Video Game / Conqueror's Blade

Conqueror's Blade is a Medieval Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game produced by Booming Games.

Set in world beset by conflict, the player is a newly arrived wander, their sights aimed on claiming a portion of this world as their own. To do that, you'll need to amass an army and allies to defeat both rivals and bandits plaguing the lands.

One of the centrals focuses of the game is just how big battles can be, as not only are players fighting each other, but each one can also call in a small army of their own to aid them. This can result in such clashes as knights fighting samurai, Vikings dueling gladiators, and camel riders charging Winged Hussars.

The game is free to play on both publisher My Games.com's website and Steam.

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This game provides examples of:

Tropes in the game in general

• Anachronism Stew: The game is set roughly in the 16th or 17th century (15- or 1600s), but the units and armaments draw from many centuries before that. In fact, almost every century from the 7th to the 17th is represented to some degree in game:
  • 7th and 8th: the Tang-era Chinese units from Dynasty, Eternal, and Dragonrise.
  • 10th and 11th: the Byzantine and Crusader-knight units from Legacy of Fire; the Viking units from Wolves of Ragnarok and Helheim.
  • 11th: the Heraldic units from the default tech tree.
  • 12th: the Hashashins and other Scorpio units.
  • 13th: the Mongol units from Wrath of the Nomads.
  • 14th: the Wuxing Pikemen and Divine Crows from Eternal; the Italian mercenaries from Soldiers of Fortune; the Teutonic knight units from Knightfall.
  • 15th: the Anadolou Empire units and lore from Blood of the Empire; the entire Paragons season.
  • 16th: the Prefecture and Imperial (Chinese) units from the default tech tree.
  • 17th: most of the later-era European units from the tech tree (Tercios, Halberdiers, Winged Hussars).
  • 18th: Kriegsrat Fusiliers - the socket bayonet was only officially adopted in 1697.
  • Special mention for the Avalon units, some of which use 1500s-era plate armor with Celtic (200s A.D.) shields and helmets.
  • ...As well as for the Highlanders season, which features warriors from the 1300s using 16th-century weapons and clothing...and wearing woad that dates back (once again) to the 200s A.D.
  • This trope is surprisingly averted with the Roman gladiator units from Colosseum - in-universe, their presence is justified as a revival of the ancient Gladiator Games of the Aquiline Empire.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: The whole point of the game - even the smaller battles can see hundreds of soldiers fighting on both sides.
• Bling of War: Most hero armor cosmetics and attires.
• Citadel City: The Conqueror's City, the game's main hub. It is a gigantic fortress built on a mountain, protected by a series of tiered walls with steep flights of stairs to give attackers the hardest time possible. A deep canyon acts as the city's moat, and beyond the canyon is the Shield of the Capital, a giant wall to keep out desert marauders.
  • To a lesser extent, most of the game's other regional capitals and even some smaller cities fit into this trope, most especially the capitals of Augolia and Turul Varos.
• Cool Versus Awesome: The forces you can command come from all across history, so beyond things like knights fighting samurai, you could see Winged Hussars charging Camel Riders, Ronin fighting the Varangian Guards, and Hashashin taking on Fire Lancers.
• Field of Blades: You can excavate doctrines from various ancient battlefields, one of which is the "Field of Broken Spears."
• The Great Wall: The Conqueror's City is a mountain fortress surrounded by a huge wall called the Shield of the Capital. The eponymous Shield of the Capital map has you defending or assaulting one of the gates in this wall. During Territory Wars, the Conqueror's City can only be assaulted by a house that has captured at least one of these gates.
  • There is also a map literally called "The Great Wall" and themed after the Great Wall of China.
• Low Fantasy: While some mythical entities show up in the game, the majority of it is relatively grounded in history and features forces that wouldn't have been out of place in Earth's older feudal societies.
• The Siege: The game's main and most popular game mode is the siege, where players are split into two teams and tasked with either defending or assaulting a medieval fortress.
• Storming the Beaches: By Land and Sea, a simple siege map for new players, has the player leading an assault on the Sicanian camp outside Reginopolis from the sea. You even get to use ship cannons instead of trebuchets.
• Storming the Castle: The attackers' goal in siege battles.
• War Elephants: Subverted—Booming Games promised to add elephants as hero mounts, but ended up canceling their development.

