Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,957
edits
Flechette Storm: Difference between revisions
"fan fiction"->"fan works"
m (Mass update links) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) ("fan fiction"->"fan works") |
||
| (12 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:
Okay, so [[Rain of Arrows|flinging pointy death from above]] is all well and good, but what if you aren't adept at [[The Straight and Arrow Path|archery]]? Never fear! Just grab your [[Knife Nut|favorite knife]], [[Ninja|shuriken]], [[Death Dealer|deck of cards]], or anything else that's small with a [[Paper Cutting|razor's edge]], and start tossing.
Line 12 ⟶ 11:
Compare [[Storm of Blades]].
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' Spell Card Thousand Knives. Also, Winged Beast-Type monsters usually are depicted as having a [[Feather Flechettes|feather-based variant]].
* Dio Brando from ''[[
* Cinque of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
** Before Cinque there was Reinforce/Book of Darkness with her Bloody Daggers.
** Then there's [[The Ace|Chrono's]] [[Laser Blade|Stinger Blade]]-[[Meaningful Name|Execution]] [[Death From Above|Shift]].
* Mint in ''[[Ranma
** In the manga version of the Martial Arts Takeout Race, Cologne pulls this off against Shampoo in order to show off how skilled her great-granddaughter is (Shampoo, currently serving another table with her back to the wall, deflects all of the daggers and sends them right back where they came from, without once turning away from her customers or spilling their order).
** This is fundamentally Mousse's primary tactic in fighting, though he tends to use a rather ecletic assortment of projectiles.
Line 31 ⟶ 29:
** Itachi is a master of this, having successfully countered Sasuke's summoned arsenal of shuriken with his own, without breaking a sweat. He also broke the Rinnegan's shared vision link by blinding all of Nagato's summons with a barrage of projectiles.
** Sasori's Hiruko puppet, which had both as kunai launcher in its mouth and a senbon ''cluster bomb''.
** The Third Hokage has a technique which can take a few throw shuriken and [[Doppelganger Attack|turn it into]] a full-blow
** Konan can make one of these using [[Paper Master|pieces of paper]].
** Gaara could do this in his [[Super-Powered Evil Side|Shukaku form]]
* Setsuna's artifact in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', Sica Shishikushiro, which can be summoned as 16 flying daggers to attack a target with.
** Fate Averruncus [http://www.mangafox.com/manga/mahou_sensei_negima/v30/c271/4.html uses a similar attack.]. He's also seen using a
* Many a ''[[Digimon]]'' character has such an attack, such as Renamon's Diamond Storm attack, Peckmon's Kunai Wing attack, Cherubimon's Thousand Spears, and Ice Devimon's Avalanche Claw. That's just a
* Hanzo, the Koga ninja leader in the ''[[Ninja Scroll]]'' movie, throws dozens of shuriken at Tessai with enough force to break off thick tree branches. Unfortunately, since Tessai knows the D&D "Stoneskin" enchantment the shuriken just bounce right off {{spoiler|and Hanzo gets his arms ripped off for his troubles}}.
* In ''[[
* In the early chapters of ''[[Blade of the Immortal]]'', Rin uses a technique called "Curtain of Death", which is essentially a flurry of small knives thrown at the enemy. However, [[Deconstructed Trope|the limitations of using such a technique are remarked upon]] by at least one character, and eventually Rin stops using them altogether.
** Most of it comes form the fact she, 1) doesn't aim (in fact she doesn't look at the target ''at all'') 2 yells out the name. She still somewhat uses it, as a last option of course.
* Tubalcain Alhambra of ''[[Hellsing]]'' does this with playing cards.
* Byakuya's Senbonzakura from ''[[Bleach]]'' counts as this. ''Millions'' of blades in Bankai form.
* Karl's from ''[[Blood
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* This is the gimmick of several [[Marvel]] characters Bullseye and Ultimate Hawkeye, who can turn anything into a projectile. Also Gambit does this with the added bonus that he can make anything he touches go boom.
* Magnattack, a lower-tier ''[[
* A demon tries to use this on [[Lucifer (
* Riptide of the [[X-Men]] villains The Marauders could spin at high speeds and fling out blades that could even pierce Colossus's skin.
== [[Fan
* Used by [[Knife Nut|Asakura]] in the [[In Medias Res|prologue extension]] chapter of ''[[Kyon:
Line 64 ⟶ 62:
** [[Isaac Asimov]]'s novel ''[[Foundation|The Stars Like Dust]]''.
** [[Poul Anderson]]'s [[Technic History|Dominic Flandry]] regularly packs a blaster ''and'' a needler (often firing poisoned needles).
** Dan Simmons's ''[[Hyperion]]'' novels.
** [[William Gibson]]'s [[Action Girl]] [[Neuromancer|Molly Millions]] favours a flechette pistol ("fletcher") firing poisoned or explosive darts.
** ''[[
** In ''[[The War Against the Chtorr]]'', the AM-280 rifle fires 18-grain flechettes at 3000 rounds-per-minute; a rate high enough to chew through the segmented bodies of the alien worms. With any other rifle they're virtually [[Immune to Bullets]].
