History Main / TheMinionMaster

[[folder:Real Time Strategy]]
* The Necromancer unit from the Undead faction in ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} 3''. A couple of these guys could summon hordes of skeletons using corpses (obtained from a graveyard, meat wagon, dead unit, or even a dead critter) and {{mana}}. The skeletons were individually weak and short-lived, but the explosive ZergRush of that the Necromancers could create, summoning 2 skellies every 8 seconds, could turn a straight battle between initially equal forces into a rout, or at least force the enemy to run away. Thankfully, as of ''Frozen Throne'', mass dispelling abilities were available to all factions, so all it took to clear a skeleton horde was the correct unit (Priest/[[WillOTheWisp Wisp]]/Destroyer/Spirit Walker) and a bit of micro.
** Some {{hero|Unit}}es could become TheMinionMaster using the correct abilities. Like the Death Knight, who could raise 6 short-lived but invincible minions using its ultimate ability, Animate Dead, or the Night Elf Warden, who could ''summon a [[TheMinionMaster minion master]]'', the Avatar of Vengeance, who then spammed further, weaker summons called Spirits of Vengeance. And the Keeper of the Grove, whose Force of Nature ability summoned an extra [[WhenTreesAttack Treant]] for every point invested in it after the first. Or the Firelord, whose Lava Spawns would multiply over time if not killed quickly. Or the Dark Ranger, who would turn any unit she killed into a buffed-up skeleton. Yeah, basically, Blizzard loves this trope.
* Carrier cruisers and carrier capital ships from ''VideoGame/SinsOfASolarEmpire'' acted as TheMinionMaster by fighting primarily through their strikecraft wings. They would produce, transport and, in case of capital ships, provide supporting abilities for their strikecraft and fleet in general. The cruiser carriers were, in fact, completely unarmed apart from their strikecraft wings, while capitals would also have some self-defense armament. All capital ships would gain squads as they leveled up, but carrier capitals would, obviously, always field the most squads.
* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': You play as a Minion Master, controlling up to 100 of the Pikmin, who help carrying objects, opening paths, and mobbing enemies [[ZergRush en masse]]. Your character on their own is virtually powerless, the Pikmin are necessary to do ''anything''.
* The Yuri faction in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2: Yuri's Revenge'' counts by proxy through MindControl. The Yuri clone can control one enemy unit at a time, the Psychic Tower can control ''three'', the Mastermind can control an ''infinite'' number of enemies (but takes damage after four), and both of its Superweapons are designed to take the enemy's units and add them to your own. They also get the Cloning Vats, doubling every trained infantry unit.
* Carriers in ''{{VideoGame/Starcraft}}'' can send out up to eight tiny, lightning-quick Interceptor drones each to pepper any enemy that comes near.
* ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'':
** The Brood Lord is an air-to-ground Zerg siege unit which attacks by launching little Broodlings to nibble at the enemy. It can have up to two Broodlings readied for the initial attack, and make another one to throw every 1.78 seconds. The short-lived Broodlings die 5.71 seconds after landing if they are not killed first, so at most a Brood Lord can have just over three Broodlings on the ground at a time. The Brood Lord is useful as a siege unit because of its long attack range, and if the enemy can't hit the Brood Lord the Broodlings will just be infinitely replaced.
** The Swarm Host, added in ''Heart of the Swarm'', is a ground-to-ground Zerg siege unit which also has no attack of its own, and instead can produce two locusts from the eggs on its back every 43 seconds. The locusts have timed life of 18 seconds when spawned, and fly to their target before swooping down to the ground and attacking.

* Similarly, ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'' has you controlling commanders who summon their forces and can fight alongside their army, even having special {{Combination Attack}}s with each unit.
* ''VideoGame/MinionMasters'' is a hybrid of RTS, MOBA, deckbuilder and tower defence. Unsurprisingly, it is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin all about this]]. Players construct a deck of minions (and a few spells as well as buildings) of varying costs ranging from a horde of tiny ratlike Scrats to a titanic, slow-moving Colossus and deploy them onto the battlefield to rush across and assault their opponent's tower. The minions die in droves, but they're an endlessly recycled resource, so hundreds can die in a single game.