Tropes in heroes

• Battle Bolas: The Throw Bola skill for Shortbow.
• Blade on a Rope: It's right there in the name of Chain Dart & Scimitar. With the Trap Prey ultimate move, you throw the chain dart to lock an enemy hero in and grapple onto him. It does a little damage while you're at it, but that's usually just incidental.
• Blade Spam: Both Spear and Pike have variations of this trope—Heaven's Fury on Spear and the last step of Water Dragon on Pike both have you stabbing the enemy many times in quick succession.
• Boom, Headshot!: Bows and Muskets are aimed manually, and can pull off especially damaging headshots. This is one reliable way to get around their otherwise low damage, and also bypasses the protection offered by shields.
• Caltrops: Musket has two moves which throw caltrops on the ground. Enemies who step on the caltrops move very slowly and take bleed damage until they get off the caltrops.
• Emergency Weapon: The Longbow comes with a little dagger that you can use for Quick Melee attacks if the enemy gets too close to you.
  • Musket and Shortbow have their own emergency melee attacks (striking with the butt of the musket or karate-kicking for Shortbow).
• Five Rounds Rapid: One of the Musket hero weapon's ultimates is literally called "Five Rounds Rapid" and does Exactly What It Says on the Tin. The trope is actually played straight with this skill—as ultimates go, Five Rounds Rapid is very weak, and it can be blocked easily by any shield.
• Frontline General: Perhaps the most notable unique gameplay feature of Conqueror's Blade is that it puts you, the warlord, right on the front lines of battle, leading, commanding, and fighting alongside your men.
• Girl with Psycho Weapon: From Season I on, female player characters can use any hero weapon—even poleaxes, mauls, and nodachis.
• Ground Pound: One of Shortsword's two ultimates is Thunderstruck, where you leap into the air and slam your shield down on the ground, producing a shockwave that sends enemies flying outward.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: When Conqueror's Blade was first launched, the hero weapon classes were divided into unisex, male-only, and female-only. Predictably, the male-only classes included the huge, brute-strength Poleaxe and Glaive, while the two female-only classes were Shortbow and Dual Blades. This was corrected in Season I, when all classes (even Maul) were made available to player characters of both genders.
• Hammer Hilt:
  • The Breaker of Shields move for Glaive has you reversing the glaive to stab with the butt end.
  • A variation appears in the Push Back skill for Poleaxe—you use the length of the shaft, not the butt, to shove enemies backward and knock them over.
• Heavy Equipment Class: The heavy hero class.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Subverted. While there are several sword hero classes available (Shortsword, Longsword, Nodachi, and Scimitar), the majority of hero weapons are polearms, and the most popular is the Maul (or war hammer).
• Humongous-Headed Hammer: Maul.
• Infinity +1 Sword:
  • When you craft or reforge a weapon or armor, there is always a chance that the item will be epic or legendary—but of course the chance is very low (especially for legendary).
  • In a similar vein, you can craft weapons and armor that are guaranteed to be epic or legendary—but you have to have epic weapon schematics, which are VERY hard to find or obtain.
• The Minion Master: The fact that each player is controlling a bunch of NPC troops makes everyone a Minion Master.
• Multishot: Longbow and Shortbow both feature abilities that shoot multiple arrows at once (Rain of Arrows for Longbow, Angry Hornets for Shortbow).
• Mutually Exclusive Power Ups: You can only equip three normal skills and one ultimate ability to your hero at a time. (Or you can forgo the ult and use four standard skills instead.)
• Pistol-Whipping: Musket heroes can strike with the butt ends of their guns if forced into close-quarters combat. They also have the leg-sweep Close Combat skill.
• Quick Melee: The Longbow comes with a small dagger which you can use in close quarters by right-clicking. The attack has you drawing the knife and slashing with it in one smooth motion.
• Rage Helm: A few of the hero helmet attires, most notably the Wrathful Emperor helmet, feature angry-looking war masks.
• Reverse Grip: This is how Dual-Blades heroes hold their dual blades.
• Sinister Scimitar: Chain Dart & Scimitar—an assassin-style hero weapon.
• Spin Attack: the majority of hero weapons have one of these:
  • Maul has Maelstrom;
  • Glaive has Arc of Steel;
  • Nodachi has Tiger's Claw;
  • Spear has Gungnir's Greeting and Hurricane's Edge;
  • ...and Pike has Wandering Dragon (when you use it after your ultimate skill).
  • Even Musket has one of these—with Close Combat, you do a leg-sweep with your gun's butt end.
• Sticks to the Back: All hero weapons stick to your back when you're not using them—even shields. The only exceptions are Dual Blades, which slide into (invisible) sheaths on your hips.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Poleaxe. Just like its real-life equivalent, this weapon combines the best points of multiple other polearms (two-handed axe, billhook, lochaber axe, bec de corbin, etc.) into a single weapon. The class' various moves let you strike with the poleaxe's axe head, top spike, back spike, butt end, shaft, and even the inside curve of the blade.
• Sword Plant: The final strike in the Sally Forth ability for Longsword.
• Throwing Your Shield Always Works: The Throw Shield skill on Shortsword.
• War God: Glaive has a skill called God of Battles, which boosts your damage output and that of nearby allies temporarily.
• The Warlord: Your character.
• Weapon Across the Shoulder: How your Nodachi hero holds his giant sword while not swinging it.
• Weapon Specialization: Each weapon carries different benefits and fits a different type of play style.
  • Swords and shields (coming in Longsword and Shortsword versions) are meant for frontline fighting and balance defense and offense.
  • Mauls are best suited to extremely close range and devastate opponents in melee.
  • Spears are best used on horseback due to their reach and lack of offensive options compared to the poleaxe and glaive.
  • Muskets are for midrange usage due to higher damage than bows, but at the cost of range and reload time.
• Weapon Twirling: When wielding Dual Blades, your hero will finish the standard attack combo with a deft twirl of both knives.
• X on a Stick: Glaive—modeled after real-life Chinese guandao polearms, this weapon is basically a sword on a stick.

