Mounted Mook

They've got a bone to pick with you...don't want to get tangled in their web, now do you?

In most stories, a hero is going to have to deal with various sorts of enemies, each with their own quirks, abilities, and even personalities to make them stand out and present themselves with a different type of challenge. Given the sheer variety of differentiating enemies, there's no one stopping them from deciding to ride upon something, be it a creature, a vehicle, or a stationary/moving weapon, and deciding to fight the heroes with secondary support they have main control over.

A Mounted Mook can come in many flavors. Perhaps the enemy is riding on top of a horse or a designated evil creature. Maybe they're in the cockpit of a vehicle. Or they're wielding a stationary ballista situated on a designated platform. Whichever way it is, it gives an ordinary mook a different move set and likely more defense than usual, so unless you're either prepared or you have an idea of what to expect, the hero may have trouble adjusting to a new problem where an enemy decides to take control of and ride something to gain more advantage with.

Depending on what mount they use, a mook will gain new benefits, with new attacks being the most obvious case. They may acquire increased speed and mobility, making them harder to land an attack on, or if the mount is either a vehicle or an armored creature, more defensive to make them more resilient and take a bit longer for a hero to take down. At other times, the mount itself may have an HP bar on its own, technically making them a meat shield and two enemies for the price of one. Whether this makes them easier or harder to deal with could depend on the game/work itself or how much could a hero exploit this matter. Mounted Mooks are also likely to have an Achilles' Heel in the form of Anti-Cavalry, Anti-Vehicle, and Anti-Infantry weapons like landmines, arrows, ballistae, artillery guns, and rocket launchers, which could kill and destroy mounts and throw out their riders in either one or a few hits and rendering them back to being an ordinary on-foot mook. If possible, a player character could even take an enemy's mount to ride it for themselves.

These types of mooks are likely to overlap with other variations and mounts themselves also qualify for such. If the mount in question is a bestial creature, they are likely to be a Smash Mook either as a solo enemy or when they're dismounted. A Mook Commander and, occasionally, a Mook Lieutenant, may also come with a mount as a way to affirm superiority via displaying a lot of power when on said mount or invoking this trope as a way to make themselves look bigger and scarier than other mooks. If a Mounted Mook is an early boss, they can end up as a Degraded Boss at a later part of a game, though could remain just as dangerous and enduring. Airborne, Giant, and Mecha-Mooks are quite likely to be mounted by humanoid enemies as well. Horse Archers are a common example thanks to being commonly historic evidence of horses being used as cavalry during combat and Mook Mobile can be used as a hybrid for this trope at times. Contrast Stationary Enemy.

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Examples:

Action-Adventure

• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night: In the library, an archer enemy appears on top of a Carriage Morte, allowing the archer to flee away from the player, because that's what Carriage Mortes do.
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night introduces the Wargs, gigantic wolf-like monsters, some of them appearing in later stages as steeds of skeletons. There are also skeleton knights riding skeletal horses as well, who tend to keep running in and out of an area trying to take potshots at Alucard.
• Eastern Exorcist has Wolf Men enemies in both campaigns, and in certain areas, wolf-men riding giant wolves. In this case, you'll need to kill the riders, and the riderless wolves will still continue attacking you with their own health bars.
• Elden Ring: The game's overworld is populated by multiple types of enemies, with mounted warriors and bandits riding on horses being commonplace. The mook and their mounts each have their own HP bar and they're often fast and hit hard, resulting in them being very lethal threats to the Tarnished unless they level themselves up and get better gear to even the odds and eventually overcome them. Later on in the Consecrated Snowfield, the Tarnished would also stumble across Albinauric Archers who would ride upon dire wolves to take out their stationary position in favor of fast mobility and strong close and wide-range attacks.
• The Legend of Spyro: In addition to their endless hordes of foot soldiers, the Apes in the first two games often come mounted on a variety of beasts that give them an overall health boost and additional attacks or tricks. The most common are the flying, batlike dreadwings; other mounts include buffalo beetles, giant scorpions with guns instead of stingers, and giant snails with a melee attack. In The Eternal Night, some of the Skavengers ride scurvywings and blundertails, which function as reskins of the Apes' dreadwings and buffalo beetles.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Bulblins often appear riding on aggressive warthog-like beasts called Bulbos, whom Link fights against while he's mounted on Epona. Their leader King Bulblin and his personal mount, Lord Bulbo, serve as a mounted miniboss when he fights against Link at a large bridge. Bulblins retain this in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, which also introduces the Mounted Miniblins, a variant of the Miniblins that ride Armoses in battle.
  • Mounted Bokoblins appear in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, riding on horses; should Link dismount them, the Bokoblin will attempt to get its horse back. Most of them wield either bows or spears, allowing them to capitalize on their mobility by fighting Link from a distance. In the Gerudo Highlands, Bokoblins instead ride on top of Honeyvore and Grizzlemaw Bears, themselves aggressive animals to make them very formidable enemies.
• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice: One of the first bosses that Wolf faces in the game is Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa who is mounted on his horse Onikage. The battle takes place outside the main gate to Ashina Castle. During the fight, Wolf can temporarily frighten Onikage by using his Shinobi firecrackers allowing him to deal damage to Gyoubu's posture meter.
• Uncharted:
  • Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception: The first half of the twentieth chapter, Caravan, involves Nathan Drake riding on horseback alongside a friendly Bedouin, Salim to track and chase down a convoy that holds Nate's mentor and father figure, Sully. As he closes in on the vehicle that holds Sully, Nate fights against Marlow's agents who try to shoot him from the back of their jeeps. Unlike most examples, the mounted enemies fight just like they would on foot, which makes sense as they're positioned in the jeep's backside.
  • Uncharted 4: A Thief's End: The eleventh chapter, Hidden in Plain Sight culminates in Nate, his brother Sam, and Sully getting into a lengthy and intense chase fighting against Shoreline in jeeps and SUVs as the trio tries to make it out with clues to Libertalia. The enemies both act no different from how they fight on foot should Nate make his way to a jeep and drivers would also be shooting, which is most apparent with motorcycle riders. The twentieth chapter, No Escape also reaches its climax when two artillery vehicles show up to give Nate a very tough fight. These two vehicles are the last enemies Nate deals with before his fight against Rafe Adler two chapters later.
• The Wind Road: The desert escape ends with a lengthy chase where bandit archers on horseback pursue your caravan, firing away at you and you're required to fire back using the arrows in the caravan. Occasionally there's a few nimble bandit mooks who actually leaps off their rides to slash at you from close range.