** In [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s ''[[Vorkosigan Saga|The Warrior's Apprentice]]'' {{spoiler|Bothari}} is killed with one of these.
** Just one of the many weapons used by the Howlers in one of the ''[[
*** And the Blue Meanies in the ''[[Remnants]]'' books.
** In ''[[
* There are a LOT of descriptions of this in ''[[Shadows of the Apt]]'', particularly after the snapbow gets into general use.
* In some ''[[Star Wars]]'' [[Expanded Universe]] book or another, it's stated that Mon Calimari Cruisers have "bomb blisters" - bubbles on the hull that look like just another Mon Cal hull bubble, but explode for decent backblast and a hailstorm of starfighter-shredding shrapnel. Good tactic for a rebel/New Republic starfighter pilot: drag a squadron of baddies across this and have the cruiser set it off just as you pass out of range.
Line 82 ⟶ 80:
* ''[[Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon]]'' villain Jade Fox brings us this in the form of poison darts, which she fires from a blowgun at a rate that rivals ''[[Gatling Good|gatling guns]]''!
** In the same climactic battle, Li Mu Bai {{spoiler|kills Jade Fox by using the Green Destiny sword to shatter her own blade into a burst of steel shards that impale her}}.
* [[Aladdin (Disney film)|"Get the point?"]]
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The Eldar of ''[[Warhammer
** Tau vehicles are often equipped with a close-range defense system called a flechette launcher. If any enemy troops get too close then the launcher goes off and saturates the immediate area with high-velocity shrapnel.
* Sorcerers in ''[[Exalted]]'' can learn a spell called "Death of Obsidian Butterflies." The sorcerer sends a cloud of glass shards covering an area 30 yards wide, 100 yards long and 10 yards high. This is a ''first'' circle spell.
** Not to mention Cascade of Cutting Terror, which can be done with any thrown item, causing it to multiply hundreds of times to strike over a wide area (with the duplicates vanishing after hitting). For emphasis: ANY thrown item. Including daggers, icicles, coins, peanuts, tuna fish, peasants, ''elephants'', etc.
** A recent [[GURPS]] supplement provided rules for a similar power. Except you don't necessarily need magic.
* ''[[Dungeons
** In AD&D2 and before, base rate of fire for throwing daggers or knives was 2x, darts 3x and shurikens (in ''Oriental Adventures'') varying up to 4x per round. ''Specialized'' warriors, along with attack and damage bonuses, has rate of fire up to 5/round with knives or large shurikens and 6/round for darts and small shurikens.
** D&D3 also had [[Prestige Class
** The Rogue class in 4 edition of has a number of abilities which hurl a knife, individually, at every single enemy in a 15-foot-by-15-foot square. If you use a magic dagger, you even somehow manage to hurl the ''same'' knife at every one. One of these attacks even hurls said knife to such effect as to ''blind'' every victim with blood streaming into the eyes!
* ''[[
* Corvus Belli's wargame ''[[
Line 106 ⟶ 104:
* The "Thousand Blades" Item Crash attack in ''[[Castlevania]]''.
** In Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow you face a boss named Zepher who partially subverts this ''while doing it''. His attacks are throwing daggers and being Edward Scissorhands. He can easily do a flechette storm, but he does it by stopping and throwing daggers at you. It's only partially averted because, while time has stopped for Soma, the player can see how many knives Zepher actually throws, and it's a smaller number than actually hit Soma when time starts moving again.
*** As a humorous aside, if you get the soul of one of the many [[Ninja Maid
* The Pin Missile and Poison Sting attacks in ''[[Pokémon]]''.
** And Spike Cannon, Twineedle and Icicle Spear...
* The ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series has the cactuars and their 1000 Needles [[Fixed Damage Attack]]. Also the 10,000 Needles
** Also the Gil Toss ability and [[Final Fantasy VI|Setzer]]'s razor-sharp [[Death Dealer|cards]].
* [[Ninja Maid|Sakuya Izayoi]] from ''[[Touhou]]'' uses this in combination with [[Time Stands Still|her stopping time]], in a [[Shout-Out]] to [[
** Her predecessor from the PC-98 era, Yumeko, also a [[Ninja Maid]], does this minus the timestopping. [[Brother Chuck|Too bad no one remembers her]].
*** Truthfully, Yumeko is supposed to use [[Storm of Blades|swords.]]
** [[Chinese Vampire|Yoshika Miyako]] in Ten Desires also uses this, with kunai-like bullets.
** A lot of other characters use a lot of knives or swords in their attacks, too, such as Ran and Yukari in their boss fights (whose non-spells are 100% kunais).
* ''[[
* The Hunters from ''[[
* The Ice Blast powers in ''[[City of Heroes]]'' resemble flechettes made up of shards of ice.
* The Ice Needle spell in the ''[[Tales
** Cheria from [[
* The [[Limit Break]] of [[Catgirl]] Nano-Nano Pudding's [[Cool Ship]] in the ''[[Galaxy Angel (
* Ibuki in ''[[Street Fighter]] III'' has a special move in which she does this by throwing a dozen of kunais at the opponent.