Tropes in units

• Amazon Brigade: Played straight with Shieldmaidens and Onna-Musha; subverted with the Alchemists, an exclusively support unit.
• Ascended Extra: Prior to Season XVI: Sengoku, the various PvE modes featured several bandit units that did not resemble anything players could use (where most NPC enemies were just copies of standard, readily-available units). However, in Sengoku, three of these NPC units (Ronin, Naginata Monks, and Matchlock Ashigaru) were released as units which players could unlock and use.
• Attack Animal: The Houndsmen bring their hunting hounds with them to harass enemies.
• Automatic Crossbows: Rattan Marksmen and Rangers both use the real-life chu ko nu—a medieval-Chinese repeating crossbow.
• Bayonet Ya: Kriegsrat Fusiliers are the only gunpowder unit equipped with bayonets.
• Bilingual Bonus: The Heraldic units, Banner Guards, and Chevaliers speak in coherent Latin and French, respectively.
• Black Comedy: The Dimachaeri are young, inexperienced gladiators who stand little chance of surviving their first fight. Despite this, they are happy-go-lucky fellows who dno't even realize how serious gladiator fighting is:
  Dimachaeri: "We get paid right after the match, yes?"
• Blood Knight: Several units fit this trope, given their voice lines:
  • Iron Reapers: "It's harvest time!"
  • Azaps: "Death or glory!" "Our swords thirst for battle!"
  • Berserkers: "Berserkers born for battle!"
• Bombardier Mook: Zykalian Militia and Shenji Grenadiers.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: Rattan Rangers, Khevtuul Cavalry, and Feathered Crossbowmen are all armed both with swords and either bows (Khevtuuls) or crossbows (the other two).
  • Note that all archers can draw knives in close quarters, but they're all worthless melee fighters. Only the three above units stand a chance in close combat.
• Bows Versus Crossbows: There isn't much of a contest here. Archer units are far more common than crossbow units and are better in just about every way: faster rate of fire, better range, more troops per unit, more special abilities and doctrines, you name it. Crossbowmen just combine the worst of both the musket and bow worlds (low rate of fire and short range like muskets, low damage and survivability like archers). The only exceptions are the rapid-firing Rattan Marksmen and high-power Feathered Crossbowmen.
• Cannon Fodder: Basically all one-star, white-tier units are useful only as cannon fodder. Deploy them only where you would expect to lose them (such as to push siege engines or draw fire from enemy trebuchets).
• Carry a Big Stick/Martial Arts Staff: Cudgel Monks are master martial artists armed only with wooden staves.
• Code of Honour: Silahdars reference one of these in their voice lines:
  Silahdars: "Fight without fear, die without regret, kill without hatred."
• Cold Sniper: Zig-zagged. Janissaries are described by their attribute page as "Patient Snipers," but are no less cold (and no more sniper) than the average musketeer. A better fit for this trope are the Matchlock Ashigaru, who shoot quite slowly but hit very hard and have voice lines like:
  "Matchlock Ashigaru, ever ready."
  "They will know us by our hail of lead."
• Cool Old Guy: The Greyhair Garrison. They are veteran soldiers who have been defending Linwu Fortress for decades and are now quite old but very skilled fighters. In-game, they use multiple types of weapons and are a flexible unit that can attack and defend with equal skill.
• Epic Flail: Iron Reapers can switch between huge two-handed swords and impractically large war flails, which can dispatch shield walls in seconds.
• Firearms Are Cowardly: Lampshaded in the lore for several musketeer units, which states that warriors of the nobility consider firearms to be peasant weapons.
• Gratuitous Ninja: Subverted—the Japanese-themed Season XVI: Sengoku came and went without any introduction of a ninja unit.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Surprisingly subverted. The closest thing the game has to katana are the tachi swords wielded by Ronin...and Ronin are one of the worst units in the game (at least at their tier).
• Keep the Home Fires Burning: Parodied with the voiceline for the Zykalian Militia (troops who throw fire grenades):
  "We keep the home fires burning."
• Kill It with Fire: Four units (Incendiary Archers, Zykalian Militia, Wuxing Pikemen, and Siphonarioi) use fire weapons. They are especially effective against rattan units, whose armor catches fire very easily. Incendiary Archers directly invoke this trope with their voice line:
  "Kill it with fire!"
• Lady of War: Onna-Musha.