ZergRush often describes the most common combat method of TheMinionMaster. Because of their tactics, they often fall under AntiHero and DarkIsNotEvil characterization. Can occasionally be {{Game Breaker}}s, occasionally {{Crutch Character}}s. If the minions are copies of the master, it's a DopplegangerAttack. Will be exceptionally powerful if [[ConservationOfNinjutsu Ninjutsu isn't conserved]], enabling each Mook to be a threat, let alone many Mooks.

A subtrope of TheBeastmaster, and supertrope to PestController.

* ''Minion Masters,'' a hybrid of RTS, MOBA, deckbuilder and tower defence, is unsurprisingly, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin all about this]]. Players construct a deck of minions (and a few spells) of varying costs ranging from a horde of tiny ratlike Scrats to a titanic, slow-moving Colossus and deploy them onto the battlefield to rush across and assault their opponent's tower. The minions die in droves, but they're an endlessly recycled resource, so hundreds can die in a single game.

** A large part of what makes her so deadly is that her power also explicitly expands her mind to allow her to individually keep track of and control every single bug under her power.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': Sorcerers can do this with Demons and Elementals. The game has a sidebar that notes, since a dedicated Sorcerer could quickly amass a huge number of these demons it is better to treat them as a single large group of enemies under the games "battlegroup" rules. It should be noted that, even by [[UpToEleven Exalted Standards]], a single blood ape minion is ''terrifyingly'' powerful.

[[quoteright:349:[[VideoGame/Pikmin1 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/olimar_and_many_pikmin.png]]]]

* Most summon spells in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' can be used to summon a swarm of lower-level creatures instead of one high-level creature.
** ''Dungeons and Dragons'' also has the hordeificer artificer build that uses the large number of constructs.

* ''TabletopGame/InNomineSatanisMagnaVeritas'', the prequel of ''TabletopGame/InNomine'', allows you to choose lots of human troops that serve and obey you, if you're an angel. The demons get, instead, a lesser demon or some undead troops.
* The Shifter class in ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'' is a magic user that focuses on dimensional teleportation and SummonMagic. They can contact and attempt to control supernatural beings via a battle of wills (and if this fails, they can attempt to overpower the creature by more conventional means). Unlike D&D summon spells, there is no time limit, though the book suggests forming short term contracts, as forcing a demonic being to remain under a {{Puny Earthling}}'s control for an extended period is likely to hazardous to said mortal's health.
* All summoners in ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' are capable of this to a certain extent, but Master Summoners are the most oriented towards flooding the battlefield with minions rather than relying on a single powerful creature.
* As befits a proper pulp game, ''TabletopGame/SpiritOfTheCentury'' has both minion rules and the "Minions" Leadership stunt that can turn a character into exactly this. A character with the Minions stunt can choose to simply start a scene with 3-12 minions (depending on quality) already "on hand", and the stunt can be taken multiple times for even more -- or better -- minion-y fun. Of course, this is explicitly primarily intended as a trick for ''villains'' or at least {{NPC}}s; player characters are expected to rely more on themselves with perhaps the odd higher-quality NPC "companion" along for help.

* In early editions of ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', some units could use robots, with the amount increasing with the unit's affinity for machinery. Said robots were extremely stupid and could only follow limited instructions.
** Some Ork units behave like this, such as swarms of snotlings being herded by a single Ork. Gretchin were useable as independent units, but could be given bonuses by having someone to herd them as well. This has varied depending on the edition.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' has the same situation with Orcs, adding herds of squigs to the units needing a minion master to direct them. Some other factions have similar swarms being directed by larger units.

* Sorcerers in ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' can do this with Demons and Elementals. The game has a sidebar that notes, since a dedicated Sorcerer could quickly amass a huge number of these demons it is better to treat them as a single large group of enemies under the games "battlegroup" rules. It should be noted that, even by [[UpToEleven Exalted Standards]], a single blood ape minion is ''terrifyingly'' powerful.

