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We Have Reserves: Difference between revisions
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Note that this does ''not'' have to be done strictly in a war setting, and works just fine if, say, the [[Big Bad]] or [[The Dragon]] decides to sacrifice someone in a [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]], or a small band of [[Mooks]]. Employing this under such circumstances when he probably does ''not'', in fact, have reserves, is a form of the [[Villain Ball]].
Callousness is necessary for it to be a suitable [[Kick the Dog]] moment. A general who throws troops into a battle knowing they will all die but knowing a victory here will save more lives can be pardoned of it [[Trial
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.''
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** Rei's mantra "If I die, I can be replaced!" is a rare case of a character invoking this trope on ''herself''! {{spoiler|[[Cloning Blues|She can. We have the technology.]]}}
* [[Mad Scientist]] Mayuri Kurotsuchi of ''[[Bleach]]'' is a particularly horrific example. He turns a number of subordinates into living bombs without them knowing it, and tells them to simply convince two protagonists to come with them. Instead he detonates them while they're standing around the protagonists, including one who survives his comrades exploding because "A bomb isn't supposed to come back after being used".
* [[Mad Bomber]] Kimblee of ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (
** In the manga, Amestris' entire philosophy during the Ishval Civil War was this. Naturally, the soldiers like Maes Hughes did not take kindly to this, and Amestris officers were frequently shot by their own men. {{spoiler|This was, however, less a matter of callousness but a deliberate attempt to kill as many people as possible on both sides.}}
* In ''[[Naruto]]'', Orochimaru {{spoiler|kills the squad of teenage ninja (minus Dosu, who was already dead) he had infiltrating the chuunin exams in order to [[Equivalent Exchange|use their lives]] to [[Back From the Dead|resurrect]] several deceased ninja leaders just to help him win one fight. One of the resurrections even ends up failing and kills its component ninja anyway.}} He even told Kakashi earlier that he considers any of his subordinates without special worth worthless pawns.
* In the anime ''[[Now and Then Here
** The fact that they're ''children'' makes the use of this trope even more effective than usual at establishing its user as a [[Complete Monster]].
* In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]: [[Mobile Suit Gundam The 08th MS Team]]'', a Federation commander starts what turns into a string of [[Kick the Dog]] moments when he deliberately marches mobile suit teams into traps in an attempt to cause a nuclear blast when their reactors go off, destroying or at least uncovering the Zeon base hidden in a mountain.
** In ''[[Gundam Seed]]'' the Earth Alliance activates a cyclops system hidden beneath their Alaska base when it comes under attack by ZAFT. The system basically nukes everthing within 10 miles of the base and kills nearly everyone defending it. This actually helps the Atlantic Federation as it kills off most of the Eurasian political moderates and allows the Earth Alliance to pursue a more genocidal path towards ending the war. This is what causes the Archangel crew to finally defect from the Alliance.
*** Muruta Azrael and Lord Djibril, leaders of Blue Cosmos, and by default, the Atlantic Federation both use this as their strategy. They believe their men to be expendable, and in Azrael's case, actually classes some of his soldiers as equipment, rather than personnel.
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== Card Games ==
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh (Tabletop Game)|Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' has a card called "Human Wave Tactics" that allows a player to replace low-level normal (no effect) monsters at the end of the turn they're killed. (Ironically, all eligible monsters are absolutely useless offensively. [[Combined Energy Attack|Having hordes of monsters in your graveyard, however...]])
* Green or white small creature decks in [[Magic:
** And don't forget Goblins! A few examples: [http://magiccards.info/ddg/en/65.html Dragon Fodder], [http://magiccards.info/fe/en/114.html Goblin Grenade]...
