Herd-Hitting Attack: Difference between revisions

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[[An Adventurer Is You|You're an adventurer,]] [[Player Party|and you've joined up with other adventurers]] to take on a difficult challenge. The thing is, everyone's picked up the habit of standing around in a tight group. You're doing this to make it easier for [[The Medic|healers]] to reach everyone and maybe pick up a [[Status Buff]] aura or two. But the enemy has noticed this and decided to do something about it.

A [[Herd-Hitting Attack]] turns standing in a group from a benefit into a liability. This could involve:

A '''Herd-Hitting Attack''' turns standing in a group from a benefit into a liability. This could involve:

* an attack involving an [[Area of Effect]] (AOE), like an explosion (the most common), or an attack that "rains down" or "spreads" over an area. Sometimes the AOE is a melee attack that hits multiple targets in a circle around the attacker.

* an attack that [[Chain Lightning|"chains"]]: after hitting the first party member, it will hit a second that's within a certain range of the first, and then a third in range of the second, and so on for a number of repetitions.

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== [[Video Games]] ==

* ''[[Starcraft]]'' has quite a bit of this. The Science Vessel can use Irradiate on enemy units, causing damage to them and any nearby units until the afflicted unit dies or the effect expires, the Mutalisk can chain attack up to three enemies, the Devourer's attack causes a damage effect that splashes to nearby airborne units, the Valkyrie's rockets scatter around nearby enemies, and the Reaver, the Infested Terran, the Firebat and the Siege Tank in siege mode all have area-of-effect ~~attack -- and~~ in fact, the Firebat is a great defense against a [[Zerg Rush]] thanks to its powerful attack, its area of effect and its ready availability. The Arbiter unit has an AOE debuff which freezes everything in a radius, taking it out of the battle. The Protoss Corsair is an interesting example; it can only attack air-to-air, and its rapid-fire attack has an AOE radius so small it requires several units to be basically on the same spot in order to hit more than one; rather conveniently, air units in Starcraft can pass through each other and tend to bunch up on a single spot when given an attack order, so swarms of enemy flyers will generally form clumps at a single point.

* ''[[Starcraft]]'' has quite a bit of this. The Science Vessel can use Irradiate on enemy units, causing damage to them and any nearby units until the afflicted unit dies or the effect expires, the Mutalisk can chain attack up to three enemies, the Devourer's attack causes a damage effect that splashes to nearby airborne units, the Valkyrie's rockets scatter around nearby enemies, and the Reaver, the Infested Terran, the Firebat and the Siege Tank in siege mode all have area-of-effect attack—and in fact, the Firebat is a great defense against a [[Zerg Rush]] thanks to its powerful attack, its area of effect and its ready availability. The Arbiter unit has an AOE debuff which freezes everything in a radius, taking it out of the battle. The Protoss Corsair is an interesting example; it can only attack air-to-air, and its rapid-fire attack has an AOE radius so small it requires several units to be basically on the same spot in order to hit more than one; rather conveniently, air units in Starcraft can pass through each other and tend to bunch up on a single spot when given an attack order, so swarms of enemy flyers will generally form clumps at a single point.

* ''[[Warcraft]] III'''s Farseer hero can cast Chain Lightning, a chain attack that hits up to five enemies. The Naga Sea Witch's Forked Lightning can hit three. Archmage's Blizzard, Blood Mage's Flame Strike and Pit Lord's Rain of Fire can damage a targeted area. The Huntress can hit multiple targets with her targets. Siege weapons deal splash damage. So on...

* ''[[Bloodline Champions]]'' has quite a large amount of these. Needless to say, avoid clumping up.

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== [[Literature]] ==

* The MD Device from ''[[Ender's Game]]'' causes a [[Sphere of Destruction]] to spread from any ship that's ~~hit--then~~ any ship caught in the sphere will explode in a similar manner. A single, well-placed shot can destroy an entire fleet of starfighters.

* The MD Device from ''[[Ender's Game]]'' causes a [[Sphere of Destruction]] to spread from any ship that's hit—then any ship caught in the sphere will explode in a similar manner. A single, well-placed shot can destroy an entire fleet of starfighters.

** Or, you know, {{spoiler|a planet.}}

* [[Joel Rosenberg]]'s ''Hero''. The sergeant's screaming at the soldiers to "Spread out! Spread out!" The colonel takes a different approach. "Nah, bunch up and save the enemy ammunition."

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* Most missile weapons can do this. But until [[World War I]] (the arrival of rapid-fire guns) it was not considered dangerous enough to compare with the danger of having formed troops plow through rabbles like a bulldozer. Plus the fact that formations are more easily commanded then swarms of individuals.

* During [[World War II]], [[Anti-Air]] defenses usually took the form of this, typically via various applications of [[More Dakka]], in response to the advent of massed aerial attacks. It simply became more effective to [[A-Team Firing|fill the entire area with flak]] than it was to try and hit any particular airplane. Even so, against large enough attacks, this would take on shades of [[Point Defenseless]] without [[The Cavalry|friendly air support]].

** This was also the preferred strategy of Luftwaffe fighter pilots against American heavy bomber formations in the same conflict: The Army Air Forces' battle doctrine was to field large forces of tightly grouped bombers, providing each other with overlapping fields of defensive fire while maximizing the number of bombs dropped on<ref> or more often: generally near</ref> their targets. The Germans found it was most effective to simply charge through the formation head-on with guns blazing so that the defensive gunners wouldn't be have time to aim at them effectively. To make the most of this tactic, German fighters were often armed with powerful 20mm or 30mm cannons rather than the typical machine guns used by most fighters.

** This was also the preferred strategy of Luftwaffe fighter pilots against American heavy bomber formations in the same conflict: The Army Air Forces' battle doctrine was to field large forces of tightly grouped bombers, providing each other with overlapping fields of defensive fire while maximizing the number of bombs dropped on<ref>or more often: generally near</ref> their targets. The Germans found it was most effective to simply charge through the formation head-on with guns blazing so that the defensive gunners wouldn't be have time to aim at them effectively. To make the most of this tactic, German fighters were often armed with powerful 20mm or 30mm cannons rather than the typical machine guns used by most fighters.

* What grenades are design for, depending on what type is used, for both lethal and non lethal uses.