• Low-Tech Spears: Most of the peasant and militia units use rudimentary spears, pikes, or javelins. In keeping with this trope, spears get increasingly rarer the higher up the rank tree you go, being exchanged for more exotic polearms like halberds, glaives, or modao.
• Mook Commander: Chevaliers have the unique ability to bring another (low-tier) unit with them into battle for free. Chevaliers also have special abilities that buff their retinue unit.
• Muggles: In a way, most if not all units are muggles compared to heroes. Most of the special abilities that heroes use would require some kind of magic to work. Also, heroes are insanely tough compared to units (and quite a bit bigger, if you'll notice), all of which indicates that they are special in some way.
• Multi-Melee Master: Several units can switch between different melee weapons:
  • Shieldmaidens can switch between swords and spears (both supported by shields).
  • Iron Reapers use [[BFS two-handed swords]] and giant war flails.
  • Varangian Guards use sword and shield by default, then switch to giant two-handed Dane axes while in rage mode.
• The Musketeer: Like archers, all musketeer units except Kriegsrat Fusiliers can switch from muskets to knives if they have to fight in close quarters. Special mention here goes to the Tercio Arquebusiers, the only musket unit with out-and-out swords instead of just daggers (and the only musket unit which is any good in melee).
• Praetorian Guard: Any unit with the Cover Commander order (which makes the unit surround you and attack nearby enemies) qualifies. There are also some specific units which are canonically bodyguards in-universe, including Palace Guards, Silahdars, Shieldmaidens, Varangian Guard, the Modao Battalion (to an extent), and the Orochi Samurai.
• Pun: Quite a few units' voice lines are punny:
  • Demesne Crossbowmen: "Are you picking a quarrel?"; Demesne Arbalists: "Like a bolt from the blue!"^note Quarrels and bolts are the proper names for the "arrows" that crossbows shoot.[[\note]]
    ** Iron Reapers: "It's harvest time!"
  • Zykalian Militia: "We keep the home fires burning."[[note]]Zykalians throw fire grenades.[[\note]]
    ** Bagpipers: "Let's take it to the bridge!"[[note]]"Bridge" is a musical term, but this is also a reference to the historical Scottish battle at Stirling Bridge.[[\note]]
    ** Houndsmen: "Let loose the dogs of war!"
  • Retiarii: "Third time's a charm."[[note]]Retiarii use tridents, or three-pronged fishing spears.[[\note]]
    ** Wuxing Pikemen: "It'll be a blast!"[[note]]Wuxing Pikemen use spears equipped like primitive shotguns and flamethrowers.[[\note]]
    ** Zweihanders: "Living on the edge."[[note]]They use huge double-edged swords.[[\note]]
    * Redshirt Army: Ultimately, your units are disposable. Your goal is to "trade" them for as many enemy troops (specifically as many high-tier ones) and as many heroes as possible before you lose them all.
• Religious Bruiser: Cudgel Monks, Crescent Monks, and Naginata Monks. Also the knights and footmen of the unnamed knightly order from the tech tree and the troops of the Order of the Sword from Season XVII: Knightfall.
  Cudgel Monks: "Humility pleases heaven."
  Men-at-Arms: "Deo gratias."[[note]]Thanks be to God
  Zweihanders: "Our every effort is directed in His service."
• The Squire: Squires.
• A Thicket of Spears: Pike and polearm units are intended to be massed into large blocks or lines with their pikes braced forward in an impenetrable hedge. Units which charge braced pikes will melt very quickly.
• Torches and Pitchforks: The armaments that most peasant units bring to the fight.
• Warrior Monk: Cudgel Monks (Shaolin martial artists), Crescent Monks (a.k.a. "Brawling Brethren"), Naginata Monks (hooded Japanese warriors), and Monastic Knights (European knightly cavalrymen).
• Warrior Poet/Cultured Warrior: The Hashashins are "highly educated and cultured, sometimes composing epic poems based on their experiences in war." Their voice lines back this up:
  "Our enemies shall fall as surely as the sun sets."
  "Our principles are beyond your understanding."
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Parodied by the Mace Sergeants, whose default voice line is:
  "When all one has is a hammer..."
  • Also played straight by the same unit, since that really is all they have.
• Worker Unit: Peasant units will rapidly be outclassed by more advanced units types, but their ability to harvest resource nodes means that they remain a part of your barracks well into the endgame, as they are the most efficient way to acquire the resources needed for fief quests.