Beat'em Up

• Dynasty Warriors: Beginning from the 4th game, enemy cavalry units were introduced. These are the average mooks mounted on horses, and their primary method of attack is to charge at their opponents with their spears pointed right at them. Unlike named enemy officers, they can't be knocked off their horses and so must be killed horse and all.
• Golden Axe: some enemies can be seen riding atop chicken-legs who attack by whipping their tails at the heroes or dragons who attack by breathing fire at them. Once the hero knocks the enemy off its steed, they can then ride the steed and use its powers against the enemies.
• Middle-earth: Shadow of War: There are some orcs mounted on caragors, large cat-like monsters that are the feline equivalent to wargs. They're tougher to take down than normal mooks do in part to the caragor's speed. However it is possible to remove them from their mounts either by killing said mounts or shooting the riders off with a few arrows. Which leaves the caragor open to being taken and mounted by the player.

First-Person Shooter

• Beach Invasion 1944: US soldiers on Willys MB Jeeps and M3 Half-Tracks spawn in on later waves, which give the soldiers riding them additional mobility and firepower, the latter in the form of a Browning M2 heavy machine gun mount. The Half-Track itself doubles as a troop carrier, able to safely deploy its half a dozen soldiers should it make it up the beach. In the Half-Track's case, it's also resistant to small arms fire but can be taken down in a few machine gun bursts as well as from artillery fire and landmines.
• Brothers in Arms: Regular German Army infantrymen on Sdkfz 251 halftracks are introduced in Earned in Blood. Compared to their on-foot counterparts, these soldiers are able to move around the battlefield far more. And, thanks to the halftrack's mounted MG42 machine guns, have far more firepower on the move. On top of that, they're provided the additional benefit of being protected from small arms fire from the front thanks to the half-track's armor.
• Medal of Honor: Underground:
  • Late in the game, Waffen-SS soldiers on BMW R35 motorcycles are fought. Thanks to these bikes having mounted machine guns, they're not only faster than German soldiers on foot, but they're also more heavily armed and capable of reducing the player's HP to zero, either by running them over for a One-Hit Kill or from fire from the mounted machine gun.
  • In the Panzerknacker Unleashed Brutal Bonus Level, some of the Nazi Zombies encountered during the second stage are seen riding on BMW R35s much like their normal German counterparts, which makes them much deadlier thanks to both the zombies themselves and the motorbike exploding upon defeat, and very much capable of killing the player in the blasts.
• Putrefaction: In the second game, you encounter Nazi soldiers using gigantic eyeless demons as steeds, both of them attacking you together. If you kill the Nazi, the riderless demon will continue trying to chomp you down.

Maze Game

• Bomberman: Some of the games have enemies riding on mounts. Typically, you hit them with a bomb and the mount is destroyed, then you have to plant another bomb to kill the rider.

