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{{trope}}
[[File:rudolph-red-nosed-reindeer7.jpg|link=Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
{{quote|''"Are you a rag-tag band of adventurers with unclear goals and good hearts? ...[[Genre Savvy|Yeah, you people are my biggest threat]]."''
|'''Galgarion''', ''[[RPG World]]''}}
This mission is important. The fate of the battle, nay, the war, nay, the ''entire world'' rests on the outcome. Who has the capability to stick it out, to give the good guys the victory they desperately need? This calls for a special team. The group of experienced, highly skilled, professional, team-oriented experts? Not them. The assorted group of ex-con lowlife inexperienced [[jerkass]]es who are trying to off their [[Officer and a Gentleman|commander]] [[Teeth-Clenched Teamwork|when they aren't trying to kill each other?]] Yeah, them.
'''This is usually [[Justified Trope]] in one or more of several ways:'''
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** Conversely, the man in the know can be such an annoying bully that no one would work with him, and such a control freak that he [[Divided We Fall|can not give his knowledge]] to a [[Reasonable Authority Figure]].
* The authorities haven't actually noticed (or ''[[Mole in Charge|are]]'') the problem, and the heroes have to gather whoever they can.
* There was a better first choice that DID get sent, but [[The World's Expert
* They need them to do something untoward or outright illegal, and they know these folks will keep quiet about it.
* They're the only ones [[Crazy Enough to Work|crazy enough to even try]].
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Your [[Seen It a Million Times|basic]] Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits consists of a [[The Hero|Hero]], a [[The Lancer|Sidekick]], a [[The Big Guy|Big Guy]], a [[The Smart Guy|Smart Guy]], an [[The Obi-Wan|Old Guy]], a [[Naive Newcomer|Young Guy]], and a [[Plucky Comic Relief|Funny Guy]] - But you can call them [[The Magnificent Seven Samurai]].
Of course, the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits will eventually have a [[Misfit Mobilization Moment]] to get their act together and win the day. Most often it produces casualties: typically, the guy forced to go on the mission despite being the [[Clear My Name|Convicted Innocent]], or the [[Officer and
If the characters were not forced on the team -- [[Condemned Contestant]], [[Boxed Crook]]
Compare with [[Character
In the world of sports, this trope counts double. Last year's Super Bowl champions don't stand a chance against a random group of ex-cons, couch potatoes, and [[Animal Athlete Loophole|farm animals]], with [[Improvised Training]], who are almost guaranteed to pull out [[Down to
See also [[Army of Thieves and Whores]] for when this trope is magnified to the size of an army.
{{examples}}
== Advertising ==
* The Charlestown Cougars, a fake women's high school basketball team assembled for the purpose of Nike commercials.
== Anime and Manga ==
* The team Ichigo gets together during Soul Society in ''[[Bleach]]''.
* The Dollars gang in ''[[Durarara!!]]'' is surprisingly this, in spite of their sinister reputation.
* ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' has the corporation Nergal throw together an entire crew of [[Bunny Ears Lawyer]]s in order to get the best of the best in every field. The character Prospector [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this trope.
* And then there's ''[[Irresponsible Captain Tylor]]'', whose crew is mostly composed of the kind of people you don't want near pencils for fear of what they might do to each other with them, much less a destroyer-class military space ship.
** In the Soyokaze's case, the reason it's a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits is because the aging, broken-down destroyer has been assigned as the official dumping ground for all the lunatics, incompetents and misfits of the UPSF. In other words, every trouble-maker or disruptive element that accidentally manages to get into the military is invariably assigned here, so they'll be out of the way. The doctor is an alcoholic who's been drinking since he was three years old, the marines are all violent slobs, [[The Ace]] is arrogant and full of himself, as is the navigator, and the captain is, as far as the military higher-ups are concerned, either [[The Fool|an absurdly lucky moron]] or [[Genius Ditz|possessed of genuine great insight but limited common sense]]. The only outright military and competent crewmembers are Lieutenants Yamamoto (who was assigned as the First Officer in the hopes he could somehow cover for Tylor) and Yuriko (who volunteered to join the Soyokaze in the hopes that she could somehow reform the crew).
* The crew of ''White Base'' in the original ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' was comprised mostly of civilian refugees and a handful of junior officers who survived the attack on Side 7 in the first episode. They still manage to score a number of improbable victories against the elite forces of the Principality of Zeon, thanks to the [[Super Prototype]] principle and some of the cast developing into [[Psychic Powers|Newtypes]]. And more importantly to Federation command, they made ''really'' good decoys.
** Ditto to [[Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team|The08thMSTeam.]]
* ''[[Slayers]]'' has a team of regulars that involves an [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|overzealous justice freak]] who often does [[Sailor Moon]] style poses and failed acrobatics, an [[The Napoleon|overly short]] [[Pettanko]] motivated primarily by greed/gluttony/revenge, a [[Big Eater]] [[Dumb Blonde]] [[Badass Normal]], and a [[Cursed with Awesome]] [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|golem-demon-human hybrid]]. The extra characters in the party include an ex-princess who worships a monster she made up, a demon with a penchant for secret-keeping (who is also willing to sell out the entire party), and a shrine maiden with an absurd lack of skill in black magic (to the point where she casts carrot-sized fire spells that tickle people) who somehow learned the ''strongest black magic spell.''
* Both [[Justified Trope]] and [[Subverted Trope]] in ''[[20th Century Boys]]''. When Kenji starts up [[La Résistance]], it's made up of guys he knew back in middle school, as they would be the only ones who were remotely familiar with who they're fighting against. After all, it's not very easy to recruit somebody off the street to fight against a cult based on your own twenty-year-old fanfiction. This ends up blowing up in his face for several reasons, {{spoiler|the first of which would be that one of those Ragtag Misfits ''is'' the cult-leading [[Big Bad]]...}}
* ''[[Eyeshield 21]]'''s Deimon Devil Bats. Other teams have full rosters, deep benches and long traditions. The Devil Bats only have 11 full-time team members (eight of whom were only just scraped up for this year, three by blackmail), and they all are weird in their own way.
** The three helpers are also quirky. The two basketball players lent to the team and the miniature sumo wrestler. Though it feels like I'm forgetting someone...
* Quite literally in ''[[Sayonara, Zetsubou
* [[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
* Division 2, the main cast of ''[[
* The Yang Fleet from ''[[
* In ''[[
* ''[[
** To be more specific: the protagonist crew consists of members who are noted as being the best at their respective roles, but who otherwise don't really mesh in a uniform way like most other crews in the series. The crew currently consists of a [[Cloudcuckoolander]] [[Rubber Man]], a [[Blood Knight]], a [[Classy Cat Burglar]], a [[Blatant Lies|blatant liar]], a [[Good Smoking, Evil Smoking|chain-smoking]] [[Chivalrous Pervert]], a [[Voluntary Shapeshifter|form-changing]] [[Talking Animal|talking reindeer]], a [[All of the Other Reindeer|global pariah]], an eccentric [[Cyborg]], and [[Dem Bones|an undead skeleton]].
* ''[[
* ''[[
* The {{spoiler|Muto Extermination Squad}} in ''[[
* The Varia in ''[[
* [[Captain Harlock]] commands a spaceship full of 'em.
* ''[[D
* Sanzo's team and Kougaiji's team in ''[[
* In ''[[High School
== Comic Books ==
* Most comic books about [[Superhero]] Teams follow that trope; as an example, [[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]]'s original incarnation included a [[Iron Man
* British war-oriented comic ''Battle Action'' included a British Empire ''Dirty Dozen'' clone called ''The Rat Pack'' complete with cockney thug/knifeman/marksman, sneaky little pickpocket and gigantic musclebound Turk. For some reason these "Convict Commandos" wore blue battledress rather than Khaki or green.
** Mercilessly parodied in ''The Rifle Brigade'' where fearless Captain "Khyber" D'Arcy leads [[Ambiguously Gay]] Lieutenant "Doubtful" Milk, monstrous Yorkshireman Sergeant Crumb ("'ey oop"), Cockney thug Corporal Geezer ("Yer aht of ordah!"), Private Hank the Yank ("Gawd Dammit!") and The Piper (who isn't an actual soldier but is still probably the most brutal of the lot) on missions against.... well you really just have to read these for yourself! But to give you an idea on the type of operations entrusted to the Rifle Brigade, one of their most important assignments involved recovering a powerful arcane artifact before the Axis could get their hands on it. The artifact was Hitler's missing testicle.
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* The original ''[[ABC Warriors]]''; Hammerstein is a warhorse famous for his strength and leadership skills but rumored to have murdered a human superior, Joe Pineapples is an ace marksman who once killed a target from orbit but is perhaps the most unsavory being in the universe, Happy Shrapnel is simply dumped onto them because as an older model he's not very user friendly, Mongrol is a monster of metal who is constantly full of only rage and confusion, Mek-Quake is stupid, violent, and crude, Deadlock is an extreme [[Knight Templar]], Blackblood is a [[Complete Monster]] known for murder at the slightest provocation, Steelhorn is the original veteran of the Volgan War turned into a horrific mess of molten slag, and so on and so forth. They're the most capable combat unit fighting the Volgs, but goddamn. Just goddamn.
