Zombie King


 * For the version in Plants vs. Zombies Heroes, see Zombie King (PvZH).

Zombie King is the tenth zombie encountered in Dark Ages in Plants vs. Zombies 2. This zombie's main role is to provide support and a health boost to Peasant Zombies, Conehead, and Buckethead Peasants by granting knight helms. The Zombie King will periodically boost a Peasant Zombie's toughness, transforming any Peasant Zombies into a Knight Zombies. The Zombie King does not move, rather, an Announcer Imp will appear on a tile in the rightmost column, blow a horn, and the Zombie King will fall down and crush the Announcer Imp along with any plants on the Zombie King's respective tile. It will then remain on that tile until defeated.

Appearance
He will fall down on the Announcer Imp on the rightmost column of any row. He will just stay there and convert all Peasant Zombies near him into Knight Zombies.

He has a brown beard, and a golden crown on his head. He sits on a throne and holds a scepter. He has a red fur coat and a purple shirt, he also wears a red ring on his right hand. He wears lime green colored pants and a pair of brown shoes. The horn blown by the Announcer Imp can be seen under the throne of Zombie King, as well as one Imp hand and a leg too.

Almanac entry
TOUGHNESS: Dense

Grants knight helms to nearby peasant zombies.

As Shakespeare once wrote, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." And Zombie King couldn't agree more. It is incredibly difficult to get a good night's sleep with a crown on your head. That thing is all kinds of uncomfortable.

Encounters
Player's House: Piñata Party

Dark Ages: Nights 16, 17, 18, 19 and Arthur's Challenge.

Overview
Zombie King absorbs 50 normal damage shots and its appearance changes upon absorbing 17 normal damage shots before dying at 50 normal damage shots.

General
When you see this zombie on the lawn, kill all the Peasant Zombies quickly because he will slowly transform all the zombies nearby into Knight Zombies, who absorb a lot of damage. Although he does not move, close-range plants like Snapdragon and Bonk Choy are useless, as other zombies will quickly overwhelm them. The best strategy to deal with him is to put a column of Magnet-shroom and at the very first column from the left put Magnifying Grass to deal with the Zombie King, the Magnet-shroom can attract any knight helms and is fast. That means if a Zombie King has just granted a knight helm, a Magnet-shroom will attract it immediately, making it the Zombie King's weakness. Put Spikerocks the rightmost edge of the column but to be safer, double the Spikerocks to slow down upgraded Peasant Zombies. Brute force from your plants will also work if you have enough fire-power. It is also good to use the Hypno-shroom and hypnotize a strong armored zombie. By the time the hypnotized zombie gets to the Zombie King, the hypnotized zombie will start eating the Zombie King and the king will do nothing, since he does not eat plants.

Dark Ages - Night 18
When the first huge wave comes, three Zombie Kings will immediately appear at once. A Kernel-pult should stun them, so you can try planting as many as you can before they appear. Kill it quickly with Fume-shrooms and plant Pea-nuts to protect your plants from the Knight Zombies. However, save the Plant Foods, only use them when the zombies cannot be killed.

Arthur's Challenge
These, along with Jester Zombies, Knight Zombies, Wizard Zombies, and Dark Ages Gargantuars are very dangerous if all of them appear in one level. If you see these five types of dangerous zombies in large numbers in one level, all of these zombies can cause massive havoc on your lawn, emptying everything and causing you to lose the game. To prevent massive havoc from happening, you must have a Cherry Bomb, and some very heavy hitting plants, like Winter Melons. In later levels, boosts such as Iceberg Lettuce are highly recommended.

Piñata Party
The Zombie King is one of the greatest threats in his appearances in Piñata Party. Fortunately, he will only grant knight helmets to Peasant Zombies, and commonly there will not be any Peasant Zombies with him, only making him a shield for zombies behind him.