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{{quote| '''Grail Officer''': Requesting permission to withdraw the next charge, sir.<br />
'''D'Aronique''': Denied. Instead you will ''lead'' it. }}
* In the [[X Wing Series]] arc "Battleground: Tatooine", the Imperial captain Semtin heads to Ryloth after a criminal he wants; the Rogues follow. The relative sheltering this criminal, bribed by both sides, decides to have them compete in a not-quite [[Combat
{{quote| '''Semtin''': I told you the mission would involve sacrifices! You should be willing to give up your very ''life'' for your Emperor!<br />
'''Sixtus''': For the Empire, yes! For the personal gain of its officials... ''never''! }}
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** The Vong themselves go through this much faster--their low-level soldiers have no qualms about giving their lives in battle. Later, Supreme Overlord Shimmra is seen chewing out his high officers because they've thrown away too many men and are having trouble holding their conquests.
* Done humorously in the movie ''[[Mystery Men]]'', where Casanova Frankenstein kills his own men for no other reason than to mention to the heroes he is so evil and uncaring that he kills his own men.
* In ''[[
** Similarly in ''[[Batman:
* ''[[
** 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 (
* ''[[
{{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. }}
* Semi-averted in ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]''. Captain Miller started to fall into this tactic while still shell-shocked from landing on Omaha Beach during D-Day, twice ordering small groups of his squad to try to charge a machine gun position. After this he realizes what he's done, and instead has his [[Cold Sniper]] take out the machine gunner, while Miller risks his life to distract the gunner.
** Alternatively, Miller realized that a single good sniper is simply worth more than four regular infantrymen. After all, snipers have more training and expertize, while also being less common and capable of filling the role of other infantrymen. [[War Is Hell|In some occasions, some lives really are worth more than others.]]
* In ''[[
* In the first ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' sequel, Jack is at least willing to hire a hundred men to his crew and then give up their souls in order to pay off his debt to Davy Jones, an act which even Jones can't believe Jack is capable of. But in the third film, after a brief taste of death, Jack is willing to throw the entire population of Shipwreck Island -- his brothers in arms -- at Jones and the IETC armada.
* The 1957 Kirk Douglas film ''[[Paths of Glory]]'' is about a French general in [[World War I]] ordering a desperate plan to at long last break through the German lines, knowing full well the attack is certain to kill most of the men used in it (he even has the statistically probable numbers worked out). And he's doing it mainly to earn a promotion.
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** Based on a real battle, however in real life there was a fourth wave of men sent
* Slightly indirect version in ''[[The Dark Knight]]''. The Joker pulls a bank job working with what at least some highly skilled thieves, who kill each other one by one under orders leaving the Joker with all the money. Apparently the Joker has no worries about finding other people to work for him.
* ''[[Enemy
{{quote| '''Commissar''': "The man with the rifle shoots! The one without follows him! When the man with the rifle gets killed, the one who is following picks up the rifle and shoots!"}}
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* In the fantasy series ''[[The Death Gate Cycle]]'' one of [[Career Killers|assassin]] Hugh The Hand's jobs was to kill a mercenary captain who tended to take all the money his company was paid for a job, then order them into situations where as many of them died as possible so he wouldn't have to split the pay.
** Hugh was also hired to kill a human army captain that had repeatedly over the course of his career sent many men to their deaths while he ran away. While doing this again, Hugh caught him and listed the names of everyone who had wanted him dead before killing the man.
* Lord Hong in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld
{{quote| Scum. That's what he called his own soldiers. It's like that bloody civilized game you showed us, Teach! The prawns [sic] are just there to get slaughtered while the king hangs around at the back!}}
** Lord Rust seems to have studied in Hong's class. See what happens with any army he's entrusted to, though his tactics seem to be born from [[Upperclass Twit|blatant stupidity]], rather than malice. One would imagine an army commanded by the troll Sgt Detritus would be more effective, if only because Detritus would lead from the front and scare everyone away.
** While temporally displaced in ''[[Discworld
** The yardstick for measuring ''any'' General in ''[[Discworld]]'' seems to be "massive casualties." While having those casualties coming from the enemy is preferred, having most of them come from your own troops is still perfectly acceptable.