** Later additions only enhance this image; Mad Ronn the bomb disposal expert (whose skill at his profession is uncertain because he kind of dies the first and only time he actually tries to defuse a bomb), Hitaki the warrior with samurai programming, Morrigun the waitress whose combat skills come from secondary bouncer software, and Ro-Jaws, who is honestly more of a mascot than anything else. Morrigun was the result of a [[Terrible Interviewees Montage]]; you should see the guys they turned down.
* [[The Defenders]], comprised of heroes who don't work well with others, and who often get into fights in the middle of their missions, still manage to be successful because they are comprised of some of the most powerful heroes in the [[Marvel Universe]]. They're even famously known as a "non-team", because the concept of teamwork is completely alien to them. This is all in spite of the fact that the founding Defenders ([[Doctor Strange]], the [[Silver Surfer]], [[Incredible Hulk
* The Champions were a team consisting of Iceman, Angel, [[Black Widow (
* The second team of [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]], especially in comparison to the original team. The first group were five white, American teenagers, recruited by Professor X as students for his school, given matching uniforms, and trained to work as a group before their first mission. The second team<ref>
* The [[Great Lakes Avengers]] is a team comprised of some of the weirdest superheroes in Marvel's catalog, including Flatman, Big Bertha, and most popularly, [[Squirrel Girl]] (whose superpower is . . . squirrels). It doesn't hurt that ''[[Deadpool]]'' is considered one of their reserve members.
* In both ''[[
* The [[
* Justified in [[
== Fan Works ==
* The main group from ''[[Calvin and Hobbes: The Series]]'': a [[Book Dumb]] [[Gadgeteer Genius]], a [[Cowardly Lion]], a [[The Prankster|prankster]] [[Cloudcuckoolander]], a [[Jerkass]] [[Bungling Inventor]], and finally the [[Only Sane Man]].
== Film ==
* The film ''Boarding School Wars'' has Jake Winters invoke this ''by name'' in his [[Shut UP, Hannibal]] moment during a paint ball battle that decides which school's boys get to go to the dance with the girls. "Yeah, you're right, you're right. We're messed up. We've got problems. And you nailed me in the back of the head. Good one. Guess our ragtag bunch of misfits haven't got a chance against your obvious superiority. But hey - shouldn't you be guarding your flag?" George's eyes widen as he realizes the bulk of the opposing team deliberately lost to separate the team from its flag. Using the walkie talkies he smuggled in, George tries to tell his fellow team members what's happening, but it's too late. They arrive after the battle's been decided in a one on one shootout between their leaders.
* ''[[The Dirty Dozen]]''. The team sent in to blow up the Nazi R&R chateau is made up entirely of men facing either execution or life sentences in military prisons. Except for Magot
* In ''The Devil's Brigade'', the Americans are an example, while the Canadians are more serious about it. The real First Special Service Force recruited its American members by asking for volunteers, not forcing the dregs of the Army into it, though plenty of troublemakers got "volunteered" by their commanding officers to get rid of them. The SSF weeded out a lot of the worst, but it was still a pretty motley bunch.
* ''[[
* The Massachusetts 54th Infantry, a regiment of Black soldiers as seen in ''[[
* The crew of the Stingray in ''[[Down Periscope]]'' is the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits played for comedy. In this case, they are ''intended to fail'', and it's their complete willingness to ignore regulations, common sense, and sanity are key to their victory.
** In all fairness, those were their actual orders, in a manner of speaking (i.e. "think like a pirate"). Then a lower-ranking admiral tries to override those orders in order to win at any cost.
** The crew of the USS ''Stingray'' includes a captain with a tattoo on his penis, a jittery [[Number Two]] with [[No Indoor Voice]], a female diving officer (actually, the most normal of the group), a washed-out basketball player, a compulsive gambler, a sonar technician with a ridiculously good hearing (he knows what ''eating an Oreo'' sounds like), a cook with few cooking skills and acidic flatulence, an admiral's son who wants to get kicked off the boat, an electrician who ignores simple safety instructions, and a crazy old mechanic who pours scotch into the engine to boost its power.
* The eponymous heroes in ''[[The Seven Samurai]]'' don't have ''anything'' in common except all of them being [[Samurai]], their differing and conflicting views, personalities, and backgrounds taking them from [[Teeth-Clenched Teamwork]] to [[Fire-Forged Friends]] over the course of the film.
* ''[[Shaolin Soccer]]'' provides an interesting twist with a rag-tag soccer team full of washed-up ''Shaolin monks''. Despite their shabby appearance and total lack of soccer experience, they harness martial arts superpowers to defeat the reigning champions.
* Both ''[[The Bad News Bears]]'' and ''[[The Mighty Ducks (
** ''[[Little Giants]]'' and ''The Big Green'' would [[Follow the Leader]].
* ''[[Major League]]'' is basically ''The Bad News Bears'' with a Major League team. Also, unlike the Bears, the Indians [[Down to
* ''[[
** They're made up of an apathetic gym owner, a man who thinks he's a pirate, a high school loser who wants to be a cheerleader to impress a girl (think about that one for a second), a man who thinks his mail-order bride loves him, and two of the gym employees who consider the gym better than their previous job at the airport. The only normal person on their team is a female lawyer (who happens to be {{spoiler|[[Bi the Way]]}}). They are led by a paraplegic coach who loves throwing heavy objects at his players and making them dodge highway traffic.
* ''[[WALL-E]]'' has the titular character, his girlfriend and a bunch of <s> insane</s> broken robots, HANS in particular.
* In ''[[The Last Castle]]'', a convicted army general gathers up an army of inmates at a military jail. One would think his army is a Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits, but since they all used to be soldiers, they're as disciplined and well-coordinated as any official battalion.
* The ''[[
* The replacement Washington Sentinels in ''[[The Replacements (
* Colette from ''[[
* You'll be hard pressed to find a bunch more rag-tag or misfit than the one being asked to save the Earth in ''[[Monsters vs. Aliens]]'': a bug-headed [[Mad Scientist]]; an over-the-hill [[Fish Person]]; a brainless, sentient glob of [[Future Food Is Artificial|Soylent Soy]]; a fuzzy baby [[Kaiju]]; and leading them all, a [[White-Haired Pretty Girl]] (albeit a [[Attack of the 50
* The Diggers who join up with Dr. Noah after one of them is killed by Ecoban soldiers in ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* The kids relegated to being just "Hero Support"(sidekicks) in the titular high school for superheroes, ''[[
* The Cutters in ''Breaking Away''.
* The cheap ''[[Charlie's Angels
* The 2009 ''[[Star Trek (
* [[Wes Anderson]]'s ''[[The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou]]'': At one point Steve Zissou proudly declares "We're a pack of strays!"
* ''[[
* The American team in [[Broken Lizard]]'s ''[[Beerfest]]''. To give you an idea, one of their members is a homeless male prostitute.
* The five 'main' pirates from ''[[The Pirates!
** Appropriately, the film's [[Market-Based Title]] is ''The Pirates: Band of Misfits''.
* The Charlestown Chiefs in ''[[Slap Shot]]''.
* Lampshaded in ''[[Mortal Kombat (
* The eponymous group in ''[[
* The titular heroes in ''[[Mystery Men]]'' certainly qualify. The Shoveler's legendary [[Rousing Speech|sandwich speech]] even calls it out:
{{quote|
* The core protagonists of ''[[
* In ''[[
* The '70s cult comedy ''Steelyard Blues'' centers around a group of this type.
* In a rare non battle/sports example, the groomsmen from ''[[I Love You, Man
* The ''[[Guardians of the Galaxy (film)|Guardians of the Galaxy]]'' are a collection of convicts ([[In Space]]) who happen to be all of different races and, for the most part, initially tolerate each other for the sake of money or revenge. We have [[Large Ham]] Quill, [[Big Guy]] Drax, [[Smart Guy]] Rocket, [[Naive Newcomer|Young Guy]] Groot (especially in the sequel) and [[Hot Chick with a Sword]] Gamora - who doubles as the [[Only Sane Man|Only Sane One]].
== Literature ==
* This was a recurring theme in [[Oz|Oz Books]]. While the idea of a Kansas farm girl, a Scarecrow, a Tin Woodsman, and a [[Cowardly Lion]] is familiar now, the group was cetainly regarded as odd when the book was first written. The sequels even more so:
** ''The Marvelous Land of Oz'' starts with a young slave named Tip who builds a pumpkin-headed man in order to pull a prank on his mistress - a witch - who decides to use her Magical Powder of Life - stolen from a wizard - to breathe life into it, turning it into Jack Pumpkinhead. Tip and Jack steal the Powder and run away, building a wooden sawhorse and using the powder on it, so Jack can travel easier. They are then joined by Mr. H. M. Woggle-Bug, T.E. (a walking, talking bug in a suit who's ''really'' smart) the Scarecrow from the first book (now King of Oz, but doesn't like his job) and they eventually use the last of the Powder - along with two couches, two palm leaf fronds, a broom, and a trophy moose head - to create a living flying machine called the Gump. Oh, and it later is revealed that Tip is actually Princess Ozma, the true ruler of Oz, [[Gender Bender| under a curse]] and [[Amnesiac Hero| with amnesia.]]
** The third book brings back Dorothy, Ozma, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodsman, adding a few more, including the [[Big Eater| Hungry Tiger]], [[Robot Buddy| Tick-Tock]], and Billina, a hen from Dorothy's farm who eventually {{spoiler| becomes the true hero of the story.}} The fourth book starts with Dorothy again, brings the Wizard himself back, adds [[Cats Are Mean| Eureka the cat]], and well, suffice to say this trend continues for several volumes.
