Zerg Rush/Tabletop Games: Difference between revisions

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* ''[[Warhammer 40000 (Tabletop Game)|Warhammer 40000]]'': Tyranids all over. Also a fairly valid tactic for Orks, [[Imperial Guard]] and Chaos cultists/mutants/plague zombies, too. (Note that of the abovementioned factions, the [[Imperial Guard]] is the only one without a hive mind, berserker bloodlust, mind control, or all of the above. Needless to say, their morale is not good.)

** The 'nids really do take the cake here; their main soldier, the 'gaunts' (in all forms), main job is to rush at defences so they'll run out of ammo when the bigger 'nids show up; most of the time it takes weeks of non-stop rushing, and in fact most 'nids don't even have a ''digestion system''. The main reason why they do this is because since the Hive Fleet eats everything, they eat their dead (and their still living forces) so it's still a net gain even if they lose ''billions''.

*** 'Gaunts can be returned to the table every time they are killed to represent the endless swarms of them that exist (with the beautiful ability name of Without Number). Apocalypse battles (very big games with lots of 'gaunts) actually have a rule where opponent's troops will run out of ammo if they shoot too many of them.

*** See the ''Futurama'' example [[Zerg Rush/Western Animation|here]]? With the ships clogging the enemy's main cannons with their wreckage? The Tyranids did that to Tyran, their [[Trope Namer]] planet, ''using their own bodies''.

** There is actually a class of units in both games that are classified as "Swarms". These are literally a swarm of creatures too tiny to count as individual combatants, but nonetheless can form into a swarm and fight as a cohesive unit (which can be then formed into squads). They are weaker than even the most basic troopers in the army, rarely have ranged weapons, and can even be totally ignored when shooting in favor of larger targets (normally you'd have to shoot the closest thing possible). Their use? They have an ridiculous amount of Wounds (HP) and can tie up enemies in combat, so they can't do squat until your big bouncers come and mop them up. The Wounds-to-Price Ratio on these are also the best, so you can get a literal meatshield for dirt cheap.

** In the 8th edition the rules actually allowed for such tactics to work, and possibly quite well. In previous editions only units in the front and second rank can fight, and only the front can ever fight at full capacity (the second rank was only allowed to use spears and make one attack). Most ranks are only 5 models strong, but units could usually number 20, so this means that only ever 10 models got to fight regardless of how big the unit was. Newer rules introduced the "Horde" rule, where models had to make ranks of 10, and up to three ranks can fight, with the first two fighting at max capacity. This meant that a total of ''30'' models can fight, three times as much as before.

** Bretonnians takes this concept and turn it up to 11 (or 12, to be precise) where their Lance Formation allowed them to Zerg Rush with ''armored knights on barded warhorses''.

* The Soviet Union's primary strategy in ''[[Axis And Allies]]'' is to build half a dozen infantry or more each turn. However they are only good for defense, Germany has enough industrial capacity to do this with tanks.

* The standard method of attack of ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' kobolds when they're out of their mines. Defensively, though, the entire point of Kobolds is to lead opponents through deadly traps and mazes, and areas where they have the edge (e.g., leading medium sized creatures into Kobold sized spaces). They only attack en-masse when there is no other option (i.e., when they're not on turf they can make use of in this fashion). This is expanded on in ''Races of the Dragon'', the 3.5 supplemental book covering Kobolds and other races descended from dragons -- Kobolds take a very collectivist view to life, being extremely Lawful Evil (leaning Lawful Neutral) -- while the first defense of a Kobold city is going to be its hundreds of extremely deadly traps, ambushes, etc., as a last resort, the Kobold men will throw themselves en masse at attackers to buy the women and children time to escape with the eggs, the idea being that their lives are a small price to pay to ensure the survival of the ''town''.

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[[Category:Tabletop Games]]