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We Have Reserves: Difference between revisions
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Compare [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness]] and [[You Have Failed Me]] for similar moments from a [[Bad Boss]]. [[Shoot the Messenger]] and [[Even Mooks Have Loved Ones]] also rely on the [[Big Bad]] feeling that his mooks are completely expendable. Also compare [[The Neidermeyer]] and [[Zerg Rush]]. [[A Father to His Men]] is the opposite character type. Contrast [[Expendable Clone]], where a character is ''his own reserves.''
{{examples
== Anime and Manga ==
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** Even if they aren't necessarily the villians, the marines show this behaviour too as the doctrine of "Absolute Justice" implies that any evil should be erradicated at any cost, this is shown during the Buster Call in Ennies Lobby when one warship was destroyed(along with one thousand marines) by the others in order to kill only one criminal, one of the captains even shot a marine who hesitate in following the order.
* In the third volume of ''[[Hellsing]]'', Tubalcain Alhambra sends waves of Brazilian police officers to attack Alucard, fully aware that they are no match for him, so that he will use up most of his bullets to make it easier for Alhambra to fight him.
* In ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'', Shishio sends a group of four monks to recruit [[The Stoic|Aoshi]], knowing that they will get drawn into a conflict and probably all die, but it will give him a chance to measure Aoshi's skills. Aoshi picks up on this and calls Shishio's [[The Dragon|Dragon]] Soujiro out on it after the [[Curb Stomp Battle]], saying he thinks both the tactic and Shishio are heartless and despicable. Unusually, Soujiro jabs back at Aoshi, saying that [[What Measure Is a Mook?|it was just as heartless for Aoshi to kill 4 men without hesitation knowing that they were only pawns who were no match for him]].
* Meleagros and Atalantes in ''[[Heroic Age]]'' are willing to do this, being as prideful as they are, they would do anything to win at all costs.
* Gorg Bodolza plays it straight in ''[[Macross|Macross Movie]]'' when advised that he probably shouldn't fire his [[Wave Motion Gun]] on Lapramiz' Mobile Fortress as there are thousands of his own ships in the line of fire. He orders the attack regardless. In retrospect, a bad idea, as witnessing the resultant massacre gives Breetai Kridanik [[Heroic BSOD|second thoughts]], which later end up turning the tide of battle.
* In ''[[Saikano]]'', a JSDF commander [http://www.mangafox.com/manga/saikano/v05/c040/20.html orders the evacuation] of the regulars but not the reserves before unleashing [[Person of Mass Destruction|Chise]], so that the enemy won't see it coming. {{spoiler|In a moment of perfect [[Ax Crazy|Ax Craziness]] and [[Laser
* Xanxus from ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]'' is like this, so much that {{spoiler|when the Varia were battling Zakurou, Kikyou and Bluebell, and Zakurou asked him what it felt like to watch his men killed, Xanxus said 'Would you be distracted seeing a bunch of ants dying?}}
* In ''[[Sengoku Basara]]'', many of the villains seem to take this attitude, but none more so than [[The Chessmaster|Mouri Motonari]], who regards all his men (and indeed his opponents' men) as disposable pawns... and for that matter uses the term "sacrificial pawn" far more than any decent commander should.
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== Comic Books ==
* Starr from ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)]]'' does this at least once, sending an entire US tank division against [[Implacable Man|the Saint of Killers]]. Starr's reaction to them being butchered mercilessly by the guy who {{spoiler|replaced the Angel of Death}} is to shrug, say that he didn't really expect it to work anyway, and call down a nuclear strike on the spot.
** Starr's former [[Bad Boss]], D'Aronique, similarly ordered waves of his own men into certain death against the Saint. Although at least D'Aronique had no idea who the Saint was, his callousness to the deaths of his men is horrifying.
{{quote| '''Grail Officer''': Requesting permission to withdraw the next charge, sir.<br />
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** Similarly, ''The Last Crusade'' has a [[Bad Boss]] who sends one mook after another into a series of [[Death Trap|Death Traps]] before Indy shows up and he figures out how to force him to do it.
** In ''Temple of Doom'', Mola Ram pushes his own men off the bridge as he attempts to make Indy fall off.
* In the third ''[[X-Men (Film)|X-Men]]'' movie [[Magneto]] takes a step away from his usual place as an [[Anti
* ''[[
{{quote| '''Xerxes''': Imagine what horrible fate awaits my enemies when I would gladly kill any of my own men for victory.<br />
'''Leonidas''': And I would die for any one of mine. }}
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** ''The Black Gryphon'': One of the generals thinks nothing of throwing the flying troops (the gryphons) into hopeless situations, and forcing mages to spellcast into exhaustion. Most of the army believes this is due to incompetence with some [[Fantastic Racism]] thrown in; in actuality, it's due to a lot of [[Fantastic Racism]] and a secret [[Face Heel Turn]].