* ''[[Skulduggery Pleasant]]'' has a well-dressed living skeleton [[Deadpan Snarker]] (who is a detective), a teenage girl with odd heritage who owns a mansion, a beautiful blonde woman with a sword who kills things for a living, and a heavily-scarred tailor who is also a boxer. They are later joined by the last teleporter, a vainglorious teenage boy with excessively stupid hair. All of them are mages. None of them are remotely normal.
** And in the fourth book, Billy Ray Sanguine actually refers to the protagonists as a "Motley Bunch of Misfits" or something along those lines, but of course, the writer is [[One of Us]].
* The group designed to free Ciri in Witcher was ultimately formed from a aged and mostly retired monster hunter, elder vampire, amazon bowwoman, perverted bard, teenager with villainous background and friend-turned soldier/secret agent/noble from the hostile empire. Also, few times a half dozen or so dwarves were thrown in.
* [[Hells Children]] by Andrew Boland, features the Damned, who are made up of a [[Humanoid Abomination]], an [[Eldritch Abomination]], and a floating torso. And did I mention that there the protagonists?
* The [[
** The Monstrous Regiment's survival is a little more believable when you take into account that several of their number have super(natural) powers and their commanding officer (in fact if not name) is a [[Magnificent Bastard]] who knows everyone on both sides of the conflict and carries a bit more pull than you'd expect a sergeant to have.
*** It may have helped a bit that the enemy's senior commander (Vimes) was gunning for them.
*** Vimes was not the enemy commander, Ankh-Morpork was not directly part of the fight, and Vimes is very pointedly not military; he is a policeman. But his help was very helpful.
** And of course, the early City Watch novels. The change occurs after ''[[
*** Just as big a bunch of misfits are the night watch in [[
** The witches are also somewhat of a bunch of misfits.
* For a non-Discworld [[
* Knowingly enacted by a [[Genre Savvy]] warrior in [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''[[Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms]]'' series. An ambient magical force in the land (The Tradition) likes to have events work out like they do in stories. The warrior assembles a group of untrained teenage girls, equips them to look suitably ragged, and leads them into battle. The Tradition then ensures that they fight like expert soldiers, because they are a
** There's a fun moment in that when the warrior is negotiating with dwarf smiths to make the girls' armor. The dwarves are quite insulted at how shabby she wants the armor to look ... until she points out the Traditional path she's going for, known as a Ragged Company. Dwarves know the Tradition, too, so they quickly settle down and even accept that it'll be an interesting challenge to make the armor '''look''' like trash while still being high-quality protection.
* The ''[[X-wing Rogue Squadron|Wraith Squadron]]'' novels in the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] were based on this principle. Having witnessed some of the problems his squad ran into during the Bacta War, Wedge Antilles proposed a new type of squadron. To address the New Republic's budgetary problems, he said that he would give the squad to them "for free"—taking the washouts, the disciplinary screwups, the mental cases, aliens who just had trouble fitting in with human and near-human societies, and those who were in general on the verge of being discharged, to get them out of other commanders' hair but still give them <s>a second</s> one last chance.
** After Wraith Squadron's initial success, though, several new members explained that they signed up because of the squadron's success rate, unaware of their initial reputation. That being said, they are either as charmingly wacky or as deeply scarred as the original squad, and, soon fit right in. The Wraiths are eventually considered competent...if unpredictable, unorthodox, and hardly military disciplined. Appropriately, they're recommissioned as an Intelligence unit.
** Rogue Squadron isn't exactly what you'd call orthodox either, although they're not as wide out as the Wraiths, they sit somewhere between the Wraiths and the regular military.
* It seems that most of the [[Malazan Book of the Fallen|Malazan Empire's]] army is made up of a
** It's hinted that the Empire actually encourages that sort of thing, believing that allowing individual squads (and soldiers) to find their own idiosyncratic ways of fighting is more efficient than enforcing conformity in the ranks. Seeing as this is more or less accurate in the [[Heroic Fantasy]] world the story takes place in, this might make the Empire an entire ''nation'' that is [[Genre Savvy]].
** And then there's the Mott Irregulars, a bunch of insane country hicks lead by twenty warlock brothers and a sister (the meanest of them all) who are so ragtag and fit so badly that they managed to run circles around the Bridgeburners for more than a year and win at the end.
* The ''[[
** Naturally, the Omega Company just need a leader with charisma, patience, flexible ethics, and loads of money, which is what they get in Phule. The rest goes splendidly.
* Justified in Eve Forward's ''[[Villains
* The 27th Penal Panzer Regiment of the [[Sven Hassel]] novels is made up of ex-convicts and court-martialed soldiers who have been 'pardoned' and sent off to die for Nazi Germany.
* ''The Zone'' series of [[World War III]] novels by James Rouch is about the Special Combat Group, made up of soldiers picked up on their various assignments from the US, British, and Dutch forces, and deserters from the Soviet army and East German border police. The established special forces units despise such ad-hoc groups and are exerting political pressure to shut them down.
* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Eisenhorn]]'' novels, Inquisitor Eisenhorn's retinue includes in their number: a gunslinging pilot, an aging scholar who's literally addicted to knowledge, an ex-cop, an anti-psychic prostitute, and a flamboyant {{spoiler|cyborg}} starship captain. And that's just the first novel.
** In his [[Ravenor]] novels, Inquisitor Ravenor, though starting with a retinue, adds a [[Street Urchin]], an arbite who was targeted by the Chaos forces for knowing too much, and a [[The Medic|doctor]] who is working illegally because of having lost his license by caring for people not allowed to be treated and falsifying records to get the supplies he needs.
* [[Sandy Mitchell]]'s ''[[
* ''[[
* In [[Sandy Mitchell]]'s [[
** In ''Death or Glory'', Cain whips together "Cain's Liberators" from the tattered remnants of the PDF armies and civilians on the continent overrun by orks. Including getting all their [[The Medic|medical attention]] from [[Closest Thing We Got|a vet]].
** In ''For the Emperor'', the ragtag band of court-martialed soldiers offered amnesty in exchange for their services function as a well trained military unit. So much so that even two of them who were specifically court-martialed for trying to kill one another were able to work together without incident... [[Dangerous Deserter|at least between each other]].
* Gav Thorpe's [[Warhammer
* [[Poul Anderson]]'s ''[[Operation Chaos]]'' ends with the narrator considering the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits that had literally gone [[To Hell and Back]]. He concludes that it's the devil who has no sense of humor; God must love to laugh.
* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s Dendarii Mercenaries were a pretty ragtag bunch when Miles first created them in ''[[Vorkosigan Saga|The Warrior's Apprentice]]''.
* In [[Tad Williams]]' ''[[Otherland]]'' series, the group of protagonists that ends up infiltrating the Grail Brotherhood's private virtual reality network consists of a South African schoolteacher, a Bushman, a pair of American teenage gamers (one of whom has a [[Littlest Cancer Patient|terminal disease]]), a third teenager who's an ex drug addict, a reclusive blind French researcher, a Chinese grandmother, a German doctor and cult refugee, and an old man who's an [[Accidental Pervert]]. Their only connection is that they all know someone who's fallen victim to the mysterious comas caused by the Other and stumbled upon the clues left by [[Mysterious Informant]] Sellars.
* In ''[[Temeraire]]'' book five Victory of Eagles, the title character forges one of these from {{spoiler|the collection of renegades, retirees, and rejected experimental crossbreeds [[Our Dragons Are Different|Dragons]] that were in the breeding grounds he was exiled to, after getting word that [[Bond Creatures|his captain]] had been killed and Napoleon had invaded Britain}}.
* The five central characters in Douglas Hill's ''[[The
* The cast of any story set in the [[Border Town]] [[Shared Universe]], ever.
* ''[[
** The defense of The Wall in ''A Storm of Swords'' takes the
** The Brave Companions, a band of sellswords made up of [[Psycho for Hire|the most bloodthirsty and amoral fighters from all over the world]], are an evil version of the concept.
** The Brotherhood Without Banners, made up of the remnants of a royal mission for a now very dead king, as well as a collection of miscellaneous stranded soldiers, armed peasants, petty bandits, and the like. It's telling that both of their leaders have been Westeros' equivalent of zombies
* There are two in Michelle West's Sun Sword/House War series. The first is the army of the Kalakar, the Ospreys. The second is Jewel's den, which are the much more ragtag bunch of misfits that are significantly more badass. Granted, they have an overlapping character who provides a liberal dose of overkill, but both fit this trope.
* In the [[
* The investigating team in [[The Alienist]] matches this description.
* The fellowship in ''[[
** The fact that it includes members of most of the free races adds to the misfit feel and is lampshaded by Elrond.
* In [[Dale Brown]]'s ''[[Act of War]]'', Task Force TALON starts as a mish-mash of FBI agents, "lab-bound mavericks" and actual combat-hardened personnel.
* The only defense the human race has against a race of parasitic aliens who take over their hosts' brains and render them completely helpless? [[Animorphs
** ''[[
* The Chosen Men under Sharpe in the [[Sharpe]] series of books by Bernard Cornwell. They are not vastly different from most infantrymen (teh recruitment procedure was very loose back then) but their flamboyant personalities and [[Mildly Military|lackluster approach to discipline]] makes them this very trope. They are scorned by officers but tolerated by pragmatic commanders like Wellington or Hogan who tend to highly value the unit's combat prowess and experience.
