I'm making some Fallout New Vegas videos for machinima and wanted the community's input on this rather than basing it solely on my opinion. Some of you may remember I did this for FO3 and it came out extremely successful! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS-MRnb9H3s, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZxR6JQiO2I) Its extremely hard pleasing everyone since we all have different characters that excel in different weapons, so I really appreciate the community helping out with the list.

You can either vote in the poll and/or simply list your top 10 here. Feel free to include any enemy even if not listed above, but try to think about the toughest enemies from an average character's perspective, not your level 30 character equipped with the best weapons/ammo because of course by that point most enemies aren't too tough

Each enemy includes all its ranks, for example Feral Ghoul includes roamers, reavers, glowing ones, etc. If I forgot any tough enemies let me know so I can update the list! Thanks in advanced to everyone that helps out, I'll post link here when completed and keep in mind next will be weapons.

There are only two tough enemies and the Cazadors are not that hard to kill. 10mm SMG with hollow point ammo knocks them down quite well. Only the Deathclaw is really tough.

1. Legendary Deathclaw
2. Deathclaw Mother
3. Security Hologram
4. Ghost Trapper
5. Deathclaw
6. Veteran Ranger
7. Legion Praetorian
8. Legion Centurion
9. BOS Paladin
10. Mirelurk King

If you only found one enemy tough as an average skilled character, thats still fine. Just vote for deathclaws.

Deathclaw & the legendary/mother variants etc. etc.
Caesar's Praetorian Guards on Fortification Hill if you try to bum-rush them in the tent all at once (no mines/explosives/stealth/sniping/companions), at least on Very Hard. Regular Legion types are push-overs.
Giant Rad-Scorpions, solo, at low-to-middling clvls

...I mean, anything can be somewhat of a challenge at low levels and/or with low level/self-gimping gear, but in terms of the overall game/not self-gimping, imo that's about it.

Gecko's of any kind are easy.
CL, NCR only get hard much later on in the MQ.
Raiders are magnets to bullets / blades / fist / beams of energy.
Super mutant masters are mid level bosses at best, nightkin masters low level ones.
Deathclaws vs player one on one, even a level 6 unarmed character with 3 powder charges and no sneak can kill one, with thought.
Cazadors in packs or very early on a challange, but Vs a decent ranged build with good weapon finds not so much even at level 3.
Lakelurks ranged no threat, a melee build and facing packs can be quite threatening with their psy blast.

Nightstalkers in packs are by far alot harder than cazadors.

So three picks, Deathclaws, Cazadors, and Nightstalkers any level character caught unawares.

That right there is the key. New players or when caught by surprise/not expecting something.

I definitely found it interesting, even when very new to the game, how it felt that clvl and even to some degree your skill levels did not matter nearly as much as your gear. Thus the lvl 3 killing a deathclaw, with some forethought/planning. Nightstalkers should be in the list if geckos are, for sure. Mean at low lvls when startled because of the packs.

Only enemy thats a pain in the ass is rocket launcher wielding masters.Death claws blow ass lol/legendary gtfo meet my this machine .

Uh-huh.... Have you tried an Unarmed playthrough yet?

Oh yes you're right about the low levels, even at high ones too for me.
The legendery and pack are top level challange without sneak or ranged weapons.
Heck even the lower level packs are, ignoring most DT, crippling limbs on even one bite;
Plus unlike cazadors their AI has no glitch to movement meaning direct charges, their size is small enough to get a full pack to flank you.
Thier speed is very high, making full automatics the best way to kill them, their only weakness is lower health than every other to tier threat.
Their attack power makes up for this in droves however imo.

have no reason to unarmed this machine for medium and riot shotgun for close

Replayability?

I've never encountered these enemies, can you explain them to me?

Dead Money DLC enemies.
Ghost Trapper is like a ghoul, is very fast, and does tons of damage.
The Security Hologram on the other hand is slow, easy to hide from, does a [censored]LOAD of damage and cannot be killed, can only be turned off if one finds it's "off switch" and have enough in science skill to deactivate it.

Thank you, I don't have New Vegas on Xbox, so I can't get Dead Money. I'm wating for the announcement of the PC version to read anything about it.

I voted for Cazadores... I can kill anything with my unarmed but those damned bugs always surround me. Hard to have eyes in the back of your head... But in the sense of a machinima, I would probably use them to chase the protagonist into a bigger encounter. PS. LOVE your FO3 machinimas!

Sentry bots were brutal in fo3, lakelurks are hard as crap, cazadors svck, nightkin scare me all the time, and deathclaws are just beast.

The battle cattle are the most vicious foe I've seen in New Vegas :sadvaultboy:

Out of all the enemies from Fallout: 1-NV, I find Cazadors to be some of the most unfathomably annoying and difficult enemies I've ever faced.

With deathclaws, you can fight them at long range after having set a menagerie of traps for them to run through, and super mutants really don't become hard to fight after you get to a certain level, but cazadores...

At a low level, cazadors will two-shot me or cause me to go through all my antivenom early. The only way I've ever sneaked up on them and took one out at range was through mere chance, as I absolutely cannot time shots well enough to hit them. Even at high levels, the same problem occurs, I cannot hit them unless I go into VATS, which is what I usually end up doing. With my melee character, fighting them was a nightmare. Once one would hit me, it would push me back just far enough back that my weapon swing would not hit them, and this would eventually turn into a cycle of swinging, getting hit, missing, walking forward, swinging, getting hit, missing, walking forward, etc.

On hardcoe mode, I'd save my game before attacking a swarm of them simply because they would always annihilate one of my followers if I didn't completely aggro every single one of them immediately.

Screw you, you [censored] bugs. Now I know how the folks on Starship Troopers felt.

you can just shoot the hologram projector. It kills the one hologram but alerts others in the area.
I went deathclaw hunting today...was awsome with the holorifle! 2 shots undetected and it's dead.

/Jingle: The more you know!

The A.I on cazadors is the trick, one shot sneak hitting is very unlikely.
Just fire once to alert ( a silenced weapon while sneaking is great as then it'll be 1 on 1 most times ), then as it slows down hunting for you.
It'll try to take the most direct path, making semi automatic and lever shots more accurate for you.
The best way however is take a fully automatic good damage weapon such as the 10mm with hand load out 10mm Jsp rounds.

Cazadores, I just did Bleed Me Dry again, thank god I bought a 12.7mm SMG before going, you cant sneak-crit them, their idle scampering is to swift and erratic, and they close large distance very quickly, a swarm will kill you if one gets close because the panic and poison only begets more panic and poison

I dunno. A 10mm SMG, get the extended magazine, and hollow point and Cazadors are nothing special. I am a shooter guy, don't use VATS, so my skills are fairly good but I don't find knocking them down all that hard. Main problem is keeping Veronica and Rex alive. They just gotta get in there and hit those Cazadors, not smart. Ronnie will used ranged for a bit but the moment they get close off she goes. It's easier to park em', off the Cads and then proceed.