Platform

• Kirby: Occasionally, Kirby may encounter Waddle Dees, which are the most basic form of mook in the franchise, riding a Nruff, with Kirby having to beat both. Similarly, Poppy Bros Jr. may occasionally be seen riding a Grizzo.
• Super Mario Bros. 2: Some Shy Guys attack Mario and his friends while riding an Autobomb (in World 4) or an Ostro (in Worlds 3 and 5). When they're defeated (or at least dismounted), the Ostro or Autobomb will move aimlessly without willing to attack anyone and can be mounted via Cranium Ride (but unlike Shy Guys, the main characters cannot make Autobombs shoot fire).

Real-Time Strategy

• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: The Allies' Multigunner IFV normally uses missiles to attack ground and air targets but can load an infantry unit to give it a more powerful version of its attack (Conscripts get Gatling guns, Spies get sniper rifles, Engineers get a repair crane that lets them fix friendly vehicles, etc.). However, killing the IFV also kills the unit inside.
• Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos:
  • Night Elf Archers can mount Hippogryphs to create a ranged air unit, sacrificing the Archer's ranged damage reduction and the Hippogryph's strong Anti-Air attack to give the Archers a much-needed health boost and mobility. In the expansion the ability was made reversible, meaning a Night Elf player can very efficiently deal with air attacks by dismounting the riders to deal far more damage than with mounted archers alone.
  • The Goblin Tinker's ultimate lets him pilot a mini-tank that changes him into a mechanical unit, making him immune to a number of spells and giving him extra damage against buildings.

Roguelike

• Crypt of the NecroDancer: Skeleton Knights ride atop ghost horses giving them an advantage of moving every single beat. Taking out the horses will bring down the Skeleton Knights and reduce their mobility to only every two beats instead, with only their shields for defence.

Role-Playing Game

• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind: The Bloodmoon expansion takes place on the island of Solstheim, home to primitive goblin-sized Rieklings. In addition to the ones who fight on the ground, there are the much tougher "Riekling Raiders" who've tamed the island's native boars, known as Tusked Bristlebacks, to ride in battle. They also tend to attack in groups of 3-5, making tough battles for even high-level characters.
• Fire Emblem: Cavaliers are the main mounted adversaries of the series; soldiers riding on horses that give them great mobility range and even being able to move a little even after making an attack. They would normally carry spears and, being an intermediate class, possess decent attack and speed stats. Wyvern Knights and Pegasus Knights also serve play similarly, only with their flight ability giving them immunity to ground-based status effects and a heightened weakness to arrows and ballistae, though the much higher Wyvern Lord and Falcon Knight classes mitigate these weaknesses and could turn out to be more dangerous than expected for players.

Run-and-Gun

• Commando 2: There are Japanese infantries on horseback whose rides can knock you over. Their rider tanks slightly more damage than foot soldiers, and after they're killed the horse will stay idle where the rider fell and can't be interacted with.
• Metal Slug: The games have a few of these, but in extremely limited amounts:
  • 2 and X has a lone Arab soldier riding a camel in the first mission who can be shot or cut down, where the camel simply flees after losing its rider.
  • Then there's the Jet Hammer-Yangs, weaponized catamarans who appear in areas near water and attack you with missiles. You can shoot the operators, but it turns out the catamarans are on autopilot and will continue attacking you despite their pilots being dead.

Stealth-Based Game

• Sniper Elite 5 introduces the BMW R35 motorcycle as a brand-new enemy vehicle. In both the campaign and survival mode, two German infantrymen will crew this vehicle, with one serving as the driver, and the other manning an MG42 machine gun. Compared to most on-foot soldiers, who mainly wield rifles and submachine guns, these motorcycle troops generally pack more firepower, on top of being much more mobile than the former.

Third-Person Shooter

• Warframe: In Duviri, one of the current Emotion Spiral's objectives can be to defeat a Dax mounted on a Kaithe (mechanical horse). Aside from increased mobility, the Dax has access to new attacks and can evenly briefly teleport. It takes two attempts from the Player to knock him off his mount, at which point it runs away.

Tower Defense

• The Battle Cats: Some of the monthly event enemies are Doges riding other enemies. Samurai Doggy is a Doge Dark riding a (much faster than usual) One Horn, while Lord Enma (and its variant Le'Saint) is a Doge riding a Le'boin.
• Plants Vs Zombies 2: The Zombie Bull Rider is a cowboy Imp riding a mechanical bull. The bull charges at your plants, then tosses the Imp into your defenses.

