"Defender of Linirea! The realm is at peace, but evil does not rest! Our agents report that the Ruins of Acaroth have been invaded by orc and goblinoid hordes.
Gul'Thak, a new orcish warlord, has taken advantage of the power vacuum left by Vez'nan, and his forces are terrorizing the area.
You must drive these invaders away from the ruins!"
Ruins of Acaroth is the fourteenth stage of Kingdom Rush. It requires the Premium Content on Flash.
All paths converge near the exit. Place your defenses accordingly.
The boss will arrive on the bottom path, so build some more dps towers there (instead of mostly instakills).
Upgrades and Hero[]
Make sure your reinforcements, Rain of Fire, and Artillery are fully upgraded. Mage and Archer upgrades are also good, get both of them to at least tier 3. Barracks upgrades aren't as useful.
Due to Forest Trolls, with their huge hp pools, heroes with instakills or heroes that can stall them are recommended, such as heroes like Oni or Hacksaw, or Elora or Gerald.
Towers[]
Tesla is great, as always, but don't use more than a few of them (preferably in curves) - you will need to save gold for other towers. Only upgrade Overcharge, to level 3. This is useful to clear out the large numbers of low health enemies, along with dealing good damage to anything else.
Worg Riders often appear in relatively large numbers and Goblin Sappers often stay behind other enemies. Wrath of the Forest from the Rangers Hideout is great against both of them, as it can be used for stalling. Poison is decent; it lowers the enemies' health quicker.
Sorcerer Mages will lower the armor of Orc Champions; they have an 'instakill' in the form of Polymorph (which can be used against Forest Trolls) and they have an Earth Elemental that's great at stalling troublesome enemies, like Ogres, Orc Champions or Forest Trolls. A few of them are definitely recommended.
Arcane Wizards can both instakill and stall, with their Death Ray and Teleport abilities. This makes them amazing counters to Forest Trolls. Try to get a lot of them. Do not upgrade Death Ray past level 1.
Musketeers have an instakill and an area burst damage ability. Both are useful in this level - the instakill against Forest Trolls and the are burst damage against medium health enemies like Ogres, Worg Riders and Orc Champions. Get Sniper Shot up to level 3 quickly. Not only does it increase the chance to instakill but also increases the physical damage when it fails to instakill. Since Forest Trolls have no armor, this amount of damage is often crippling enough to take them down easily.
Shrapnel Shot is best on Android/Steam/Switch, because it's affected by Smart Targeting (tier 5 artillery upgrade), but it's sill usable on iOS. Try to group enemies up with some heavy armored barracks, because the damage area isn't massive.
Barbarians are strongly not advised to be used in this stage. There are very few enemies that they can kill effectively without dying themselves. Goblin Sappers only make this issue worse, because they comes in numbers and Barbarians barely have any armor and don't have healing abilities, unlike Paladins.
Paladins (Holy Order) can be useful to stall tough enemies, such as Worg Riders, Orc Champions, and Forest Trolls. Placing them in your main chokepoint near the end means you can't have a Tesla and a Sorcerer there, which is a big sacrifice to make. That said, one of them on the bottommost spot can be good, though a level 3 barracks is often enough.
The Heroic challenge isn't that much different from the main stage, so you can almost copy your strategy.
Upgrades and Hero[]
Make sure your reinforcements, Rain of Fire and Artillery are fully upgraded. Mage and Archer upgrades are also good, get both of them to at least tier 3. Barracks upgrades aren't as useful.
Due to Forest Trolls, with their huge hp pools, heroes with instakills or heroes that can stall them are recommended - heroes like Oni or Hacksaw, or Elora or Gerald.
Towers[]
Tesla is preferably in curves, but will need a lot of room for other towers. Only upgrade Overcharge, to level 3.
Worg Riders often appear in relatively large numbers and Goblin Sappers often stay behind other enemies. Wrath of the Forest, on the Rangers Hideout, is great against both of them. Poison is decent, but there are better things to upgrade. Its main gimmick is that it bypasses armor, but a Sorcerer often does that more reliably.
Sorcerer Mages will lower the armor of Orc Champions; they have an 'instakill' in the form of Polymorph and they have an Earth Elemental that's great at stalling troublesome enemies. One of them are definitely recommended. Upgrading Polymorph past level 1 is not recommended. Make use of the fact that upgrading the Elemental heals it to full hp if you need to.
Arcane Wizards can both instakill and stall, with their Death Ray and Teleport abilities. This makes them a very useful counters to Forest Trolls. Try to get at least one of them. Do not upgrade Death Ray past level 1.
Musketeers have an instakill and an area burst damage ability. Both are great in this level. Get Sniper Shot up to level 3 quickly - not only does it increase the chance to instakill, but also increases the physical damage when it fails to instakill. Since Forest Trolls have no armor, this amount of damage is often crippling enough to take them down easily.
Shrapnel Shot is best on Android/Steam/Switch, because it's affected by Smart Targeting (tier 5 artillery upgrade), but it's sill usable on iOS. Try to group enemies up with reinforcements, hero, and Elementals, because the damage area isn't massive.
Not very different from the main stage - artillery and mages were some of the most useful towers anyway.
Upgrades and Hero[]
Make sure your reinforcements, Rain of Fire, Artillery and Mages are fully upgraded.
Due to Forest Trolls, with their huge hp pools, heroes with instakills or heroes that can stall them are recommended - heroes like Oni or Hacksaw, or Elora or Gerald.
At the middle of the bottom of the map, and at the north-eastern corner, there are two bas-reliefs of the Triforce in The Legend of Zelda carved into a rock and a pillar.
ORCS MUST DIE Defeat Gul'Thak and his minions.