TF2 action up the wazoo!
Crash Maul is a Source Filmmaker animator, being the creator behind some very popular Team Fortress 2-based action videos. Their videos are all part of a continuous universe with a recurring cast of characters.- Rise of the Epic Scout
(2012) - Meet The Rabid Heavy Taming Engineer (2014)
- The Fight for Sawmill (2015)
- Like White on Spy (2020)
The creator's work provides examples of:
- Badass Normal:
- The Rabid-Heavy-Taming Engineer is largely a "Normal" mercenary, unlike Epic Scout and the nigh-unstoppable man-bear, and yet can go toe-to-toe with Epic Scout and tamed said nigh-unstoppable man-bear. Another example is the Samurai Demo who goes toe-to-toe with the Rabid Heavy and actually manages to cut off one of his gauntlets; it's not much, but he still fares much, much better than the rest of the mooks.
- The White Spy doesn't have much in terms of powers or skills that could be classified as a power (besides sheer luck). Only relying on his raw skill and wits to take down the entire Cobra gang.
- Battle in the Rain: The entirety of The Fight For Sawmill takes place in the titular map, with Epic Scout, Rabid Heavy and Cowboygineer facing off in the rain.
- The Brute: The hockey mask-wearing beefcake that the Cobras have. He can survive multiple explosions and vehicle crashes, and shrugs off having his finger removed.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The BLU Spy in The Fight for Sawmill. Appeared twice before the fight, once fanboying over the Epic Scout, and second were he was about to be killed by the Rabid Heavy before Scout saves him. Ends up saving Epic Scout from the explosion at the Center Shed.
- Cherry Tapping: The Red Spy (later identified as Agent 35) has the not-yet-Epic Scout at his mercy and is about to execute him with an Ambassador shot to the head, but instead decides to shoot him in the stomach twice and leaves the him to a slow, painful death from bleeding out. He comes to regret it.
- Cool Versus Awesome: "The Fight for Sawmill" is The Epic Scout, an utterly unstoppable One-Man Army, versus The Rabid Heavy Taming Engineer, a Revolver Ocelot-esque cowboy, and his Implacable Man bear-esque pet.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Happens twice in Meet the Rabid Heavy Taming Engineer, with the BLU team utterly dominating RED (to the point where a BLU Scout can casually relax while his Sniper friend takes out the one gunning for him)...and then the eponymous Engineer shows up and siccs his pet on BLU, who proceeds to effortlessly slaughter them.
- Finger in a Barrel: Epic Scout does this twice in the series using his gun to prematurely set off explosives inside of the barrels.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Even with the amount of liberties taken for the sake of Rule of Cool, some of the Red Team's weapons in "Rise of the Epic Scout" don't behave like they do in-game, frequently omitting their primary drawbacks:
- The Red Pyro's Phlogistinator sprays normal flames instead of energy beams.
- The Red Demoman is able to blind-detonate his sticky bombs while using the Scottish Resistance, when normally you have to manually target the stickies you want to detonate.
- The Red Heavy is able to walk forward at normal speed while revving the Brass Beast.
- The Red Spy's Dead Ringer is abused as a straight-up "Get out of Death Free" device with no cooldown period, and seems to completely protect him from harm (normally it only protects for 75% of damage taken when used).
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: No one in Crash Maul's universe is particularly good or particularly bad (though there are some sadists on both teams), just mercenaries who kill opponents and care for their teams.
- Hand Cannon: The revolver that the hockey masked-Cobra member wields has such a cartoonishly high caliber that it can literally disembowel people with a single shot.
- Healing Potion: Apparently, some scrumpy and a can of bonk not only completely heals severe bullet wounds like a medigun, it also turns people into superhuman badasses! Somewhat Justified as bonk is a radioactive energy drink.
- Heroic Mime: The Epic Scout is almost this, as he only has a one-liner or two due to the fact he's in intense combat 90% of the time. The Bear-Taming Engineer as well, who isn't shown speaking at all.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: Twice done in "Rise of the Epic Scout", as a result of Epic Scout's habit of using the enemies' weapons against them. In particular, the RED Engineer is killed by his own Sentry and the RED Spy, who had been abusing his Dead Ringer during the final battle, has the tables turned on him when the Scout steals his Dead Ringer, and then executes the Spy with his own Enforcer.
- It Only Works Once:
- In The Fight for Sawmill, Epic Scout tries to pull the same "steal gun with super speed and shoot them in the head from behind" maneuver from his debut, but unfortunately for him Cowboygineer quickly catches on what Scout was trying to do.
- The White Spy is prone to bumbling and making mistakes, but rarely does them twice. Taking people by surprise when they expect him to be incompetent, when he's actually very skilled.
- The Juggernaut: Rabid Heavy repeatedly rams into normally instant-kill obstacles and snaps them in half. He's still moving (Albeit ash-gray and with all his gear gone) after being an the epicenter of a massive explosion.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: In Like White On Spy, this happens to a Heavy member of the Cobra gang, while he restrains the White Spy in the back of a moving car by strangling him and pointing the Spy's gun away from him by gripping the silencer:Cobra Heavy: Your luck runs out! Did you think you could beat me? [simultaneously, like lightning, the White Spy twists his gun so that it detaches from its silencer] Now, we—oh--[promptly gets shot in the face]
- Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: The RED Spy tosses his weapons away before making this challenge to the Epic Scout. Of course, the Spy cheats by pulling out a second knife. Epic Scout returns the favor by swiping his Dead Ringer.
