRM6=], and an [=LRM10=], and carrying a fair amount of armor. This machines outguns many mechs in a similar weight-class, is lethal at any range, and requires a fair bit of sustained fire to destroy.
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** First, the Manticore: A 60-ton Heavy-class Tank armed with a PPC, a Medium Laser, an [=SRM6=], and an [=LRM10=], and carrying a fair amount of armor. This machines machine outguns many mechs in a similar weight-class, is lethal at any range, and requires a fair bit of sustained fire to destroy.
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** Finally, Missile Carriers. Fans might remember their ButtMonkey status in earlier games based on the franchise, and be in for a rude awakening. Missile carriers come in two varieties, short-range SRM carriers and and long-range LRM carriers. Both varieties are 60 tons, and dish out 60 missiles per volley (using three [=LRM20s=] or ten [=SRM6s=]), whilst having enough ammo reserved for multiple volleys. LRM carriers have a potential Alpha Strike of 240 damage and SRM carriers have one of ''480'' damage. Anything that one of these monsters decides to aim at will drown in a Macross Missile Massacre, almost certainly losing most of its armour and getting knocked on its ass in the process. The worst part? LRM Carriers don't even need to be able to see you to do it, as they are capable of indirect fire.
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** Finally, Missile Carriers. Fans might remember their ButtMonkey status in earlier games based on the franchise, and be in for a rude awakening. Missile carriers come in two varieties, short-range SRM carriers and and long-range LRM carriers. Both varieties are 60 tons, and dish out 60 missiles per volley (using three [=LRM20s=] or ten [=SRM6s=]), whilst having enough ammo reserved for multiple volleys. LRM carriers have a potential Alpha Strike of 240 damage and SRM carriers have one of ''480'' damage. Anything that one of these monsters decides to aim at will drown in a Macross Missile Massacre, MacrossMissileMassacre, almost certainly losing most of its armour and getting knocked on its ass in the process. The worst part? LRM Carriers don't even need to be able to see you to do it, as they are capable of indirect fire.
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** Finally, Missile Carriers. Fans might remember their ButtMonkey status in earlier games based on the franchise, and be in for a rude awakening. Missile carriers come in two varieties, short-range SRM carriers and and long-range LRM carriers. Both varieties are 60 tons, and dish out 60 missiles per volley (using three LRM20s or ten SRM6s), whilst having enough ammo reserved for multiple volleys. LRM carriers have a potential Alpha Strike of 240 damage and SRM carriers have one of ''480'' damage. Anything that one of these monsters decides to aim at will drown in a Macross Missile Massacre, almost certainly losing most of its armour and getting knocked on its ass in the process. The worst part? LRM Carriers don't even need to be able to see you to do it, as they are capable of indirect fire.
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** Finally, Missile Carriers. Fans might remember their ButtMonkey status in earlier games based on the franchise, and be in for a rude awakening. Missile carriers come in two varieties, short-range SRM carriers and and long-range LRM carriers. Both varieties are 60 tons, and dish out 60 missiles per volley (using three LRM20s [=LRM20s=] or ten SRM6s), [=SRM6s=]), whilst having enough ammo reserved for multiple volleys. LRM carriers have a potential Alpha Strike of 240 damage and SRM carriers have one of ''480'' damage. Anything that one of these monsters decides to aim at will drown in a Macross Missile Massacre, almost certainly losing most of its armour and getting knocked on its ass in the process. The worst part? LRM Carriers don't even need to be able to see you to do it, as they are capable of indirect fire.
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** First, the Manticore: A 60-ton Heavy-class Tank armed with a PPC, a Medium Laser, an SRM6, and an LRM10, and carrying a fair amount of armor. This machines outguns many mechs in a similar weight-class, is lethal at any range, and requires a fair bit of sustained fire to destroy.
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** First, the Manticore: A 60-ton Heavy-class Tank armed with a PPC, a Medium Laser, an SRM6, [=SRM6=], and an LRM10, [=LRM10=], and carrying a fair amount of armor. This machines outguns many mechs in a similar weight-class, is lethal at any range, and requires a fair bit of sustained fire to destroy.
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* ''VideoGame/BattleTech'' has a whole slew.
** First, the Manticore: A 60-ton Heavy-class Tank armed with a PPC, a Medium Laser, an SRM6, and an LRM10, and carrying a fair amount of armor. This machines outguns many mechs in a similar weight-class, is lethal at any range, and requires a fair bit of sustained fire to destroy.
** Demolisher: An 80-ton Assault-class Tank armed with not one but two AC/20s, which is more than enough firepower to take out the cockpit of any mech in the game with one salvo, as well as destroy the legs or reactor of most. The only saving grace is the short range, but given the Demolisher's insane amount of armor, even for it's weight, it's a small comfort.
** Schreks are 80-ton Assault Tank/'Mech Destroyers mounting three [=PPCs=], which hit hard, have extremely long range, and cause minor accuracy penalties. Thankfully, they overheat fairly quickly if they attempt to fire all guns every turn, and have fairly light armor for their weight class, but good luck getting close enough to exploit that. Schrecks can chew up and spit out anything lighter than themselves, 'mech or vehicle, and laugh.
** Finally, Missile Carriers. Fans might remember their ButtMonkey status in earlier games based on the franchise, and be in for a rude awakening. Missile carriers come in two varieties, short-range SRM carriers and and long-range LRM carriers. Both varieties are 60 tons, and dish out 60 missiles per volley (using three LRM20s or ten SRM6s), whilst having enough ammo reserved for multiple volleys. LRM carriers have a potential Alpha Strike of 240 damage and SRM carriers have one of ''480'' damage. Anything that one of these monsters decides to aim at will drown in a Macross Missile Massacre, almost certainly losing most of its armour and getting knocked on its ass in the process. The worst part? LRM Carriers don't even need to be able to see you to do it, as they are capable of indirect fire.
** First, the Manticore: A 60-ton Heavy-class Tank armed with a PPC, a Medium Laser, an SRM6, and an LRM10, and carrying a fair amount of armor. This machines outguns many mechs in a similar weight-class, is lethal at any range, and requires a fair bit of sustained fire to destroy.
** Demolisher: An 80-ton Assault-class Tank armed with not one but two AC/20s, which is more than enough firepower to take out the cockpit of any mech in the game with one salvo, as well as destroy the legs or reactor of most. The only saving grace is the short range, but given the Demolisher's insane amount of armor, even for it's weight, it's a small comfort.
** Schreks are 80-ton Assault Tank/'Mech Destroyers mounting three [=PPCs=], which hit hard, have extremely long range, and cause minor accuracy penalties. Thankfully, they overheat fairly quickly if they attempt to fire all guns every turn, and have fairly light armor for their weight class, but good luck getting close enough to exploit that. Schrecks can chew up and spit out anything lighter than themselves, 'mech or vehicle, and laugh.
** Finally, Missile Carriers. Fans might remember their ButtMonkey status in earlier games based on the franchise, and be in for a rude awakening. Missile carriers come in two varieties, short-range SRM carriers and and long-range LRM carriers. Both varieties are 60 tons, and dish out 60 missiles per volley (using three LRM20s or ten SRM6s), whilst having enough ammo reserved for multiple volleys. LRM carriers have a potential Alpha Strike of 240 damage and SRM carriers have one of ''480'' damage. Anything that one of these monsters decides to aim at will drown in a Macross Missile Massacre, almost certainly losing most of its armour and getting knocked on its ass in the process. The worst part? LRM Carriers don't even need to be able to see you to do it, as they are capable of indirect fire.
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*** Surprisingly enough, Lunatic+ turns ''Soldiers'' into this, mostly regarding them in chapter 2. While in any difficulty below Lunatic+, there are some workarounds that allow [[CrutchCharacter Frederick]] to essentially tank a good amount of them. On Lunatic+, there's a chance that they will spawn with [[ArmorPiercingAttack Luna+]], which is a guaranteed half defense debuff, essentially turning Fredrick to a tank to a wet paper towel in seconds, and while the other enemies have at least Weapon Triangle advantage due to Frederick's Silver Lance and Robin's Bronze Sword, here, Soldiers are neutral due to the fact that they have Lances, and you only get an axe in the second turn, where [[SquishyWizard Miriel]] arrives ''right in the middle of the enemy horde'', turning an already difficult chapter into absolute bullshit, meaning that you have to [[MemeticMutation pick a god and pray]] that Soldiers don't spawn with Luna+.
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spiteful ai is when the ai does things that make no sense to spite the player. anyone with supercanto knows how
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** Wyvern/Draco/Dragon Knights are pretty nasty opponents, they have very high strength and defense which makes them difficult for your melee units to kill. They are also flying units so they can just zoom in at any opportunity to harass you once a unit is in their range. And despite being flying units, their defense is often so high that they can occasionally ''laugh'' at their apparent [[KryptoniteFactor weakness to arrows]], unlike their [[FragileSpeedster Pegasus Knight]] counterparts. And they love to pick off weaker units and healers thanks to their higher movement range and the fact that in most games they wield lances so getting ambushed by one with a Javelin is not uncommon. And in the non-GBA installments, they will (or at least attempt to if they have movement spaces left) fly away from their target to terrain non-traversable by ground units after attacking, [[SpitefulAI denying you the opportunity to finish them off when your turn comes]]. And they often spawn in said terrain so they will almost always get the first strike. The third thru fifth games were by far their worst. Magic, especially Wind (or Thunder in [=FE10=]) Magic, and Wyrmslayer swords are about the only effective tools to dispose of them.
** Now for Manaketes/Dragons/Dragon Tribe Laguz, These guys only appear in a couple of games, most notably Marth's and Roy's, and usually in the last quarter of the game. But these guy are often the hardest hitting enemies in the games outside bosses, since many of them have attacks that ignore both defense AND resistance. Some of them are even ''immune to magic'', killing the mage strategy and forcing to use a melee character and/or the mentioned Wyrmslayer, and to make it worse, even with that sword they can still take at least two good hits to kill unless the unit crits or is very over-leveled thanks to having even higher stats than the ''Wyvern Knights''. The only upside to them is the fact that their hit rate is atrocious, but without dragonslaying weapons or strong magic, trying to take those monsters down is very risky and tedious.
*** The Wyverns in Mystery of the Emblem and its remake deserve a special mention though. Remember all those things said about high-movement Wyvern Riders above? Yeah, imagine that on a defence-ignoring, fire-breathing dragon. It's just as bad as it sounds. Not to mention the first time you encounter them is in a desert map, massively hindering your own movement while they can just fly around picking characters off at their leisure. And as if that wasn't enough, on [[HarderThanHard Lunatic Mode]] their breath has increased range. Yeah.
** Now for Manaketes/Dragons/Dragon Tribe Laguz, These guys only appear in a couple of games, most notably Marth's and Roy's, and usually in the last quarter of the game. But these guy are often the hardest hitting enemies in the games outside bosses, since many of them have attacks that ignore both defense AND resistance. Some of them are even ''immune to magic'', killing the mage strategy and forcing to use a melee character and/or the mentioned Wyrmslayer, and to make it worse, even with that sword they can still take at least two good hits to kill unless the unit crits or is very over-leveled thanks to having even higher stats than the ''Wyvern Knights''. The only upside to them is the fact that their hit rate is atrocious, but without dragonslaying weapons or strong magic, trying to take those monsters down is very risky and tedious.
*** The Wyverns in Mystery of the Emblem and its remake deserve a special mention though. Remember all those things said about high-movement Wyvern Riders above? Yeah, imagine that on a defence-ignoring, fire-breathing dragon. It's just as bad as it sounds. Not to mention the first time you encounter them is in a desert map, massively hindering your own movement while they can just fly around picking characters off at their leisure. And as if that wasn't enough, on [[HarderThanHard Lunatic Mode]] their breath has increased range. Yeah.
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** Wyvern/Draco/Dragon Knights Wyvern Riders are pretty nasty opponents, they opponents. They have very high strength and defense defense, which makes them difficult for your melee units to kill. They are They're also flying units units, so they can just zoom in at any opportunity to harass you once a unit is in their range. And despite being flying units, their defense is often so high that they can occasionally ''laugh'' at their apparent [[KryptoniteFactor weakness to arrows]], unlike their [[FragileSpeedster Pegasus Knight]] counterparts. And they love to pick off weaker units and healers healers, thanks to their higher movement range and the fact that in most games they wield lances in most games, so getting ambushed by one with a Javelin javelin is not uncommon. And in the non-GBA installments, games with Super-Canto (the ability to move after attacking), they will (or at least attempt to if they have movement spaces left) fly away from their target to terrain non-traversable by ground units after attacking, [[SpitefulAI denying you the opportunity to finish them off when your turn comes]].comes. And they often spawn in said terrain so they will almost always get the first strike. The third thru fifth games were by far their worst. Magic, especially Wind (or Thunder in [=FE10=]) Magic, extremely high-ranked bows, and Wyrmslayer swords Wyrmslayers are about the only effective tools to dispose of them.
**Now for Manaketes/Dragons/Dragon Tribe Laguz, These guys only appear in a couple of games, most notably Marth's and Roy's, and Laguz usually show up in the last quarter of the game. But these guy are game, but they're often the hardest hitting enemies in the games outside bosses, since many of them have attacks that ignore both defense AND resistance. Some of them are even ''immune to magic'', killing the mage strategy and forcing one to use a melee character and/or the mentioned Wyrmslayer, and to make it worse, even aforementioned Wyrmslayer. Even with that sword sword, they can still take at least two good hits to kill kill, unless the unit crits or is very over-leveled thanks over-leveled, due to them having even higher stats than the ''Wyvern Knights''. really high defensive stats. The only upside to them is the fact that their hit rate is atrocious, but without dragonslaying weapons they're usually not too mobile or strong magic, trying to take those monsters down is very risky and tedious.
too fast, which makes them a bit more manageable.
*** The Wyverns inMystery ''Mystery of the Emblem Emblem'' and its remake deserve a special mention though. Remember all those things said about high-movement Wyvern Riders above? Yeah, imagine that on a defence-ignoring, fire-breathing dragon. It's just as bad as it sounds. Not to mention mention, the first time you encounter them is in a desert map, massively hindering your own movement while they can just fly around picking characters off at their leisure. And as if that wasn't enough, on [[HarderThanHard Lunatic Mode]] their breath has increased range. Yeah.
**
*** The Wyverns in
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*** The Gorgons also qualify. Fairly strong magic attacks, which could be murder on units with low resistance, but the worst is 'Stone', which completely immobilizes a character and makes the enemy unable to miss and increases the petrified unit's chance to be critically hit by a whooping + 30%. This is a game where there's [[FinalDeath no reviving]], thus if the character dies, you either have to restart the mission or deal with never being able to use him/her again.
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*** The Gorgons also qualify. Fairly strong magic attacks, which could be murder on units with low resistance, but the worst is 'Stone', which completely immobilizes a character and makes the enemy unable to miss and increases the petrified unit's chance to be critically hit by a whooping + 30%. This is a game where there's [[FinalDeath no reviving]], thus if Worse, they often carry the character dies, you either have to restart the mission or deal with never being able to use him/her again.spell Shadowshot, which can let them bombard your units at very long range.
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** Any long-range attack -- which is to say, any attack with at least 3 range -- is going to make you gnash your teeth in frustration since the only ways to defend against them is to keep any unit that is likely to die to them as far away from the action as possible (and deny them any experience), or to simply charge in with some tanky unit (and have them hog all the experience). Special mention goes to long-range magic in [=FE 4=] (which never runs out), the Berserk staff in [=FE 8=] (inflict a status which causes the afflicted unit to attack the nearest unit, friend or foe), and stoneborn from ''Fates'' (high damage, high defense -- most long-rangers are {{Squishy Wizard}}s).