* Jack-O in ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear Xrd'' has an unusual moveset where her core gameplay is placing "houses" that periodically summons minions that automatically attack the opponent. Initially both the houses and minions start of very weak and easy to destroy, but they level up over time. Her game plan revolves around protecting her houses and minions long enough for them to start spewing out minions to overwhelm the opponent.
** Jack-O's moveset was reworked in ''-Strive-''. She no longer deploys "houses" and instead directly summons minions herself, which is limited by a gauge. She can toss or hit them to send them flying as a projectile (a la Venom) or command them to use certain moves. She can use her Overdrive to give them super armor or greatly increase her minion gauge recovery rate.

** In ''VideoGame/{{MultiVersus}}'', [[WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse Steven Universe]] has the ability to use his watermelon clones as an attack.

** In ''VideoGame/{{MultiVersus}}'', [[WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse Steven]] has the ability to use his watermelon clones as an attack.

[[quoteright:349:[[VideoGame/{{Pikmin}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/olimar_and_many_pikmin.png]]]]

*** In ''Brawl'', he can pluck up to 6 Pikmin from the ground to follow him and attack. Without a single Pikmin, he only has two VERY weak ways of attacking. Even his recovery depends on Pikmin, with more Pikmin letting him recover greater distance.
*** ''Wii U/3DS'' reduces the ammount of Pikmin to 3, but the core of the character remains the same, except for his recovery now being ''worse'' the more Pikmin he has. (In ''Brawl'', his Pikmin formed a ChainOfPeople; more Pikmin equaled a longer chain, which equaled a higher chance of recovery. In ''Wii U/3DS'', Olimar summons flying Pikmin to carry him to safety; the more Pikmin he has with him, the slower and heavier he is, and the slower the flying Pikmin can fly, sometimes not even making it back to the stage easily.)

* You play as a Minion Master in the ''{{VideoGame/Pikmin}}'' series, controlling up to 100 of the aforementioned Pikmin, who help carrying objects, opening paths, and mobbing enemies [[ZergRush en masse]]. Your character on their own is virtually powerless, the Pikmin are necessary to do ''anything''.

Compare AssistCharacter, an {{NPC}} in [[FightingGame Fighting Games]] that can be briefly summoned to assist the PlayerCharacter; DroneDeployer, a character that carries their minions upon their person and "deploys" them when they're to be used; EnemySummoner, a video-game enemy that summons other enemies while also directly fighting the player; MookCommander, a mook with the ability to strengthen other mooks just by their presence; MookMaker, where the producer of mooks may be an inanimate device rather than an actual character; and TheTurretMaster, who instead of minions uses technology.

* Diend in ''Series/KamenRiderDecade'', whose Kamen Ride cards can summon Riders to do his bidding. Decade's Complete Form is more literal, creating copies of the nine main Riders in their own SuperModes which copy his movements exactly.

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* Jack-O in ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear Xrd'' has an unusual moveset where her core gameplay is placing "houses" that periodically summons minions which automatically attack the opponent. Initially both the houses and minions start of very weak and easy to destroy, but they level up over time. Her game plan revolves around protecting her houses and minions long enough for them to start spewing out minions to overwhelm the opponent.
** Jack-O's moveset was reworked in '-Strive-'. She no longer deploys "houses" and directly summons minions instead, which is limited by a gauge. She can toss or hit them to send them flying as a projectile (a la Venom) or command them to use certain moves. Her Overdrive can either give them super armor or greatly increase her minion gauge recovery rate.

Whereas [[TheBeastmaster Beastmasters]] usually focus on quality of minions, often restricting themselves to one or two (or at least [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} one at a time]]), the Minion Master on the other hand focuses on sheer, undiluted numbers. This often makes for an unusual and difficult-to-balance character build -- a character whose power comes from brutally outnumbering his opponents often leaves himself as the squishiest of {{Squishy Wizard}}s, and enemies either succumb quickly to the DeathOfAThousandCuts or perform a minion version of a TotalPartyWipe with area of effect attacks. They may also possess skills to control and buff their minions. The Minion Master tends to, of course, to be the keystone in his KeystoneArmy that is [[StraightForTheCommander the prime target to finish first]].