*** Conversely, Generals who manage to achieve victory with relatively few casualties are looked down upon as somehow not playing by the rules.
* In the ''[[
** The Solarian League Navy is noted on the ''Honor Harrington'' page itself as being ''so'' large, even their reserves have reserves.
* Interesting subversion in ''[[Ender's Game]]''. Ender, nearing a mental breakdown from stress, is given a wargame situation where the enemy outnumber his forces 1,000 to 1. {{spoiler|Trying to be removed from the strain, he orders a suicide mission that destroys the enemy homeworld... except the simulations he's trained with since graduating from Battle School haven't been simulations at all, and he's sent the entire Earth fleet on a suicide mission that destroys the enemy home planet. When this is revealed to him, he lapses into a coma.}}
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* 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.
* An attacking goblin horde in Piers Anthony's ''Castle Roogna'' used a rather literal goblin-wave tactic - they crossed the moat by filling it up with drowned goblins, and scaled the wall by climbing over each other until the army was running up a huge pile of trampled-down goblins.
* Several commanders in [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[
** In ''First & Only'', Dravere is explicitly described as saying that if he could throw enough bodies at the Eye of Chaos, he could close it. The attack of the Jantine Patricians at the climax, to overwhelm the Ghosts' [[Hold the Line]] forces, puts it into action.
** In ''Ghostmaker'', Sturm orders the bombardment of an area where he knows the Ghosts are operating on the grounds that they have enemies in there. He specifically regards the Ghosts, and Gaunt, as trouble he would be well rid of.
** In ''Armour of Contempt'', a wave of Imperium troopers, so tightly packed that the dead were carried along, unable to fall where they died, assault the walls of a city several times. Eventually, they are successful, but at horrible cost.
*** And it only works because a Titan blasts open the gate with a single shot as the third attack is bogging down. [[Hollywood Tactics|Perhaps they should have done that earlier]]
* This is the default tactic of both Saruman and Sauron's armies in [[
* Used in ''[[World War Z]]'' by both the Russian and Chinese armies, often to horrifying effects. If one didn't know that both those countries have a history of such tactics, (see the real life section below) they might think Max Brooks was making it up or had an ax to grind with those countries.
** The primary problem with using this strategy on zombies is that they use the exact same tactics by instinct, and they recruit by killing. So by sending your own people to die, you inflate the ranks of your enemies. [[Sarcasm Mode|Nice.]]
* In [[James Swallow]]'s [[Warhammer 40000]] novel ''[[Blood Angels
** In ''Deus Sanguinius'', the Warmaster points out that he sacrificed them for this. He gets no sympathy.
* The [[Big Bad]] in any [[David Eddings]] series will inevitably have this mindset. In the backstory of ''[[The Belgariad]]'', the Dark God Torak marched millions of Angaraks off to the West in a suicidally insane war that left not one survivor to return to the East. In ''[[The Malloreon]]'', his successor as Child of Dark, Zandramas, similarly views her minions as utterly expendable, sending them to certain death against the heroes multiple times simply to slow them down, or on the off chance that one of them will get lucky and prevent her from having to see the Prophecy to its conclusion. And of course, the demons in that series behave this way with respect to the human troops under their "command", force marching them for days without a care for the death and suffering -- or rather, reveling in it.
* Emperor Ezar Vorbarra in the ''[[Vorkosigan Saga]]'' has this mindset and takes this trope a step further - he has the army mount a hopeless, bloody attack on another planet in order to get his [[Complete Monster|insane son]] killed off without anyone suspecting assassination. Too bad about all the ''other'' soldiers who were killed ...
* An interesting example from [[Iain M Banks]]' ''[[The Culture/The Player of Games|The Culture]]:'' the protagonist is freaked out when he realizes how much the Emperor personifies this trope, even though the reserves he so casually sacrifices aren't people but pieces in a very elaborate game. The reason he is freaked out is that the game is expressly designed to mirror the player's values and philosophy -- meaning that the superficially charming and civilized Emperor has revealed himself as [[Ax Crazy]].