** [[VideoGame/FireEmblemElibe FE6, or Binding Blade]] has Berserkers and Swordmasters which get a massive boost of +30% in criticals. While this is bad on its own, considering that said units being promoted, they would appear with generally more powerful weapons, and Berserkers in particular also have high Strength that essentially make your unit's Defense stat moot. And because of how critical hits are determined by one random number roll as opposed to the two-rolls for accuracy, in most cases, you will get hit more often than you'd expect. Those with low luck and/or low speed stat numbers should steer away from them.
** [[VideoGame/FireEmblemElibe FE6, or Binding Blade]] has Berserkers and Swordmasters which get a massive boost of +30% in criticals. While this is bad on its own, considering that said units being promoted, they would appear with generally more powerful weapons, and Berserkers in particular also have high Strength that essentially make your unit's Defense stat moot. And because of how critical hits are determined by one random number roll as opposed to the two-rolls for accuracy, in most cases, you will get hit more often than you'd expect. Those with low luck and/or low speed stat numbers should steer away from them.
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** Any long-range attack -- which is to say, any attack with at least 3 range -- is going to make you gnash your teeth in frustration since the only ways to defend against them is to keep any unit that is likely to die to them as far away from the action as possible (and deny them any experience), possible, or to simply charge in with some tanky unit (and have them hog all the experience). unit. Special mention goes to long-range magic in [=FE 4=] ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'' (which never runs out), the Berserk staff in [=FE 8=] any appearance (inflict a status which causes the afflicted unit to attack the nearest unit, friend or foe), and stoneborn from ''Fates'' (high damage, high defense -- most long-rangers are {{Squishy Wizard}}s).
**[[VideoGame/FireEmblemElibe FE6, or Binding Blade]] has ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'':
*** Berserkers andSwordmasters Swordmasters, which get a massive boost of +30% in criticals. While this is bad on its own, considering that said units being promoted, they would appear with generally more powerful weapons, and Berserkers in particular also have high Strength that essentially make your unit's Defense stat moot. And because of how critical hits are determined by one random number roll as opposed to the two-rolls for accuracy, in most cases, you will get hit more often than you'd expect. can turn a crit into a OneHitKill. Those with low luck and/or low speed stat numbers should steer away from them.them--thankfully, Berserkers tend to have low accuracy, while Swordmasters are rarely seen outside of the Sacae route.
*** Nomads are incredibly mobile, none too frail physically (especially due to not being weak to horseslayers), accurate, and quite fast. Due to being bow enemies, they have great range, can shoot down fliers, and can only be countered by other characters with ranged weapons. Their only real weakness is that their raw power isn't too great, so a unit with high Defense (particularly [[KryptoniteProofSuit a Wyvern with a Delphi Shield]]) can tank them, but because of their absurd range, they can often run past your tank and start attacking everything else. Nomadic Troopers are even worse, though--they have swords, meaning that bow units can't counter them, either. These guys are ''everywhere'' on the Sacae route, and seen as a major reason to avoid it when StoryBranching kicks in.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragon'':
*** Fighters and Pirates in the DS version. Normally, these guys aren't much of a threat, but on higher difficulties, they are easily some of the scariest enemies to face. The generally high accuracy rates of the game make the PowerfulButInaccurate axes incredibly strong, they have good Speed and enough Strength to kill a lot of units in two hits, and they're the most common enemies [[EarlyGameHell in the early-game before anyone's had a chance to grow]]. They even have weapon triangle advantage over CrutchCharacter Jagen's strongest weapon. What really puts them here, though, is that there isn't a WeaponOfXSlaying that hits them, which is your main recourse for dealing with the game's incredibly dangerous enemies. While Generals, Dracoknights, and Paladins can be brought down in a single shot by an expensive forge, these guys only go down after getting a few licks in, in a game that runs on RocketTagGameplay.
*** Ballisticians have the highest range in the game, hit extremely hard with certain weapon types, and don't go down easily when you reach them. It is rather hard to bring one down without taking a hit from it first, and they're often positioned in such a way that their ranges overlap. The only reliable counter is [[TakesOneToKillOne the ballistician weapon Thunderbolt]], which has limited uses, and requires you to reposition a very slow unit.
**
*** Berserkers and
*** Nomads are incredibly mobile, none too frail physically (especially due to not being weak to horseslayers), accurate, and quite fast. Due to being bow enemies, they have great range, can shoot down fliers, and can only be countered by other characters with ranged weapons. Their only real weakness is that their raw power isn't too great, so a unit with high Defense (particularly [[KryptoniteProofSuit a Wyvern with a Delphi Shield]]) can tank them, but because of their absurd range, they can often run past your tank and start attacking everything else. Nomadic Troopers are even worse, though--they have swords, meaning that bow units can't counter them, either. These guys are ''everywhere'' on the Sacae route, and seen as a major reason to avoid it when StoryBranching kicks in.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragon'':
*** Fighters and Pirates in the DS version. Normally, these guys aren't much of a threat, but on higher difficulties, they are easily some of the scariest enemies to face. The generally high accuracy rates of the game make the PowerfulButInaccurate axes incredibly strong, they have good Speed and enough Strength to kill a lot of units in two hits, and they're the most common enemies [[EarlyGameHell in the early-game before anyone's had a chance to grow]]. They even have weapon triangle advantage over CrutchCharacter Jagen's strongest weapon. What really puts them here, though, is that there isn't a WeaponOfXSlaying that hits them, which is your main recourse for dealing with the game's incredibly dangerous enemies. While Generals, Dracoknights, and Paladins can be brought down in a single shot by an expensive forge, these guys only go down after getting a few licks in, in a game that runs on RocketTagGameplay.
*** Ballisticians have the highest range in the game, hit extremely hard with certain weapon types, and don't go down easily when you reach them. It is rather hard to bring one down without taking a hit from it first, and they're often positioned in such a way that their ranges overlap. The only reliable counter is [[TakesOneToKillOne the ballistician weapon Thunderbolt]], which has limited uses, and requires you to reposition a very slow unit.
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** VideoGame/FireEmblemEchoesShadowsOfValentia has Dread Fighters, which are bar ''none'' the most broken non-DLC units in the game. A whopping '''7''' spaces of movement in an FE game where every other foot soldier has a movement of 4-5? Check. Two skills that effectively make their ''minimum'' Resistance 12, in an FE game where almost every other unit's Resistance growths are [[DumpStat absolute shit?]] Check. Insane Speed in [[RuleOfThree an FE game where]] Avoid bonuses granted by terrain can make even [[MightyGlacier Barons]] untouchable? Checkamundo. Dread Fighters are even more irritating to fight with Celica's army, since over half her units (including herself) are mages. You know, against Dread Fighers, the textbook MageKiller? In summation, you've got an enemy that [[YouWillNotEvadeMe only cavalry and Pegasus Knights will be able to run from,]] has no real exploitable weaknesses statwise, and is likely to double and/or destroy a unit with a critical hit.
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** VideoGame/FireEmblemEchoesShadowsOfValentia has Dread Fighters, which are bar ''none'' the most broken non-DLC units in the game. A whopping '''7''' spaces of movement in an FE game where every other foot soldier has a movement of 4-5? Check. Two skills that effectively make their ''minimum'' Resistance 12, in an FE game where almost every other unit's Resistance growths are [[DumpStat absolute shit?]] Check. Insane Speed in [[RuleOfThree an FE game where]] Avoid bonuses granted by terrain can make even [[MightyGlacier Barons]] untouchable? Checkamundo. Dread Fighters are even more irritating to fight with Celica's army, since over half her units (including herself) are mages. You know, against Dread Fighers, Fighters, the textbook MageKiller? In summation, you've got an enemy that [[YouWillNotEvadeMe only cavalry and Pegasus Knights will be able to run from,]] has no real exploitable weaknesses statwise, and is likely to double and/or destroy a unit with a critical hit.
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** Ghosts have an ability that adds defeated units to their stack. This is especially deadly when they attack low-level units, who are likely to take many casualties when damaged, potentially resulting in a nearly unstoppable number of ghosts opposing you.
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* In first two incarnations of ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' both ranged units and flying units qualify: The former because of how most units is fairly slow(especially for Knight and Barbarian castles) which allows them to shred you from afar, the latter because of wonky movement system which allows them to jump to ''your'' ranged units and start massacring them. Third game nerfed their movement abilities a fair bit, although some faster units are still able to jump to you in one-two turns.
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* In ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic''
** Ranged units, especially in the first twoincarnations of ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' both games. Most non-flying units are rather slow, thus giving enemy ranged units a free turn or two to attack you. It gets even worse in siege battles, in which if you're the attacker, you'll have to breach the wall to get at the enemy ranged units, who may have the towers backing them up. The third game somewhat {{nerf}}s ranged units by reducing damage inflicted against distant units.
** Flying units. In the first two games, they could cross the battlefield in a single turn, and usually attacked your more vulnerable ranged attackers, who have a weak close-ranged attacks. The sprites were especially bad, since despite their unimpressive statistics, they have an ability preventing units from countering. Thankfully, in the third game, it's harder for flying unitsqualify: The former because of how most units is fairly slow(especially for Knight and Barbarian castles) which allows them to shred you from afar, go all the latter because of wonky movement system which allows them to jump to ''your'' ranged units and start massacring them. Third game nerfed their movement abilities a fair bit, way across the battlefield, although some faster units can manage this.
** Ghosts have an ability that adds defeated units to their stack. This is especially deadly when they attack low-level units, who arestill able likely to jump to you take many casualties when damaged, potentially resulting in one-two turns.a nearly unstoppable number of ghosts opposing you.
** Ranged units, especially in the first two
** Flying units. In the first two games, they could cross the battlefield in a single turn, and usually attacked your more vulnerable ranged attackers, who have a weak close-ranged attacks. The sprites were especially bad, since despite their unimpressive statistics, they have an ability preventing units from countering. Thankfully, in the third game, it's harder for flying units
** Ghosts have an ability that adds defeated units to their stack. This is especially deadly when they attack low-level units, who are
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** Now for Manaketes/Dragons/Dragon Tribe Laguz, These guys only appear in a couple of games, most notably Marth's and Roy's, and usually in the last quarter of the game. But these guy are often the hardest hitting enemies in the games outside bosses, since many of them have attacks that ignore both defense AND resistance. Some of them are even ''immune to magic'', killing the mage strategy and forcing to use a melee character and/or the mentioned Wyrmslayer, and to make it worse, even with that sword they can still take at least two good hits to kill unless the unit crits or is very overleveled thanks to having even higher stats than the ''Wyvern Knights''. The only upside to them is the fact that their hit rate is atrocious, but without dragonslaying weapons or strong magic, trying to take those monsters down is very risky and tedious.
*** The Wyverns in Mystery of the Emblem and its remake deserve a special mention though. Remember all those things said about high-movement Wyvern Riders above? Yeah, immagine that on a defence-ignoring, fire-breathing dragon. It's just as bad as it sounds. Not to mention the first time you encounter them is in a desert map, massively hindering your own movement while they can just fly around picking characters off at their leisure. And as if that wasn't enough, on [[HarderThanHard Lunatic Mode]] their breath has increased range. Yeah.
** The literal spiders (okay, Bael) in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', largely because they often spawn with the 'Sharp Claw' weapon equipped, with 14 might -- is effectively a 'Silver Lance' at the point in the game where the vast majority of the mooks' weaponry are the basic 'Iron' level quailty. Like Wyvern Knights, these things are ''very'' nasty early game when most of your units have barely 20~25 HP and can be seriously injured, if [[OneHitKill 1HKO'd outright]], by the spiders. And the mooks usually have 20+ attack depending the chapter, unit's level, and the difficulty. They get easier later on, thankfully, and are balanced out by their low speed and accuracy.
*** The Wyverns in Mystery of the Emblem and its remake deserve a special mention though. Remember all those things said about high-movement Wyvern Riders above? Yeah, immagine that on a defence-ignoring, fire-breathing dragon. It's just as bad as it sounds. Not to mention the first time you encounter them is in a desert map, massively hindering your own movement while they can just fly around picking characters off at their leisure. And as if that wasn't enough, on [[HarderThanHard Lunatic Mode]] their breath has increased range. Yeah.
** The literal spiders (okay, Bael) in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', largely because they often spawn with the 'Sharp Claw' weapon equipped, with 14 might -- is effectively a 'Silver Lance' at the point in the game where the vast majority of the mooks' weaponry are the basic 'Iron' level quailty. Like Wyvern Knights, these things are ''very'' nasty early game when most of your units have barely 20~25 HP and can be seriously injured, if [[OneHitKill 1HKO'd outright]], by the spiders. And the mooks usually have 20+ attack depending the chapter, unit's level, and the difficulty. They get easier later on, thankfully, and are balanced out by their low speed and accuracy.
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** Now for Manaketes/Dragons/Dragon Tribe Laguz, These guys only appear in a couple of games, most notably Marth's and Roy's, and usually in the last quarter of the game. But these guy are often the hardest hitting enemies in the games outside bosses, since many of them have attacks that ignore both defense AND resistance. Some of them are even ''immune to magic'', killing the mage strategy and forcing to use a melee character and/or the mentioned Wyrmslayer, and to make it worse, even with that sword they can still take at least two good hits to kill unless the unit crits or is very overleveled over-leveled thanks to having even higher stats than the ''Wyvern Knights''. The only upside to them is the fact that their hit rate is atrocious, but without dragonslaying weapons or strong magic, trying to take those monsters down is very risky and tedious.
*** The Wyverns in Mystery of the Emblem and its remake deserve a special mention though. Remember all those things said about high-movement Wyvern Riders above? Yeah,immagine imagine that on a defence-ignoring, fire-breathing dragon. It's just as bad as it sounds. Not to mention the first time you encounter them is in a desert map, massively hindering your own movement while they can just fly around picking characters off at their leisure. And as if that wasn't enough, on [[HarderThanHard Lunatic Mode]] their breath has increased range. Yeah.
** The literal spiders (okay, Bael) in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', largely because they often spawn with the 'Sharp Claw' weapon equipped, with 14 might -- is effectively a 'Silver Lance' at the point in the game where the vast majority of the mooks' weaponry are the basic 'Iron' levelquailty.quality. Like Wyvern Knights, these things are ''very'' nasty early game when most of your units have barely 20~25 HP and can be seriously injured, if [[OneHitKill 1HKO'd outright]], by the spiders. And the mooks usually have 20+ attack depending the chapter, unit's level, and the difficulty. They get easier later on, thankfully, and are balanced out by their low speed and accuracy.
*** The Wyverns in Mystery of the Emblem and its remake deserve a special mention though. Remember all those things said about high-movement Wyvern Riders above? Yeah,
** The literal spiders (okay, Bael) in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', largely because they often spawn with the 'Sharp Claw' weapon equipped, with 14 might -- is effectively a 'Silver Lance' at the point in the game where the vast majority of the mooks' weaponry are the basic 'Iron' level
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*** The Draco Zombies from the same game are borderline [[BossinMookClothing boss in mook clothing]]. Incredibly tough, take ages to kill, and their attacks are nigh-undodgeable and ''ignore your units' defense'' (because of this, their attack will always do exactly 32 damage - more than half the maximum possible HP for any of your characters). And the final floor of the [[BonusDungeon lagdou ruins]] is ''filled'' with them. The only saving grace is their weakness against bishops and arrows.
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*** The Draco Zombies from the same game are borderline [[BossinMookClothing boss in mook clothing]]. Incredibly tough, take ages to kill, and their attacks are nigh-undodgeable and ''ignore your units' defense'' (because of this, their attack will always do exactly 32 damage - -- more than half the maximum possible HP for any of your characters). And the final floor of the [[BonusDungeon lagdou ruins]] is ''filled'' with them. The only saving grace is their weakness against bishops and arrows.
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** Any long-range attack - which is to say, any attack with at least 3 range - is going to make you gnash your teeth in frustration since the only ways to defend against them is to keep any unit that is likely to die to them as far away from the action as possible (and deny them any experience), or to simply charge in with some tanky unit (and have them hog all the experience). Special mention goes to long-range magic in [=FE 4=] (which never runs out), the Berserk staff in [=FE 8=] (inflict a status which causes the afflicted unit to attack the nearest unit, friend or foe), and stoneborn from ''Fates'' (high damage, high defense - most long-rangers are {{Squishy Wizard}}s).