* In ''Romance of the Snob Squad'' by Julie Anne Peters, the Snob Squad is one of these. Jenny is overweight, Lydia talks too much, Max is big for her age, and Prairie only has one leg. They end up together in a P.E. class competition. They end up subverting the [[Underdogs Never Lose]] trope and losing the competition anyway, and Jenny even comments on this, saying that "if you think we pulled ourselves together and won this thing, you've OD'd on Disney".
* Implied in the ''[[Percy Jackson
* [[Raymond E. Feist]]'s Shadow of a Dark Queen book of [[The Riftwar Cycle|The Serpentwar Saga]] has a bunch of convicts sentenced to death by hanging, given express (but effective) military training and sent on a suicide mission across the ocean, on the condition, that they may be given pardon, if they succeed and come back alive.
* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', any time Harry brings along more than one or two people to help take on the book's bad guy, it's this. The biggest so far {{spoiler|involves his assult on the Red Court at the Chichen Itza}}. Aside from a snarky wizard, his attack force consisted of {{spoiler|his teenage neuroamncer apprentice}}, an agnostic paladin wielding a holy sword, a Chicago PD lieutenant {{spoiler|also using a holy sword}}, a spirit of intellect locked away in a skull, a half-vampire journalist, a White Court vampire, a fairy noble, a vampire hunter, and a temple dog.
* [[A Certain Magical Index]]:
** The Kamijou Faction, centred around the main character Touma Kamijou. It includes: a self-proclaimed normal high school student with an [[Anti-Magic]] right hand, a living library with knowledge of almost all magic, the third-most powerful esper with [[Shock and Awe|power over electricity]], nearly ten thousand clones of the third-most powerful esper, an esper-magician hybrid who's [[Wild Card|playing all sides]], at least one [[Kung Fu Jesus|Saint]], the most powerful esper period, a construct made from the combined energy of all espers {{spoiler|who can become an artificial angel}}, a [[Badass Normal]] who defeated the fourth-most powerful esper twice, a different flavor of [[Badass Normal]] whose people skills are compared to [[Mind Control]], the leader of a magical cabal, the second-strongest member of a terrorist organisation who once threatened the whole world, {{spoiler|a goddess-turned-fairy who used to be the leader of said organisation}}, the fifth-most powerful esper with [[Telepathy|power over the mind.]].. and that's far from an exhaustive list. Notable for being even more ragtag than many other examples on this list - the faction never gathers together in its entirety, and most members have no idea that the rest even exist.
** Much later in the series, the Kamisato Faction appears, centered around Kakeru Kamisato. It includes: another self-proclaimed normal high school student with a different special right hand, a forensic specialist, a coin-using magician, a natural-born esper whose body is like a plant's, a mass-murderer cyborg magician, another natural-born esper who claims to have been abducted by aliens {{spoiler|and is actually a magician spying on the group}}, a girl who was literally [[Raised by Wolves]], a pirate-themed magician who can change her apparent age, a [[Playful Hacker]] ghost, a [[Magical Girl]] cosplayer, and two fortune-teller sisters. Unlike the Kamijou Faction, it's far more organised and actually acts as one cohesive group.
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[
** The leader of the outfit is addicted to his own adrenaline. The mechanic and [[The Big Guy|Big Guy]] is in desperate need of anger management classes and has to be knocked out every time they need to travel by airplane. The con-man is, shall we say, very easily distracted by the presence of pretty women. As soon as he breaks the team pilot and in-house medical advisor out of the psychiatric ward, they're on their way. Aren't you glad you just hired ''[[
* One could certainly expect the crew of the Federation Starship ''[[Star Trek: Voyager
** B'ellana Torres and Tom Paris, still manage to appear somewhat out of the norm. Torres has a temper that could power the ships engines, and Tom Paris is an ex-con. Given that he actually runs cons during the shows run, the 'ex' part is exaggerated.
* ''[[Black Sheep Squadron]]'' (originally titled ''Baa Baa Black Sheep'') is about the exploits of a squadron of misfit pilots fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific during [[World War II]]. One pilot has crashed so many times he's technically a Japanese ace. Others are drunks, insubordinate brawlers, Japanese-American pacifist mystics, or just plain crazy. Their commander is a drunk, insubordinate, over-the-hill ex-Flying Tiger who whips them into shape and turns them into the terrors of the South Pacific. It's based on a true story, and while the misfit tendencies of the squadron members themselves are highly exaggerated, Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, the squadron commander, was if anything MORE of a drunken misfit [[Magnificent Bastard]] than the one in the TV series.
* ''[[
* ''[[Blake's
* ''[[
* ''[[
** And muppets!
*** Rigel XVI may be a muppet, but don't make the mistake of underestimating him. Being stuck on a prison ship for nearly 100 cycles while being physically and emotionally tortured will harden you. Remember the guy who spent cycles torturing Rigel? Remember his fate? That's right, Rigel gleefully carried his head around on a pike. Hynerians may be physically frail compared to humanoids, but that's only because they're amphibians. And yet they've managed to carve out an empire of "600 billion loyal subjects", including humanoids. And after Rigel deposes his backstabbing cousin in the follow-up comic, he actually becomes a competent and beloved ruler thanks to his experiences. Now imagine someone like Rigel in charge of an empire.
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** ''[[Power Rangers Lost Galaxy]]'' is a stowaway, a security officer, a mechanic, a scientist, and a [[Jungle Princess]].
** ''[[Power Rangers Dino Thunder]]'' is a jock, a nerd, a rocker girl, an artist, and their [[Memetic Badass]] teacher.
** But the king is probably ''[[Power Rangers Wild Force]]'', which is a [[Raised
** What do you get when you put together a team comprised of a [[Standardized Leader|former Air Force pilot]]; a [[Wide
* ''[[
** Mostly averted in the ''[[
* ''[[
** Lampshaded in Journey to Regionals, with Olivia Newton John saying that the whole
* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'': The entire subculture of [[The Hunter|hunters]]. They're all just a bunch of emotionally scarred people who make it their (non-paying) job to hunt and kill supernatural beings, most likely because someone they were close to was killed by one. Considering how rampant these paranormal attacks seem to be, you'd think the government would set up a [[The Men in Black|secret agency]] to fight them. But no, it's left entirely up to these people, who will break as many laws and [[Walking the Earth|wander the earth]] as much as they have to in order to get the job done, with no thanks or pay to show for it?
** From ''The Song Remains The Same'', with Heaven and Hell both threatening to destroy the earth and the apocalypse underway:
{{quote|
'''Sam:''' This is what?
'''Dean:''' Team Free Will. One ex-blood junkie, one dropout with six bucks to his name, and Mr. Comatose over there. }}
* [[Stargate SG-1
** ''[[
** ''[[
*** [[Insufferable Genius]] [[Manipulative Bastard]] widower Dr. Rush who is more fit to be a supervillain than a hero
*** A commander who isn't really fit to command anyone, has problems making hard decisions and was about to retire
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*** Greer, who had an abusive war veteran father and has anger management issues.
*** And this was only the main cast...
* As the title of the show may suggest, this is pretty much the whole premise of 2009 sci-fi drama ''[[
** And ~15 years earlier, the ''[[Misfits of Science]]''.
* ''[[
** As seasons passed, you could add an immortal [[Badass Spaniard]], a [[Deadpan Snarker]] pilot, a [[Magnificent Bastard]], a [[Handicapped Badass]] who has always been an [[Unwitting Pawn]], {{spoiler|a puff of smoke transformed into the previous [[Unwitting Pawn]] and another immortal who had the job to keep this puff of smoke on the island and who might be a God}}. [[Loads and Loads of Characters]] indeed.
*** Don't forget a [[Con Man]] / [[Jerk
* ''[[
*** Or in Season 4 in comparison to the Initiative.
** Ditto for Team [[
* The outlaws from ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'' included a disinherited nobleman, his manservant, a con-artist/pick-pocket/thief, a carpenter, a woodsman, and a Arabic female doctor. The third season added a monk and a potter, who were admittedly, pretty useless.
* ''[[Eureka]]'' is basically an entire town of misfits, albeit not necessarily ragtag.
* The Major Crimes Unit in ''[[The Wire]]'' plays this trope straight.
* Each season of ''[[
{{quote|
* The Rottaran in ''[[Star Trek
* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' uses this. At the end of season 1 a group containing a cheerleader, a male nurse, a cop, an internet stripper, a boy genius, a politician, a Japanese Otaku, his sidekick, an escaped con and the professor are all present
* The Five in ''[[
* ''[[Primeval]]''. Lester is well aware that he's in charge of a Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits and would gladly fire the lot of them and bring in professionals instead, were he not such a fundamentally decent chap.
{{quote|
* The [[Warehouse 13]] team could certainly apply: two former Secret Service agents (one of whom gets psychic hunches), a disgraced former NSA analyst who was convicted of treason, an aura-reading B&B operator, a former mental patient and [[Teen Genius]], an [[Anti-Villain]] female HG Wells, and a gay ATF agent who's a living lie detector. Not to mention their boss, who is a mysterious teleporting and apparently immortal woman.
