Kingmakers Boss Guide: How to Beat Every Enemy Commander Type

Kingmakers doesn't have traditional video game bosses. No giant health bars, no glowing weak points, no three-phase arena fights. What it has is officers. Enemy commanders who lead formations, inspire their troops, and can absolutely ruin your day if you don't deal with them.

These officers are the closest thing to boss fights in Kingmakers. Each type has different behavior, different bodyguard compositions, and different ways you need to approach killing them. I've fought every officer type multiple times across solo and co-op, and here's what I know.

The Banner Lord (standard infantry commander)

The most common officer type. Banner Lords lead infantry formations, always have a banner-bearer nearby, and are surrounded by 4-6 elite bodyguards.

Their behavior is predictable. They stay behind their formation and only engage personally when their troops are winning. If you're pushing their formation back, the Banner Lord retreats. If they're pushing you, they advance with the front line.

The fastest kill: sniper rifle from elevation. Banner Lords have no shield and their helmet doesn't cover the face. One headshot drops them. If you can't get a sniper angle, hit them with the shotgun during a cavalry flank. The chaos of a cavalry charge distracts the bodyguards long enough for you to sprint in and fire two shells.

What not to do: frontal assault with your infantry. Banner Lords surrounded by bodyguards in a stable formation are nearly impossible to reach. The bodyguards will intercept your units and the officer will just retreat to a safer position.

The Cavalry Marshal

Fast, aggressive, and never stays in one place. Cavalry Marshals lead mounted charges and are constantly moving around the battlefield. They have fewer bodyguards, usually 2-3 mounted elites, but they're hard to pin down.

The trick with Cavalry Marshals is to bait their charge. Position a unit of Spearmen in the open, not in a formation that looks too threatening. The Marshal will see them as an easy target and charge. Spearmen in brace stance destroy cavalry charges. As soon as the Marshal hits the spear wall and gets stunned, you or your archers finish them off.

Alternatively, if you have your own cavalry, you can duel them. Cavalry vs cavalry in Kingmakers comes down to who gets the charge off first. Bait the Marshal into charging your infantry, then hit them from the side with your own cavalry mid-charge. Works every time.

Do not try to kill a Cavalry Marshal with your assault rifle. They move too fast and you'll just waste ammo.

The Grand General (high-value target)

The rarest and most dangerous officer type. Grand Generals command entire armies, not just single formations. They're heavily armored, surrounded by 8+ elite bodyguards including both infantry and cavalry escorts, and killing them effectively wins the battle.

Grand Generals appear in major story missions and some high-level side raids. They're the closest thing to a real boss fight.

The only reliable way I've found to kill a Grand General is a coordinated assault: one player or your RTS units engage the bodyguards from the front while you flank with the shotgun. Even then, you need to burn through the bodyguards fast because the General will call reinforcements if the fight drags on.

In co-op, this is where the game gets incredible. Having one player draw aggro while the other positions for the kill shot feels like a military operation. In solo, you have to manage the RTS layer to occupy the bodyguards while your third-person character does the flanking. It's hard but satisfying.

Grenade launcher is also effective against Grand Generals, not to kill them directly but to kill the bodyguards grouped around them. One grenade into the bodyguard cluster, then rush in with the shotgun to finish the General before they recover.

The Fortress Commander (defensive siege officer)

Only appears in siege missions. Fortress Commanders don't fight directly. They command from walls, directing archers and siege equipment.

You can't reach them with melee until you breach the walls. Your options are: sniper rifle from a distance (hard because they use cover well), or assault rifle pressure to keep them suppressed while your siege equipment breaks the gate.

Once the walls are breached, the Fortress Commander retreats to the inner keep. At that point it's a corridor fight. Shotgun is king in corridors. One well-placed shell ends it.

The frustration with Fortress Commanders is that they keep respawning wall archers while alive. You can kill archers all day, more will come. Ignore the archers, focus on breaching, kill the Commander. That's the sequence.

Historical commanders (story spoilers)

The campaign mirrors the historical Welsh rebellion led by Owain Glyndwr, which means some enemy officers are based on real historical figures. I won't spoil who or when they appear, but these story officers have unique dialogue and slightly different behavior patterns.

The main difference: story officers sometimes offer surrender when their formation breaks. Accepting surrender gives you resources and lets them live. Executing them removes them from the campaign permanently and affects later missions. There's no objectively right choice here but I've found that executing officers in early missions makes late-game easier, while ransoming them gives you faster upgrades. Your call.

What works against every officer type

If I had to give one piece of advice that applies to every officer fight: don't fight fair. You have modern weapons and they have medieval tactics. Use the range advantage, use elevation, use cavalry to distract while you position for the kill.

The other universal tip: always kill the banner-bearer first if there is one. Banner-bearers provide a morale aura that makes the officer's formation fight harder and retreat slower. Kill the banner, then kill the officer.

And seriously, upgrade your shotgun. Every tier of shotgun upgrade adds pellet count and reduces spread. A tier-3 shotgun can kill an officer in one shot even through bodyguard interference. A tier-1 shotgun takes two or three shots and you might not get a second chance.