Armos Knight

The Armos Knight is a recurring boss or mini-boss in The Legend of Zelda series, although it later appears as a regular enemy as well. It is basically a bigger and stronger version of the standard Armos enemies.

A Link to the Past
A group of six Armos Knights are the first Dungeon Master Link faces, the boss of the Eastern Palace in A Link to the Past. They guard the Pendant of Courage within this first dungeon. While they can be defeated with Link's Fighter's Sword, this takes a very large number of hits per knight. The best way to defeat them is to use the Bow found in the dungeon, as they will fall from three arrows each. They fight by jumping around in a circular formation, before lining up at the top of the screen and charging at Link all at once, attempting to crush him. Once their numbers are diminished, the last one will turn red and attempt to crush Link with hard stomps around the room. As with the others, three arrows will finish him off, although as he will attack close up it may be easier to use the sword. After emerging victorious, Link is rewarded with the Pendant of Courage and a Heart Container.

Later in the game, they show up once more in Ganon's Tower, where they guard the Big Key. They must be defeated one more time to advance to the top of the tower, where Agahnim awaits. They are defeated in the same manner as before, but Silver Arrows and the Master Sword allow for a much quicker fight. The battle does, however, take place on a slick ice floor, making attacking a little more troublesome.

Link's Awakening
In Link's Awakening, one Armos Knight is found in the Southern Face Shrine. It guards the Face Key, which opens the sixth dungeon, Face Shrine. Link can defeat the knight by shooting arrows at it with his Bow. This eventually destroys his armor leaving him vulnerable to either more arrows or Link's sword. Unlike the Knights in A Link to the Past, this knight is able to stun Link by slamming the ground with great force. It is important to use the Roc's Feather when the knight goes to stomp the ground, as it allows Link to avoid being stunned. Defeating him also allows Link to enter the final room of the Southern Face Shrine, where a mysterious secret of the island is hidden.

The Wind Waker
This variation of the Armos Knight appears mainly in the Tower of the Gods and the Wind Temple as common enemies with similar appearances and weaknesses to Armos found in Ocarina of Time. These variations will hop towards Link much like their more standard brethren, but occasionally will stop suddenly to unleash spikes from their sides, when they will open their mouths. If Link throws a Bomb (or Bomb Flower) into its open mouth, the monster will be defeated, and hop wildly in a straight line towards where Link stood before exploding like regular Armos. If Link doesn't throw a bomb in, the monster will close its mouth and continue chasing after him. By shooting it in its eye, its possible to make it open its mouth immediately. With its single eye, this variation of the Armos Knight has a lot in common with Eyegore Statues.

Four Swords Adventures
This variation of the Armos Knight appears in the Desert Temple, the second stage in the Desert of Doubt in Four Swords Adventures. A large statue appears at the start of the dungeon who must be moved to gain entrance, and once Link "awakens" the temple, some of them will be revealed from behind barriers and become active. These Armos Knights will come to life when Link gets near, like regular Armos, but they will only stomp after Link when the Links turn their backs on them. They are invincible, unaffected by swords or arrows. As with most Armos statues in the game, many other statues in the dungeon will not come to life, but later in the dungeon, six Armos Knights will appear already active in a large room. They stomp around in synchronized jumps a large circle around the room, very similar to the boss from A Link to the Past, although they will not actively attack the four Links. The room itself also has Beamos throughout, and acts as a deadly puzzle. Once the four Links light all the torches in the room using arrows, the Armos Knights will be destroyed.

Two big Armos will appear in Hyrule Castle earlier in the game, but these are simply very large normal Armos and can be defeated easily with a sword.

Similar enemies in other games

 * Armos, in several Legend of Zelda titles.
 * Armos Warrior, in Oracle of Ages.
 * Death Armos, in Majora's Mask.

Trivia

 * The Armos Knights in A Link to the Past represent the first instance of the item found in the dungeon being used to defeat the boss, although unlike later games it is not necessary.
 * The Armos Knights in The Wind Waker have a nose and moustache oddly similar to Wario from the Mario series.
 * In Link's Awakening and A Link to the Past, Armos knights are interactable even if they are in the air, that means that if they jump very high, the game counts that direction as "north" instead of towards the ceiling, and can strike link if he is above them.