* The central study group characters of ''[[
* The ''[[
== Tabletop Games ==
* Taken to an extreme, as is everything in the ''[[Warhammer
** Hell, the entire 597th could be considered a ragtag bunch of misfits. Of course, given the 40k universe's casually lethal nature, it's a good thing that they get constant reinforcements from Valhalla...
** Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers. Recruited from penal planets and given the opportunity to redeem themselves by dying for the Emperor.
** The 40k fanfilm ''[[Damnatus]]'' follows the same idea, centering around a squad of mercenaries conscripted by the Inquisition to root out a suspected Chaos cult. There's the leader [[Badass Normal|von Remus]], sidekick [[Knight in Sour Armour|Corris]], big guy [[Hot
** A lot of Inquisitors' retinues tend to end up as this as well since Inquisitors frequently recruit people that they meet during their work with the only criteria being competence and loyalty.
*** It should also be noted that the people they recruit can be of any social status or have any kind of occupation, too. For instance, one member of Amberley Vail's retinue used to be a former fast food seller.
**** Mordechai Horst ends up temporarily recruiting a prostitute desperate to escape from the societal role she was forced into as a guide. And his boss inducted a pair of Guardsmen simply because they were eyewitnesses to a major breach of security, and the pilot whose shuttle they were shot down in just because.
**** The pilot's previous superiors had unreasonably high standards and would've grounded him forever because a huge gunship shot down his unarmed shuttle -- but he's an incredibly skilled pilot whom only imbeciles would ground. He landed the shuttle safely, in a very tight space, despite the damage that meant it couldn't stay in the air. '''That's''' why Inquisitor Finurbi recruited him; to not waste that kind of ability.
* ''[[Blood Bowl]]'' gives us the Motley Horde, a Blood Bowl team that fits this description to a tee. Not even the coach knows what kind of lineup he will see each game.
* '''Every''' ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' party ever, with few exceptions. See also the [[Video Games]] section and how they talk about the various RPGs; this is where they got the idea. It's possible to coordinate a non-ragtag adventuring party with some pre-game work, but a Ragtag Bunch of Level 1 Misfits spontaneously joining up for mutual adventure and profit is the default assumption.
* A lot of Solar, Abyssal and Infernal circles in ''[[Exalted]]'' would qualify. For Solars, if you're a reborn god-king with about half the world gunning for him, you tend to associate with others who can help you punch that half the world in the face. Infernals and Abyssals tend to end up in these through a mix of that desperation and the details of the assignments they receive from their bosses.
==
* The employees at Maraczek's Parfumerie in ''She Loves Me'' could qualify.
* Comedy musical ''[[Starship]]'' features a crew including a robot that wants to kill all humans but can't, a battle-scarred emotionally unstable Commander with a mortal fear of robots, his [[Action Girl|violent]] and [[No Sympathy|unsympathetic]] second-in-command, a [[Non-Action Guy]] [[Hollywood Nerd|nerd]], a hyperactive [[Butt Monkey|idiotic]] recruit, a recruit from [[Farm Boy]] [[Southern-Fried Private|Planet]], a science officer whose [[The Ditz|relevant skills]] don't even extend to the [[Dumb Blonde|ability to pronounce 'science']], and the bratty son of the company boss. At first it seems to just be [[Played for Laughs]] in a parody of the sci-fi genre, but it is revealed later that {{spoiler|Junior is evil and he needed the crew to be dysfunctional enough that they would notice his evil plan}}.
== Toys ==
* In one of the 2008 [[
** Interestingly, this can also be true when it comes to the players behind the screen in a MMORPG. No matter what everyone does for a living in [[Real Life]], together you still managed to bring down that big dragon.
== Video Games ==
* [[Because Destiny Says So]], the hero of the various ''[[
** Lampshaded in the [[Gaiden Game]] ''[[
* ''[[
** ''Especially'' the kobold. The [[Big Bad]] tries to persuade your allies to turn on you. Most of them wil stay if you're nice to them at various points, or discovered certain things about them. Deekin will stay [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|no matter what]].
* The full party in ''[[A Dance With Rogues]]'' definitely qualifies. You have a deposed princess leading a group that (depending on your choices and your persuasiveness) consists of (at various points) a [[The Pollyanna|sweet, innocent female bard]]; a [[Lawful Good|chivalrous ranger]]; a [[Token Evil Teammate|psychotic mercenary/assassin]]; a pair of barbarians out to hunt down the guy who killed their entire tribe; an [[Defector From Decadence|exiled Drow]]; a heavily-stereotyped alcoholic dwarf; and a [[Gender Bender|gender-flipped dead paladin]].
* The defenders of Kosigan in the Bastard of Kosigan can consist of a bastard half-orc trying to reclaim his heritage, an elf taking revenge for her abuse at the hands of the heir to the county, a prepubescent boy appointed second-in-command of the Grey Guard for no good reason, and an extremely loyal career soldier in charge of the army, all led by whatever you decide the player character is. You even get to [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade]] this if you side with Mordred and Alex at the end of the second module, wondering if "two bastards and a little elf" stand a chance against the might of Burgundy.
* While the team in ''[[
* The vast majority of Computer [[Role
** Lampshaded early in ''[[
** Also invoked in ''[[
** ''[[Final Fantasy X
** ''[[
* The crew who ends up saving the world from being Porky's oyster in ''[[
* In ''[[
** The ''[[Paper Mario (
*** And {{spoiler|a flirty mouse thief in high heels.}}
**** In ''[[
** The original ''[[
* ''[[
** Or any ''[[
* Like ''[[
* [[Rogue Galaxy]] could also qualify. By the middle of the game the super-elite [[Pirate|pirate ship]]'s crew consists in: a legendary [[Pirate]], a Second-in-command ''cat'' with a bad attitude, [[Tsundere|a bad-tempered]] jungle girl, [[The Hero|a clueless young boy mistaken for a skillful hunter]], an ''actual'' skillful hunter, [[The Chick|a cheerful girl]], an extremely polite fighting-machine robot with {{spoiler|the spirit of a dead child inside}}, a depressed Ex-soldier, a police-wanted, fired-from-his-job [[Nerd|computer genius]], and a... ''something'' that can fire missiles from his back and speaks with a weird accent, plus a couple of normal human pirates adn a talking frog who eats weapons. Insanity ensues.
* Delta Squad in ''[[
** It is stated by several of the characters however, that Marcus's trial was a sham and that before it he was an extremely skilled soldier.
* ''[[Planescape: Torment]]''. An amnesiac immortal trying to find out who he is and to die while he still can; a flying talking skull with the libido and vocabulary of a frisky teenager; the last warrior of an ancient order who wield blades attuned to their minds, capable of destroying anything; a fiendblooded thief and corpse-collector; a chaste succubus; a perpetually burning man who loves it; a being embodying geometric order cut off from the [[Hive Mind]] of its brethren, accompanied by a pair of semi-sentient spirits who have shaped themselves into its crossbows; and a haunted suit of armor kept together by its refusal to abandon its duty to Justice.
** Justified in that {{spoiler|the Mark of Torment etched into the Nameless One's flesh draws troubled souls to him}}. Furthermore, {{spoiler|sometimes past incarnations of the Nameless One helped make them that way.}}
*** Considering most of the game (sort of) takes place in Sigil, it would have been weird if the group was NOT a bunch of randomly selected and mismatched people and other creatures.
* This is pretty much the entire point of ''Battlefield: Bad Company''. B Company is apparently a dumping ground for anyone the Army deems a troublemaker, making them expendable. Plus, the squad featured pretty much qualifies in and of itself: a demolitions man who blew up the wrong latrine and loves to go in depth on his philosophical non-sequiturs, a cowardly comm specialist who looked up porn and wound up giving the Department of Defense network a nasty virus, a chopper pilot whose boredom and subsequent recreational drug use led to an accident that then led to his reassignment, and a weary sergeant who just wants to get out as soon as possible and is willing to take a transfer to the highest mortality rate company in the Army to get it.
* Depending on whom you recruit in your pack, ''[[
* In ''[[
** ''[[
*** Specifically, the party includes : a quaint scientist with ethical issues, a psychotic test subject with psychic powers and childhood issues, {{spoiler|the [[Cowboy Cop|angry cop]] from the first game who has become}} [[The Punisher
** And Shepard is not immune: depending on which past you choose, s/he either grew up without a family and was raised by gangs and violence (Earthborn) or is the sole survivor of a pirate raid on his/her home planet (Colonist) and either watched his/her whole platoon except for him/her being annihilated by an alien monster (Sole Survivor) or send the 3/4 of hi/hers platoon to death to capture a bunker (Ruthless).
** Both games take some effort to justify such choices in crew. In ''[[Mass Effect
** Basically, this trope is what you'll see just from browsing through the War Assets list of ''[[
* In ''[[Maple Story]]'', the Stellar Detectives (from the questline of the same name) is a team composed of the player, [[Gun Fu| Zen]], [[Bounty Hunter| Jett]], [[Cunning Like a Fox| Chase]], [[Samurai|Hayatu]], and [[Magic Girl|Kanna]]; the only real similarity they have is that all of them (aside from - possibly - the first) are regionally exclusive characters. Even the storyline suggests they formed the team after all five being victims of circumstance.