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** Any long-range attack - -- which is to say, any attack with at least 3 range - -- is going to make you gnash your teeth in frustration since the only ways to defend against them is to keep any unit that is likely to die to them as far away from the action as possible (and deny them any experience), or to simply charge in with some tanky unit (and have them hog all the experience). Special mention goes to long-range magic in [=FE 4=] (which never runs out), the Berserk staff in [=FE 8=] (inflict a status which causes the afflicted unit to attack the nearest unit, friend or foe), and stoneborn from ''Fates'' (high damage, high defense - -- most long-rangers are {{Squishy Wizard}}s).
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** The Pope will be a campaign-long pain in the ass even if you're a Catholic faction. You can expect random "requests" to show your piety by building churches or spreading Catholicism while you're trying to consolidate your realm, or worse, the Pope will call a Crusade on Buttfuck, Nowhere and be very disappointed with you if you decline. The Pope also hates it when Catholic powers fight, and will order you to cease hostilities even if you weren't the aggressor in a war, or are trying to retake a settlement your neighbor conquered from you. Losing papal favor by failing these missions - or if a cardinal from a rival faction becomes Pope and puts you on the holy shitlist - will result in Inquisitors appearing in your lands, looking for excuses to burn your less-pious generals and family members at the stake. And if you're unlucky enough to get excommunicated, your Catholic citizens will be miserable, and all your rivals will be able to attack you with impunity.
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** The Pope will be a campaign-long pain in the ass even if you're a Catholic faction. You can expect random "requests" to show your piety by building churches or spreading Catholicism while you're trying to consolidate your realm, or worse, the Pope will call a Crusade on Buttfuck, Nowhere and be very disappointed with you if you decline. The Pope also hates it when Catholic powers fight, and will order you to cease hostilities even if you weren't the aggressor in a war, or are trying to retake a settlement your neighbor conquered from you. Losing papal favor by failing these missions - -- or if a cardinal from a rival faction becomes Pope and puts you on the holy shitlist - -- will result in Inquisitors appearing in your lands, looking for excuses to burn your less-pious generals and family members at the stake. And if you're unlucky enough to get excommunicated, your Catholic citizens will be miserable, and all your rivals will be able to attack you with impunity.
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** ADVENT Stun Lancers show up very early in the campaign, before the player is really equipped to deal with them. These units have both shock swords and assault rifles, high health, and innate dodge chance. They can attack after making a dash move, allowing them to threaten your troops from obscenely long distances with high-accuracy melee strikes. Their weapons have a chance to stun or even ''instantly knock unconscious'' your soldiers, rendering them helpless - often for the entire duration of the mission - and requiring yet another precious soldier to be pulled from active combat in order to evacuate them safely. Making matters far worse, the game considers them fairly mundane units and often deploys them in large numbers. Finally, if all that wasn't enough, they have an 'elite' version that gets introduced later on with even more health and dodge.
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** ADVENT Stun Lancers show up very early in the campaign, before the player is really equipped to deal with them. These units have both shock swords and assault rifles, high health, and innate dodge chance. They can attack after making a dash move, allowing them to threaten your troops from obscenely long distances with high-accuracy melee strikes. Their weapons have a chance to stun or even ''instantly knock unconscious'' your soldiers, rendering them helpless - -- often for the entire duration of the mission - -- and requiring yet another precious soldier to be pulled from active combat in order to evacuate them safely. Making matters far worse, the game considers them fairly mundane units and often deploys them in large numbers. Finally, if all that wasn't enough, they have an 'elite' version that gets introduced later on with even more health and dodge.
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** There's also the Codex. Good lord, the Codex. Their standard attack does a "mere" 4-6 damage, enough to OneHitKill soldiers at the start of the game, but they can also drop a psionic maelstrom on the battlefield that jams your soldiers' weapons, requiring them to spend an action reloading before they can shoot again... and if your troops are dumb enough to stay in the [=AoE=] to do that they'll take heavy damage when the maelstrom goes off on the Codex's next turn. They can also spend an action to teleport anywhere on the battlefield, like an elevated position on your flank, in preparation of giving you a reaming next turn. Codices are robotic units, so poison and fire don't effect them, but unlike [=MECs=] they're impossible to hack. They have enough HP that you're unlikely to be able to one-shot them until the midgame, they have a high Dodge stat to let them downgrade a hit into a grazing wound, and if they take damage that isn't enough to kill them, [[AsteroidsMonster the Codex will immediately spawn a clone somewhere nearby]], splitting its remaining HP between them - and in multiplayer, that means the Codex's player gets to choose where the clone shows up. The kicker is that the Codex appears after you complete a certain early story objective, with no forewarning that doing so will unleash this unit upon you, and afterwards the game will start fielding entire ''pods'' that contain nothing but Codices. It's no surprise then that some veteran players will put off completing that objective until well into the midgame.
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** There's also the Codex. Good lord, the Codex. Their standard attack does a "mere" 4-6 damage, enough to OneHitKill soldiers at the start of the game, but they can also drop a psionic maelstrom on the battlefield that jams your soldiers' weapons, requiring them to spend an action reloading before they can shoot again... and if your troops are dumb enough to stay in the [=AoE=] to do that they'll take heavy damage when the maelstrom goes off on the Codex's next turn. They can also spend an action to teleport anywhere on the battlefield, like an elevated position on your flank, in preparation of giving you a reaming next turn. Codices are robotic units, so poison and fire don't effect them, but unlike [=MECs=] they're impossible to hack. They have enough HP that you're unlikely to be able to one-shot them until the midgame, they have a high Dodge stat to let them downgrade a hit into a grazing wound, and if they take damage that isn't enough to kill them, [[AsteroidsMonster the Codex will immediately spawn a clone somewhere nearby]], splitting its remaining HP between them - -- and in multiplayer, that means the Codex's player gets to choose where the clone shows up. The kicker is that the Codex appears after you complete a certain early story objective, with no forewarning that doing so will unleash this unit upon you, and afterwards the game will start fielding entire ''pods'' that contain nothing but Codices. It's no surprise then that some veteran players will put off completing that objective until well into the midgame.
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** Andromedons are large, heavily-armored aliens that love launching acid bombs that deal high damage up front as well as a lingering [=DoT=] effect that also shreds your soldiers' armor. And you have to kill them twice - after depleting the Adromedon's health bar the first time, the alien's suit AI activates, turning an organic ranged unit into a robotic melee unit with a devastating punch, and which leaves trail of damaging acid behind it as it runs across the battlefield.
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** Andromedons are large, heavily-armored aliens that love launching acid bombs that deal high damage up front as well as a lingering [=DoT=] effect that also shreds your soldiers' armor. And you have to kill them twice - -- after depleting the Adromedon's health bar the first time, the alien's suit AI activates, turning an organic ranged unit into a robotic melee unit with a devastating punch, and which leaves trail of damaging acid behind it as it runs across the battlefield.
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*** The Gorgons also qualify. Fairly strong magic attacks, which could be murder on units with low resistance, but the worst is 'Stone', which completely immobilizes a character and makes the enemy unable to miss and increases the petrified unit's chance to be critically hit by a whooping + 30%. This is a game where there's [[FinalDeath no reviving,]], thus if the character dies, you either have to restart the mission or deal with never being able to use him/her again.
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*** The Gorgons also qualify. Fairly strong magic attacks, which could be murder on units with low resistance, but the worst is 'Stone', which completely immobilizes a character and makes the enemy unable to miss and increases the petrified unit's chance to be critically hit by a whooping + 30%. This is a game where there's [[FinalDeath no reviving,]], reviving]], thus if the character dies, you either have to restart the mission or deal with never being able to use him/her again.
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** The Ninja class in ''VideoGame/Disgaea5AllianceOfVengeance'' fits this bill for one very good reason: they have a random chance of ''[[OneHitHill instantly killing a unit]]'' whenever they attack [[GuideDangIt which is completely unlisted]]. Add this to the fact that some Item World floors can be nothing but Ninjas, or roaming Netherworlds can drop a bunch of them at a time...
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** The Ninja class in ''VideoGame/Disgaea5AllianceOfVengeance'' fits this bill for one very good reason: they have a random chance of ''[[OneHitHill ''[[OneHitKill instantly killing a unit]]'' whenever they attack [[GuideDangIt which is completely unlisted]]. Add this to the fact that some Item World floors can be nothing but Ninjas, or roaming Netherworlds can drop a bunch of them at a time...
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** The winged return in force in ''VideoGame/Disgaea4APromiseUnforgotten''. Their base evilty (as in the one they always have) halves the accuracy of all attacks made from an adjacent space, making them a pain for most melee classes, especially axe users. The game also loves throwing them in with "No Ranged" Geo Effect panels, making them infinitely more aggravating. The game also has Ninjas. Now, Ninjas have been in every Disgaea game to date, but never have they had the ability that, like the Winged above, halves accuracy of certain attacks (from the front this time). Normally, these enemies only appear in small sqauds. However, Chapter 4 breaks this rule by having just about nothing BUT Ninjas (labeled [[BadassNormal Office Workers]]), in almost painfully small maps where being anywhere but in the frontal cone is either painful or impossible. And then a Winged magichanges with a Ninja...
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** The winged return in force in ''VideoGame/Disgaea4APromiseUnforgotten''. Their base evilty evility (as in the one they always have) halves the accuracy of all attacks made from an adjacent space, making them a pain for most melee classes, especially axe users. The game also loves throwing them in with "No Ranged" Geo Effect panels, making them infinitely more aggravating. The game also has Ninjas. Now, Ninjas have been in every Disgaea game to date, but never have they had the ability that, like the Winged above, halves accuracy of certain attacks (from the front this time). Normally, these enemies only appear in small sqauds.squads. However, Chapter 4 breaks this rule by having just about nothing BUT Ninjas (labeled [[BadassNormal Office Workers]]), in almost painfully small maps where being anywhere but in the frontal cone is either painful or impossible. And then a Winged magichanges with a Ninja...
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** The Ninja class in ''VideoGame/Disgaea5AllianceOfVengeance'' fits this bill for one very good reason: they have a random chance of ''[[OneHitHill instantly killing a unit]]'' whenever they attack [[GuideDangIt which is completely unlisted]]. Add this to the fact that some Item World floors can be nothing but Ninjas, or roaming Netherworlds can drop a bunch of them at a time...
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** VideoGame/FireEmblemEchoesShadowsOfValentia has Dread Fighters, which are bar ''none'' the most broken non-DLC units in the game. A whopping '''7''' spaces of movement in an FE game where every other foot soldier has a movement of 4-5? Check. Two skills that effectively make their ''minimum'' Resistance 12, in an FE game where almost every other unit's Resistance growths are [[DumpStat absolute shit?]] Check. Insane Speed in [[RuleOfThree an FE game where]] Avoid bonuses granted by terrain can make even [[MightyGlacier Barons]] untouchable? Checkamundo. Dread Fighters are even more irritating to fight with Celica's army, as around a third of her forces (including herself) are mages. You know, the class that [[MageKiller Dread Fighters are tailor-made to beat?]] In summation, you've got an enemy that [[YouWillNotEvadeMe only cavalry and Pegasus Knights will be able to run from,]] has no real exploitable weaknesses statwise, and is likely to double you and/or crit you out. No wonder that they're [[GameBreaker game breakers]] when they fight on your side!
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** VideoGame/FireEmblemEchoesShadowsOfValentia has Dread Fighters, which are bar ''none'' the most broken non-DLC units in the game. A whopping '''7''' spaces of movement in an FE game where every other foot soldier has a movement of 4-5? Check. Two skills that effectively make their ''minimum'' Resistance 12, in an FE game where almost every other unit's Resistance growths are [[DumpStat absolute shit?]] Check. Insane Speed in [[RuleOfThree an FE game where]] Avoid bonuses granted by terrain can make even [[MightyGlacier Barons]] untouchable? Checkamundo. Dread Fighters are even more irritating to fight with Celica's army, as around a third of since over half her forces units (including herself) are mages. You know, the class that [[MageKiller against Dread Fighters are tailor-made to beat?]] Fighers, the textbook MageKiller? In summation, you've got an enemy that [[YouWillNotEvadeMe only cavalry and Pegasus Knights will be able to run from,]] has no real exploitable weaknesses statwise, and is likely to double you and/or crit you out. No wonder that they're [[GameBreaker game breakers]] when they fight on your side!destroy a unit with a critical hit.
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* Roaming armies in ''[[VideoGame/AgeOfWonders3]]'' are, by and large, GoddamnBats at their worst. That is, unless you leave the structures that spawn them alone for too long. Brigand hideouts and necromantic circles aren't generally too drastic in the long run, but a haunted boneyard can render entire islands untouchable and a pirates' nest can make naval travel impossible, by virtue of the armies of ships it spawns devastating any naval capability you have, then promptly destroying any new naval army you attempt to assemble. Oh, and let's not forget that pirates' nests are unreachable at the start of a game by default, and it's entirely plausible that the entire map might be connected by underground caverns, meaning that the undead archon titans a haunted boneyard spawns in groups of *six* (a full army) can get everywhere and assault your cities. Oh, and there's the further fact that player armies require upkeep, which roaming armies do not. And that the guards for spawners can be reinforced by the roaming armies they spawn. And that even if you can reach them early enough to make a difference, you might well not have the strength of army to be able to.
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* Roaming armies in ''[[VideoGame/AgeOfWonders3]]'' ''VideoGame/AgeOfWonders3'' are, by and large, GoddamnBats at their worst. That is, unless you leave the structures that spawn them alone for too long. Brigand hideouts and necromantic circles aren't generally too drastic in the long run, but a haunted boneyard can render entire islands untouchable and a pirates' nest can make naval travel impossible, by virtue of the armies of ships it spawns devastating any naval capability you have, then promptly destroying any new naval army you attempt to assemble. Oh, and let's not forget that pirates' nests are unreachable at the start of a game by default, and it's entirely plausible that the entire map might be connected by underground caverns, meaning that the undead archon titans a haunted boneyard spawns in groups of *six* (a full army) can get everywhere and assault your cities. Oh, and there's the further fact that player armies require upkeep, which roaming armies do not. And that the guards for spawners can be reinforced by the roaming armies they spawn. And that even if you can reach them early enough to make a difference, you might well not have the strength of army to be able to.
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* Roaming armies in ''[[VideoGame/AgeOfWonders3]]'' are, by and large, GoddamnBats at their worst. That is, unless you leave the structures that spawn them alone for too long. Brigand hideouts and necromantic circles aren't generally too drastic in the long run, but a haunted boneyard can render entire islands untouchable and a pirates' nest can make naval travel impossible, by virtue of the armies of ships it spawns devastating any naval capability you have, then promptly destroying any new naval army you attempt to assemble. Oh, and let's not forget that pirates' nests are unreachable at the start of a game by default, and it's entirely plausible that the entire map might be connected by underground caverns, meaning that the undead archon titans a haunted boneyard spawns in groups of *six* (a full army) can get everywhere and assault your cities. Oh, and there's the further fact that player armies require upkeep, which roaming armies do not. And that the guards for spawners can be reinforced by the roaming armies they spawn. And that even if you can reach them early enough to make a difference, you might well not have the strength of army to be able to.
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* A lot of enemies in ''VideoGame/BattleBrothers'' are deadly (the game is NintendoHard), and you might think that [[MadeOfIron hulking Orcs]] or the [[BanditClan clever Brigands]] or the [[TheUndead relentless Undead]] are the most daunting of all, and the little Goblins are pushovers, right? Well, Goblins are anything but pushovers, in fact many players avoid fighting Goblins entirely. They are deadly accurate at range with armour piercing, poison-tipped arrows and annoying bolas and nets that immobilise your troops. And when you finally corner one, you find [[FragileSpeedster his evasion is annoyingly high]]... and they often use spears which have a high hit chance and almost never miss.
