Pumpkin Moon

The  is an event added in the 1.2.1 Halloween update and summoned with the Pumpkin Moon Medallion at night. The Pumpkin Moon is an invasion-like event that replaces a normal night's Moon Phase. The visual indicator is the moon turning orange with a jack-o-lantern face on it. The moon stays in the same phase (waning, waxing, full, and everything in between) as the normal moon would be, but uses the new texture. The music that plays during Pumpkin Moon is a unique music track.

The Pumpkin Moon Medallion requires Pumpkins, Ectoplasm and Hallowed Bars to create, meaning it is intended to only be accessible to players who have already completed virtually all of the end-game content in Hardmode, and as such, is meant to be a challenge even to players with the best possible equipment. In the final waves, the player(s) will be faced with multiple boss-level enemies at once. It is currently the second most difficult event in the game, the first being the Frost Moon.

The rewards for the Pumpkin Moon are the weapons and accessories dropped by the enemies spawned in the event, which are essentially an entire new tier of equipment, providing new, more powerful versions of existing weapons and accessories. As well, there are pet items and vanity items.

The Event
There are up to 15 waves in the Pumpkin Moon, and waves progress as you kill Pumpkin Moon Enemies. The bosses will drop items more frequently if they are killed during later waves. On wave 15, the Mourning Wood and the Pumpking are both guaranteed to drop their respective Trophies. Each Pumpkin Moon enemy increases the wave's score by a differing amount when killed. After a wave's score is met the next wave begins, and the wave score is reset to 0.

If the event is not completed by sunrise (4:30AM) the event will simply end.

Scores required for each wave:

Enemies during each wave:

Scores for Defeating Enemies

 * Scarecrow: 1
 * Splinterling: 2
 * Hellhound: 4
 * Poltergeist: 8
 * Headless Horseman: 25
 * Mourning Wood: 75
 * Pumpking: 150

Creating an Arena
One of the best ways to get to wave 15 is to create an arena with several traps to deal with the smaller enemies while you focus on the Pumpking, such as the one detailed in the video below.

Strategies

 * Since the wave number increases based on the number of enemies killed, using Battle Potions to increase the spawn rate is strongly advised. The player should bring at least two potions into battle, since one taken at the beginning of the night will wear off about halfway through.
 * Most Pumpkin Moon enemies are susceptible to the Ichor Debuff, which makes a Flask of Ichor or the Golden Shower spell very effective during this event.
 * It is recommended to kill the enemies as soon as they spawn. To do so, the arena should have predictable spawning zones and have no caves. Extra spawning layers can be created with a height of three blocks to take advantage of the anomaly of the Spiky Ball Trap that shoots up if there are two blocks below it. The spawning layers should have enough distance from each other so that the Mourning Wood can spawn between them, and the Traps should all be connected together by the same wire and be activated by a clock or by using several Yellow Pressure Plate which ignores the player. Where the enemies spawn relative to the player depends on the game resolution. If playing in 800x600 they will spawn the closest to the player. After a night, if the spawning pads are long enough, there should be seen clusters of loot indicating where they spawn. The arena can be tested by summoning a Pirate Invasion-the invasion should be defeated in record time and a minimal amount of enemies should reach the player. While using this strategy during the Pumpkin Moon, the only serious threat will be the Pumpking. If all of these suggestions are followed, melee character with Vampire Knives can beat this event.