Bombardier Beetle

*For the special variant, see Paussinae Beetle and Lugubrious Bombardier Beetle.*

Bombardier Beetles are the first rare creature in the game.

## Bombardier Beetle

* Regular
* Golden

## Obtaining

### Conditions to Attract

* any time
* any weather

## General information

Their attack is ridiculously powerful, they fire a payload of deadly, boiling chemicals from their backside, damaging everything behind them. If just one particle hits an ant, it's dead. Be prepared to lose a ton of soldiers when fighting this beast.

It can be seen preparing for a shot by looking at its abdomen. If it turns a bit rounder, it is about to shoot. The acid is extremely fast when shot, so be careful.

It is **highly recommended** not to kill these creatures.

## Description

Bombardier beetles are most notable for the defense mechanism that gives them their name: when disturbed, they eject a hot noxious chemical spray from the tip of the abdomen.

## Stats

Main article: Creature Stats

They are very tanky and can take lots of hits before dying. They attack at a normal rate and are very slow.

They can be upgraded a max of 20% per stat in the Creature Lab.

* Health
* Attack Rate
* Damage

**Bombardier Health Stats:** (Shown in bites from a 4-star golden tarantula)

 2
 3
 4
 4 (gold)

**Bombardier Attack Stats:**

Attack rate is how quickly it moves to attack after the  appears shown in seconds.

**The attack speed is one attack every 8 second.**

 2
 3
 4
 4 (gold)

**Bombardier Damage Stats:**

Data is based on attacking a 3 star normal tarantula, shown with the % of health bar lost for each hit. The percent damage is an average of all damage dealt.

 2
 3
 4
 4 (gold)

A picture of the full Bombardier Beetle entry can be found below:

## Obtaining

### Attracting conditions

Rare, can appear under any weather and at any time. However, they have a better chance of appearing at dawn or daytime.

### Defeating

A helpful strategy for taking down these tank-like beasts is: first get its attention, then circle around it while the soldiers take its health. Make sure it is focused on the player ant NOT the soldiers or it could take them all out. Also it might take out a few soldiers but just keep pressing the recruit button while rotating.

Keep in mind that the "bomb" can one shot the player and any level soldiers. In other words be careful.

### Strategies

#### Strategy 1

1. Go under the Bombardier
2. Place yourself so it aims towards the opposite direction your soldiers come from (outwards the anthill)
3. Recruit your soldiers
4. Attack when the Bombardier starts shooting
5. Disband just before it shoots again
6. Repeat from step 3, time it so they arrive when the Bombardier is about to shoot again to repeat the cycle until it's dead

##### Strategy 2

1. Recruit your soldier ants
2. Let the bombardier focus on the soldier ants
3. Make the soldier ants attack from behind
4. The player ant goes in front of the bombardier
5. When it's about to launch the player ant retreats the soldier ants, that way the soldier ants go to the front of the bombardier and don't get hit (note some soldier ants may die here and there if the bombardier spins)
6. Repeat the process until the bombardier is dead

##### Strategy 3

1. Set a garrison next to the bombardier
2. The player ant recruits soldier ants shortly after setting the garrison
3. Make sure the bombardier focuses on the garrisoned ants
4. Set the soldier ants to attack from the front of the bombardier
5. The bombardier will shoot at the garrisoned ants and your soldier ants remain unharmed
6. Keep setting the garrison back up after the previous garrisoned ants have died
7. Repeat this process until the bombardier is dead

## PvP

A very useful creature to bring when raiding anthills. It can massacre lots of ants with one single explosion, which can also deal tons of damage to (low-level) enemy creatures. Most of the time, players won't have to worry about enemy soldier ants attacking the beetle because of its ridiculous amount of health and it can take down multiple soldiers at once, even when surrounded.

The only drawbacks are that is it slow, does almost no damage to high level/armoured creatures such as Rhinoceros Beetle and cannot fight properly with a swarm of creatures around it. So keep that in mind.

When attacking and using soldier ants, the enemy bombardier will do considerable damage to the ant army; sometimes even wiping it out completely. This is noticeably more damage than the player's bombardier can do to the enemy ants.

### Platinum/Diamond League

Used by attackers to clear crowds of soldiers and to tank against defending creatures, sometimes used like the Rhinoceros Beetle, placed to distract creatures and ants.

Players put bombardiers to defend their anthill alongside other creatures, this forces the attacker to either paralyze the bombardier to allow their soldiers to attack the defending creatures, or to disband their soldiers and being forced to face off the defending army with just creatures.

These creatures can be a real pain to fight and can be devastating when paired with the Venus Flytrap, especially when spammed.

## Trivia

* Their attack is basically them mixing hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide inside their abdomen which turns into benzoquinone, which is lethal to ants and most creatures. The chemical formula is as shown here:

C

6

H

4

O

2

{\displaystyle \ce{C6H4O2}}
* There was a bug where a dead bombardier would have one of its front legs stay bright. This bug was patched in an unknown update.
* Before the patch in v0.0561, there was also another bug that made the bombardier able to damage the queen during battles. It worked in correlation with another bug which made ants defending outside the anthill go to the queens chamber, where they can't attack due to the bug.