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* DemonicSpiders in ''FireEmblem'' games are easily Wyvern/Draco/Dragon Knights and Manaketes/Dragons/Dragon Tribe Laguz... The former especially if they appear in the games' earlier chapters where you still don't have powerful units/weapons just yet, and they are a 'lot' more common than the latter. This doesn't mean the latter is any less nasty though...
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* DemonicSpiders in ''FireEmblem'' ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' games are easily Wyvern/Draco/Dragon Knights and Manaketes/Dragons/Dragon Tribe Laguz... The former especially if they appear in the games' earlier chapters where you still don't have powerful units/weapons just yet, and they are a 'lot' more common than the latter. This doesn't mean the latter is any less nasty though...
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** Chryssalids have received a makeover to turn them into a nightmarish cross between a spider and a [[VideoGame/StarCraft Hydralisk]]. Their bite attack isn't a OneHitKill, and you can harvest their carapace [[LikeCannotCutLike Chryssalids' to make melee armor for your soldiers]], but their mobility has been enhanced to let them leap onto and off the top of buildings, in case you thought taking the high ground would save you.
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** Chryssalids have received a makeover to turn them into a nightmarish cross between a spider and a [[VideoGame/StarCraft Hydralisk]]. Their bite attack isn't a OneHitKill, and you can harvest their carapace [[LikeCannotCutLike Chryssalids' to make melee armor for your soldiers]], but their mobility has been enhanced to let them leap onto and off the top of buildings, in case you thought taking the high ground would save you.
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* ''VideoGame/{{Wild ARMs XF}}'': Very common enemy starting from the beginning in non-storyline battles is the "harpy." (It's a bat.) Has special attacks that can steal your items, confuse you, make you unable to heal, diseased, miserable, or insta-kill. Did I mention that it's probably faster than most of your characters? Did I mention that it's also more agile, and will dodge most of your attacks?
** Interestingly enough, Harpies are part of a glitch that can be used to get massive amounts of money very quickly by duplicating an item from 1 to 255. The problem is, they need to STEAL that one item you want to duplicate. Which you then sell to the store for massive money.
** Interestingly enough, Harpies are part of a glitch that can be used to get massive amounts of money very quickly by duplicating an item from 1 to 255. The problem is, they need to STEAL that one item you want to duplicate. Which you then sell to the store for massive money.
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*
** Don't forget that they can just as easily blast Battle Copters out of the sky, surprising at first, considering that the only ground unit that could handle them before were Anti-Airs and Missiles.
** Ironic that the game's Demonic Spider is vulnerable to the games' GoddamnedBats...
** Advance Wars: Dual Strike also features Piperunners, which are typically [[DifficultButAwesome too tricky]] for the player to use, but the enemy makes ''deadly'' use of them in maps intended to showcase them. Firstly, they have ''huge'' range, second only to the battleship, and a
* The frigging Winged enemies early in ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}''. They've got the best mobility in the game when you first encounter them, and they can spam an area attack that inflicts UniversalPoison before you probably have the spell to cure it (and certainly before you can cure multiple people at once). Ironically, running into higher-level and more powerful versions later becomes easier than their first appearances; the AIRoulette will cause them to use attacks they learn later on more frequently, which are much easier to deal with. Plus, by then you probably have several characters that can cure poison (presuming you don't just stock up on the cures at the store).
** The winged return in force in ''VideoGame/Disgaea4APromiseUnforgotten''. Their base evilty (as in the one they always have) halves the accuracy of all attacks made from an adjacent space, making them a pain for most melee classes, especially axe users. The game also loves throwing them in with "No Ranged" Geo Effect panels, making them infinitely more aggravating. The game also has Ninjas. Now, Ninjas have been in every Disgaea game to date, but never have they had the ability that, like the Winged above, halves accuracy of certain attacks (from the front this time). Normally, these enemies only appear in small sqauds. However, Chapter 4 breaks this rule by having just about nothing BUT Ninjas (labeled [[BadassNormal Office Workers]]), in almost painfully small maps where being anywhere but in the frontal cone is either painful or impossible. And then a Winged magichanges with a Ninja...
** Random pirate encounters in the Item World in ''VideoGame/DisgaeaDimension2''. Sometimes, they'll be a crowd that's difficult but survivable. Other times, you will come up against a single opponent who outranks you by 100+ levels, at which point you run for the exit.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'', some enemies (the Antlions) learn a technique that instantly kills any of your
** But since the computer just [[AIRoulette uses random abilities at random times]], they are beatable if you are lucky enough.
** These spells have been a staple of the ''Final Fantasy'' series since time immemorial. However, it should be noted that in FFTA, your maximum level is 50, which makes leveling to avoid the requirement impossible. Other ''Final Fantasy'' games have had the level cap at 100 (same situation applies), or
** Fairies are surprisingly deadly, especially with their "Level ? Holy" (holy damage on units with the same last digit of their level) and Angel's Whisper (heals and gives auto-life to one of their units), making them easily able to complement other monsters.
* Malboros of ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' fame are pretty much guaranteed to be this in every game they show up in, but the worst case is the ''Cassie'' variety in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2''. They can heal each other and use a number of buffs, put your characters to sleep or ''Charm'' up to 4 of them at once. ''At a 100% success rate''. At the same time, they wear Ribbons, making them completely immune to Debuffs. And did I mention
** Interestingly enough, Harpies are part of a glitch that can be used to get massive amounts of money very quickly by duplicating an item from 1 to 255. The problem is, they need to STEAL that one item you want to duplicate. Which you then sell to the store for massive money.
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* 3-hit combo from ''{{VideoGame/XCOM}}'': Cyberdisks, Psi-using aliens, and Chryssalids. Cyberdisks can fly and come with an accurate plasma cannon capable of rendering your units dead in a hurry, along with the fact that they [[CriticalExistenceFailure react violently]] [[MadeOfExplodium to dying]]; the one advantage you do have against them is that they're much larger than a normal enemy and thus easier to hit, which is just as well because the only starter weapon that can reliably OneHitKill them is the rocket launcher. Oh, yeah; there's also a 50% chance that they'll show up in the ''first month'', along with a psi-using alien. And those guys are fun, too. Once one of their allies spots ''one'' of your units, the psi-user amongst them gains the ability to go through your ''[[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard entire team]]'' for the unit with the lowest psi-defense (that you [[FakeDifficulty can't even see without the proper upgrade]]) and promptly makes that unit their bitch. Enjoy having that unit either run around randomly without their weapon, fire all over the place, or get Mind Controlled and take out 2 or 3 of their former teammates. The only way this crap gets more broken is when [[GameBreaker you get it]]. And then there are Chryssalids. [[http://ironshrinemaiden.deviantart.com/art/Pick-up-that-soap-83170472 Oh dear God there are Chryssalids.]] These things have one attack and one attack only: An infectious bite that instantly converts whatever was hit into a zombie (And kills tanks in a hurry). Said zombie becomes a new Chryssalid upon taking sufficient non-fire damage, which can then convert more units, and so on. And there is absolutely no defense against this bite: Your SuperSoldier of a Commander falls just as easily as your [[{{Redshirt}} Rookies]]. On top of this, they possess enough Time Units to charge at a unit from beyond visual range and transform it into a drooling zombie before the player is even sure it's there. Upon finding out that these things are involved in the mission, players are known to take drastic measures such as carrying a primed grenade at all times, killing civilians in the area to prevent them from being infected, and blowing up the body of every single Chryssalid that goes down, just to be sure.
** Then again, Chryssalids will be rendered rather harmless once the player acquires the Flying Suit: Their horrible attack won't reach you on air.
** In case this isn't enough, ''X-Com: Terror From the Deep'' replaces Chryssalids with Tentaculats, floating brain monsters that do the exact same thing. Except these sons of bitches also ''fly'', so all those clever people that thought Flying Suits saved them from the Chryssalid plague in the first game will find that their floating Mag-Ion Armors do absolutely nothing in the second.
*** The game also replaces the Cyberdisks with Bio-Drones, which have the same traits as the Disks only now they're smaller, harder to hit, and it's near impossible to tell where they're facing making it real hard to sneak up behind them. Trying to attack them from the front is practically suicide since they have a high reaction stat and near-perfect accuracy.
** And ''X-Com: Apocalypse'' continues the fine tradition with Brainsuckers, which don't transform targets into more brainsuckers, nor do they have a 100% success rate, but make up for it by the fact that some enemies can fire them at you. Y'know, in case the little buggers can't reach you on their own, 30 foot vertical jumping range. And while the Chryssalids and Tentaculats (Along with their zombie hosts) could only do melee harm, Brainsucked soldiers can and will shoot at their former comrades. This gives them the dubious honor of being a horrible combination of the mind control the first two games' psychics had and the BodyHorror of their predecessors.
*** And let us not forget the Poppers. These are ridiculously fast suicide bombers which not only explode once they're near your troops, but also explode from almost every type of weapon you have, and their explosions are huge and very damaging. Apocalypse players have learned to fear the little pitter-patter sounds they make.
** ''VideoGame/UFOAftermath'' has the aptly titled Deathbellows. It shoots swarms of bees, that scatter on reaching the target, Evaporates health so quickly you barely get time to pause the game, swarms are able to slowly chase any squad member able to dodge the first attack, have no limit in the number of swarms active, are fired rapidly and to cap it off the range of the Deathbellows is entirely line of sight. If it starts on land that's a an inch higher in elevation on a sparse map, then kiss your squad goodbye as TotalPartyKill seems to be its only purpose. Two of these bastards present on a map guarantees the loss of any team member with less than maximum speed. Three... Well lets just say you'll be thankful for the autosave. Its possible to kill, but only if you've got the most blessed terrain setup and a maxed out sniper and then only just.
*** Reticulans have a superior rapid firing rocket launcher, compared to humanity's [=RPG=]s and [=LAWs=]. Not to mention they weigh less then a feather and some plot missions occasionally spawn several Greys with these together. Oh and don't forget the near instant-kill damage for your PoweredArmor troops, the rest might's well be naked for all the good armor does.
** ''[[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown XCOM: Enemy Unknown]]'' brings back the Cyberdisks (now with the ability to chuck grenades!) and Chryssalids, though it arguably nerfs psi-using aliens to just below the DemonicSpider threshold as they now rely on line of sight. However, it adds [[TheMenInBlack Thin Men]], who have the ability to spit a poison cloud with 100% accuracy, a high accuracy with their light plasma rifles, and burst into a poison cloud when killed.
*** Bonus points for these Chryssalids actually looking like a cross between a spider and a [[VideoGame/StarCraft hydralisk]] and being able to leap on and off the top of buildings. However, they have been nerfed to the point where their attack doesn't mean instant death. They can only infect those they kill, and you can further protect your soldiers by equipping them with the [[LikeCannotCutLike Chryssalids' own carapace]].
*** The Sectopods, like in the original game, are still a major pain in the ass (especially since they can perform two attacks per turn with their WaveMotionGun and still use their reaction plasma turret or launch a missile barrage), although a [[TheHeavy Heavy]] with certain skills and a rocket (or guided fusion) launcher can make short work of them in later stages. They actually become full-blown DemonicSpiders in the ''Enemy Within'' DLC, where all damage they receive is halved (giving them ''60 HP'' in practice), and the Heavy bonus skill against armored enemies is reduced from 100% to 50%.
** ''VideoGame/XCOM2'' introduces stun lancers. These units have both shock swords and assault rifles, high health, and innate dodge chance. They can still attack after dashing, unlike the vast majority of units, and can thus threaten your troops from obscenely long distances with high-accuracy melee strikes. Their weapons have a chance to stun or even ''instantly knock unconscious'' your soldiers, rendering them helpless - often for the entire duration of the mission - and requiring yet another precious soldier to be pulled from active combat in order to evacuate them safely. They appear very, very early in the campaign, before the player is equipped to deal with them, and remain a constant threat throughout. Making matters far worse, the game considers them fairly mundane units and often deploys them in large numbers. Finally, if all that wasn't enough, they have an 'elite' version that gets introduced later on with even more health and dodge.
** There's also the codex. Good lord, the codex. While they may look weak, dealing only 4 - 6 damage (which is still enough to [[OneHitKill instakill]] soldiers in the start of the game,) they have a massive dodge chance, and when they are hit, they duplicate. Granted, those duplicates split the remaining HP of the original between them, but due to them being able to teleport to any position and instantly outflank your soldiers (allowing higher hit chance and more damage) makes them arguably worse than most of the late game enemies. Although they are susceptible to blue-screen rounds (EMP rounds in previous games), it takes a sniper with an upgraded rifle to dispatch them in one hit. Since they're robotic, acid, poison, fire and disorientation don't affect them, and they're impossible to hack, which gets rid of your only major counter to their electronic unit type. Some players ignore the quest that triggers them to spawn until the endgame, because ''they're that much of a pain.''
*** They're even worse in multiplayer. Instead of teleporting whenever hit, the player controlling them can teleport them ''anywhere they damn well please. Once a turn. AND THEN SHOOT YOU.'' They retain their duplication feature, so if your opponent turns out to be packing five codices as their team lineup, you're in for a rough time. (Veteran XCOM players have gone undefeated in multiplayer matches using this strategy - just teleport to outflank the enemies and slowly wear them down.)
* Anti-Tanks in ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Advance Wars]]: Days of Ruin'' qualifies to a slight extent. If there are only land units, what makes it the epitome of CripplingOverspecialization (killing tanks efficiently, short range, weak against an infantry swarm) makes just one of them a pain to deal with properly. This can apply somewhat to indirects, but the Anti-Tank is the case worth mentioning, considering that it slows you down way worse. At least you get Anti-Tanks first though.
** Don't forget that they can just as easily blast Battle Copters out of the sky, surprising at first, considering that the only ground unit that could handle them before were Anti-Airs and Missiles.
** Ironic that the game's Demonic Spider is vulnerable to the games' GoddamnedBats...
** Advance Wars: Dual Strike also features Piperunners, which are typically [[DifficultButAwesome too tricky]] for the player to use, but the enemy makes ''deadly'' use of them in maps intended to showcase them. Firstly, they have ''huge'' range, second only to the battleship, and a ton of fuel and ammo. Secondly, they are one of the few units in the game that can hit ''anything'' except submerged submarines and cloaked stealths and do a lot of damage. Finally, since they move on the otherwise impassable pipes, they can be quite difficult to approach and hit.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'', some enemies (the Antlions) learn a technique that instantly kills any of your party members providing their level number ends in five or zero. So if you go into a battle with them with a group leveled at those numbers, there's pretty much no way to win.
** But since the computer just [[AIRoulette uses random abilities at random times]], they are beatable if you are lucky enough.
** These spells have been a staple of the ''Final Fantasy'' series since time immemorial. However, it should be noted that in FFTA, your maximum level is 50, which makes leveling to avoid the requirement impossible. Other ''Final Fantasy'' games have had the level cap at 100 (same situation applies), or 99, in which case your nemesis is the spell that damages characters at levels with multiples of 3.
** Fairies are surprisingly deadly, especially with their "Level ? Holy" (holy damage on units with the same last digit of their level) and Angel's Whisper (heals and gives auto-life to one of their units), making them easily able to complement other monsters.
* Malboros of ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' fame are pretty much guaranteed to be this in every game they show up in, but the worst case is the ''Cassie'' variety in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2''. They can heal each other and use a number of buffs, put your characters to sleep or ''Charm'' up to 4 of them at once. ''At a 100% success rate''. At the same time, they wear Ribbons, making them completely immune to Debuffs. And did I mention none of these abilities cost any mana?
** Then again, Chryssalids will be rendered rather harmless once the player acquires the Flying Suit: Their horrible attack won't reach you on air.