Tropes in both heroes and units

• BFS: The Nodachi hero weapon—an enormous Japanese two-handed sword nearly six feet in length (Truth in Television, believe it or not).
  • Among the units, Iron Reapers, Claymore warriors, and Zweihanders all wield large two-handed swords.
• Cooldown: Every hero and unit ability has a cooldown.
• Cooldown Manipulation: The Blood Oath ability for Nodachi clears all skill cooldowns except for ultimates and the Monstrous Blade skill. Also, if you have Banner Guards as your unit and you pick up their banner, you can clear the charge cooldowns for nearby charge-type infantry.
  • Certain units also have abilities that reduce their own cooldowns for every time the ability hits an enemy. These include the Orochi Samurai and (with upgrades) Imperial Arquebusiers, Imperial Pike Guards, and Palace Guards.
• Devious Daggers:
  • The Dual Blades hero weapon. It's even lampshaded with the default armor sets for light heroes: Rogue and Brigand.
  • In addition, the Hashashin unit is armed only with daggers and smoke bombs.
• Dual Wielding: The Dual Blades hero weapon has you using two daggers in reverse grips, while the Chain Dart & Scimitar weapon gives you a scimitar sword with a chain dart to use like a grappling hook.
  • Several units also dual-wield weapons. Berserkers use two axes, Sons of Fenrir use a dagger and an axe, Dimachaeri use a gladius and a sica (Roman gladiator swords), and Hashashins use two different types of dagger.
• Elite Mooks: Most gold-tier (five-star) units qualify. They tend to have smaller numbers than other units but are able to survive longer and/or perform especially powerful attacks.
  • In addition, several PvE missions have you fighting NPC officers who are essentially dumbed-down heroes.
• Every Japanese Sword is a Katana: Subverted—in Conqueror's Blade, every Japanese sword is a nodachi (which is a giant tachi, not a giant katana—a giant katana would be an okatana). Even Ronin use standard-sized tachi instead of katana.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Averted - while the game has tacked on increasingly mystical elements over its lifespan, players can select a musket as their personal weapon while soldiers can use both muskets and cannons in battle.
• Heal Thyself: All heroes can self-heal with the Bandage ability, but it takes a while and usually requires you to stand still. In contrast, the Longsword and Shield hero class can give itself (and nearby allies) an instant burst of healing with its Mercy of Heaven skill. Nodachi has a unique self-healing mechanic called Life Drain - whenever you deal damage, you restore your own health.
  • Plenty of units can self-heal, too. Serfs, Iron Reapers (with upgrades), and all shieldbearer units (with doctrines or upgrades) get a first-aid skill that restores their health over time.
  • Other units have special abilities that don't just heal. Symmachean Paladins' Battle Prayer and Kriegsbruders' Full Assault abilities put the respective units into an aggressive attack mode while also healing them. Battle Prayer also heals nearby allies. Zweihanders can enter a Prepared Stance mode, which will heal them while also letting them parry away enemy attacks. When Berserkers use abilities that spend their Battle Rage, they heal as well.
  • Some units (Spear Sergeants, Men-at-Arms, Imperial Spear Guards) have upgrades that grant them a constant trickle of self-healing.
  • Still other units have Life-Drain-style mechanics like the Nodachi weapon. These include Orochi Samurai, Onna-Musha, the new Wuwei Mansion Guard, and just about anything with "monk" in the name (especially Crescent Monks).
  • Subverted with the only true "medic" units, Alchemists and Schutzdieners - they can only heal allies, not themselves.
• Knight in Shining Armor: The game seems to love these. Generally speaking, knights are some of the best melee cavalry in the game and can make mincemeat out of lesser foes, though a properly braced set of units (especially spear wielding ones) can ruin their day.
  • Completing the Tech Tree for Feudal units unlocks the Monastic Knights, which are a solid cavalry option.
  • Season 11, Paragons, introduced the French Chevaliers, which appear to be based upon Giles de Rais before he gave rise to the legend of Bluebeard.
  • Season XVII, Knightfall, focuses on knights as a whole, and introduces three knight-themed units: Schutzdieners, support archers that have the ability to fire healing arrows and are all of common birth; Kriegsbruders, sword-wielding heavy cavalry that breaks enemy lines; and finally Zweihanders, dismounted knights who wield heavy swords and can heal up before rejoining the battle.
  • Season 18, Avalon, introduces another set of units themed after the Knights of the Round Table.
• Knightly Sword and Shield: The Longsword-and-Shield hero class fits this trope perfectly—it's a two-edged arming sword with a heater shield, just like a European medieval knight would have used.