** ''By The Sword'': Kerowyn [[Psychic Powers|reads the mind]] of her mercenary company's employer and finds that he plans to sacrifice them to avoid paying them. She resigns via an [[Insignia Rip Off Ritual]], and the entire company follows her.
** Ancar of Hardorn is absolutely ridiculous about this (and [[Card
** In ''Winds of Fury'', [[Big Bad]] Mornelithe Falconsbane becomes an unwilling ally of Ancar and ends up turning the latter's existing tactics [[Up to Eleven]], virtually guaranteeing Valdemar's destruction by [[Zerg Rush]] unless the heroes can assassinate the entire leadership of Hardorn.
* In the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series, the Imperial Order has this methodology, partly because they believe the next best thing to killing unbelievers is to die while killing unbelievers, partly because they believe individuals are worthless, and partly because the army is so massive that even if they lose a million men, that's still barely a dent in their forces.
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* In [[Ben Counter]]'s [[Warhammer 40000]] novel ''[[Soul Drinkers (Literature)|Chapter War]]'', the Howling Griffons' attitude toward the 901st Regiment. Admittedly a penal unit, but they send them up against [[Space Marine|space marines]] -- twice.
* Empress Jadis in ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia|The Magician's Nephew]]'' brags that she "poured out the blood of her armies like water" in the civil war with her sister for control of Charn. And then trumped that by speaking the Deplorable Word, an unspecified spell which destroyed Charn and killed everything on it except herself.
* [[Subverted Trope]] in the ''[[Dune|Legends of Dune]]'' trilogy, where [[AI Is a Crapshoot|Omnius]] and his [[Robot War|Thinking Machines]] fights battles in an entirely logical and efficient manner. A massive fleet will not engage the inferior enemy if the casualties are above the acceptable parameter, even though machines aren't really supposed to care about casualties. It falls to his ruthless [[
** On the other hand, the [[Church Militant|Butlerian Jihad]] forces will not hesitate to lose hundreds of lives to destroy several machines, as exemplified by the takedown of the [[Humongous Mecha]] Ajax by hundreds of angry slaves armed with primitive rocket launchers and even more primitive ''clubs''.
* [[The Draka]] use their slave soldiers (called "janissaries" in reference to the Ottoman military units) in attrition situations that their [[Super Soldier|elite shock troop Citizen army]] cannot finesse, thereby saving the much more precious lives of the [[Master Race]]. A Draka officer is reprimanded at one point for showing ''too much'' concern for the lives of his janissaries. Eventually the Draka [[Evilutionary Biologist|engineer]] aggressiveness out of their slaves, and the janissaries are replaced by the [[Mix and Match Critters|part-baboon, part-dog, part-human]] [[Petting Zoo People|ghouloons]] who serve much the same purpose.
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* The ''[[City of Villains]]'' Mastermind Archetype, 'Traps' has a move that allows you to turn your own minions into walking bombs. If you're using Zombies or Robots, they just plain blow up, while more human minions such as mercenaries, thugs and ninjas - will try to put down the bomb and run away. Which doesn't always work very well, seeing as the bombs have pretty short fuses.
** It's the entire point of the Mastermind archetype. Your pets are disposable and easily replaced; you're not ([[Death Is Cheap|death may be cheap]], but it's still more of a nuisance than summoning and buffing new pets after a near-catastrophe).
*** Well, ''supposedly''. Masterminds were meant to be [[An Adventurer Is You|the tanks]], but [[
* ''[[Command and Conquer]]'' infantry (and sometimes even tanks), thanks in particular to the [[Command and Conquer Economy]], just mass and charge!
** In Kane's Wrath there is a Nod subfaction, the Black Hand which even encourages this as their main tactic, given how good their infantry is, so you can eventually overwhelm nearly any enemy.
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* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'', Darth Malak orders the destruction of Taris despite the presence of his own troops occupying the planet (cut content would have established that the Sith organized a hasty evacuation, but no reference to it remains in the final game).
** Another example from Malak, at the finale when he learns the heroes are rampaging through his base, he orders all of his troops, including apprentices, to attack. A surprised admiral asks if he really thinks that will work, to which he scoffs and says it is only to slow them down.