** In case this isn't enough, ''X-Com: Terror From the Deep'' replaces Chryssalids with Tentaculats, floating brain monsters that do the exact same thing. Except these sons of bitches also ''fly'', so all those clever people that thought Flying Suits saved them from the Chryssalid plague in the first game will find that their floating Mag-Ion Armors do absolutely nothing in the second.
*** The game also replaces the Cyberdisks with Bio-Drones, which have the same traits as the Disks only now they're smaller, harder to hit, and it's near impossible to tell where they're facing making it real hard to sneak up behind them. Trying to attack them from the front is practically suicide since they have a high reaction stat and near-perfect accuracy.
** And ''X-Com: Apocalypse'' continues the fine tradition with Brainsuckers, which don't transform targets into more brainsuckers, nor do they have a 100% success rate, but make up for it by the fact that some enemies can fire them at you. Y'know, in case the little buggers can't reach you on their own, 30 foot vertical jumping range. And while the Chryssalids and Tentaculats (Along with their zombie hosts) could only do melee harm, Brainsucked soldiers can and will shoot at their former comrades. This gives them the dubious honor of being a horrible combination of the mind control the first two games' psychics had and the BodyHorror of their predecessors.
*** And let us not forget the Poppers. These are ridiculously fast suicide bombers which not only explode once they're near your troops, but also explode from almost every type of weapon you have, and their explosions are huge and very damaging. Apocalypse players have learned to fear the little pitter-patter sounds they make.
** ''VideoGame/UFOAftermath'' has the aptly titled Deathbellows. It shoots swarms of bees, that scatter on reaching the target, Evaporates health so quickly you barely get time to pause the game, swarms are able to slowly chase any squad member able to dodge the first attack, have no limit in the number of swarms active, are fired rapidly and to cap it off the range of the Deathbellows is entirely line of sight. If it starts on land that's a an inch higher in elevation on a sparse map, then kiss your squad goodbye as TotalPartyKill seems to be its only purpose. Two of these bastards present on a map guarantees the loss of any team member with less than maximum speed. Three... Well lets just say you'll be thankful for the autosave. Its possible to kill, but only if you've got the most blessed terrain setup and a maxed out sniper and then only just.
*** Reticulans have a superior rapid firing rocket launcher, compared to humanity's [=RPG=]s and [=LAWs=]. Not to mention they weigh less then a feather and some plot missions occasionally spawn several Greys with these together. Oh and don't forget the near instant-kill damage for your PoweredArmor troops, the rest might's well be naked for all the good armor does.
** ''[[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown XCOM: Enemy Unknown]]'' brings back the Cyberdisks (now with the ability to chuck grenades!) and Chryssalids, though it arguably nerfs psi-using aliens to just below the DemonicSpider threshold as they now rely on line of sight. However, it adds [[TheMenInBlack Thin Men]], who have the ability to spit a poison cloud with 100% accuracy, a high accuracy with their light plasma rifles, and burst into a poison cloud when killed.
*** Bonus points for these Chryssalids actually looking like a cross between a spider and a [[VideoGame/StarCraft hydralisk]] and being able to leap on and off the top of buildings. However, they have been nerfed to the point where their attack doesn't mean instant death. They can only infect those they kill, and you can further protect your soldiers by equipping them with the [[LikeCannotCutLike Chryssalids' own carapace]].
*** The Sectopods, like in the original game, are still a major pain in the ass (especially since they can perform two attacks per turn with their WaveMotionGun and still use their reaction plasma turret or launch a missile barrage), although a [[TheHeavy Heavy]] with certain skills and a rocket (or guided fusion) launcher can make short work of them in later stages. They actually become full-blown DemonicSpiders in the ''Enemy Within'' DLC, where all damage they receive is halved (giving them ''60 HP'' in practice), and the Heavy bonus skill against armored enemies is reduced from 100% to 50%.
** ''VideoGame/XCOM2'' introduces stun lancers. These units have both shock swords and assault rifles, high health, and innate dodge chance. They can still attack after dashing, unlike the vast majority of units, and can thus threaten your troops from obscenely long distances with high-accuracy melee strikes. Their weapons have a chance to stun or even ''instantly knock unconscious'' your soldiers, rendering them helpless - often for the entire duration of the mission - and requiring yet another precious soldier to be pulled from active combat in order to evacuate them safely. They appear very, very early in the campaign, before the player is equipped to deal with them, and remain a constant threat throughout. Making matters far worse, the game considers them fairly mundane units and often deploys them in large numbers. Finally, if all that wasn't enough, they have an 'elite' version that gets introduced later on with even more health and dodge.
** There's also the codex. Good lord, the codex. While they may look weak, dealing only 4 - 6 damage (which is still enough to [[OneHitKill instakill]] soldiers in the start of the game,) they have a massive dodge chance, and when they are hit, they duplicate. Granted, those duplicates split the remaining HP of the original between them, but due to them being able to teleport to any position and instantly outflank your soldiers (allowing higher hit chance and more damage) makes them arguably worse than most of the late game enemies. Although they are susceptible to blue-screen rounds (EMP rounds in previous games), it takes a sniper with an upgraded rifle to dispatch them in one hit. Since they're robotic, acid, poison, fire and disorientation don't affect them, and they're impossible to hack, which gets rid of your only major counter to their electronic unit type. Some players ignore the quest that triggers them to spawn until the endgame, because ''they're that much of a pain.''
*** They're even worse in multiplayer. Instead of teleporting whenever hit, the player controlling them can teleport them ''anywhere they damn well please. Once a turn. AND THEN SHOOT YOU.'' They retain their duplication feature, so if your opponent turns out to be packing five codices as their team lineup, you're in for a rough time. (Veteran XCOM players have gone undefeated in multiplayer matches using this strategy - just teleport to outflank the enemies and slowly wear them down.)
* Anti-Tanks in ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Advance Wars]]: Days of Ruin'' qualifies to a slight extent. If there are only land units, what makes it the epitome of CripplingOverspecialization (killing tanks efficiently, short range, weak against an infantry swarm) makes just one of them a pain to deal with properly. This can apply somewhat to indirects, but the Anti-Tank is the case worth mentioning, considering that it slows you down way worse. At least you get Anti-Tanks first though.
** Don't forget that they can just as easily blast Battle Copters out of the sky, surprising at first, considering that the only ground unit that could handle them before were Anti-Airs and Missiles.
** Ironic that the game's Demonic Spider is vulnerable to the games' GoddamnedBats...
** Advance Wars: Dual Strike also features Piperunners, which are typically [[DifficultButAwesome too tricky]] for the player to use, but the enemy makes ''deadly'' use of them in maps intended to showcase them. Firstly, they have ''huge'' range, second only to the battleship, and a ton of fuel and ammo. Secondly, they are one of the few units in the game that can hit ''anything'' except submerged submarines and cloaked stealths and do a lot of damage. Finally, since they move on the otherwise impassable pipes, they can be quite difficult to approach and hit.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'', some enemies (the Antlions) learn a technique that instantly kills any of your party members providing their level number ends in five or zero. So if you go into a battle with them with a group leveled at those numbers, there's pretty much no way to win.
** But since the computer just [[AIRoulette uses random abilities at random times]], they are beatable if you are lucky enough.
** These spells have been a staple of the ''Final Fantasy'' series since time immemorial. However, it should be noted that in FFTA, your maximum level is 50, which makes leveling to avoid the requirement impossible. Other ''Final Fantasy'' games have had the level cap at 100 (same situation applies), or 99, in which case your nemesis is the spell that damages characters at levels with multiples of 3.
** Fairies are surprisingly deadly, especially with their "Level ? Holy" (holy damage on units with the same last digit of their level) and Angel's Whisper (heals and gives auto-life to one of their units), making them easily able to complement other monsters.
* Malboros of ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' fame are pretty much guaranteed to be this in every game they show up in, but the worst case is the ''Cassie'' variety in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2''. They can heal each other and use a number of buffs, put your characters to sleep or ''Charm'' up to 4 of them at once. ''At a 100% success rate''. At the same time, they wear Ribbons, making them completely immune to Debuffs. And did I mention none of these abilities cost any mana?
to:
* 3-hit combo In first two incarnations of ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' both ranged units and flying units qualify: The former because of how most units is fairly slow(especially for Knight and Barbarian castles) which allows them to shred you from ''{{VideoGame/XCOM}}'': Cyberdisks, Psi-using aliens, afar, the latter because of wonky movement system which allows them to jump to ''your'' ranged units and Chryssalids. Cyberdisks can fly and come start massacring them. Third game nerfed their movement abilities a fair bit, although some faster units are still able to jump to you in one-two turns.
* Ghosts in ''Videogame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic II''. They're decently strong for a level 2 creature to begin with, but their special ability is killer. Anything killed by a stack of ghosts turns into a ghost. This means to fight them, you have to attack withan accurate plasma cannon only high enough level creatures to prevent the ghosts from killing too many things and replenishing their numbers. If you make the mistake of fighting ghosts with level one creatures, watch in horror as a stack of ten ghosts hits your stack and is suddenly a stack of 30 ghosts.
* ''VideoGame/MedievalIITotalWar'':
** The Pope will be a campaign-long pain in the ass even if you're a Catholic faction. You can expect random "requests" to show your piety by building churches or spreading Catholicism while you're trying to consolidate your realm, or worse, the Pope will call a Crusade on Buttfuck, Nowhere and be very disappointed with you if you decline. The Pope also hates it when Catholic powers fight, and will order you to cease hostilities even if you weren't the aggressor in a war, or are trying to retake a settlement your neighbor conquered from you. Losing papal favor by failing these missions - or if a cardinal from a rival faction becomes Pope and puts you on the holy shitlist - will result in Inquisitors appearing in your lands, looking for excuses to burn your less-pious generals and family members at the stake. And if you're unlucky enough to get excommunicated, your Catholic citizens will be miserable, and all your rivals will be able to attack you with impunity.
** Around the midgame the Mongols show up on the eastern edge of the map, and if you haven't spent the campaign preparing for them, they ''will'' ruin you. Their faction consists of multiple stacks of highly-experienced heavy cavalry and horse archers, led by dreaded, expert generals capable ofrendering your units dead annihilating any foe in a hurry, along with the fact that they [[CriticalExistenceFailure react violently]] [[MadeOfExplodium to dying]]; the one advantage you do have against them is that they're an open battle. They're not much larger than a normal enemy and thus easier to hit, which is just as well because the only starter weapon that can reliably OneHitKill them is the rocket launcher. Oh, yeah; there's also a 50% chance that they'll show up better in the ''first month'', along with a psi-using alien. And those guys are fun, too. Once one of siege battles, where their allies spots ''one'' sheer numbers and unwillingness to retreat means they can overwhelm even dug-in defenders. A lot of your units, the psi-user amongst strategies therefore advise avoiding combat with them gains the ability to go through your ''[[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard entire team]]'' for the unit with the lowest psi-defense (that you [[FakeDifficulty can't even see without the proper upgrade]]) entirely, and promptly makes that unit their bitch. Enjoy having that unit either run around randomly without their weapon, fire all over the place, or get Mind Controlled and using an army of Assassins to take out 2 or 3 of their former teammates. The only way this crap gets more broken is when [[GameBreaker you get it]]. And then there are Chryssalids. [[http://ironshrinemaiden.deviantart.com/art/Pick-up-that-soap-83170472 Oh dear God there are Chryssalids.]] These things have one attack the Mongols' leadership and one attack only: An infectious bite destroy the faction that instantly converts whatever was hit into a zombie (And kills tanks way.
* Any CPU Hunter unit ina hurry). Said zombie becomes a new Chryssalid ''VideoGame/{{Nectaris}}'' upon taking sufficient non-fire damage, which can then convert more units, and so on. And there is absolutely no defense against this bite: Your SuperSoldier of a Commander falls just reaching 4 stars or more, as easily as your [[{{Redshirt}} Rookies]]. On top of this, they possess enough Time Units to charge at a unit from beyond visual range and transform it into a drooling zombie before the CPU is much less likely than a human player is even sure to try and win a battle it's there. Upon finding out outmatched in, and will retreat everyone experienced back to a factory (but doesn't care about generic inexperienced grunts to its disadvantage.) At that these things are involved in point, surrounding them for the mission, players are known support-fire damage bonus is the only way to take drastic measures such as carrying a primed grenade at all times, killing civilians in the area to prevent them from being infected, out. They're bombers who are as sturdy as your average main battle tank and blowing up the body on top of every single Chryssalid that goes down, just to be sure.
** Then again, Chryssalids will be rendered rather harmless once the player acquires the Flying Suit: Their horrible attack won't reach you on air.
** In case this isn't enough, ''X-Com: Terror From the Deep'' replaces Chryssalids with Tentaculats, floating brain monsters that do the exact same thing. Except these sons of bitches also ''fly'', so all those clever people that thought Flying Suits saved them from the Chryssalid plague in the first game will find that their floating Mag-Ion Armors do absolutely nothing in the second.
*** The game also replaces the Cyberdisks with Bio-Drones, whichhave anti-air missiles as a secondary weapon. A maxed-out Hunter is quite fearsome indeed. Luckily, on some levels, the same traits as the Disks only now they're smaller, harder to hit, and it's near impossible to tell factory where they're facing making it real hard stored is unclaimed and, with a few sacrificial lambs to sneak up behind them. Trying to attack them hold back enemy soldiers, within your reach.
* The Squeakers fromthe front is practically suicide since they have a high reaction stat and near-perfect accuracy.
** And ''X-Com: Apocalypse'' continues the fine tradition with Brainsuckers, which don't transform targets into more brainsuckers, nor do they have a 100% success rate, but make up for it by the fact that some enemies can fire them at you. Y'know, in case the little buggers can't reach you on''VideoGame/{{Odium}}'', thanks to their own, 30 foot vertical jumping range. And while the Chryssalids and Tentaculats (Along with their zombie hosts) could only do melee harm, Brainsucked soldiers can and will shoot at their former comrades. This gives them the dubious honor of being a horrible combination of the mind control the first two games' psychics had and the BodyHorror of their predecessors.
*** And let us not forget the Poppers. These are ridiculously fast suicide bombersearthquake attack, which not only explode once they're near causes a lot of damage, but it works in a very large, cone-shaped radius, making it very hard to keep your troops, but also explode from almost every type men out of weapon you have, and their explosions are huge and very damaging. Apocalypse players have learned to fear the little pitter-patter sounds they make.
** ''VideoGame/UFOAftermath'' has the aptly titled Deathbellows. It shoots swarms of bees, that scatter on reaching the target, Evaporates health so quickly you barely get time to pause the game, swarms are able to slowly chase any squad member able to dodge the first attack, have no limit in the number of swarms active, are fired rapidly and to cap it offthe range of the Deathbellows is entirely line of sight. If it starts on land that's a an inch higher in elevation on a sparse map, then kiss your squad goodbye as TotalPartyKill seems to be its only purpose. Two of these bastards present on a map guarantees the loss of any team member with less than maximum speed. Three... Well lets just say their attacks. Very often, you'll be thankful for the autosave. Its possible find a Squeaker or two managing to kill, but only if you've got the most blessed terrain setup and a maxed out sniper and then only just.
*** Reticulans have a superior rapid firing rocket launcher, compared to humanity's [=RPG=]s and [=LAWs=]. Not to mention they weigh less then a feather and some plot missions occasionally spawn several Greys with these together. Oh and don't forget the near instant-kill damage forsuddenly nail your PoweredArmor troops, the rest might's well be naked for all the good armor does.
** ''[[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown XCOM: Enemy Unknown]]'' brings back the Cyberdisks (now with the ability to chuck grenades!) and Chryssalids, though it arguably nerfs psi-using aliens to just below the DemonicSpider threshold as they now rely on line of sight. However, it adds [[TheMenInBlack Thin Men]], who have the ability to spit a poison cloud with 100% accuracy, a high accuracy with their light plasma rifles, and burst into a poison cloud when killed.