  • In fact, the unique epic armor set for Longsword is the Imperial Knight set.
  • And that's not to mention the class' various knightly special moves: Knightly Vows, Mercy of Heaven, With Valor, Sally Forth, Martial Prowess...
  • Several knight-themed units are armed with swords and shields, including Men-at-Arms, Queen's Knights, Symmachean Paladins, and the Teutonic Kriegsbruders.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Every shield in Conqueror's Blade is a physical object which will physically block incoming attacks as long as it's being held up. Tower-shield units leverage this trope to create huge, impenetrable walls of shields and keep squishier allied units safe behind them.
• The Medic: Longsword heroes can heal themselves and allies with the Mercy of Heaven skill. Alchemists and Schutzdieners are units dedicated to healing.
• Naginatas Are Feminine: the all-female Onna-Musha unit from the Japanese-themed Season XVI: Sengoku wields naginata.
  • The lore from the Great Sanada naginata skin for Glaive from the same season reveals that it was wielded by women in defense of their hometown during the Sengoku period.
• No "Arc" in "Archery": Subverted—all arrows arc when shot. In fact, the proper way to use archer units is to leverage this arc by ordering them to shoot up and over obstacles (so they can stay behind cover while raining death on the enemy).
  • For the bow hero classes, the arcing is less pronounced but still there. In fact, the Longbow class features a set of artillery-style mil dots to help you aim and predict the arc of your shot.
• Poisoned Weapons: Shortbow can shoot poisoned arrows with its Poison Arrow and Angry Hornets skills. The Bo-Shurikens skill for Dual Blades has you throwing poisoned daggers.
  • All units from the Rattan Army use poisoned weapons (mostly arrows) or can obtain poison effects from mastery upgrades.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender:
  • Male and female player characters perform exactly the same.
  • Played with in the case of the three all-female units (Shieldmaidens, Alchemists, and Onna-Musha)—they cannot take generic cosmetics and must use only their own unique sets.
• Rain of Arrows: Archer units invoke this trope every time they shoot (especially since most such units number 20 or more soldiers).
  • The Longbow hero class has a literal Rain of Arrows skill (it shoots up to twelve arrows off the bow at once).
• Rōnin: Season XVI: Sengoku introduced Ronin as a unit. There is also a hero armor cosmetic called the Nameless Ronin set.
• Samurai: Season XVI: Sengoku introduced the Orochi Samurai unit as well as two samurai-themed hero armor cosmetics, the Shadow Muraji and Red Stag sets.
  • There are some other samurai-themed armor cosmetics from earlier seasons and events, including the Samurai of Fury, Samurai Champion, Immortal, and Lord of the Sea sets.
• Shield Bash: Both the Shortsword and Longsword hero classes come with shields—and they both feature multiple shield-bashing moves. Shortsword has Barricade and Shielded Charge; Longsword has Sally Forth, Clash of Shields, and Counterattack; and both classes have a move literally called "Shield Bash."
  • Some units (Men-at-Arms, Imperial Spear Guard, Huskarls, and Queen's Knights) also have shield-bash abilities.
• Shields Are Useless: Completely subverted—every shield works.
• Smoke Out: Smoke bombs are used by multiple units (Alchemists, Hashashins) and multiple hero classes (Dual Blades, Chain Dart & Scimitar) to blind the enemy, reducing their movement speed, or to get the user out of harm's way. (And yes, Dual Blades' Alchemical Vapors move does use a smoke bomb, even though it doesn't look like it.)
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: Both the Cudgel Monks unit and the Spear hero class have a move (Six-Way Staff for Monks, Lugh's March for Spear) where the user twirls their staff (or spear) and blocks incoming arrows as they do so.
  • Subverted with the Pike hero weapon—Cold Dragon has you twirling the pike, but it doesn't block anything.
• Trick Arrow: both of the archer hero classes and the majority of archer (and crossbow) units have some kind of special arrow available to them.
  • The Longbow hero can shoot flaming arrows, explosive arrows, armor-piercing bodkin arrows, and an especially powerful "Lightning-Bolt" arrow that can railgun through multiple enemies.
  • Shortbow heroes can shoot poison arrows, armor-piercing steel-tipped arrows, and special concussion arrows that stun targets.
  • Among the units, you will find poison arrows (Rattan Vipers, Marksmen, and Rangers), flaming arrows (Incendiary Archers and, with upgrades, Ironcap Archers), armor-piercing arrows (Imperial Archers, Namkhan Archers, Pavise Crossbowmen), stun arrows (Houndsmen), and even healing arrows (Schutzdieners).
  • Special mention for Outriders, who throw incendiary and explosive javelins.

