Grow Guerrilla Bosses Guide: How to Beat All Five Season Bosses

Every Grow Guerrilla season ends at stage 12 with a boss. There are five of them, each with its own attacks, defenses and a weak spot, and each one changes behavior twice as it loses health. This guide covers how boss fights work in general, then gives you a plan for every boss.

How boss fights work

• Stage 12 is just you and the boss. No regular wave and no weather modifiers — only the boss and the reinforcements it calls in.
• Bosses are armored during their entrance. Nothing you fire does damage until the boss has fully arrived; you'll see "ARMORED!" sparks if you try. Use the entrance to let your gun cool completely.
• Three phases. Phase 2 starts at 50% health and phase 3 at 20%. Every boss gets more aggressive at each threshold.
• Stagger pauses attacks. The Airhorn active and the Lion's Roar relic briefly stun the boss, which stops its rockets, bombs, mortars and beams for the duration. Knockback, on the other hand, does nothing to bosses.
• The reward is big. A boss kill drops a relic and a large pile of buds, then ends the season with the win bonus. On a normal season those buds land at the very end, so they all convert to Gold Bud.

Only The Chief's Gunship is in your season boss pool at first. The other four are bought in the Grow House under Content, and each one you buy joins the random draw for stage 12. Daily Challenges always use the full roster, so the Boss Gauntlet is a free way to meet bosses you haven't unlocked.

Boss	Base HP	Ch. 1 stage 12 HP	Unlock	Main threat
The Chief's Gunship	2,000	5,080	Default	Rocket volleys, then carpet bombs
The Crop-Duster Ace	1,500	3,810	80 Gold Bud	Fast defoliant strafes; armored nose
Blimp Command	2,800	7,112	100 Gold Bud	Add waves, jammed HUD, tear gas
The Mothership	2,200	5,588	120 Gold Bud	Rotating shield, abduction beams
The Federal Harvester	3,200	8,128	150 Gold Bud	Mortars, chest gun, air support

Boss health scales with the stage's HEAT (×2.54 at stage 12) and with a separate boss multiplier in later chapters: ×1.7 in Dust Valley, rising to ×6.7 in Zion Heights.

The Chief's Gunship

An armored attack helicopter that sweeps back and forth across the top of the screen.

• Phase 1: every few seconds it fires a volley of three rockets, each aimed at a random plant.
• Phase 2 ("CALLING BACKUP!"): rocket volleys come faster, and it calls in scout choppers and gunships every six seconds, up to three at once.
• Phase 3 ("CARPET BOMBS!"): rockets stop, but it sweeps nearly twice as fast and drops a bomb every 0.4 seconds as it passes over the field.

How to beat it: it's the most straightforward fight, so it's where you learn the rhythm. In phase 2, kill the backup choppers as they arrive — gunship adds hover over a plant and fire bursts into it. Save your Airhorn and Tarp Shield for phase 3: the carpet bombing hits every plant it passes, and both a stagger and a raised tarp shut it down. Phase 3 only starts at 20% health, so if you arrive there with a cool gun and your actives ready, the bombing phase can be over quickly.

The Crop-Duster Ace

The fastest boss and the one with the smallest health pool — but it's the hardest to hit well. The Ace loops around above the screen, dives to a low pass height and strafes across the field, spraying defoliant on any plant it flies over. Each phase makes it faster, and in phase 3 it barely rests between passes.

Its defense is directional: direct hits on the nose deal only 55% damage, while hits on the glowing engine behind the nose deal 2.5×. You'll see "WEAKPOINT!" when you land them.

How to beat it:

• Aim slightly behind it, not at it. Leading the plane puts your shots on the nose.
• Splash from explosions and airbursts isn't reduced by the nose armor, so the Flak Cannon (set your aim at its pass height), Seed Mortar and Explosive Tips are dependable here.
• Use the gaps between passes to vent heat, so you're at full fire for every strafe.
• Time Warp slows it to about a third of its speed for three seconds — the easiest way to land a burst on the engine.

Blimp Command

A fortress airship that drifts slowly side to side. While it's alive, your HUD is jammed for the whole fight, so there are no enemy health bars, and enemy fire hits 20% harder, just like regular blimps.