*** Bonus points for these Chryssalids actually looking like a cross between a spider and a [[VideoGame/StarCraft hydralisk]] and being able to leap on and off the top of buildings. However, they have been nerfed to the point where theirentire team in an attack doesn't mean instant death. They can only infect those they kill, and you can further protect your soldiers by equipping them with the [[LikeCannotCutLike Chryssalids' own carapace]].
*** The Sectopods, like in the original game, are still a major pain in the ass (especially since they can perform two attacks per turn with their WaveMotionGun and still use their reaction plasma turret or launch a missile barrage), although a [[TheHeavy Heavy]] with certain skills and a rocket (or guided fusion) launcher can make short work of them in later stages. They actually become full-blown DemonicSpiders in the ''Enemy Within'' DLC, where all damage they receive is halved (giving them ''60 HP'' in practice), and the Heavy bonus skill against armored enemies is reduced from 100% to 50%.
** ''VideoGame/XCOM2'' introduces stun lancers. These units have both shock swords and assault rifles, high health, and innate dodge chance. They can still attack after dashing, unlike the vast majority of units, and can thus threaten your troops from obscenely long distances with high-accuracy melee strikes. Their weapons have a chance to stun or even ''instantly knock unconscious'' your soldiers, rendering them helpless - often for the entire duration of the mission - and requiring yet another precious soldier to be pulled from active combat in order to evacuate them safely. They appear very, very early in the campaign, before the player is equipped to deal with them, and remain a constant threat throughout. Making matters far worse, the game considers them fairly mundane units and often deploys them in large numbers. Finally, if all that wasn't enough, they have an 'elite' version that gets introduced later on with even more health and dodge.
** There's also the codex. Good lord, the codex. While they may look weak, dealing only 4 - 6 damage (which is still enough to [[OneHitKill instakill]] soldiers in the start of the game,) they have a massive dodge chance, and when they are hit, they duplicate. Granted, those duplicates split the remaining HP of the original between them, but due to them being able to teleport to any position and instantly outflank your soldiers (allowing higher hit chance and more damage) makes them arguably worse than most of the late game enemies. Although they are susceptible to blue-screen rounds (EMP rounds in previous games), it takes a sniper with an upgraded rifle to dispatch them in one hit. Since they're robotic, acid, poison, fire and disorientation don't affect them, and they're impossible to hack, which gets rid of your only major counter to their electronic unit type. Some players ignore the quest that triggers them to spawn until the endgame, because ''they're that much of a pain.''
*** They're even worse in multiplayer. Instead of teleporting whenever hit, the player controlling them can teleport them ''anywhere they damn well please. Once a turn. AND THEN SHOOT YOU.'' They retain their duplication feature, so if your opponent turns out to be packing five codices as their team lineup, you're in for a rough time. (Veteran XCOM players have gone undefeated in multiplayer matches using this strategy - just teleport to outflank the enemies and slowly wear them down.)
* Anti-Tanks in ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Advance Wars]]: Days of Ruin'' qualifies to a slight extent. If there are only land units, what makes it the epitome of CripplingOverspecialization (killing tanks efficiently, short range, weak against an infantry swarm) makes just one of them a pain to deal with properly. This can apply somewhat to indirects, but the Anti-Tank is the case worth mentioning, considering that it slows you down way worse. At least you get Anti-Tanks first though.
** Don't forget that they can just as easily blast Battle Copters out of the sky, surprising at first, considering that the only ground unit that could handle them before were Anti-Airs and Missiles.
** Ironic that the game's Demonic Spider is vulnerable to the games' GoddamnedBats...
** Advance Wars: Dual Strike also features Piperunners, which are typically [[DifficultButAwesome too tricky]] for the player to use, but the enemy makes ''deadly'' use of them in maps intended to showcase them. Firstly, they have ''huge'' range, second only to the battleship, and a ton of fuel and ammo. Secondly, they are one of the few units in the game that can hit ''anything'' except submerged submarines and cloaked stealths and do a lot of damage. Finally, since they move on the otherwise impassable pipes, they can be quite difficult to approach and hit.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'', some enemies (the Antlions) learn a technique that instantly kills any of your party members providing their level number ends in five or zero. So if you go into a battle with them with a group leveled at those numbers, there's pretty much no way to win.
** But since the computer just [[AIRoulette uses random abilities at random times]], they are beatable if you are lucky enough.
** These spells have been a staple of the ''Final Fantasy'' series since time immemorial. However, it should be noted that in FFTA, your maximum level is 50, which makes leveling to avoid the requirement impossible. Other ''Final Fantasy'' games have had the level cap at 100 (same situation applies), or 99, in which case your nemesis is the spell that damages characters at levels with multiples of 3.
** Fairies are surprisingly deadly, especially with their "Level ? Holy" (holy damage on units with the same last digit of their level) and Angel's Whisper (heals and gives auto-life to one of their units), making them easily able to complement other monsters.
* Malboros of ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' fame are pretty much guaranteed to be this in every game they show up in, but the worst case is the ''Cassie'' variety in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2''. They can heal each other and use a number of buffs, put your characters to sleep or ''Charm'' up to 4 of them at once. ''At a 100% success rate''. At the same time, they wear Ribbons, making them completely immune to Debuffs. And did I mention none of these abilities cost any mana?never noticed was possible.
* Ghosts in ''Videogame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic II''. They're decently strong for a level 2 creature to begin with, but their special ability is killer. Anything killed by a stack of ghosts turns into a ghost. This means to fight them, you have to attack with
* ''VideoGame/MedievalIITotalWar'':
** The Pope will be a campaign-long pain in the ass even if you're a Catholic faction. You can expect random "requests" to show your piety by building churches or spreading Catholicism while you're trying to consolidate your realm, or worse, the Pope will call a Crusade on Buttfuck, Nowhere and be very disappointed with you if you decline. The Pope also hates it when Catholic powers fight, and will order you to cease hostilities even if you weren't the aggressor in a war, or are trying to retake a settlement your neighbor conquered from you. Losing papal favor by failing these missions - or if a cardinal from a rival faction becomes Pope and puts you on the holy shitlist - will result in Inquisitors appearing in your lands, looking for excuses to burn your less-pious generals and family members at the stake. And if you're unlucky enough to get excommunicated, your Catholic citizens will be miserable, and all your rivals will be able to attack you with impunity.
** Around the midgame the Mongols show up on the eastern edge of the map, and if you haven't spent the campaign preparing for them, they ''will'' ruin you. Their faction consists of multiple stacks of highly-experienced heavy cavalry and horse archers, led by dreaded, expert generals capable of
* Any CPU Hunter unit in
** Then again, Chryssalids will be rendered rather harmless once the player acquires the Flying Suit: Their horrible attack won't reach you on air.
** In case this isn't enough, ''X-Com: Terror From the Deep'' replaces Chryssalids with Tentaculats, floating brain monsters that do the exact same thing. Except these sons of bitches also ''fly'', so all those clever people that thought Flying Suits saved them from the Chryssalid plague in the first game will find that their floating Mag-Ion Armors do absolutely nothing in the second.
*** The game also replaces the Cyberdisks with Bio-Drones, which
* The Squeakers from
** And ''X-Com: Apocalypse'' continues the fine tradition with Brainsuckers, which don't transform targets into more brainsuckers, nor do they have a 100% success rate, but make up for it by the fact that some enemies can fire them at you. Y'know, in case the little buggers can't reach you on
*** And let us not forget the Poppers. These are ridiculously fast suicide bombers
** ''VideoGame/UFOAftermath'' has the aptly titled Deathbellows. It shoots swarms of bees, that scatter on reaching the target, Evaporates health so quickly you barely get time to pause the game, swarms are able to slowly chase any squad member able to dodge the first attack, have no limit in the number of swarms active, are fired rapidly and to cap it off
*** Reticulans have a superior rapid firing rocket launcher, compared to humanity's [=RPG=]s and [=LAWs=]. Not to mention they weigh less then a feather and some plot missions occasionally spawn several Greys with these together. Oh and don't forget the near instant-kill damage for
** ''[[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown XCOM: Enemy Unknown]]'' brings back the Cyberdisks (now with the ability to chuck grenades!) and Chryssalids, though it arguably nerfs psi-using aliens to just below the DemonicSpider threshold as they now rely on line of sight. However, it adds [[TheMenInBlack Thin Men]], who have the ability to spit a poison cloud with 100% accuracy, a high accuracy with their light plasma rifles, and burst into a poison cloud when killed.
*** Bonus points for these Chryssalids actually looking like a cross between a spider and a [[VideoGame/StarCraft hydralisk]] and being able to leap on and off the top of buildings. However, they have been nerfed to the point where their
*** The Sectopods, like in the original game, are still a major pain in the ass (especially since they can perform two attacks per turn with their WaveMotionGun and still use their reaction plasma turret or launch a missile barrage), although a [[TheHeavy Heavy]] with certain skills and a rocket (or guided fusion) launcher can make short work of them in later stages. They actually become full-blown DemonicSpiders in the ''Enemy Within'' DLC, where all damage they receive is halved (giving them ''60 HP'' in practice), and the Heavy bonus skill against armored enemies is reduced from 100% to 50%.
** ''VideoGame/XCOM2'' introduces stun lancers. These units have both shock swords and assault rifles, high health, and innate dodge chance. They can still attack after dashing, unlike the vast majority of units, and can thus threaten your troops from obscenely long distances with high-accuracy melee strikes. Their weapons have a chance to stun or even ''instantly knock unconscious'' your soldiers, rendering them helpless - often for the entire duration of the mission - and requiring yet another precious soldier to be pulled from active combat in order to evacuate them safely. They appear very, very early in the campaign, before the player is equipped to deal with them, and remain a constant threat throughout. Making matters far worse, the game considers them fairly mundane units and often deploys them in large numbers. Finally, if all that wasn't enough, they have an 'elite' version that gets introduced later on with even more health and dodge.
** There's also the codex. Good lord, the codex. While they may look weak, dealing only 4 - 6 damage (which is still enough to [[OneHitKill instakill]] soldiers in the start of the game,) they have a massive dodge chance, and when they are hit, they duplicate. Granted, those duplicates split the remaining HP of the original between them, but due to them being able to teleport to any position and instantly outflank your soldiers (allowing higher hit chance and more damage) makes them arguably worse than most of the late game enemies. Although they are susceptible to blue-screen rounds (EMP rounds in previous games), it takes a sniper with an upgraded rifle to dispatch them in one hit. Since they're robotic, acid, poison, fire and disorientation don't affect them, and they're impossible to hack, which gets rid of your only major counter to their electronic unit type. Some players ignore the quest that triggers them to spawn until the endgame, because ''they're that much of a pain.''
*** They're even worse in multiplayer. Instead of teleporting whenever hit, the player controlling them can teleport them ''anywhere they damn well please. Once a turn. AND THEN SHOOT YOU.'' They retain their duplication feature, so if your opponent turns out to be packing five codices as their team lineup, you're in for a rough time. (Veteran XCOM players have gone undefeated in multiplayer matches using this strategy - just teleport to outflank the enemies and slowly wear them down.)
* Anti-Tanks in ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Advance Wars]]: Days of Ruin'' qualifies to a slight extent. If there are only land units, what makes it the epitome of CripplingOverspecialization (killing tanks efficiently, short range, weak against an infantry swarm) makes just one of them a pain to deal with properly. This can apply somewhat to indirects, but the Anti-Tank is the case worth mentioning, considering that it slows you down way worse. At least you get Anti-Tanks first though.
** Don't forget that they can just as easily blast Battle Copters out of the sky, surprising at first, considering that the only ground unit that could handle them before were Anti-Airs and Missiles.
** Ironic that the game's Demonic Spider is vulnerable to the games' GoddamnedBats...
** Advance Wars: Dual Strike also features Piperunners, which are typically [[DifficultButAwesome too tricky]] for the player to use, but the enemy makes ''deadly'' use of them in maps intended to showcase them. Firstly, they have ''huge'' range, second only to the battleship, and a ton of fuel and ammo. Secondly, they are one of the few units in the game that can hit ''anything'' except submerged submarines and cloaked stealths and do a lot of damage. Finally, since they move on the otherwise impassable pipes, they can be quite difficult to approach and hit.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'', some enemies (the Antlions) learn a technique that instantly kills any of your party members providing their level number ends in five or zero. So if you go into a battle with them with a group leveled at those numbers, there's pretty much no way to win.
** But since the computer just [[AIRoulette uses random abilities at random times]], they are beatable if you are lucky enough.
** These spells have been a staple of the ''Final Fantasy'' series since time immemorial. However, it should be noted that in FFTA, your maximum level is 50, which makes leveling to avoid the requirement impossible. Other ''Final Fantasy'' games have had the level cap at 100 (same situation applies), or 99, in which case your nemesis is the spell that damages characters at levels with multiples of 3.
** Fairies are surprisingly deadly, especially with their "Level ? Holy" (holy damage on units with the same last digit of their level) and Angel's Whisper (heals and gives auto-life to one of their units), making them easily able to complement other monsters.
* Malboros of ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' fame are pretty much guaranteed to be this in every game they show up in, but the worst case is the ''Cassie'' variety in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2''. They can heal each other and use a number of buffs, put your characters to sleep or ''Charm'' up to 4 of them at once. ''At a 100% success rate''. At the same time, they wear Ribbons, making them completely immune to Debuffs. And did I mention none of these abilities cost any mana?
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* The frigging Winged enemies early in ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}''. They've got the best mobility in the game when you first encounter them, and they can spam an area attack that inflicts UniversalPoison before you probably have the spell to cure it (and certainly before you can cure multiple people at once). Ironically, running into higher-level and more powerful versions later becomes easier than their first appearances; the AIRoulette will cause them to use attacks they learn later on more frequently, which are much easier to deal with. Plus, by then you probably have several characters that can cure poison (presuming you don't just stock up on the cures at the store).
** The winged return in force in ''VideoGame/Disgaea4APromiseUnforgotten''. Their base evilty (as in the one they always have) halves the accuracy of all attacks made from an adjacent space, making them a pain for most melee classes, especially axe users. The game also loves throwing them in with "No Ranged" Geo Effect panels, making them infinitely more aggravating. The game also has Ninjas. Now, Ninjas have been in every Disgaea game to date, but never have they had the ability that, like the Winged above, halves accuracy of certain attacks (from the front this time). Normally, these enemies only appear in small sqauds. However, Chapter 4 breaks this rule by having just about nothing BUT Ninjas (labeled [[BadassNormal Office Workers]]), in almost painfully small maps where being anywhere but in the frontal cone is either painful or impossible. And then a Winged magichanges with a Ninja...
** Random pirate encounters in the Item World in ''VideoGame/DisgaeaDimension2''. Sometimes, they'll be a crowd that's difficult but survivable. Other times, you will come up against a single opponent who outranks you by 100+ levels, at which point you run for the exit.
* In ''VideoGame/MedievalIITotalWar'', the Catholic Church will send Inquisitors into your territories if you get excommunicated, or they'll just wander into your lands on their own, and start setting agents and family members on fire. The only way to stop the Inquisitors is to assassinate them, which is spotty at best.
** The whole damn Catholic Church is a DemonicSpider ([[WesternAnimation/SouthPark no pun]]). The Papal favor rates are entirely random to start with, and are almost entirely random throughout the game, as you can LOSE favor for not building enough churches, or even while building plenty of churches. It can get to a point where you can be struggling merely to exist, and the Pope will FORCE you to devote your glorious faction leader to a pointless Crusade of Buttfuck, Nowhere or else be excommunicated. Even worse is when another Catholic faction decides it wants your land, attacks you, you attack it back, manage to retake your land, then while you're besieging your old capital, the Pope tells you to STOP FIGHTING WITH SAID FACTION and that if you attack them again within 10 turns, you will be EXCOMMUNICATED! Even just taking back your old capital will get you punished, and in the end THEY will get off with HUGE Papal favor!