* ''[[Disgaea]]'' certainly qualifies, even if the 'heroes' aren't very heroic. You have the orphaned son of the demon king, his sidekick of debatable loyalty, an assassin angel (don't ask), '''Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth''' and his two sidekicks, the gorgeous scientist and the funky robot, various defeated enemies, and don't forget the souls sewn into demonic penguin bodies in the Prinny Squad.
** [[Nippon Ichi]] loves this trope. Even in the shockingly [[Darker and Edgier|dark and edgy]] ''[[Soul Nomad and The World Eaters]]'' {{spoiler|which gives you two sets. The traditional version in the normal route and a completely [[Ax Crazy]] set in the Demon route}}.
* [[BioWare]] seems to love these. ''[[Jade Empire]]'' features, as the last hope for a fantasty world based on East Asian mythology, a martial artist who is secretly [[Last of His Kind|the last of a group of monks]] who served the goddess of rebirth; his/her childhood friend who is troubled by vague prophetic visions; a [[Defector From Decadence|former assassin]]; a hobo seeking revenge for his dead daughter; a [[Boisterous Bruiser|loud, outgoing,]] [[Sociopathic Hero]] mercenary; a [[Mad Scientist]] with a fondness for explosives and flying machines who happens to be {{spoiler|[[God Was My Co-Pilot|an amnesiac god]]}}; a little girl [[Sharing a Body|possessed by a benevolent demon and his]] [[Evil Twin]]; a henpecked [[Drunken Master]]; and a [[Rebellious Princess]] who dresses like a cross between a ninja and a belly dancer.
* How about ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (video game)|Knights of the Old Republic]]''? In the first game you have an ex-pilot with major trust issues, a Jedi trying too hard to be perfect and scared to death of failing, a Mandalorian [[Blood Knight]], an exiled Wookee, a smartmouthed teenaged Twi'lek, a redeemed Jedi with an immense temper, a Jedi verging on senility, a mechanic droid with no personality (so far), and a psychotic insane assassin droid; and leading them all is {{spoiler|an amnesiac Sith Lord}}. In the second, the [[Blood Knight]] and the two droids carry over, and you get to add a psychotic old woman out to destroy the Force, a maniacally depressed former Sith, a former [[Deadpan Snarker|wisecracking]] Jedi-killer, another psychotic droid (but this one is out to rule the galaxy), a Zabarak mechanic trying to make up for all the deaths caused by the superweapon he designed, depending on your choices either an insane evil Wookee bounty hunter or an overconfident and very honorable female human bounty hunter, and depending on your gender either a [[Badass Bookworm]] or a soldier whose culture interprets dueling as flirting; and all of these are led by {{spoiler|a hole in the Force that feeds off their life force}}.
* ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]'':
** The Gallian Militia from ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]'' are like this, [[The Squad|Squad 7]] even more so. Notable in that they're not as ragtag-y as most other examples.
** And then we have the 'Edy Attachment' in the DLC which is the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits OF a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits.
** ''[[
** And then ''[[
* Hiro and the gang from ''[[Lunar: Eternal Blue]]'' qualify as they, strangely except for the main character Hiro, have some problems hidden from others. In fact, [[Big Bad]] Zophar explicitly refers to them as [[Lampshade Hanging|"the ragtag party of misfits."]]
* Boots and his buddies from ''[[
* The Wasteland crew in ''[[Tony Hawks Pro Skater
** Don't forget the most "normal" of the crew: a punk-rock chick with a penchant for exceptional art.
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by Agatio in ''[[
* Every team in ''[[
* While Raze's group in ''[[Mana
* In ''[[Mercenaries]] 2'', a five-person team composed of a revenge-driven merc, a snarky computer geek, a lecherous helicopter pilot, a perpetually drunken jet pilot, and a snarky mechanic, destroys the Venezuelan government, and defeats a ''superpower''-backed army as nothing more than a means to that end.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
** To elaborate, said prince was actually a bastard shipped off to a convent to keep him away from the throne, the witch had a rough and isolated childhood and so has [[No Social Skills]], bard in this context means spy and assassin who sings, the you free the qunari from prison after he murdered eight innocent people, the dwarf joins you after you help him find his {{spoiler|[[Complete Monster]] wife who abandoned him searching for an [[Artifact of Doom]]}}, and the elven assassin was hired to kill ''you''.
** ''Dragon Age: Awakening'' continues this. The alcoholic dwarven berzerker returns, and the new members are an [[Deadpan Snarker|snarky]] rogue mage with an obsessive Templar out for his blood, a murderous elven hippie, a rogue whose father is the noble who killed the Human Noble's family in the first game, [[Perky Goth|a member of the Dwarven Legion of the Dead]], a Fade spirit of justice trapped in the body of a dead man, and a very nice Grey Warden recruit who {{spoiler|dies the second she takes her Joining}}.
** ''[[
** A DLC gives you a temporary companion who isn't much better than the others - a female Qunari elf with a penchant to either kill or flirt with any man (especially human) that she sees.
* The survivors from either ''Left 4 Dead'' game count. In [[Left 4 Dead
* Your group in ''[[Drakengard]]'' is led by an [[Ax Crazy]] "[[Sociopathic Hero|hero]]", a useless bard friend deeply in the friend zone with the hero's sister, a conflicted pedophile, a batshit crazy [[Eats Babies|child eating]] [[Our Elves Are Better|elf]], and an old man [[Mad Oracle|making ominous prophecies]]. Not to mention most have [[Bond Creatures|pact partners]], which include a [[Deadpan Snarker|snarky]] [[Our Dragons Are Different|dragon]] and a [[The Fair Folk|hilariously sociopathic fairy]].
** ...but it has been noted that since this party contains a child killer, a child eater and a child molester, they are ''the perfect team'' for taking on {{spoiler|[[Humanoid Abomination|the Watchers]].}}
* ''[[Infinite Space]]'' starts out rather normally: a boy who seeks to unravel the mystery of the [[MacGuffin|Epitaphs]], his little sister, a "launcher", and an ex-thug. As the game progresses, you can hire mercenaries and have some normal citizens on board, which don't seem too bad, but later on, you can also have military officers (who join you for various reasons), ex-[[Space Pirates|pirates]], and even ''[[Everything's Better
* The ''[[
** Perhaps even more so in ''[[Fallout
** The quest "Flags of our Foul-Ups" consists of the player trying to make such a squad (called The Misfits!) actually combat effective. They consist of a small team of NCR troops with a severe attitude and discipline problems; an ambitious young woman who washed out of the Rangers but is still desperate for glory, a bloodthirsty former raider who'll recommend the squad dose up with the in-universe equivalent of PCP, a lazy and immoral snob, and a huge but soft-spoken and pacifistic hick. They can be properly mobilised with the right choices and skills, demonstrated during {{spoiler|the final attack by the Legion on the Dam, when your Misfits ''defeat a Legion assault.''}}
** The First Recon Sniper Team also qualifies. Professional leader, [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]], [[Naive Newcomer]], [[Butch Lesbian]] and a traumatized tribal. They are also the best snipers and scouts in the whole NCR army.
** ''[[
* And what about the [[
** Raynor actually refers to them as a ragtag bunch of misfits at one point.
* Subverted in ''[[Pathologic]]''. The first scene in the game shows the three healers meeting up, arguing with each other, then deciding to strike out separately to fight the plague. Throughout the game, they never really team up, and occasionally work against each other.
* No love for the ''[[
* Somewhat subverted in ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' and its sequel; Yes, you can include deranged rangers, badass paladins, angsty or depressed elves, psychotic dwarves, insane necromancers and even {{spoiler|a former [[Big Bad]]}} in your party. But they do all have their own goals and agendas, and if you violate their beliefs or make them work with people they detest, they will eventually leave your party or worse.
* ''[[Airforce Delta]] Strike'': Delta Squadron is where all the EDAF losers are assigned.
* Pretty much describes everyone part of S.E.E.S. in ''[[Persona 3]]'' or the Investigation Team in ''[[Persona 4]]'', but it's what allows them to summon Personas.
* Most parties in ''[[Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura]]'' seem to end up like this. In addition to the hero, a poor schmuck who just happened to survive a blimp crash, you can have a monk who doesn't know the first thing about his religion, an overly proud dwarf with no idea what dwarves are really like, a half-drunk half-ogre, the world's smartest "orc", an elven princess, a necromantic fop, and even {{spoiler|the guy you set out to kill in the first place}}. Oh, and a dog who kicks more ass than the rest of the party combined.
* ''[[Eien no Filena]]''. The party that saves the world consists of a transvestite, a prostitute, a dog, and a writer.
* The main cast of ''[[Resident Evil Outbreak]]'' consists of eight people at the same diner when the outbreak happened, not highly trained police officers as in the others.
* By the end of ''[[
* [[Freedom Force]], being a typical superhero team, consist of unlikely people brought together by extraordinary circumstances... and [[Super Serum|Energy X]]. These include an alien fugitive with [[Psychic Powers]], a nuclear physicist obsessed with patriotic ideas, a hot-headed Latino from the barrio, a playboy [[The Atoner|atoner]] forever trapped in a metal suit, a [[Southern Belle]]/witch, a "Shcottish" fisherman with scales, two teens, a reprogrammed [[
** The sequel adds a half-dead widower, a guy who ''really'' loves his [[William Shakespeare
* ''[[Monster Girl Quest Paradox]]'': Just at the end of the first chapter, the party is likely to consist of: a Nephilim hero, either the Monster Lord or the goddess who created humans and angels, a club-wielding priestess, a boomerang-loving slime, a mysterious tentacled being that looks like a young scylla, an angel Mad Scientist, the leader of the human faith, a gynoid, the spirit of wind, a former princess, an alchemist with worms for arms, the spirit of earth, and a second gynoid... and that's just some of the major characters!