It carries four engine pods that pop at 80%, 60%, 40% and 20% health. Each pod that goes down announces itself ("ENGINE POD DOWN! 2/4") and sends in an add wave: a scout chopper plus one of a paratrooper transport, gunship, crop duster or A-10. It also lobs a tear-gas canister about every six seconds.

How to beat it:

• Use the pod counter as your health bar: four pods down means it's under 20%.
• After each pod, deal with the add wave before pushing on. Two waves stacking up is how this fight goes wrong.
• Shoot canisters mid-arc. They're cheap to kill and the gas does real damage to plants.
• The blimp is huge and slow, so heavy single-target guns (Sativa Sniper, Bong Rocket) and Sativa's hit streak both shine.

The Mothership

A giant saucer wrapped in a rotating dashed shield. Bullets that cross a dash are blocked; bullets that slip through a gap hit the hull. A bit more than a third of the ring is open at any moment, and the ring spins faster in each phase.

Its main attack is the abduction beam: every eight seconds (six from phase 2, and faster again in phase 3) it locks onto a random plant and starts lifting it. If the beam runs its full 2.6 seconds, that plant is gone. You can break it four ways:

1. Deal 3% of the Mothership's maximum health while the beam is up ("BEAM SEVERED!").
2. Stagger it with Airhorn or Lion's Roar.
3. Raise the Tarp Shield.
4. Have the plant shielded by Irie Vibes.

It also calls in a UFO Scout or Cloaking Saucer every ten seconds, up to two at a time. UFO Scouts have abduction beams of their own, so don't ignore them.

How to beat it: high-rate guns are your friend here, because a steady stream naturally finds the gaps; slow, heavy shots waste more on the dashes. Save your burst for beam windows — 3% of max health in under three seconds is easy if your gun is cool and you're aiming at a gap. Keep one Airhorn charge in reserve for the beam you can't sever.

The Federal Harvester

The biggest health pool in the game: a walking mech that stomps in from one side and parks near that edge of the field, with air support overhead.

• Arm mortars lob gas canisters at your plants every few seconds — but only while at least one arm is intact. The left arm breaks at 75% health and the right at 50%.
• A chest gun fires bursts at your plants, much faster once its thrusters break at 25%.
• Air support: every twelve seconds it calls a bomber or an A-10, up to three adds at once.
• The exposed core: in phase 3 (under 20%) it takes 1.5× damage.

How to beat it: the first half is about canisters — shoot them out of the air until both arms are gone at 50%, and the mortars stop for good. From 25% the chest gun gets dangerous, but the 1.5× core damage below 20% makes the finish quicker than the health pool suggests. Because the Harvester stands on the ground, a Molotov Toss thrown at its feet burns it like any other ground unit. Kill bombers before they reach the field; their bombs fall straight down onto plants.

Preparing for stage 12

Most boss losses start in stage 11. A few habits help:

1. Use the last shop. There's a shop right after stage 11. Buy a Re-Plant if you've lost a plant, or Deep Watering for your most damaged one, before anything else.
2. Count your plants. Plants heal between stage 11 and the boss (unless Dry Season rolled), but dead ones stay dead. Indica's Heavy Harvest damage depends on every one of them.
3. Draft for the fight. If your stage-11 draft offers Airhorn, Tarp Shield or Time Warp, they're worth more against bosses than a small damage bump.
4. Start cold. Don't fire during the entrance; walk into phase 1 with an empty heat gauge.

If you're struggling with the core run before stage 12, the beginner's guide and the builds and synergies guide are the place to start. Strain choice matters too: see the strains guide for which strains are strongest in long single-target fights.

Frequently asked questions

Which Grow Guerrilla boss is the hardest?

The Federal Harvester has the most health and the most simultaneous attacks; The Mothership is the one that most often deletes plants outright. Which feels harder depends on your gun: streams handle the Mothership's shield well, while splash builds make the Ace and Harvester easier.

Should I unlock more bosses in the Grow House?

Unlocking a boss only adds it to the random pool for stage 12, so there's no rush if you're still learning. It does add variety, and the weekly boss mission counts kills of any boss.

Do bosses get harder in later chapters?

Yes. Their health multiplier grows with each chapter, and they move at the chapter's faster pace, so a boss you farm comfortably in The Homestead is a real fight in Babylon Outskirts.