* One of several types of firearms [[The Hero|Alph]] in ''[[Luminous Arc]]'' can use in place of casting spells is the Flechette Gun.
* In ''[[Command
** All of the three or so enemies you encounter after getting it, that is...
* ''[[Quake (
* The aptly named Needler weapon from the ''[[Halo]]'' series, which shoots guided explosive crystaline needles.
** The also aptly named Mauler, Spiker and Spike Grenade weapons from [[Halo]] 3 fire long red-hot metal spikes in a buckshot-like spread, automatic spray or cone-shaped blast respectively.
** Actually the Mauler uses fairly standard shotgun pellet analogues, no heated spikes involved.
* Sheik's neutral B move in ''[[Super Smash Bros.|Smash Bros]]'' is the aptly-titled Needle Storm.
* True Assassin in ''[[Fate/stay
* The Rogue class's Fan of Knives ability in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', inherited from the [[Our Elves Are Different|Night Elf]] Warden hero unit in ''[[Warcraft III]]'''s expansion.
* Rogues in ''[[Nethack]]'' have the unique ability to throw several daggers in a single action. The number they can throw at once increases with experience.
* [[The Medic]] of ''[[
* Vergil from ''[[
** As Nelo Angelo from the original game, he was also quite fond of summoning those swords around Dante as well before cutting loose.
** Let's not forget Dante's Lucifer devil arm from Devil May Cry 4, which can be used like this.
Line 141 ⟶ 139:
* ''[[Persona 4]]'''s version of Alice's ''Die For Me!'' attack features kunai attached to cards raining down from above.
* ''[[Super Mario RPG]]'' is full of enemies with such attacks
* ''[[
* Flechette rounds are available for shotguns in ''[[Fallout Tactics Brotherhood of Steel]].'' Incredibly effective against unarmoured targets, especially when used with an automatic shotgun, but nearly useless against anyone with decent armour.
* And on the other side of the line, flechette rounds are available for shotguns later on in ''Jagged Alliance 2 [[Game Mod|v1.13]]'' (which is perhaps the poster child for [[Gun Porn]]). Much more expensive than traditional buckshot or slug rounds, flechettes can tear through armor and whatever's behind it, making the shotgun a viable close/medium range weapon in the endgame.
* In ''[[Arc Rise Fantasia]]'', Serge's Excel Trinity, Million Regret, has him throwing (ostensibly) a million knives, made of [[Kill It
* The level 3 final animation of the Thousand Kill [[Combination Attack]] in ''[[Agarest Senki 2]]''.
* Gambit's Royal Flush in the [[Capcom Vs Whatever Series]].
* One of the [[The Many Deaths of You|many ways to die]] in ''[[
* If Hawkeye undergoes a light class change in ''[[Seiken Densetsu 3]]'', his level two weapon technique, the 'Flying Swallow Toss,' has him using multiple throwing knives against his foes.
* In the fights against Ghirahim in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword]]'', he can conjure a flurry of red diamond-knives at Link. To counter this, Link can [[Tennis Boss|slash them right back at the source.]]
* In ''[[Mickey Mousecapade]]'', [[That One Boss|Pete]]'s primary attack is a near-constant storm of homing daggers.
* Subverted in the ''[[X (
** The "almost": Players sometimes pair Cluster Flak Arrays with [[Lightning Gun|Ion Disruptors]] because the latter gun jumps between targets, and can use the flechettes produced by the former to do so.
Line 161 ⟶ 159:
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* One ''[[
** Just like in the Jackie Chan film "City Hunter", there was a casino card dealer who could kill the bad guys simply by [[Death Dealer|throwing a playing card]] at their neck, although that's not an example of this trope as it's not "a hail of these weapons".
* Used by ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'''s resident [[Knife Nut]], Mai. This is also a waterbending move involving icicles. {{spoiler|A fully realised Avatar can do this with earthbending.}}
* ''[[
Line 176 ⟶ 174:
* Certain martial arts teach how to throw a smooth metal spike with a tassel or ribbon tail.
* Used by [[Action Bomb|suicide bombers]] to increase damage.
* Many tarantulas (most species of Americas, but not Asian and African) grow specialized urticating hairs, which they can flick at the enemies by rubbing themselves with hind legs. And while there are spiders capable of hitting a moving target, for tarantulas with their tiny eyes "spray and pray" is the only good option. Tarantulas use these hairs not only as immediate defence, but for marking territory and weaving into webbing as "barb wire", so these are both sharp and coated with fancy organic compounds. <ref>In humans these micro-darts only causes some irritation and inflammation unless hit an eye or cause allergic reaction (which is still more dangerous than venom of these species), but small animals hit in the nose or mouth may have trouble breathing.</ref> Genera Ephebopus grows it on pedipalps instead, and thus throws by "rubbing hands", and a few others have solid non-throwing urticating hair that only works as passive defence (cactus style), though some of those fling their poo instead.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Death in All Directions]]
[[Category:
| |||