* In ''[[Star Wars Battlefront]]'', there's a game mode called Galactic Conquest where either 1 player faces off against the computer or 2 players face each other trying to conquer planets one by one across the galaxy. Each planet conquered will give a different bonus that a player can use in battle. One of these is called secondary reinforcements and it has some elements of [[We Have Reserves]]. The way it works is that at several points in the battle when your troop count falls to a certain number you will suddenly get new troops added to the count, imitating a new wave of troops coming into battle. These troops seem to be [[Surrounded By Idiots|even dumber]] and, (believe it or not) [[
* ''[[Star Wars]]: [[The Force Unleashed]]'' sums up Darth Vader's policy this way:
{{quote| '''Juno Eclipse:''' I don't understand. Why would Vader allow us to destroy so many Imperial targets?<br />
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== Web Comics ==
* As [[Evil Overlord]] [[Card
** Responding to a group of his ogres demanding to be paid by killing them and turning them into zombies.
** [[The Dragon|Dragon]] Redcloak (a goblin) orders a group of hobgoblin ([[Fantastic Racism|whom he despises]]) [[Mooks]] up a dangerous trail so they would cause an avalanche and ensure the safety of the others. Later he sends in unarmed troops against a guard monster, so it will fall asleep after eating them, and orders a human-wave style attack against a fortified city. After one of them dies saving his life, he realizes what he's doing and [[My God, What Have I Done?|reacts with horror at what he is becoming]] and promptly stops the wasteful spending of lives.
*** They weren't unarmed. [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0192.html They were given garnish clubs and cracker shields]!
** [[Lampshade Hanging|"Sacrificing minions - is there any problem it ''can't'' solve?"]]
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* The French knights deliberately ''[[Leeroy Jenkins|chopped their way through their own crossbowmen]]'' to try and attack the English at the Battle of Crecy 1346. The Genoese crossbowmen in the French service were completely ineffective against the the English longbowmen (their belt-and-hook crossbows, while powerful, accurate and fast-firing, were considerably shorter ranged than the English longbow) and, as a result of being outranged, having been forced to march with strung crossbows in the rain, and not being able to use their heavy shields, they took heavy casualties and quite reasonably legged it. The mounted knights, "the flower of French chivalry", began slaughtering them for retreating before charging the English lines.
** [[Karmic Death|Whereupon the longbowmen shot all of]] ''[[Karmic Death|them]]'' [[Karmic Death|to death, too.]]
* During the battle at Guilford Courthouse during the American Revolution, Lord Cornwallis found his army facing severe defeat and ordered his artillery to fire grapeshot into the mass of men on the plain, American and British alike. The tactic worked and the Americans withdrew, [[Was It Really Worth It?|but at a shattering cost to Cornwallis's army]].
* In the US Civil War, Union General Grant was accused of this, being given the appellation "Butcher" Grant by some on the Union side after his high-casualty battles in Virginia. But he didn't spend his men needlessly (and deeply mourned the battle of Cold Harbour, the one high-casualty battle that was genuinely pointless), and was distinguished from previous Union generals by ''advancing'' after high-casualty battles rather than retreating, something which made the men happy because they could see they were actually making progress.
* Some WWI commanders would shoot those attempting to retreat without orders, or who refused to go over the trenches. It was a sort of preemptive punishment for treason. Although the number of men so shot is grossly overexaggerated, there were men who were under ''two'' suspended sentences of death for desertion or sleeping at their posts. The armies on all sides got so sick of this that many of them mutinied late in the war and refused to take place in any further assaults on the enemy, as it always just resulted in piles of bodies and minimal progress.
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** The Soviet Union did have "punishment units" (also known as "prison battalions"), in which convicted (or otherwise considered even more disposable) people were assigned to lead attacks, and clear minefields by marching through them.
** Their army recruitment slogan at the time was "Die For Russia".
*** This is especially true in Winter War 1939-1940. The Soviets attacked against the Finnish positions as [[Cannon Fodder|human waves]], with the advice ''if you don't have a rifle, pick one from your fallen comrade''. The Finnish machine-gunners mowed them down like grass; it often happened that the Finns had to pull off their [[Shell
** While probably not senselessly throwing away troops that were considered replaceable, this actually was the primary reason for the Soviet victory and Germany losing the war. Even with Soviet casualties much higher then the German ones, and the Wehrmacht having far superior equipment in most cases, in 1943 it became clear that the soviets would be able to win just by keeping to press forward until the Germans were exhausted.
* The official policy of Egypt in the War of Attrition 1967-1970, after they lost the Six Day War. As said by President Nasser:
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