* As more characters were added in each ''[[Epic Battle Fantasy]]'' game and as [[Characterization Marches On|their personalities gradually changed]], the party composition became crazier every time. As of ''EBF5'': a dim-witted, gluttonous, kleptomaniac hobo who likes smashing things with swords (by far the nicest guy in the party); a preachy, spoiled princess of a mage who believes [[All Men Are Perverts]]; a gun-toting, sociopathic ex-[[Evil Overlord]] who [[The Drag Along|didn't originally agree to join the party]] and thinks of himself as the most intelligent member; a childish, tree-hugging hunter who judges all living creatures on their cuteness (and she's most definitely the cutest of all); and a foul-tempered, dirty-minded limbless cat who enjoys messing with the rest of the party.
* In ''[[MapleStory]]'', Stellar Detectives (from the Epic questline of the same name) is a team consisting of the Beast Tamer, Hayato, Kanna, Jett, Zen, and the player. The only real similarity they have is that all (aside from the last, probably) is a region exclusive class. One could even argue that the whole point of the questline was to let players use classes they did not normally have access to.
== Web Comics ==
* [[
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131112203202/http://www.davidcsimon.com/crimsondark/ Crimson Dark]'' also has the Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits IN SPACE!
* ''[[Last Res0rt
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] and subverted in ''[[8-Bit Theater
** And again in Episode 1163 'Semantics' when they face Sarda. Red Mage confronts him and The Wizard Who Did It says "You and what ragtag band of adventurers with humorously conflicting personalities who learn the true meaning of friendship?" RM points behind him. They ran off.
* The Main Party in ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
** And for that matter, pretty much all of the comics in the fan comic section of the forum do this too.
** Roy at one point refers to his team as trained professionals before adding "Well, semi-trained, quasi-professionals."
* In ''[[No Rest for The Wicked (
* The main cast of ''[[
** And if something doesn't turn up to endanger the world, one of them will usually end up endangering it themselves.
* ''[[
* In ''[[
* In ''[[
* ''[[
* [[
* ''Mindflayed'' even [https://web.archive.org/web/20160418183546/http://mindflayed.0nyx.com/comic037.jpg had it discussed]:
{{quote|
''' Lomylith''': That would be the definition of the word "adventurers", flayer. }}
* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [
== Web Original ==
* The five protagonists from the web fiction serial ''[[Dimension Heroes]]'', despite their increase in power and skill over the course of the series, have yet to fully separate themselves from this trope.
* The main characters of ''[[
** With the exception of [[Badass|Tex]], who is pretty much confirmed to be the single best fighter in the series.
*** Not that she's without her own very special issues, however, as season 8 reveals. {{spoiler|She's essentially cursed to ultimately fail at everything she tries to do.}} The most normal person they meet (Wash) ''still'' has issues, what with {{spoiler|Epsilon's memories being beamed directly into his mind}} and all.
* Say, does [[
* Team Kimba of the ''[[
* The characters in ''[[A Game of Gods (Roleplay)|A Game of Gods]]'' come off as this. Justified in that they were taking from their home worlds by [[The Powers That Be|the Nomads]].
* The Fellowship of ''[[
* The heroes of [[Nerdy Show
* ''[[Reflets
* The members of "Team Templar" from ''[[Shadow of the Templar]]'' are the first type of this, all the way. Extremely talented [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|but mostly crazy]], their general rule of thumb seems to be that "standard procedure" is a good Plan B. All the same, they have a reputation for getting things done.
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Defenders of the Earth]]''; the only members who have any history is [[Mandrake the Magician|Mandrake]] and Lothar; why they formed a team with [[Flash Gordon]] and [[The Phantom]] is anyone's guess, [[Inexplicably Awesome| but it's still still awesome.]]
* [[Playing with a Trope|Played with]] in ''[[Transformers]]: [[Beast Wars]]''. The oft-bickering good-guy Maximals are somewhat of a ragtag group, the crew of an exploration vessel forced into battle and joined by a [[Defector From Decadence]], but the Predacon antagonists fit the trope even better, [[Enemy Civil War|backstabbing, scheming, and jockeying for position constantly]].
** Similarly invoked in ''[[Transformers Animated]]'', in which the job of saving the day lands on a repair crew with barely any real weapons who've mostly never been in combat before, while the Decepticons also spend a large time disorganized and spread apart. Of course, when the team of experts does show up, they're not a lot of help...
* Parodied with the elementary school dodgeball team in the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Cojoined Fetus Lady", who make it all the way to the finals much to their own shock and dismay.
* In ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', the responsibility of defeating the Fire Nation and saving the world rests entirely with a 12-year-old goofball of a [[The Messiah|Messiah]] and the various other children he picks up along the way. Three attempts were made by various characters to have actual armed forces involved, but the first two times were stopped before they started (the second when a fourteen year old princess and her two handmaidens, a [[Emotionless Girl|dour]] [[Knife Nut]] and a [[Cloudcuckoolander]] [[She Fu|acrobat]], {{spoiler|managed to pull off a coup in a hostile city) and the third time resulted in a crushing, ruinous defeat}}
* ''[[The Pirates of Dark Water]]'' even says so in the opening credits, "At his side an unlikely, but loyal crew of misfits."
* Referenced and Parodied in ''[[Futurama]]'', when Fry attempts to destroy a giant brain with a [[Applied Phlebotinum|Quantum Interface Bomb]]. He's found by a squad of smaller brains, that try to destroy him. When their brain rays fail, one of the brains say, "But we're an ambitious young squad, with everything to prove!"
** The Planet Express crew in general; the main delivery crew is a goofball from the 20th century (Now known as 'The Stupid Ages'), a selfish robot who spends his time drinking booze and making wisecracks, and a social outcast cyclops who tries to be professional, maybe a little too much. The rest of the company is a century-and-a-half-old mad scientist, a Jamaican paper-pusher who likes to limbo and fill out forms, a ditzy chinese girl from Mars, and a lobster alien who lacks neither social graces or an accurate idea of what the human body is, despite being the company doctor.
* The ''[[
{{quote|
'''Senator''': Oh, that's something of a myth. }}
* ''[[G.I. Joe: Renegades
* The ThunderCats, both [[Thundercats
* ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force
{{quote|
'''Ben Tennyson''': It's never too late. New plan!... Working on it.
'''Kevin Levin''': That's reassuring.
'''Ben Tennyson''': Got it! We break into the Highbreed Control Room and force the captain to make his ships retreat.
'''Darkstar''': That's your big plan?
'''Ben Tennyson''': Hey, how many times have I beaten you?
'''Darkstar''': Twice. But just at this moment, I don't see how. }}
* In the ''[[
* The quirky [[
* ''[[She-Ra|She-Ra and the Princesses of Power]]'' lives off this. First off, we have the heroine, a reluctant [[Chosen One]] with a bad [[Guilt Complex]]; then we have Glimmer, a [[Badass Princess]] [[Anti-Hero]] who's enthusiastic almost to a fault. And to complete the [[Power Trio]] we have nerdy master archer Bow, the [[Only Sane Man]], ''most'' of the time. Add to this trio some oddball recurring characters: Perfuma, a [[Granola Girl]] [[Friend to All Living Things]] with a magical [[Green Thumb]], [[Our Mermaids Are Different|Mermista]], a snarky [[Tomboy Princess]] who has trouble expressing ''any'' emotion, and [[Little Miss Badass|Frosta]], a child princess whose ice powers seem to completely contradict her fiery and energetic enthusiasm. Oh, and occasionally they have [[Battle Couple|Netossa and Spinnerella]].
** The bad guys could fall under this too, actually. [[Cat Girl| Catra]] is the heroine's [[Poisonous Friend]] (and possible candidate for [[Foe Yay]]) whose biggest motivation seems to be jealousy; Scorpia is an amazonian scorpion-woman and [[Gentle Giant]] (at least until a battle starts) who is constantly trying to win Catra's approval [[Les Yay| (and possibly affection)]]; Entrata is a ditzy [[Wrench Wench]] who ''literally'' knows know fear, and is willing to take insane risks to satisfy her curiosity, leading to an [[Odd Friendship]] with Hordak himself. You could likely even add Hordak to this list, as he's not the typical [[Evil Overlord]], being an [[Clone Degeneration|imperfect clone]] of Horde Prime, wanting to prove his worth to his sire [[Being Evil Sucks| while being unable to even prove it to himself]]. Not that this makes him any less dangerous, of course...