Tropes in gameplay and mechanics

• Annoying Arrows: Zig-zagged. Most archer units are much less powerful than musketeers (balancing their lack of damage with greater range, fire rate, and numbers). However, most four-star archers (and even a couple from the three-star level, especially Prefecture Archers) can become absolute powerhouses of damage-dealing with proper upgrades and battlefield management.
  • Played completely straight with the two hero bows, which do so little damage per second that they are more annoying than dangerous.
• Body-Count Competition: Each player can only bring a certain number of troops into battle, and while player characters respawn after death, regular NPC soldiers stay dead. If either team runs out of units before they can complete their objective, they will usually be overrun quickly. Thus, much of each match is spent trying to bring the opposing team's troop count down as low as possible.
• Breaching the Wall: For a game dedicated to siege warfare, this trope is surprisingly rare. Only a few maps (Reginopolis, Empyrean Sands, Heilung Fjord, White Elk Fort) have breachable walls, and then only the specific points on the wall marked as weak can be breached. Also, the only way to open up a breach is to use trebuchet strikes or small one-man artillery pieces - battering rams are only used on gates.
• Breakable Weapons: Both weapons and armor deteriorate as they are used and must be repaired eventually. A better option, however, is to take them to be reforged by the Armorer, which can give you improvements in stats on top of the repairs.
• Call That a Formation?: Defied - all units have at least two formations they can switch between (generally a bunched up formation to defend against charges and a spread-out one to lessen accuracy of ranged attackers), and switching between them can help limit casualties or be the differences between a rout and a repulsed attack. Certain units also have a third formation, which is often a wedge-shaped one designed for offensive fighting.
• Death from Above: Players on the attacking team can call for their army's trebuchets to launch barrages of huge explosive fireballs at any point on the map - the Conqueror's Blade equivalent of airstrikes or (more literally) artillery barrages.
• Equipment Upgrade: You can reforge weapons and armor at the Armorer for a chance to get improved stats.
• Item-Drop Mechanic: You receive small amounts of loot whenever you win a battle in the open world (against bandits, other players, or enemy fiefs).
• Mook Depletion: The reality of every Conqueror's Blade battle.
• One-Man Army: Subverted—no hero can charge right into the middle of the enemy army all by himself and expect to come out alive. It's even difficult to take on one unit of troops all by yourself.
• Refining Resources: The majority of resources found in the game can be converted via the refiner into different resources, though this won't necessarily affect the quality of said resources. This is particularly important because crafting unit kits often requires refined resources - cotton must be converted into cloth before it can be used for crafting.
• Regenerating Shield, Static Health: A hero's or unit's health will not regenerate unless they are healed, but their block value (how many hits their shield can absorb) will slowly recover if left alone for long enough.
• Siege Engines: In each siege battle, attackers get access to three varieties of siege engines to use against the enemy's walls:
  • Battering Rams to destroy the gates;
  • Siege Towers to get troops up on the walls;
  • And trebuchets to use for artillery strikes.
• Tech Tree: Unlockable units are sorted into a set of tech trees divided by specialization, which are in turn subdivided based upon culture and weapon type. These are, in order:
  • Melee infantry, consisting of pike and spear infantry (including javelin throwers) as well as peasant units and Asian sword units.
  • Ranged infantry, divided between bow, crossbow, and musket users.
  • Cavalry, divided between spear-wielding (almost universally European), sword-wielding (Asian), and mounted archers (Asian).
  • Chivalric, covering European feudal forces (feudal spearman, spear sergeants, squires, men-at-arms, and monastic knights).
  • Rattan, representing all non-seasonal Middle-Eastern forces, and are named after their armor type.

