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

It has a brown beard, and a golden crown on its head. It sits on a throne and holds a scepter. He has a red fur coat and a purple shirt, it also wears a red ring on its right hand. It 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.

Encounters
Player's House: Piñata Party

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

Epic Quests: "Inzanity" Epic Quest

Battlez: Power Lily’s Garden Party Tournament

Overview
Zombie King absorbs 75 normal damage shots and its appearance changes upon absorbing 37.5 normal damage shots before dying at 75 normal damage shots.

The announcer Imp has no health and cannot be damaged by the player in any way. This is of little concern as the Announcer Imp is crushed by the Zombie King shortly after arriving, preventing it from doing any damage to the player either.

General
When you see this zombie on the lawn, kill it quickly or destroy all the Peasant Zombies as fast as you can because it will slowly transform all those zombies nearby into Knight Zombies, who absorb a lot of damage. An easy way is to use Primal Potato Mine on nearby Peasant Zombies to kill it instantly as they have splash damage. Although it does not move, close-range plants like Snapdragon and Bonk Choy are useless (unless fed with Plant Food), as other zombies will quickly overwhelm them. Chompers and Toadstools are also useless as they cannot devour the zombie and can only damage it. In addition, avoid using Homing Thistles and Coconut Cannons as they can easily be distracted by other zombies or any nearby tombstones, unlike most offensive plants. The best strategy to deal with it is to put a column of Magnet-shroom, as they will attract Knight Helms, making the Peasant Zombies useless. However, Zombie Kings can immediately replace them back, meaning defeating the zombie afterwards must be done quickly. Because of that, avoid using Citrons as when they destroy the knight helm, the helms will be immediately granted back, thus wasting their previous attacks and causing them to have a hard time destroying the Peasant Zombies. Butter from Kernel-pult may help, especially when fed with Plant Food, ensuring no Peasant Zombies can be granted Knight Helms. Garlic are somewhat useful as there is a chance that a Peasant Zombie will be directed away from the Zombie King. Spikeweeds and Spikerocks cannot be placed on Zombie Kings, and will be crushed when a Zombie King appears. 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 it does not eat plants. This is especially true if the hypnotized zombie is granted a knight helmet as it would allow the hypnotized zombies to survive longer. Shadow-shrooms are useful (especially with Plant Food) as they will ignore all helms and destroy the Peasant Zombies instantly. Banana Launchers and Missile Toes are also useful as they can send a powerful attack to any tile on the screen.

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, especially that this zombie does not move, which ensures that fast and stronger zombies such as Jester Zombie and Dark Ages Gargantuar absorb most of your attacks, similar to Wizard Zombie. 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, as well as, area of effect plants such as Laser Bean. In later levels, boosts such as Iceberg Lettuce are highly recommended.

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

Trivia

 * If there are no zombies left besides itself, the Zombie King will die instantly even if at full health as he cannot reach the Player's House in any way.
 * In the Chinese version, his head did not fall by itself until the v1.8 update.
 * This inability to reach the player's house is a partial reference to the fact that a king with nobody to rule over is powerless.
 * Any zombie moving away from the player's house that aren't hypnotized, such as Prospector Zombie or zombies carried by the pterodactyl share this trait.
 * He is the first zombie that does not have speed listed in its Almanac entry because he cannot move. The same applies to the Fisherman Zombie.
 * Dr. Zomboss' way of providing support is that he will compress all zombies that he 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, they 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.
 * A bite mark can be seen on the back of the throne.
 * If the player looks closely, they can see part of his belly sticking out from its clothes, meaning he is too fat to fit in his clothes.
 * He can restore helmets to Peasant Zombies if they lose their helmets, even if said helmets were already granted by the Zombie King himself or another Zombie King.
 * 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 Announcer Imp is imperishable.
 * In the older version, 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.
 * However, in the newer updates, this has changed, and now when he disintegrates, he disintegrates like a Basic Zombie, not a fat one.


 * The death animation of this zombie is different from the others; his head breaks away from his body and rolls down his belly, and then the zombie and his head disappear.
 * 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 all the dinosaurs except the Raptor and the Pterodactyl 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 visually 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. He is the first zombie to make vocal noises in its 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's flow or outcome (It does not move further than one tile and does not eat plants or brains, nor does it 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 and gold is not magnetic.
 * 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 for 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 an Announcer Imp, but if there already is a plant on the tile when the Announcer Imp arrives, it will remain there 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 he was engaged when he was 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 the Protected toughness according to his almanac entry. This was later changed to Dense after the update.
 * 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.
 * Zombie King can also kill an Infi-nut immediately.
 * This zombie can destroy Cherry Bomb or Grapeshot before it explodes if the zombie himself falls on them.
 * Zombie King does not heal the Peasant Zombie while granting a helm. Therefore, the player can see a Knight Zombie with an intact helmet but without one of his arms.
 * The helmet will still be granted to the Peasant with both shoulder pads even if the Peasant Zombie is missing one arm.
 * The Zombie King is voiced by Mark Barrett and Chris Sampson according to the credits.
 * Also, in the credits and in the Travel Log, this zombie is called "King Zombie."