Turn-Based Strategy

• Disgaea Dimension 2: Exclusive to this game is "Monster Mounting", allowing a humanoid unit to ride atop a monster. Both units gain full EXP and Mana from kills made and also have access to a Mounted Skill (the power of which increases based on their Likeability.) However, the humanoid unit is restricted to using magic skills while mounted, and the monster will take the full brunt of any attacks directed at them.
• Gundam:
  • Gihren's Greed: Several Mobile Suits can be upgraded with a "flight" option, normally giving them a flying sled like a Dodai Assault Bomber or a Base Jabber to ride on (the earliest in-game would be the ground-based MS06J Zaku II and the Gouf). This grants them improved mobility on Earth and can even give them additional weapons (due to the sleds being armed as well). The downside is this also makes such a Mobile Suit a Fragile Flyer, as they lose access to defensive equipment like shields and it's implied the enemy simply shoots down the sled and lets gravity do the rest.
  • SD Gundam G Generation: Player and enemy units can be equipped with flying sleds. Unlike their usage in Gihren's Greed, they don't restrict a unit's abilities. They grant a movement bonus and also grant non-flying units flying ability.
• Soul Nomad & the World Eaters: A pair of late-game units are the Phynx Knights and Gryphos Riders, which have skills differing from the standard Phynx and Gryphos. Both mount and rider will fall if defeated.
• Super Tokusatsu Taisen 2001: One of the enemy types that can appear throughout the game are Shocker, Gelshocker or Destron Combatmen riding motorcycles. This gives them the ability to cover more distance than their unmounted counterparts, and additional health and damage to boot.

Wide-Open Sandbox

• Minecraft: Mobs that spawn riding another mob are referred to as jockeys. Examples of jockeys include:
  • Chicken jockeys are baby zombies that spawn riding chickens. The primary gameplay effect of this partnership is that the zombie benefits from the chicken's immunity to Fall Damage.
  • Skeleton archers will uncommonly spawn riding Giant Spiders, joining the skeleton's ranged attacks to the spider's speed and ability to climb up vertical surfaces. A rare event can also cause a group of four skeletons riding a skeleton horse each to be spawned in by a lightning strike, to a similar effect.
• Terraria:
  • The Martian Madness invasion event includes Scutlix enemies that consist of a large green alien mount and a Martian Scutlix Gunner. Killing the mount first turns the rider into a normal Ray Gunner enemy, and killing the Scutlix Gunner first has a chance of dropping an item that enables you to ride a Scutlix creature as well.
  • During the Lunar Events, when near the Solar Pillar, Drakanian enemies can spawn riding a fast Drakomire mount.

Non-Video Game Examples

Anime & Manga

• Gundam: Throughout the franchise, it isn't unusual for Mobile Suits to enter battle riding flying sleds like the Base Jabber from the Gryps War era. The biggest function is to allow the Mobile Suit to cover ground much faster, as even hover-capable Mobile Suits are still much slower than actual flight. In addition, sometimes Mobile Suits will ride into combat atop transforming Mobile Suits.
• Overlord (2012): Ainz shows off by bringing not just half a thousand Death Knights as a personal retinue (just one of which is seen to slaughter its way through dozens of men, and they're a once-in-a-century occurrence) for a battle, he also mounts them on Soul Eaters (a Hellish Horse known for an incident where just three of them destroyed an entire beastman city and killed more than 100,000 of them). And to top it all off, he doesn't even use them, instead casting the most powerful spell he can come up with, not because he thinks it's necessary but because he wants to alert otherworlders to his presence.

Film — Animated

• Transformers: The Movie: The Junkions prove to be a major headache when they attack the Autobots on the planet Junk. They all transform into motorcycles and ride each other into combat, and the problem is whenever the Autobots manage to knock one down, the rider and motorcycle simply transform and exchange places. As Springer puts it, "Knocking them down is easy, it's keeping them down that's hard!"

Film — Live-Action

• Star Wars: Stormtroopers will sometimes be seen riding on animal mounts or on speederbikes either for traversal or for high-speed combat in the case of the latter. Imperial Officers, while generally average in terms of combat, would sometimes count and control an AT-AT which gives them great physical strength and destructive potential and the heroes have trouble taking those down. A good display of the difference between an AT-AT and its controller is in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor where AT-AT's serve as bosses in the former and as powerful mooks in the latter and when defeated, an Imperial Officer who was controlling them would eject themselves and fight Cal themselves with just a pistol. They prove to be just as much of a challenge as an average Stormtrooper.
• The Two Towers: When the people of Rohan make the trek to Helm's Deep, their caravan is attacked by orcs riding Wargs, huge doglike monsters that give the orcs a speed and height advantage.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: The Mounted Combatant feat increases the combat prowess of a mounted character by making it easier to hit targets smaller than the mount (and a mount has to be at least one size larger than the rider), lets the rider redirect attacks on the mount towards himself, and reduces/avoids damage from area spells.

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