* In [[Ben Counter]]'s [[Warhammer 40000]] novel ''[[Soul Drinkers
* 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 [[Brain In
** 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.
* Cultural-divide example in [[Codex Alera]]: when the Marat go to war, the first wave of an attack is always the green recruits, the warriors who most recently became of age. The ones who survive that are considered to have been smiled on by The One, and get to participate in the battle proper.
* In ''[[Shadowmarch]]'', Autarch has no qualms about letting his soldiers die meaninglessly, as long as he accomplishes his goal. During the siege of {{spoiler|Hierosol}}, he ordered [[Zerg Rush|full scale attack]] through the breach in city's walls, despite being warned of massive casualties it will cause among his troops. He explained that his soldiers should be happy to fight and die for their autarch.
* This trope is mixed with [[Spare to
* This seems to be the attitude of the Young Army in ''[[
== Live-Action TV ==
* In ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'', the Vorta Keevan gives the heroes his battle plan because being taken prisoner would be better for him than being stranded and wounded with a bunch of [[Super Soldier|Super Soldiers]] about to go [[Ax Crazy]] from withdrawal. Particularly nasty since his soldiers are ''warned'' that they've been betrayed, but are too loyal themselves to disobey.
** It should be said this wasn't a major departure from standard Dominion tactics; the genetically engineered Jem'Hadar were programmed to see themselves as disposable, all willing to attain victory for their gods The Founders at any cost.
* Like most tropes, this shows up in ''[[Doctor Who]]'', sometimes on the [[Planet of Hats]]. Still, a human example: Henry Van Statten seems less concerned with his guards than he is with a certain relic they're ''fighting for their lives against''.
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* One episode of ''[[Smallville]]'' had a teaser sequence with Lex Luthor testing his latest experiment. The test involves the [[Super Soldier]] charging down a hallway, killing mooks, breaking into a heavily fortified room and assassinating a target. When it's over, what does Luthor say with glee? "Get fresh guards... I wanna see him do it again"
* In one episode of ''[[Robin of Sherwood]]'', when Robin Hood threatens to kill some of his Mooks, the [[Magnificent Bastard|Sheriff]] coldly replies: "Soldiers have a way of dying; it's an occupational hazard."
* In ''[[
* An interesting variation of this happened in [[NCIS]], during the investigation aboard the ship they weren't allowed to know about. After they recover the [[McGuffin|nuclear weapon]] and leave, a missile blows up the secret ship. One of them asks, "How did they know we got off?" The answer? "I don't think they knew."
* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' and ''[[Angel]]'', Spike and Holland Manners give speeches to the respective protagonists about how evil works like this: that every apocalypse they prevent will surely be followed by another one and that they have an unlimited number of soldiers on their side, all who need just one good day to kill them.
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** 4th Edition has a feat for ''players'' which increases the power of area attacks if you include allies in the area. Reserves or not, you're expendable if I want my +2.
*** It should be noted however that there are a lot of area attacks in 4E that ONLY target enemies. Chilling Cloud for example allows Wizards to target enemies in melee without risking damaging their allies. Invokers, Divine Controlers, specialize in these sort of 'party safe' spells and can benifit greatly from Coordinated Fire without invoking this trope.
* The Cheiron Group in ''[[
* YOU, the player, in [[Paranoia]]. Your life in Alpha Complex will inevitably result in you [[Superpower Meltdown|dying in]] [[Unfriendly Fire|a number]] [[Phlebotinum Overload|of horrible]] [[You Have Failed Me|ways]], but it's okay, because you have plenty of [[Cloning Blues|backups where that came from]].