*** Is it a surprise that many veteran players make it their priority to take Rome ASAP? Given a free hand, the Pope goes militant and starts taking over half of damn Europe.
*** Now THAT'S what I call a good history simulation!
** Also, the goddamned Mongols. In every game they appear in. They show up out of nowhere with a ''huge'' army (in Medieval 2, it's seven fully stacked armies) made up of troops with incredibly high experience and morale. Almost all of their troops are heavy calvary and horse archers, making them unbeatable in open battle. Even if you manage to bait them to attack your cities (generally considered the best strategy, since it negates their movement advantage and basically makes them run into your spearmen), they're insanely tough to beat due to their unwillingness to retreat and pure numbers.
** The winged return in force in ''VideoGame/Disgaea4APromiseUnforgotten''. Their base evilty (as in the one they always have) halves the accuracy of all attacks made from an adjacent space, making them a pain for most melee classes, especially axe users. The game also loves throwing them in with "No Ranged" Geo Effect panels, making them infinitely more aggravating. The game also has Ninjas. Now, Ninjas have been in every Disgaea game to date, but never have they had the ability that, like the Winged above, halves accuracy of certain attacks (from the front this time). Normally, these enemies only appear in small sqauds. However, Chapter 4 breaks this rule by having just about nothing BUT Ninjas (labeled [[BadassNormal Office Workers]]), in almost painfully small maps where being anywhere but in the frontal cone is either painful or impossible. And then a Winged magichanges with a Ninja...
** Random pirate encounters in the Item World in ''VideoGame/DisgaeaDimension2''. Sometimes, they'll be a crowd that's difficult but survivable. Other times, you will come up against a single opponent who outranks you by 100+ levels, at which point you run for the exit.
* In ''VideoGame/MedievalIITotalWar'', the Catholic Church will send Inquisitors into your territories if you get excommunicated, or they'll just wander into your lands on their own, and start setting agents and family members on fire. The only way to stop the Inquisitors is to assassinate them, which is spotty at best.
** The whole damn Catholic Church is a DemonicSpider ([[WesternAnimation/SouthPark no pun]]). The Papal favor rates are entirely random to start with, and are almost entirely random throughout the game, as you can LOSE favor for not building enough churches, or even while building plenty of churches. It can get to a point where you can be struggling merely to exist, and the Pope will FORCE you to devote your glorious faction leader to a pointless Crusade of Buttfuck, Nowhere or else be excommunicated. Even worse is when another Catholic faction decides it wants your land, attacks you, you attack it back, manage to retake your land, then while you're besieging your old capital, the Pope tells you to STOP FIGHTING WITH SAID FACTION and that if you attack them again within 10 turns, you will be EXCOMMUNICATED! Even just taking back your old capital will get you punished, and in the end THEY will get off with HUGE Papal favor!
*** Is it a surprise that many veteran players make it their priority to take Rome ASAP? Given a free hand, the Pope goes militant and starts taking over half of damn Europe.
*** Now THAT'S what I call a good history simulation!
** Also, the goddamned Mongols. In every game they appear in. They show up out of nowhere with a ''huge'' army (in Medieval 2, it's seven fully stacked armies) made up of troops with incredibly high experience and morale. Almost all of their troops are heavy calvary and horse archers, making them unbeatable in open battle. Even if you manage to bait them to attack your cities (generally considered the best strategy, since it negates their movement advantage and basically makes them run into your spearmen), they're insanely tough to beat due to their unwillingness to retreat and pure numbers.
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* ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' has a few of these:
** The Swarm, aka space bees. They will eat small groups of ships with ease if you have no point defences or strong rapid-fire weapons.
** Von Neumann machines "consume" your ships quite quickly and can take a fair bit of punishment from small weapons. Their strong point defences make missiles useless except in giant {{Macross Missile Massacre}}s, and missiles will probably be your most reliable heavy weapon early-game unless you rush something else at the cost of economic or development technologies. And that's just the little ones.
** The Crows, aka Morrigi {{Durable Deathtrap}}s. No problem for a Morrigi player or anyone who's researched the third-level Morrigi language, but anyone else is going to be either dragged into the planet's atmosphere, beset by asteroids, or just outright swarmed by drones.
** The Swarm, aka space bees. They will eat small groups of ships with ease if you have no point defences or strong rapid-fire weapons.
** Von Neumann machines "consume" your ships quite quickly and can take a fair bit of punishment from small weapons. Their strong point defences make missiles useless except in giant {{Macross Missile Massacre}}s, and missiles will probably be your most reliable heavy weapon early-game unless you rush something else at the cost of economic or development technologies. And that's just the little ones.
** The Crows, aka Morrigi {{Durable Deathtrap}}s. No problem for a Morrigi player or anyone who's researched the third-level Morrigi language, but anyone else is going to be either dragged into the planet's atmosphere, beset by asteroids, or just outright swarmed by drones.
* ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' has a few of these:
** The Swarm, aka space bees. They will eat small groups of ships with ease if you have no point defences or strong rapid-fire weapons.
** Von Neumann machines "consume" your ships quite quickly and can take a fair bit of punishment from small weapons. Their strong point defences make missiles useless except in giant {{Macross Missile Massacre}}s, and missiles will probably be your most reliable heavy weapon early-game unless you rush something else at the cost of economic or development technologies. And that's just the little ones.
** The Crows, aka Morrigi {{Durable Deathtrap}}s. No problem for a Morrigi player or anyone who's researched the third-level Morrigi language, but anyone else is going to be either dragged into the planet's atmosphere, beset by asteroids, or just outright swarmed by drones.
** The Swarm, aka space bees. They will eat small groups of ships with ease if you have no point defences or strong rapid-fire weapons.
** Von Neumann machines "consume" your ships quite quickly and can take a fair bit of punishment from small weapons. Their strong point defences make missiles useless except in giant {{Macross Missile Massacre}}s, and missiles will probably be your most reliable heavy weapon early-game unless you rush something else at the cost of economic or development technologies. And that's just the little ones.
** The Crows, aka Morrigi {{Durable Deathtrap}}s. No problem for a Morrigi player or anyone who's researched the third-level Morrigi language, but anyone else is going to be either dragged into the planet's atmosphere, beset by asteroids, or just outright swarmed by drones.
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* In first two incarnations of ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' both ranged units and flying units qualify: The former because of how most units is fairly slow(especially for Knight and Barbarian castles) which allows them to shred you from afar, the latter because of wonky movement system which allows them to jump to ''your'' ranged units and start massacring them. Third game nerfed their movement abilities a fair bit, although some faster units are still able to jump to you in one-two turns.
* The Squeakers from ''VideoGame/{{Odium}}'', thanks to their earthquake attack, which not only causes a lot of damage, but it works in a very large, cone-shaped radius, making it very hard to keep your men out of the range of their attacks. Very often, you'll find a Squeaker or two managing to suddenly nail your entire team in an attack you never noticed was possible.
* Ghosts in ''Videogame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic II''. They're decently strong for a level 2 creature to begin with, but their special ability is killer. Anything killed by a stack of ghosts turns into a ghost. This means to fight them, you have to attack with only high enough level creatures to prevent the ghosts from killing too many things and replenishing their numbers. If you make the mistake of fighting ghosts with level one creatures, watch in horror as a stack of ten ghosts hits your stack and is suddenly a stack of 30 ghosts.
* Any CPU Hunter unit in ''VideoGame/{{Nectaris}}'' upon reaching 4 stars or more, as the CPU is much less likely than a human player to try and win a battle it's outmatched in, and will retreat everyone experienced back to a factory (but doesn't care about generic inexperienced grunts to its disadvantage.) At that point, surrounding them for the support-fire damage bonus is the only way to take them out. They're bombers who are as sturdy as your average main battle tank and on top of that have anti-air missiles as a secondary weapon. A maxed-out Hunter is quite fearsome indeed. Luckily, on some levels, the factory where they're stored is unclaimed and, with a few sacrificial lambs to hold back enemy soldiers, within your reach.
* The Squeakers from ''VideoGame/{{Odium}}'', thanks to their earthquake attack, which not only causes a lot of damage, but it works in a very large, cone-shaped radius, making it very hard to keep your men out of the range of their attacks. Very often, you'll find a Squeaker or two managing to suddenly nail your entire team in an attack you never noticed was possible.
* Ghosts in ''Videogame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic II''. They're decently strong for a level 2 creature to begin with, but their special ability is killer. Anything killed by a stack of ghosts turns into a ghost. This means to fight them, you have to attack with only high enough level creatures to prevent the ghosts from killing too many things and replenishing their numbers. If you make the mistake of fighting ghosts with level one creatures, watch in horror as a stack of ten ghosts hits your stack and is suddenly a stack of 30 ghosts.
* Any CPU Hunter unit in ''VideoGame/{{Nectaris}}'' upon reaching 4 stars or more, as the CPU is much less likely than a human player to try and win a battle it's outmatched in, and will retreat everyone experienced back to a factory (but doesn't care about generic inexperienced grunts to its disadvantage.) At that point, surrounding them for the support-fire damage bonus is the only way to take them out. They're bombers who are as sturdy as your average main battle tank and on top of that have anti-air missiles as a secondary weapon. A maxed-out Hunter is quite fearsome indeed. Luckily, on some levels, the factory where they're stored is unclaimed and, with a few sacrificial lambs to hold back enemy soldiers, within your reach.
to:
* In first two incarnations ''VideoGame/{{Wild ARMs XF}}'': Very common enemy starting from the beginning in non-storyline battles is the "harpy." (It's a bat.) Has special attacks that can steal your items, confuse you, make you unable to heal, diseased, miserable, or insta-kill. Did I mention that it's probably faster than most of ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' both ranged your characters? Did I mention that it's also more agile, and will dodge most of your attacks?
** Interestingly enough, Harpies are part of a glitch that can be used to get massive amounts of money very quickly by duplicating an item from 1 to 255. The problem is, they need to STEAL that one item you want to duplicate. Which you then sell to the store for massive money.
* 3-hit combo from the original ''VideoGame/XCOMUFODefense'': Cyberdisks, Psi-using aliens, and Chryssalids.
** Cyberdisks can fly and come with an accurate plasma cannon capable of rendering your units dead in a hurry, along with the fact that they [[CriticalExistenceFailure react violently]] [[MadeOfExplodium to dying]]; the one advantage you do have against them is that they're much larger than a normal enemy andflying units qualify: The former thus easier to hit, which is just as well because of how most units is fairly slow(especially for Knight and Barbarian castles) which allows the only starter weapon that can reliably OneHitKill them to shred you from afar, is the latter because of wonky movement system which allows them to jump to ''your'' ranged units rocket launcher. Oh, yeah; there's also a 50% chance that they'll show up in the ''first month''.
** Psi-using aliens can show up in the first month too, andstart massacring them. Third game nerfed their movement abilities a fair bit, although some faster units these guys are still able to jump to you in one-two turns.
* The Squeakers from ''VideoGame/{{Odium}}'', thanks to their earthquake attack, which not only causes a lot of damage, but it works in a very large, cone-shaped radius, making it very hard to keep your men out of the rangejust as fun. Once one of their attacks. Very often, you'll find a Squeaker or two managing to suddenly nail allies spots ''one'' of your entire team in an attack you never noticed was possible.
* Ghosts in ''Videogame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic II''. They're decently strong for a level 2 creature to begin with, but their specialunits, the psi-user amongst them gains the ability to go through your ''[[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard entire team]]'' for the unit with the lowest psi-defense (that you [[FakeDifficulty can't even see without the proper upgrade]]) and promptly makes that unit their bitch. Enjoy having that unit either run around randomly without their weapon, fire all over the place, or get Mind Controlled and take out 2 or 3 of their former teammates. The only way this crap gets more broken is killer. Anything killed by a stack of ghosts turns when [[GameBreaker you get it]].
** And then there are Chryssalids. [[http://ironshrinemaiden.deviantart.com/art/Pick-up-that-soap-83170472 Oh dear God there are Chryssalids.]] These things have one attack and one attack only: an infectious bite that instantly converts whatever was hit into aghost. This means to fight them, you have to attack with only high zombie (and kills tanks in a hurry). Said zombie becomes a new Chryssalid upon taking sufficient non-fire damage, which can then convert more units, and so on. And there is absolutely no defense against this bite: your SuperSoldier of a Commander falls just as easily as your [[{{Redshirt}} Rookies]]. On top of this, they possess enough level creatures Time Units to charge at a unit from beyond visual range and transform it into a drooling zombie before the player is even sure it's there. Upon finding out that these things are involved in the mission, players are known to take drastic measures such as carrying a primed grenade at all times, killing civilians in the area to prevent the ghosts them from killing too many things being infected, and replenishing blowing up the body of every single Chryssalid that goes down, just to be sure. The only good news is that Chryssalids will be rendered rather harmless once the player acquires the Flying Suit: Their horrible attack won't reach you on air.
* ''VideoGame/XCOMTerrorFromTheDeep'' replaces Chryssalids with Tentaculats, floating brain monsters that do the exact same thing, except these sons of bitches also ''fly'', so all those clever people that thought Flying Suits saved them from the Chryssalid plague in the first game will find that theirnumbers. If you make floating Mag-Ion Armors do absolutely nothing in the mistake of fighting ghosts second. The game also replaces the Cyberdisks with level one creatures, watch in horror as a stack of ten ghosts hits your stack and is suddenly a stack of 30 ghosts.
* Any CPU Hunter unit in ''VideoGame/{{Nectaris}}'' upon reaching 4 stars or more,Bio-Drones, which have the same traits as the CPU is much less likely than a human player Disks only now they're smaller, harder to try hit, and win a battle it's outmatched in, and will retreat everyone experienced back near impossible to a factory (but doesn't care about generic inexperienced grunts to its disadvantage.) At that point, surrounding them for the support-fire damage bonus is the only way to take them out. They're bombers who are as sturdy as your average main battle tank and on top of that have anti-air missiles as a secondary weapon. A maxed-out Hunter is quite fearsome indeed. Luckily, on some levels, the factory tell where they're stored facing making it real hard to sneak up behind them. Trying to attack them from the front is unclaimed and, practically suicide since they have a high reaction stat and near-perfect accuracy.
* ''VideoGame/XCOMApocalypse'' continues the fine tradition with Brainsuckers, which don't transform targets into more brainsuckers, nor do they have afew sacrificial lambs 100% success rate, but make up for it by the fact that some enemies can fire them at you. Y'know, in case the little buggers can't reach you on their own, 30 foot vertical jumping range. And while the Chryssalids and Tentaculats (along with their zombie hosts) could only do melee harm, Brainsucked soldiers can and will shoot at their former comrades. This gives them the dubious honor of being a horrible combination of the mind control the first two games' psychics had and the BodyHorror of their predecessors.
** And let us not forget the Poppers. These are ridiculously fast suicide bombers which not only explode once they're near your troops, but also explode from almost every type of weapon you have, and their explosions are huge and very damaging. ''Apocalypse'' players have learned tohold back enemy fear the little pitter-patter sounds they make.
* ''[[VideoGame/UFOAfterblank UFO Aftermath]]'' has the aptly titled Deathbellows. It shoots swarms of bees, that scatter on reaching the target, Evaporates health so quickly you barely get time to pause the game, swarms are able to slowly chase any squad member able to dodge the first attack, have no limit in the number of swarms active, are fired rapidly and to cap it off the range of the Deathbellows is entirely line of sight. If it starts on land that's a an inch higher in elevation on a sparse map, then kiss your squad goodbye as TotalPartyKill seems to be its only purpose. Two of these bastards present on a map guarantees the loss of any team member with less than maximum speed. Three... Well lets just say you'll be thankful for the autosave. Its possible to kill, but only if you've got the most blessed terrain setup and a maxed out sniper and then only just.
