By -

Introduction:

Kingdom Rush Frontiers is a new sequel to the well acclaimed tower defense game Kingdom Rush Frontiers. The game was released in June 6 at an initial price of $2.99. Read our Kingdom Rush Frontiers review before you decide if you buy this game. With our strategy tips, you can easily master the game.

Stars and Upgrades

  • There are 15 levels in the game. Each has 5 available stars for a total of 75 stars.
  • The difficulty you are playing on has no effect on the stars you will earn.
  • You do not need to perform perfectly to get all three stars in Campaign mode:

18+ lives remaining: 3 stars
6–17 lives remaining: 2 stars
1–5 lives remaining: 1 star

  • The other two stars for each stage are earned by beating its Heroic Challenge and Iron Challenge (one star for each mode).
  • You can reset your upgrades at any time for free. Try experimenting with different combinations. Depending on your playstyle, it may be better to specialize in one or two categories so you can get the strongest upgrades. Alternately, you may be better of generalizing and spreading out the upgrades across all categories. Make sure to always adjust your upgrades to fit your playstyle and the Campaign stage or challenge you are trying to beat.
  • There are several things you can do if you are having trouble getting every star on a stage. First, try playing it on a lower difficulty. If that doesn’t work, go back to earlier levels to get any campaign and challenge stars you missed. Getting more stars means more upgrades, and a few upgrades can make a big difference in how well you can do in a level. Leveling up your hero can also help, though it usually takes longer to level up a hero than to earn more stars. Trying a different hero can help too, though you will probably need to level it up even more than your main hero. Finally, if you absolutely cannot beat a level, you can resort to the gem shop. Usually, the 5 extra hearts and/or 500 extra gold is more than enough to change the tide of battle in your favor.

Challenges

  • Remember that you can reset your upgrades at any time. Reset them and redistribute your stars to best fit the challenge.
  • The Heroic Challenge pits you against 6 elite waves with only 1 life. It also prevents you from using heroes and sets a limit on your tower upgrades.
  • In the Iron Challenge, you will take on 1 super wave with only 1 life. You cannot use your hero, it sets a limit on your tower upgrades, and prevents you from using certain types of towers.
  • The tower upgrade limit also affects the star upgrades. If a challenge has a “LVL 1 MAX” limit, only the first upgrade in each category will take effect. Likewise, a “LVL 2 MAX” limit will only allow the first two upgrades in each category to take effect.
  • Do not take on a challenge until you can afford to fully upgrade every available category to the limit. For Heroic Challenges, this means upgrading everything to the “LVL X MAX” amount. For Iron Challenges, there is no need to upgrade towers that you are not allowed to use.

Environment

  • Explore the environment and try tapping on anything interesting. If you are interested in achievements, there are several that can be earned by finding hidden Easter eggs. Even if you’re not interested in achievements, some of the animations you’ll see by tapping on something are pretty funny. Note: Some things will perform a different animation if tapped many times in a row.
  • Each stage has unique features to interact with. Some you should avoid, for instance, the sand worm in Dunes of Despair will eat any troops when it pops up. All attacks like this give you a small warning, such as the ground cracking in a circle where the worm is about to pop up or crosshairs indicating where the enemy ship is going to fire its cannons in the Bucaneer’s Den stage. Make it a priority to move your hero before it gets hit by these devastating attacks. You can also move other ground troops by changing the location of their rally point, though this is much harder to perform quickly.
  • Other stage features can be beneficial. Sometimes, it’s as simple as an extra archer tower or set of Tusken Raiders that help attack enemies. Other times, you will have to pay coins to initiate special attacks or hire mercenaries. Generally, building or upgrading a tower is a better use of your money than a mercenary, but the mercenaries can help in a pinch and there are some achievements you can earn by using certain mercenaries.

Gems

  • Killing certain enemies will earn you gems which can be spent on powerful consumable items in the gem shop.
  • Gems are also available at a reasonable price via in-app purchase, however, you should be able to clear the game without ever paying real money for gems.
  • Dropping a Fat Boy on a level can be a lot of fun, but it takes a long time to save up 999 gems. The 5 extra hearts or 500 extra coins are usually enough of a head start to change a battle in your favor. If you get the Gold Bag, it is more effective to activate it at the beginning of a map so you can get extra towers up as soon as possible.

Heroes:

  • Each hero’s experience is persistent across the game. Replaying stages and making sure your hero gets in on the action is a good way to raise its level — and a stronger hero makes it easier to beat any level.
  • Keeping your hero alive is ideal so it can constantly be earning experience, but don’t worry too much about it dying. If it does die, it will automatically revive in about 30 seconds.
  • Like the tower and ability upgrade tree, your heroes’ upgrades can be reset at any time. If one strategy is not working very well, do not hesitate to reset your hero’s upgrades and redistribute its hero points differently. For instance, if your hero is dying a lot, most heroes have at least one upgrade that will improve their longevity. Resetting the upgrades right after levelling up can also help you get a stage 3 upgrade early on, some of which are very powerful.
  • Move your hero around often. Make sure it is attacking as much as possible as dealing damage and using its abilities is how it earns experience. Watch out for environmental hazards as some of them can take out your hero in one hit.

Combat

  • Learn how to best use each tower and place them so that they complement each other.
  • The archer tower deals a small amount of damage but fires rapidly. It is best for cleaning out large groups of weaker enemies.
  • Barracks train ground troops. They generally do the least amount of damage but are great at slowing down enemies. They cannot target flying enemies.
  • Mages’ guilds deal the most amount of damage but fire slowly. They are great at taking out big bulky enemies, especially because their magic attacks are not affected by armor with physical resistance.
  • Artillery towers fire slowly but deal a good amount of damage and have splash damage. The splash damage makes them the best at taking out concentrated groups of enemies. Most artillery cannot target flying enemies, but flying enemies can be hit by the explosions when there are enemies on the ground to target.
  • Make sure to use the barracks’ rally points to move your ground troops around. Placing them in range of other types of towers will slow down enemies so they are exposed to the other towers longer. You can also use ground troops to force enemies into groups that artillery can fire at and deal damage to the entire group at the same time.
  • On many maps, a single barracks tower can cover multiple pathways depending on where the rally point is. It is sometimes a good strategy to frequently move the rally point according to where enemies are the most concentrated.
  • Upgrading or building a barracks tower instantly trains new soldiers. In early levels where your upgrades are limited, it can be a good strategy to sell and rebuild a level 1 barracks just to get those three instant troops.
  • Your troops (including your hero) will heal when idle.
  • The reinforcements spell only takes 10 seconds to cool down. Use it often to slow down and split up enemies.
  • Building a new tower is often better than upgrading a tower. It is a good idea to use a mixture of all four tower types and to spread them out across the map.
  • Take the abilities of specialized towers into consideration when you are placing down the level 1 towers. For example, Crossbow Forts can grant range bonuses to nearby towers and DWAARPs (Artillery earthquake towers) attack their entire range at the same time. Smart placement of a DWAARP can cover two paths at the same time.
  • Aim rain of fire a little ahead of moving targets.
  • Tapping once on a wave icon will show you what enemies are in that wave. Tapping twice will call it early. Calling a wave early gives a gold bonus (more gold depending on how early you call the wave) and cools down your spells a bit.
  • There are some heroes and towers that have instant kill effects. Try to use these against heavily armored enemies.

In-Game Help

The in-game encyclopedia can be accessed from the map screen. It has great information on every tower and enemy you have seen. It also has a collection of 30 tips (most of which are on this page) and a strategy guide. As of this writing, the strategy guide is not up. When it is up, it should link to videos that show one way to beat each level.