* [[Eclipse Phase]] may or may not count for this. Given that actually dying isn't that big of a deal, and that a fair amount of character types (robots, nano-swarms, etc) probably couldn't feel pain anyway, there is certainly a healthy disregard for the value of life. Within the fiction of the rule books grazing team mates with plasma rifles to hit the bad guys, sacrificing yourself to buy time, straight up murdering a friend and exploding your head with an anti-matter bomb (all for the sake of the mission) shows up. And that's just in the first short story. Basically, everyone is totally expendable and people dying is an accepted part of the trade and just not a big deal.
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** Hawke directly uses this line of reasoning before the battle Rain Of Fire, fought around an active volcano (to force the heroes into a land battle rather than an aerial one). And he's the most ''sympathetic'' of the villains.
** Meta example: Mech Spam tactics. These tactics involve taking advantage of the fact that, at most, one unit can kill a single unit per player phase by using large amounts of cheap, weak Mechs to block attacks on [[Glass Cannon|strong but fragile]] artillery units, which in turn can be used to kill units who attack the Mechs.
*** Keep in mind that it's "Mech" like in "Mechanised Infantry" not like in "[[Mecha
* ''[[Suikoden II]]'': Luca Blight kicks off the game by slaughtering his troops under a false flag.
* 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.
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* In ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'', Kefka poisoned the water source that both Doma and sieging Empire troops used to break the siege by killing everyone.
* In [[Final Fantasy VII]], Heidegger's response to a threat was to throw more troops at it. One of the most powerful SOLDIERs escaped from one of Hojo's labs and is heading for Midgar? Send out half the army to take him down! And watch as half the army is completely devastated. By the end of the game, ''he doesn't have any more troops'' to throw at the heroes, and instead goes into battle himself.
* Both the undead and the demons in the ''[[
** Not forgetting the human commander who sends the Blood Elves to face the Undead with no support, because "The only good nonhuman... Is a dead nonhuman", even though the Alliance is already desperately short against the Undead already.
** ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' features the Battle for Light's Hope Chapel, where Arthas ordered his death knights to attack in order to draw out Tirion Fordring, and when he appears explains he expected them to get cut down. As death knights are his few free-willed servants, [[Heel Face Turn|they were not pleased.]]
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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
* ''[[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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** Okeer gives us this wonderful quote:
{{quote| I say let us carry the [[Depopulation Bomb|genophage]] with us. Let a thousand children die for every one that lives. We will climb to victory atop a mountain of our dead--for that is the krogan way.}}
* In ''[[Prototype (
** The current US casualties list from March 2003 to the time of this typing (September 2009) is 4,334. That's ''over six years.'' Blackwatch figure the Marines will lose that many ''in about three weeks''.
** The Marines [[Throw the Dog
* [[The Joker]] is very much like this in ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'', leaving his cohorts in multiple lurches without batting an eyelash, making [[You Have Failed Me]] comments as they get taken out one-by-one by [[Batman]], and insulting anybody who fails him, including Harley Quinn. [[Mad Love]], indeed.
* This is one of the things that makes the [[Metroid|Space Pirates]] a serious threat. Absolutely everyone is expendable, from mooks to commanders, as long as the goal is accomplished. They will blow up ''entire planets'' just to kill one person, and the troops down there are even ordered to stay so they can ''stall.''
* Notably averted in ''Original War'' from Altar Interactive, a RTS with RPG elements. In the single player game (and multiplayer with the right settings), every person who dies is actually [[Killed Off for Real]]. Each of them has a name, skills and a face. You know them. When any of them dies, it's a loss not just for the war cause (the reinforcements are very limited) but for you as the commander personally. Over the whole storyline - if you let four guys die in the first mission, you are going to have to do without them for the rest of the game. The Russian/Soviet faction in the game employ this trope quite a bit though and the Arabians even more so - even then though, the losses are permanent and the soldiers are not very happy about it.