== Real Life ==
* The "Mille", the thousand-something volunteers that followed Giuseppe Garibaldi on his expedition to conquer Sicily and unify Italy in 1860. The youngest was 10 years old. The oldest, 70-something. There were students, poets, shopkeepers, tailors, pharmacists, bakers, former soldiers and officers of the regular army, medics, pretty much anything, including a woman, each with his own motive: fame, fortune, romance, adventure, ideals, death (reportedly one of the volunteers jumped offboard the ship twice during the trip to the shores of Sicily). They wore civilian clothing that only had in common the color red (the closest thing they had to an uniform) and were armed with old rifles obtained by tricking an army quartermaster into giving them. Besides, the rifles themselves never saw much use, since Garibaldi's tactical philosophy was "[[Hot
** This always was Garibaldi's Modus Operandi: find a big country, assemble a ragtag bunch of misfits, and go kick asses. Sometimes, Garibaldi's troops were fighting long after the rest of the country they were fighting for had been crushed: during the Uruguayan civil war, the regular Uruguayan forces were crushed at the battle of Arroyo Grande: Garibaldi's ragtag bunch of [[I Die Free|former slaves]] and [[Evil Foreigner|immigrants]] [[The Siege|held the city]] for ''nine years'' and eventually won the war.
* The ships that ended up discovering the Americas originally had an overwhelming majority of criminals and other lowlifes as their crews, as they weren't even expected to make it through alive, let alone come back. (Predictably, malnutrition and illnesses did end up mowing a lot of them down on the way.) This also partly explains the horrible [[Moral Event Horizon|treatment]] the natives suffered.
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** There were also instances of decent-sized forces appearing more-or-less out of nowhere, the important Battles of Bennington and Kings Mountain being the most significant examples. These pick-teams didn't stick around for very long, though. Almost all were local militia taking time away from farms and business. The song "Yankee Doodle" was invented by the British to mock these rag-tags, but they made it their own and sang it in battle.
* Gen. George S. Patton, when taking control of the US armed forces in Africa, started by levying heavy fines for soldiers and ''especially'' officers for unkempt uniforms. By the time Patton engaged in the famed 609 Battle, he'd transformed, well, you-know-whats into bonded soldiers.
* Another example of "folk history", this time Russian, is the Red Army, which, according to popular belief, was a
** The reorganization of the Red Army was supervised by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky became the ultimate ''persona non grata'' during Stalin's rule, which may help to explain where the popular belief came from. Stalinist history textbooks obviously couldn't talk about Trotsky's role in building the Red Army, let alone the role of counterrevolutionary officers from the Tsarist period.
* Speaking of the Russian Red Army, The 1980 Winter Olympics featured the Soviet Hockey juggernaut playing against a bunch of college hockey players who just happened to be playing for the United States. In what would become known as the Miracle on Ice, the college kids toppled the Russians 4-3, with a little help from the [[Popularity Power|home crowd.]]
** Canada did it first, eight years earlier.
*** With an All-Star lineup of NHL players - many of them future Hall of Famers - and in an exhibition series, ''not'' the Olympics. The Americans? Over a third of the team, including the captain, never played a minute in the NHL.
* Real world example: grab a book about Mexican history, open it on the chapters about the 19th century and the Revolution, and you'll see at least five disorganized bands duking it out for any reason. In fact, the reason why the Cinco de Mayo is a national holiday is because that was the day when a
** They won that battle, but lost the war.
*** No they didn't, it's true that Puebla was lost a year later but after too much complication the liberals won the war and completely squashed the competition, this time permanently. (That doesn't mean other conflicts appeared but...)
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* The violent Indian Freedom Fighters who fought the British were very much this. Although their role in securing Independence was fairly minor, Britain simply didn't have the resources to maintain its empire after [[World War II]], not to mention it had very much lost the High Moral ground to Gandhi.
* The Calcutta Light Horse were less a ragtag bunch of misfits and more a bunch of expatriate English barflies, but they did manage to infiltrate Portuguese Goa during World War II and destroy an interned German merchant ship passing radio intelligence out of neutral territory.
* The Battle of New Orleans shortly after the end of (but still part of) the war of 1812 was basically won by one very good leader ([[Andrew Jackson]]) with a
* [[Real Life]] sports victory example, [[British Footy Teams|Wimbeldon FC's]] "Crazy Gang," with a reputation for pulling an assortment of practical jokes on each other and their manager as well as for playing [[The Beautiful Game]] with a very unsophisticated and amateurish style, were able to beat the much more skilled Liverpool squad in the 1988 FA Cup Final against all expectations.
* [[Jesus]] and his disciples. They include an anarchist, a tax collector, a traitor, someone who denied even being with him, and two "sons of thunder," i.e. revolutionaries.(Although Jesus is admittedly not your traditional [[The A-Team
* The French Foreign Legion, at least according to all those romantic novelists...
* Israel actually subverts this trope by taking said misfits, and organizing them into settlers and soldiers. They started out as misfits, but due to the unifying and organizing force that was the Zionist movement quickly lost that designation. Most of the country's accomplishments are due to having its [[Misfit Mobilization Moment]] very early, and most importantly, before getting involved in any war.
* The Haitian slaves owned by France back in the Napoleonic days could be counted on to fight, argue, and fight some more. With the help of Toussaint Louverture, they managed to stop bickering long enough to kick the French's ass. Tragically, they went right back to the whole Ragtag misfit thing, and the country has languished in the third world as a result.
* Brutally averted by the Canadian rebellions led by William Lyon Mackenzie in Upper Canada (later Ontario) and Louis-Joseph Papineau in Lower Canada (later Quebec), who were both rebelling against the nepotism and corruption of the British colonial governments of the time. Papineau and Mackenzie's "soldiers", if you could call them that, were mostly common farmers and labourers who were poorly trained and disciplined. Needless to say, the trained British troops mopped the floor with them.
* Bolivar's army was a subversion at first (to put it simple: everybody wanted to be the leader by having [[Indy Ploy|indy ploys]] every three seconds instead of the ones they were planning for months before...), since they spent around twenty years of 'we did it!...oh, sorry, the spanish beated us again...' before deciding it was easier to free Colombia and then, with the support of a whole nation, get Venezuela free. It worked.
* The 2010 [[Baseball|World Series]] champion [http://www.sfgiants.com San Francisco Giants], a team literally described in the media as "a bunch of castoffs and misfits", as the roster was cobbled together throughout the year with an ever-changing lineup playing the games. Affectionately dubbed The Scrapheap Gang, these Giants were a group of inexperienced, but [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|talented and sometimes eccentric youngsters]] backed up by some aging veterans and a few guys [[Rescued
* NFL example: If documentaries by NFL Films (such as the ''America's Game'' series) are anything to go by, the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders are likely a good example of this, at least the teams from the 70s and 80s under head coaches John Madden and Tom Flores. Featuring many castoffs from other NFL teams, players who were considered washed up, and some colorful personalities with chips on their shoulders, the Raiders were a bunch of misfits who became the "bad guys" of the NFL because of their highly aggressive play (especially players like George Atkinson and Jack Tatum). They were also a successful bunch of misfits, winning Super Bowls XI, XV, and XVIII.
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131102072849/http://outcastsunited.com/ Outcasts United]'' by Warren St. John is a real life example of this. It is the story of a bunch of refugees who ended up living in Clarkston, Georgia (a small suburb of [[Atlanta]]), which became a resettlement center for refugees from war zones in Liberia, Congo, Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan. These kids eventually start a soccer team, the Fugees, with the help of Luma Mufleh, an American educated Jordanian woman. It tthe prejudice they endured and the money struggles they have, and the culture clashes (such as how in Georgia soccer is a sport associated with rich people).
* The rebels in the Libyan Civil war. Very few of them were actual soldiers.
* The Oakland A's in the early 2000s, as seen in the book and film [[Moneyball]], were deliberately assembled as a championship team that the club could actually afford. This entailed culling players from "the Island of Misfit Toys", standouts in one area who flounder in others.
* Many of the NHL's "Cinderella" teams can be described as this. The 2003/2004 Calgary Flames and 2005/2006 Edmonton Oilers could be best described as a group of talentless players (minus one or two) that played their hearts out, sacrificing their bodies to outplay everyone. By the time the dust settled, the teams had little, if any, players healthy enough to play the last games of the playoffs.
* The 2011 Arizona Diamondbacks were branded this by the media. While the 2001 World Series team feature a group of proven veterans, the 2011 team featured only Justin Upton as the only star. But coming off a miserable 2010 they managed to grab two pitchers for players of lesser value. They also featured [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|a pitcher that throws a baseball like a tomahawk]] and the player with the most tattoos in the majors. They managed to unseat the 2010 Giants as division champions, against them no less before losing in the first round of the playoffs.
* [[Reddit]] and [[Image Boards|4chan's /v/ board]] had a competition in ''[[Starsiege: Tribes|Tribes: Ascend]]''. Team Reddit was a well-coordinated, heavily practiced team with high-end computers; Team 4chan was a hastily-gathered team of /v/irgins run by a [[Furry Fandom|furry]] with a tripcode and a Brazilian sniper with 140 ping playing on toasters. 4chan won 3-2.
{{quote|
* The army of [[
* The British Army lives and dies by this trope. One of the first modern armies, the New Model Army was a complete subversion (English, but the framework for the British army was laid here), made up primarily of professional soldiers who had been fighting against the Royalists...until they were only able to fill about two thirds of places. After which, the Army lowered it's standards. From then on, to about 1914, the Army was been considered the second service to the far more prestigious and skilled Navy, taking on colossal numbers of thieves, rapists, murderers and arsonists, then moving on to those who have failed their [[GCS Es]]. This trope was so prevalent during the Napoleonic Era that the Duke of Wellington noted how wonderful it was to make so much of them. This applies less to other armies as they tended to still take Peasant Levies, meaning the men were required to serve whatever their profession, or have a very elite air and esprit de corps (the French, up until 1812).
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