Using them is a valid strategy.
H.A.M (Heroic Armies Marching) is a combination Card Game and Turn Based Strategy. The underlying concept is that each card is either a handful of units to be placed upon the game grid, or a spell for messing around with the battle. The game is full of satirical fantasy elements. Dire sloths are pitted against omnipotent space bats, man-eating demons against eldritch horrors. The game is rather simple, with an AI mode, a 2 player mode, and a tutorial.
Takes Rule of Cool and Rule of Funny and makes a fantasy world out of it.
Play it here: http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/171985-h-a-m-heroic-armies-marching
Tropes used include:
- Abnormal Ammo: The Dragon-born Brute has a mini-gun that fires depleted unicorn horns.
- Advanced Ancient Acropolis: The Armadillokin were implied to have one, before they went extinct.
- Art Evolution: From the original version.
- Most notably the terrain.
- Asteroids Monster: Twin Burgers turn into 2 Baby Burgers on death.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Arachne, who is pretty much a giant spidertaur.
- Bare-Fisted Monk: The Ausalian Queen, capable of taking down huge demons, and breaking down walls with nothing more than her bare hands. And robot legs.
- Batter Up!: Duckkin Enforcers.
- Black Mage: Pretty much every spellcaster, the Mad Wizard most notably.
- Breath Weapon: The Arachnelisk is capable of spewing webs from its mouth.
- BFG: The Dragonborn Brute has a magical mini-gun.
- BFS: Zargletords' sword is larger than the most units.
- Bullet Hell: The Hamsterkin Rocket Trooper is able to attack in the form of gyrorockets that can slowly cover the entire board.
- The SS Armageddon is able to summon twice as many gyrorockets, and is still able to attack afterwards!
- Cast from Hit Points: The Mad Wizard takes one point of damage (in the form of an explosion) every time it attacks.
- The Fleep is able to heavily damage itself to permanently increase its attack and counterattack significantly.
- Combat Medic: Dragonborn healers have petitioned to be renamed Dragonborn mages.
- The Mobile Supply Depot is the most obvious example.
- Covers Always Lie: The DJ Spew's card image.
- The total attack power of all the units attacking Booger on his card equal 10, meaning Booger should be dead.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Artillery cannot move and attack in the same turn.
- Death of a Thousand Cuts: Flesh Guards take a fixed amount of extra damage from direct attacks, making this a viable strategy for taking them out with ease.
- Dual Boss: The Heroes card is the only unique card in the game that gives you multiple different units.
- Eldritch Abomination: Zorspoink, the Non-Euclidean Bat. He created the world and is also a bit of a jerk. His card and in-game sprite is the only one that is animated.
- Vnuh Smuj'kurfh.
- In Vs. Zorspoink mode, unprotected characters will morph into Eldritch Abominations.
- Emphasize EVERYTHING: THE BEAST
- Enemy Summoner: Mommma Burger, SS Armageddon, Hamsterkin Rocket Trooper, Dirigibill, and Oozinite.
- Genius Bruiser: Hamsterkin Brutes use Awesome by Analysis in conjunction with massive wrenches. They also use their intelligence to organize their diets and exercise routines, to get strong in the first place.
- Glass Cannon: THE BEAST, a card that deals huge amounts of damage and counterattack, but only has 4 health.
- Golem: Fish Golems, Mana Golems, Shit Golems
- Humongous Mecha: The SS Armageddon.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Ausalian Queen.
- Living Shadow: The Shadow Stalker, which cannot take damage, but must be behind an allied unit for it to attack or even live.
- Magic Knight: The Daeva Spellblade
- Mighty Glacier:
- Zar'Gletords. He can't move and attack in the same turn, and has no counterattack, but he attacks with a BFS that reaches 3 squares away, dealing massive damage to all in his path.
- The Oozinite qualifies. It is capable of attacking in any direction, however, attacking creates a wall of mini-oozes around it, preventing it from moving.
- The Minion Master: Momma Burgers aren't good fighters, but they can spawn two Baby Burgers per turn.
- Oozinites can create up to four Mini-Oozes each turn.
- Monster Allies: You can make decks with whichever cards you want.
- More Dakka: The S.S.Armageddon
- To a lesser extent, the Dragonborn Brute
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Arachne Cultists, as well as Arachne herself.
- Mook: Soldiers
- Slave Mook: Goblins
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Steamroll Manfuckers
- Non-Ironic Clown: Circus Midgets, and by extension, Circus Cavalry.
- Our Goblins Are Different: Goblins in this world are incredibly stupid and are also weaker than an infant. Speaking of which, Goblin Babies are units that can be summoned in groups of 10 for 4 gold. They are described as so weak, their skin peels off like wet paper. Do note that the card image features a goblin baby caving its own head in with a rattler.
- Our Demons Are Different: While Minor and Wild demons play it straight, Major demons can be good-aligned, and are made more powerful by faith.
- Precision F-Strike: Steamroll Manfucker.
- The Rock Star: Dragonborn bard.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: The Ausalian Queen.
- Running Gag: All horses have incredibly silly facial expressions, save for the Circus Cavalry.
- Shirtless Scene: Orcs and Dwarf Berserkers.
- Shout-Out: Several:
- The Cavalry Mages are "Powered by the Magic of Friendship". Red Team's cavalry mage's horse resembles Fluttershy, while Blue Team's cavalry mage's horse looks like Rainbow Dash.
- The Hamsterkin Saboteur sure looks a lot like the Team Fortress 2 Demoman...
- The Batkin Vigilante's enemies include Clowns and Scarecrows.
- The Burger enemies are all named after burgers in the A&W chain.
- The Dopefish, a rare card that has a very low chance of being drawn instead of other cards.
- The Hulk is fairly obvious.
- The Dragonborn Warlord is pretty much Barney
- Squishy Wizard: Daeva Mages.
- Subverted by Daeva Celestials and Mad Wizards, though.
- Stock Monsters: Oozinites, Arachnelisks, Goblins, Dragons, Mecha-Mooks, The Undead, Golems, and many others.
- Stone Wall: The Dire Sloth.
- Summon Bigger Fish: Bigger Frog, which always has more health than the unit on the field with the most health.
- Summon Magic: The Summon Zombie and Summon Mana Golem spells.
- Super-Strength: The Snakekin Race have enhanced strength, equal to that of their tails.
- Uplifted Animal: Ossington the Walrus, a factoid spouting critter on the main page.
- Videogame Cruelty Potential: Using Goblin Babies in battle.
- Baby burgers as well.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Snakekin can't move if their tails are subjected to extreme temperatures, as they are cold-blooded from the waist down.
- A Wizard Did It: Chimaeras
- Wrench Wench: The Hamsterkin Rockettrooper.
- Zerg Rush: Baby Burgers can move the turn they are placed.
- Goblin Babies could qualify due to the sheer number you get, but they are slow moving.
- Zombie Apocalypse: One of the AI decks features only zombies.