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* Necromancers in [[Guild Wars]] can raise undead minions from the corpses of fallen enemies that constantly lose health. You can heal them, but the longer they live, the faster they lose health. The proper way to use them is to let them soak up most of the enemy melee attacks or using spells to make them explode when they're close to the enemy.
* This is, essentially, how the [[Dragon Age|Darkspawn]] fight. They're a mindless [[The Horde|horde]] born by the thousands, driven by a single will. The Battle at Ostagar was doomed from the start, as their tactics relied on an enemy comprised of trained soldiers, not mindless brutes who don't care whether they live or die. ''That'''s why the Blights are so dangerous. The only way to stop them is to eliminate that will by killing the Archdemon.
* ''[[Section 8 (video game)]]: Prejudice'': When Thorne calls in a bomber to try and kill you, it might frag some of his own troops. One of your allies points out his nonchalance about this.
* Can be invoked by the player in [[Sins of a Solar Empire]], especially early on. If an enemy player or CPU invades one of your planets, and you don't have a sufficiently sized fleet yet to meet them, you can start cranking out ships and send them into battle one at a time in an attempt to delay the enemy forces until your main fleet arrives, or you can build enough defenses to whittle them down. Can get expensive over time, which can be painful early on as you don't have a lot of resources coming in yet to keep making the units.
** Alternatively, players can split their forces, and send the bulk of their forces to invade an enemy planet, while keeping a small portion behind to deal with enemy invasions, or in case their main fleet needs assistance. Which can prove to be useful should you end up fighting a multiple-front war.
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{{quote| Parson: Ansom's thinking he can overwhelm us with numbers, but that's ''additive''. [[RPG Mechanics Verse|I've been playing with this combat system for a week now. And it's all about force multipliers.]]}}
** In the end though, Parson could only defeat the Ansom's forces completely by {{spoiler|having his Dirtamancer and Croackamancer (meaning his earth elementalist and necromancer) work together to reanimate the dead volcano they're in. This ends up destroying both armies.}} It leads to a long [[What Have I Done]] period for Parson.
* Subverted in ''[[
{{quote| '''Tarvek:''' If we sacrificed every minion we had, we might take out ''one'' of them.<br />
'''Gil:''' That's a terrible plan!<br />
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** Another time in, he actually used this tactic with SHIPS.
{{quote| [[General Failure|"On my signal, all ships will file directly into the enemy death cannons, clogging them with wreckage!"]]}}
* ''[[
* At the end of ''[[
** By the time of the less popular sequel series, Megatron took this to the logical extreme with his [[Mecha
* In ''[[South Park|South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut]]'', the general preparing for battle splits his soldiers into two operations: Operation Human Shield, consisting of the black soldiers, the all-important first attack wave expected to take heavy losses, and Operation Get Behind the Darkies, consisting of everyone else. Naturally, OHS, being lead by Chef, subverts the entire plan--by ducking.
{{quote| '''Chef''': Operation Human Shield, my ass!}}
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== Other ==
* In more fantastical settings, most necromancers and other [[The Undead|undead]]-using sorts will gleefully send legions of their troops off to get re-killed, on the basis that no actual lives are being lost. Well, except for the enemy's, of course. And that just adds to your own numbers. The dead do not kill, they recruit. (Depending on how the necromancy is represented, even the destroyed undead can be somewhat reconstituted.)
* In ''[[Magic:
** Similarly, the ''Rise of the Eldrazi'' expansion introduces Eldrazi Spawn, token creatures generated by other cards, whose sole use is to be sacrificed for mana so you can summon your [[Awesome but Impractical|ridiculously powerful but ridiculously expensive]] Eldrazi.
** The Thrulls of the ''Fallen Empires'' set were treated this way by their masters the Order of the Ebon Hand. [[Turned Against Their Masters|The Order's downfall]] began when they made two big mistakes: 1) they let the Thrulls' breeding get out of control, and 2) they started creating more intelligent and powerful Thrulls capable of using magic.
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