** Reticulans have a superior rapid firing rocket launcher, compared to humanity's [=RPG=]s and [=LAWs=]. Not to mention they weigh less then a feather and some plot missions occasionally spawn several Greys with these together. Oh and don't forget the near instant-kill damage for your PoweredArmor troops, the rest might's well be naked for all the good armor does.
* ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' has some good news in that alien psychics require line-of-sight to target your troops. The rest is bad news.
** Cyberdiscs are back, and have gained the ability to chuck a grenade at your bunched-up soldiers,within or to blow them out of cover.
** Chryssalids have received a makeover to turn them into a nightmarish cross between a spider and a [[VideoGame/StarCraft Hydralisk]]. Their bite attack isn't a OneHitKill, and you can harvest their carapace [[LikeCannotCutLike Chryssalids' to make melee armor for yourreach.soldiers]], but their mobility has been enhanced to let them leap onto and off the top of buildings, in case you thought taking the high ground would save you.
** The game also introduces [[TheMenInBlack Thin Men]], aliens that aren't much more durable than the humble [[TheGoomba Sectoid]], but which are hellishly-accurate with their light plasma rifles, can spring up to take the high ground in a single move, have an always-accurate attack to spit a cloud of poison at your soldiers that will doom them to a slow death if you don't have a medkit available, and even release a similar cloud of poison upon death. They show up in the very first month of the campaign.
** Sectopods, like in the original game, are a major pain in the ass (especially since they can perform two attacks per turn with their WaveMotionGun and still use their reaction plasma turret or launch a missile barrage), although a [[TheHeavy Heavy]] with certain skills and a rocket (or guided fusion) launcher can make short work of them in later stages. They actually become full-blown DemonicSpiders in the ''Enemy Within'' expansion, where all damage they receive is halved (giving them ''60 HP'' in practice), and the Heavy bonus skill against armored enemies is reduced from 100% to 50%.
* ''VideoGame/XCOM2'' has almost as many Demonic Spiders as the other games combined.
** ADVENT Stun Lancers show up very early in the campaign, before the player is really equipped to deal with them. These units have both shock swords and assault rifles, high health, and innate dodge chance. They can attack after making a dash move, allowing them to threaten your troops from obscenely long distances with high-accuracy melee strikes. Their weapons have a chance to stun or even ''instantly knock unconscious'' your soldiers, rendering them helpless - often for the entire duration of the mission - and requiring yet another precious soldier to be pulled from active combat in order to evacuate them safely. Making matters far worse, the game considers them fairly mundane units and often deploys them in large numbers. Finally, if all that wasn't enough, they have an 'elite' version that gets introduced later on with even more health and dodge.
** ADVENT [=MECs=] are another early-game threat, and might be the first enemy you encounter with actual armor, which isn't fun if you're still using ballistic weapons. Their signature ability is a mini-missile barrage that doesn't deal much damage in itself, but can set your soldiers on fire, destroy their cover, or send them plunging to their deaths by blowing the floor out from under them.
** Chryssalids are back, and somehow ''worse''. They're just as fast and nimble as in previous games, but changes to melee attacks mean that they can maul your soldiers after a dash move just like Stun Lancers, delivering a lingering poison that will kill them unless you have a medkit. And Chryssalid poison doesn't zombify people, no, instead it turns them into incubators that will spawn ''three more'' Chryssalids unless destroyed, Chryssalids that can in turn poison victims to turn into more incubators. They can also burrow into the ground to hide, leaving them to ambush your soldiers when you get too close, attacking you on your turn. Finally, they seem to be behind one of the worst {{Game Breaking Bug}}s that can be encountered, and just saving on a map with them can stop an Ironman run from progressing.
** There's also the Codex. Good lord, the Codex. Their standard attack does a "mere" 4-6 damage, enough to OneHitKill soldiers at the start of the game, but they can also drop a psionic maelstrom on the battlefield that jams your soldiers' weapons, requiring them to spend an action reloading before they can shoot again... and if your troops are dumb enough to stay in the [=AoE=] to do that they'll take heavy damage when the maelstrom goes off on the Codex's next turn. They can also spend an action to teleport anywhere on the battlefield, like an elevated position on your flank, in preparation of giving you a reaming next turn. Codices are robotic units, so poison and fire don't effect them, but unlike [=MECs=] they're impossible to hack. They have enough HP that you're unlikely to be able to one-shot them until the midgame, they have a high Dodge stat to let them downgrade a hit into a grazing wound, and if they take damage that isn't enough to kill them, [[AsteroidsMonster the Codex will immediately spawn a clone somewhere nearby]], splitting its remaining HP between them - and in multiplayer, that means the Codex's player gets to choose where the clone shows up. The kicker is that the Codex appears after you complete a certain early story objective, with no forewarning that doing so will unleash this unit upon you, and afterwards the game will start fielding entire ''pods'' that contain nothing but Codices. It's no surprise then that some veteran players will put off completing that objective until well into the midgame.
** Archons are almost as bad. They're some of the only flying units in the game, and can go up to absurd heights, making them nearly impossible to hit by all but Sharpshooters. On top of that, they can unleash a MacrossMissileMassacre on your troops that gives you one turn for you to get out of the way, then hits for heavy damage and chews up cover. Thankfully, you encounter a fair few of them indoors, where vertical space is limited and they can't use that attack without destroying the terrain.
** Andromedons are large, heavily-armored aliens that love launching acid bombs that deal high damage up front as well as a lingering [=DoT=] effect that also shreds your soldiers' armor. And you have to kill them twice - after depleting the Adromedon's health bar the first time, the alien's suit AI activates, turning an organic ranged unit into a robotic melee unit with a devastating punch, and which leaves trail of damaging acid behind it as it runs across the battlefield.
** To top that, the game has the Gatekeeper. These StarfishAliens-in-a-ball have the highest armor value in the game, a whopping six points on Commander difficulty. They're also absurdly tough to hit, and can just crash through cover like a hovering wrecking ball. In their ball form they have a deadly laser attack, while they can also downgrade their armor, come out of their shell, and unleash an [=AoE=] psionic attack for great damage (7-10) that can also reanimate any nearby corpses as psi-zombies. And when they die they cause another explosion, which may create new zombies, should the explosion kill any XCOM soldier.
** Sectopods are somehow even scarier than they were in the last game, with insane hp and armor and extremely powerful weapons that can potentially wipe out your entire squad if they are too close together.
** Specters come in with ''War of the Chosen'', and they are a nasty piece of work. They avoid the first Overwatch attack directed at them, can drain health, and themselves have a lot of health, but what truly makes them tough is the Shadowbound ability. This attack disables a friendly operative, taking them out of the battle until the Specter or duplicate is killed or a revive ability is used, and creates an exact duplicate of said operative that fights for the aliens. If a Specter catches you off-guard, that move can easily turn the tide of battle against you.
** Interestingly enough, Harpies are part of a glitch that can be used to get massive amounts of money very quickly by duplicating an item from 1 to 255. The problem is, they need to STEAL that one item you want to duplicate. Which you then sell to the store for massive money.
* 3-hit combo from the original ''VideoGame/XCOMUFODefense'': Cyberdisks, Psi-using aliens, and Chryssalids.
** Cyberdisks can fly and come with an accurate plasma cannon capable of rendering your units dead in a hurry, along with the fact that they [[CriticalExistenceFailure react violently]] [[MadeOfExplodium to dying]]; the one advantage you do have against them is that they're much larger than a normal enemy and
** Psi-using aliens can show up in the first month too, and
* The Squeakers from ''VideoGame/{{Odium}}'', thanks to their earthquake attack, which not only causes a lot of damage, but it works in a very large, cone-shaped radius, making it very hard to keep your men out of the range
* Ghosts in ''Videogame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic II''. They're decently strong for a level 2 creature to begin with, but their special
** And then there are Chryssalids. [[http://ironshrinemaiden.deviantart.com/art/Pick-up-that-soap-83170472 Oh dear God there are Chryssalids.]] These things have one attack and one attack only: an infectious bite that instantly converts whatever was hit into a
* ''VideoGame/XCOMTerrorFromTheDeep'' replaces Chryssalids with Tentaculats, floating brain monsters that do the exact same thing, except these sons of bitches also ''fly'', so all those clever people that thought Flying Suits saved them from the Chryssalid plague in the first game will find that their
* Any CPU Hunter unit in ''VideoGame/{{Nectaris}}'' upon reaching 4 stars or more,
* ''VideoGame/XCOMApocalypse'' continues the fine tradition with Brainsuckers, which don't transform targets into more brainsuckers, nor do they have a
** And let us not forget the Poppers. These are ridiculously fast suicide bombers which not only explode once they're near your troops, but also explode from almost every type of weapon you have, and their explosions are huge and very damaging. ''Apocalypse'' players have learned to
* ''[[VideoGame/UFOAfterblank UFO Aftermath]]'' has the aptly titled Deathbellows. It shoots swarms of bees, that scatter on reaching the target, Evaporates health so quickly you barely get time to pause the game, swarms are able to slowly chase any squad member able to dodge the first attack, have no limit in the number of swarms active, are fired rapidly and to cap it off the range of the Deathbellows is entirely line of sight. If it starts on land that's a an inch higher in elevation on a sparse map, then kiss your squad goodbye as TotalPartyKill seems to be its only purpose. Two of these bastards present on a map guarantees the loss of any team member with less than maximum speed. Three... Well lets just say you'll be thankful for the autosave. Its possible to kill, but only if you've got the most blessed terrain setup and a maxed out sniper and then only just.
** Reticulans have a superior rapid firing rocket launcher, compared to humanity's [=RPG=]s and [=LAWs=]. Not to mention they weigh less then a feather and some plot missions occasionally spawn several Greys with these together. Oh and don't forget the near instant-kill damage for your PoweredArmor troops, the rest might's well be naked for all the good armor does.
* ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' has some good news in that alien psychics require line-of-sight to target your troops. The rest is bad news.
** Cyberdiscs are back, and have gained the ability to chuck a grenade at your bunched-up soldiers,
** Chryssalids have received a makeover to turn them into a nightmarish cross between a spider and a [[VideoGame/StarCraft Hydralisk]]. Their bite attack isn't a OneHitKill, and you can harvest their carapace [[LikeCannotCutLike Chryssalids' to make melee armor for your
** The game also introduces [[TheMenInBlack Thin Men]], aliens that aren't much more durable than the humble [[TheGoomba Sectoid]], but which are hellishly-accurate with their light plasma rifles, can spring up to take the high ground in a single move, have an always-accurate attack to spit a cloud of poison at your soldiers that will doom them to a slow death if you don't have a medkit available, and even release a similar cloud of poison upon death. They show up in the very first month of the campaign.
** Sectopods, like in the original game, are a major pain in the ass (especially since they can perform two attacks per turn with their WaveMotionGun and still use their reaction plasma turret or launch a missile barrage), although a [[TheHeavy Heavy]] with certain skills and a rocket (or guided fusion) launcher can make short work of them in later stages. They actually become full-blown DemonicSpiders in the ''Enemy Within'' expansion, where all damage they receive is halved (giving them ''60 HP'' in practice), and the Heavy bonus skill against armored enemies is reduced from 100% to 50%.
* ''VideoGame/XCOM2'' has almost as many Demonic Spiders as the other games combined.
** ADVENT Stun Lancers show up very early in the campaign, before the player is really equipped to deal with them. These units have both shock swords and assault rifles, high health, and innate dodge chance. They can attack after making a dash move, allowing them to threaten your troops from obscenely long distances with high-accuracy melee strikes. Their weapons have a chance to stun or even ''instantly knock unconscious'' your soldiers, rendering them helpless - often for the entire duration of the mission - and requiring yet another precious soldier to be pulled from active combat in order to evacuate them safely. Making matters far worse, the game considers them fairly mundane units and often deploys them in large numbers. Finally, if all that wasn't enough, they have an 'elite' version that gets introduced later on with even more health and dodge.
** ADVENT [=MECs=] are another early-game threat, and might be the first enemy you encounter with actual armor, which isn't fun if you're still using ballistic weapons. Their signature ability is a mini-missile barrage that doesn't deal much damage in itself, but can set your soldiers on fire, destroy their cover, or send them plunging to their deaths by blowing the floor out from under them.
** Chryssalids are back, and somehow ''worse''. They're just as fast and nimble as in previous games, but changes to melee attacks mean that they can maul your soldiers after a dash move just like Stun Lancers, delivering a lingering poison that will kill them unless you have a medkit. And Chryssalid poison doesn't zombify people, no, instead it turns them into incubators that will spawn ''three more'' Chryssalids unless destroyed, Chryssalids that can in turn poison victims to turn into more incubators. They can also burrow into the ground to hide, leaving them to ambush your soldiers when you get too close, attacking you on your turn. Finally, they seem to be behind one of the worst {{Game Breaking Bug}}s that can be encountered, and just saving on a map with them can stop an Ironman run from progressing.
** There's also the Codex. Good lord, the Codex. Their standard attack does a "mere" 4-6 damage, enough to OneHitKill soldiers at the start of the game, but they can also drop a psionic maelstrom on the battlefield that jams your soldiers' weapons, requiring them to spend an action reloading before they can shoot again... and if your troops are dumb enough to stay in the [=AoE=] to do that they'll take heavy damage when the maelstrom goes off on the Codex's next turn. They can also spend an action to teleport anywhere on the battlefield, like an elevated position on your flank, in preparation of giving you a reaming next turn. Codices are robotic units, so poison and fire don't effect them, but unlike [=MECs=] they're impossible to hack. They have enough HP that you're unlikely to be able to one-shot them until the midgame, they have a high Dodge stat to let them downgrade a hit into a grazing wound, and if they take damage that isn't enough to kill them, [[AsteroidsMonster the Codex will immediately spawn a clone somewhere nearby]], splitting its remaining HP between them - and in multiplayer, that means the Codex's player gets to choose where the clone shows up. The kicker is that the Codex appears after you complete a certain early story objective, with no forewarning that doing so will unleash this unit upon you, and afterwards the game will start fielding entire ''pods'' that contain nothing but Codices. It's no surprise then that some veteran players will put off completing that objective until well into the midgame.
** Archons are almost as bad. They're some of the only flying units in the game, and can go up to absurd heights, making them nearly impossible to hit by all but Sharpshooters. On top of that, they can unleash a MacrossMissileMassacre on your troops that gives you one turn for you to get out of the way, then hits for heavy damage and chews up cover. Thankfully, you encounter a fair few of them indoors, where vertical space is limited and they can't use that attack without destroying the terrain.
** Andromedons are large, heavily-armored aliens that love launching acid bombs that deal high damage up front as well as a lingering [=DoT=] effect that also shreds your soldiers' armor. And you have to kill them twice - after depleting the Adromedon's health bar the first time, the alien's suit AI activates, turning an organic ranged unit into a robotic melee unit with a devastating punch, and which leaves trail of damaging acid behind it as it runs across the battlefield.
** To top that, the game has the Gatekeeper. These StarfishAliens-in-a-ball have the highest armor value in the game, a whopping six points on Commander difficulty. They're also absurdly tough to hit, and can just crash through cover like a hovering wrecking ball. In their ball form they have a deadly laser attack, while they can also downgrade their armor, come out of their shell, and unleash an [=AoE=] psionic attack for great damage (7-10) that can also reanimate any nearby corpses as psi-zombies. And when they die they cause another explosion, which may create new zombies, should the explosion kill any XCOM soldier.
** Sectopods are somehow even scarier than they were in the last game, with insane hp and armor and extremely powerful weapons that can potentially wipe out your entire squad if they are too close together.
** Specters come in with ''War of the Chosen'', and they are a nasty piece of work. They avoid the first Overwatch attack directed at them, can drain health, and themselves have a lot of health, but what truly makes them tough is the Shadowbound ability. This attack disables a friendly operative, taking them out of the battle until the Specter or duplicate is killed or a revive ability is used, and creates an exact duplicate of said operative that fights for the aliens. If a Specter catches you off-guard, that move can easily turn the tide of battle against you.
