Balloon Tower Defense guides

Short, specific walkthroughs for the moments that actually end first runs of Balloon Tower Defense. Every number in these pages — resistances, tower costs, wave composition, damage per second — comes straight from the game running on this site, so the advice fits Meadow Run exactly rather than being generic tower defense theory copied from somewhere else.

Most first runs end in the same place. Wave 9 introduces a balloon that halves your main damage type; wave 13 introduces one that ignores your slows; wave 10 and wave 20 drop a boss with its own resistances. Each of those is a specific problem with a specific, cheap answer, and each gets its own page here rather than a line buried in a wall of text.

Guides are written one at a time, in the order the wave_reached data shows players getting stuck — not generated in bulk. If a wave beat you and it is not covered yet, tell us the wave number and what your board looked like.

• How to beat wave 9 (Mylar Balloons)

  The first run-ender. Mylar halves blunt damage, so a dart-only board leaks. Here is the exact fix, the coin maths, and where the counter goes.

• How to beat the Zeppelin (waves 10 and 20)

  Twenty lives per leak, and even a maxed Pin Cannon only does 64% of one in a single pass. Why it is an exposure problem, and why the Frost Fan — the tower nobody builds — is its hardest counter.

Newer to the game? Start with the how-to-play steps, the tower guide and the strategy notes on the home page, then come back here when you hit a wall.