Tropes in theme and seasons

• Brave Scot: Season X: Highlanders fits this trope so well. It's a mishmash of Scottish military culture and folklore from ancient and recent history, all with a clear Braveheart theme and set in the Wars of Scottish Independence. The Claymore unit's voice lines summarize this perfectly:
  "For the clans! For our king! For freedom!!!"
• Byzantine Empire: Season V: Legacy of Fire is based on the history and fall of the Byzantine Empire. The city of Reginopolis stands in for the real-life Constantinople.
• Church Militant: The Order of the Sword from Season XVII: Knightfall, a militant knightly order based on the real-life Teutonic Order.
  "Heretics beware!"
  "Die, heretic!"
• Excalibur: The King-Arthur-themed Season XVIII: Avalon featured a Longsword cosmetic skin called "Excalibur's Heir."
• Formula-Breaking Episode: Season IX: Tyranny—the only season which originates totally in-universe and is not based on a historical empire, event, character, organization, or region.
• Gladiator Games: ''Season XIII: Colosseum''.
• Grim Up North: Where the eponymous villain from Season VI: Scourge of Winter and his army come from.
• The Hashshashin: Season XIV: Scorpio is based on the real-life Order of Assassins and features a Hashashin unit as well as Hashashin-themed hero and weapon cosmetics.
• Hordes from the East: Season II: Wrath of the Nomads was themed after the Mongol hordes under Genghis Khan.
• Horny Vikings: Season VII: Wolves of Ragnarok and Season XII: Helheim are both Viking-themed—and you can bet there are plenty of horned helmets to be seen.
• Imperial China: Not surprising since the game's makers are Chinese, but there is a lot of medieval Chinese theming in Conqueror's Blade - everything from the Ironcap, Prefecture, Imperial, and Rattan armies of units to the three Tang-themed seasons (Dynasty, Eternal, and Dragonrise) and from the dozens of generic Chinese-styled hero attires to the three eastern regions of Maoyang, Liangyun, and Longting.
• La Résistance: The premise of Season IX: Tyranny is that the warlords and freemen of the Borderlands have to rise up and rebel against the Tyrant in order to regain their lost freedom.
• Million Mook March: Some season trailers (especially Eternal and Knightfall) feature scenes with hundreds or thousands of the new seasonal units marching in formation.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: Season IX: Tyranny has a sort of medieval Mad Max aesthetic, complete with weapons cobbled together from parts of other weapons. Examples include a poleaxe with a bunch of smaller hatchet heads pinned to a full-length haft; a nodachi whose blade is just a bunch of other blades welded together; and a shortsword which is basically a sawblade lashed to a crowbar.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Almost all of the seasons are thinly-disguised fictionalizations of real historical wars or empires - and any characters who pop up in these settings are even more thinly disguised. Thus we have Fatiyh Suleiman for Suleiman the Magnificent, Gabrielle-Maelys for Joan of Arc, Harald the Slaughterer for Harald Hardrada, King Edmund of Loegria for King Edward I of England, and the Wildwood Ranger for Robin Hood.
  • And then there's the Sanada clan from the Sengoku season - whose names aren't even changed at all.
• Post-Apunkalyptic Armor: The cosmetics from Season IX: Tyranny. In the lore, the Borderlands have been ravaged by natural disasters and the rise to power of the bloodthirsty, destructive Tyrant, so the brave heroes are left to scavenge whatever they can get to arm themselves. The result is a sort of medieval Mad Max aesthetic.
• Scarred Equipment: The weapons and armor from Season IX: Tyranny.
  • Hero attire sets and weapons from previous seasons have antique, weathered versions which can be purchased in the seasonal store.
• Sengoku Period: Surprise, surprise - this is the setting for Season XVI: Sengoku.
• Shout-Out:
  • Season X: Highlanders is a pretty obvious Shout-Out to Braveheart—especially in the trailer.
  • The trailer and other promo videos for Season XV: Eternal look suspiciously similar to Total War: Three Kingdoms.
  • Both of the Viking seasons, especially Wolves of Ragnarok, closely resemble the aesthetic of Series/Vikings.
  • The daily quest for forging a weapon or piece of armor is called "Forge and Fire".
• Spikes of Villainy: The eponymous villain of Season VI: Scourge of Winter wears a helmet and cuirass replete with spikes.
• Turks with Troops: Season IV: Blood of the Empire was themed after the Ottoman Empire around the siege of Constantinople.
• The Thunderdome: Season XIII: Colosseum introduced a special game mode themed after Roman gladiator fights and set in a replica of the Flavian Amphitheater, or Colosseum.
• Vestigial Empire: The kingdom of Empyros. In bygone years, it was a military and political powerhouse, but after King John I ran it into the ground, it was conquered and never recovered. Other seasons' lore implies that the fall of Empyros was fairly recent, at least within living history (since the current Norse king Harald the Slaughterer was once an Empyrean guardsman and there are still Empyrean officers fighting in the Gladiator Games in Anadolou).
• Winter Warfare: Season VI: Scourge of Winter took place during a particularly nasty winter that struck the Alpine region of Ostaria. In keeping with the theme, Ostaria and all of its Territory-War maps were given a snowed-over look (which didn't change the gameplay much, by the way).

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