Trivia

 * is the first zombie that does not have speed listed in his Almanac entry because it cannot move. The same applies to the Fisherman Zombie.
 * is the second zombie who provides support, with Dr. Zomboss being the first one.
 * Dr. Zomboss' way of providing support is that the will compress all zombies that it summons in one square with the zombie with the least toughness or so will be the leading one. This provides Dr. Zomboss enough time to evade or to charge forward. A possible third one could be the Zombie hands that put potions on the lawn.
 * William Shakespeare's passage "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown" is a reference to the first scene of the third act of Henry IV.
 * If the player looks closely, the player can see him crushing another zombie, which is the Announcer Imp.
 * The Announcer Imp is present in the Dark Ages trailers. It holds two parts of a coconut and makes a galloping horse sound to pretend that the Knight Zombie was riding a horse. Then they would stop by and visit the Jester Zombie and the Imp Monk Zombies. This is likely a reference to the British comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
 * Zombie King in his Almanac picture is seen with his scepter.
 * If the player looks closely, he or she can see part of his belly sticking out from his clothes, meaning it is too fat to fit in his clothes.
 * can restore helmets to Peasant Zombies if they lose their helmets.
 * will die instantly when there are no zombies left but himself. Prospector Zombie, Fisherman Zombie, and any zombie facing backwards via pterodactyl do the same.
 * However, in the Chinese version his head doesn't fall by itself.
 * If the player uses a Cherry Bomb or any other instant-kill plant at the time where the Announcer Imp arrives, the player will see that the is imperishable.
 * Zombie King does not disintegrate when a Cherry Bomb is used; instead, the head falls off as normal. This trait is shared with the Zombie Bull, Fisherman Zombie, and all of the special Far Future zombies.
 * The death animation of this zombie is different from the others; his head breaks away from its body and rolls down his belly, and then his throne disappears.
 * Zombie King, Fisherman Zombie, Imp Cannon, Zombot Tuskmaster 10,000 BC, and Zombot Multi-stage Masher are the only zombies that cannot move.
 * However, if one counts the all the dinos except the Raptor in Jurassic Marsh, they would also count too.
 * He occasionally coughs on himself and then slurps up the saliva.
 * Zombie King cannot be blown away by Blover when falling. However, this zombie is not too heavy to be tossed away by Citron's Plant Food ability.
 * There can only be one Zombie King per lane, unlike Imp Cannons which can have many per lane. This trait is shared with the Fisherman Zombie.
 * He cannot be moved by Spikeweeds or Spikerocks, or by the Power Toss.
 * If the Zombie King has Plant Food, then the Announcer Imp will have Plant Food too.
 * If the player listens closely, the player can hear a low pitched voice when he coughs.
 * This zombie also does this in his almanac entry. It is the first zombie to make vocal noises in his almanac entry. Formerly, Zombot Multi-stage Masher had vocal voices in its almanac entry, but this was patched in the 4.2.1 update.
 * Zombie King, Gargantuar Prime, hypnotized zombies and Dr. Zomboss are the only zombies that can kill other zombies. This is because the King will crush the Announcer Imp, Dr. Zomboss has his two-lane destroying attack, hypnotized zombies eat other zombies, and Gargantuar Prime can burn zombies with its laser.
 * Announcer Imp is not generally counted as a zombie, as it does not have any effect on the game (It does not eat or otherwise eat plants or brains and it does not summon or boost zombies).
 * Tombstones will be crushed by the Zombie King if he falls on one.
 * Even though his crown and throne are metallic, they cannot be taken by Magnet-shroom. This makes sense because they are not iron, instead, they are gold just like Excavator Zombie's shovel.
 * Only instant-usage plants such as Cherry Bomb can be planted on him.
 * Hypnotized zombies can kill the Announcer Imp before the Zombie King falls.
 * Except Peasant Flag Zombie and Announcer Imp, Zombie King is the only Dark Ages zombie that does not appear in Dark Ages - Night 20.
 * The player cannot plant on Announcer Imp, but the plant on the tile it is on still remains until the Zombie King falls.
 * If the player looks closely, he or she can see there is a ring on one of Zombie King's fingers. This might indicate that it was engaged when it is alive. However, it could just be there for decoration.
 * In the Dark Ages' preview and the icon in the almanac, there is no dirt around his throne.
 * In the soft release of Dark Ages Part 2, he had Protected toughness according to his almanac entry. This was later changed to Dense after the update.
 * He can give helmets to hypnotized Peasant Zombies, making it somewhat counterproductive against the zombies' side.
 * Zombie King and Imp Porter are the only zombies that can crush a Spikerock immediately.
 * Zombie King can also kill a Ghost Pepper if he falls on it.
 * Incredibly, this zombie can destroy Cherry Bomb or Grapeshot before it explodes if the zombie itself falls on it.
 * Zombie King does not heal the Peasant Zombie while granting a helm. Therefore, the player can see a Knight Zombie without one of its arms.
 * The Zombie King is voiced by Mark Barrett and Chris Sampson according to the credits.
 * Also, in the credits, this zombie is called "King Zombie".