- Men Are the Expendable Gender: In "Like White On Spy", the female leader of the Cobra gang lives, while her entourage of male subordinates is wiped out.
- The Nose Knows: Rabid heavy can sniff out his enemies. His Establishing Character Moment is to decapitate a cloaked spy.
- Offscreen Teleportation: The Epic Scout's reflexes are eventually humorously exaggerated to these levels.
- Oh, Crap!: Both sides have members giving this reaction occasionally, which is understandable given that the protagonists are nigh-invulnerable superhumans.
- The RED Sniper in "Epic Scout" gives a look that can only be described as this when the room he's in gets filled by explosives from his own team's Demoman in an effort to flush out the Scout.
- RED Spy at the end of the same video, when he pulls out his gun only to find his hand empty a second later... and Scout had just stolen his Dead Ringer.
- The BLU Sniper in "Rabid Heavy Taming Engineer" tenses up (complete with Wacky Sound Effect) when he hears the Rabid Heavy growling from right beside him.
- The White Spy gets a very brief one near the end of his film. After disarming Cobra at knifepoint and ejecting the unspent bullet from her pistol, he gives her a sly kiss and turns to walk away. She stops to contemplate it... For all of five seconds before he hears her re-chamber the round and shoot him in the shoulder.
- Origins Episode: "Rise of the Epic Scout" is about your typical underdog Scout turned into a superpowered One-Man Army.
- Rasputinian Death: After his team gets mowed down, the (not yet Epic) BLU Scout gets one from the RED team. He gets shot by a Sentry, thrown out a window by Heavy and breaks his arm on landing, and then kneecapped by the Sniper when he tries to run. He agonizingly drags himself back to the spawn room, where he is met by the Spy, who shoots him twice in the gut and leaves him to bleed out. Thanks to the RED Scout and Demoman, he gets better... and then some.
- The Rival:
- The RED Spy is the only remote threat to The Epic Scout in "Rise of the Epic Scout".
- Same with the BLU Engineer and Heavy-Taming Engineer. Who lead the charge against Cowboygineer during "Meet The Rabid Heavy Taming Engineer".
- Epic Scout and the Rabid Heavy/Cowboygineer duo are more fitting rivals. And it's implied The Fight for Sawmill was just the beginning.
- Rolling Attack: The Rabid Heavy takes on straight out of Blanka's playbook early on in The Fight for Sawmill.
- Serial Escalation: It is truly epic watching Crash Maul's filmmaking talent and ambition evolve through eight years.
- Rise of the Epic Scout was made just five months after Source Filmmaker was released to the public, so it was a rather humble but still ambitious project.
- Meet the Rabid Heavy Taming Engineer features a major increase in ambitious fight choreography, smooth animation, and worldbuilding.
- The Fight for Sawmill was an epic crossover with an even bigger production value than the last two films.
- And finally, Like White on Spy was a full-blown 18 minute short film with three voice actors and several action scenes across different settings.
- Shoot the Bullet: The Engineer deals with a Loose Cannon-wielding Demoman by shooting a fired cannonball, causing it to rebound into the Demoman's and explode.
- Smug Snake: Most of the RED Team in "Rise of the Epic Scout", particularly the RED Scout, Heavy and Spy. Yes, they did start off against (save for the Scout) a team of idiots, and they're plenty capable in combat once push comes to shove, but they're also far too confident in their advantages and continually underestimate the Epic Scout, to their detriment.
- Super-Reflexes / Dodge the Bullet: The Epic Scout can dodge barrages of close-quarters automatic gun-fire. This superpower of his is taken to comedic proportions at the end of "Rise of the Epic Scout" where he pretty much teleports behind the Spy and somehow stole his revolver in under a millisecond.
- Super-Strength: Rabid Heavy's primary advantage, on top of his sheer durability, is being illogically strong. He punches a Pyro hard enough to send his head flying into a demoman with enough force to send his head flying into a medic with enough force to send that head into a heavy, whose head is embedded into the wall.
- Too Dumb to Live: Epic Scout's original team definitely qualifies, in order of moments; Soldier panics and runs around knocking over Sniper and causing Spy to choke on a couple packs worth of cigarettes while Soldier runs outside only to be headshot by RED Sniper. BLU Sniper gets up while putting his hat on upside down before going outside and aiming his rifle... at his own head and shooting himself. Demoman ends up being face to face with RED Soldier as he tried to ready his grenade launcher, we see that Demo can't see to save his life before he gets an Equalizer to his good eye. Medic attempts to use his medigun on Heavy only to break it as it blew up in his hands and set Heavy on fire. Heavy jumps into the water outside to put himself out only for Pyro to set him back on fire. Engineer attempts to build a sentry only to knock out BLU Pyro before he gets blown up by RED Demoman. By technicality, BLU Pyro was the only one to avert this but as mentioned before BLU Engie knocked them out before they could get themselves killed.
- Unorthodox Reload: You'll never see Epic Scout reloading a gun the normal way.
- Villain Ball: Instead of just shooting the BLU Scout in the head and being done with it, RED Spy lowers his gun and shoots the Scout twice in the gut before leaving him to bleed out. Needless to say, this comes back to bite him when the same Scout later becomes Epic Scout.
- Villainous Friendship: The RED Demoman and Scout, the ones who taunted and tortured the Epic Scout before his rise, obviously have a genuine, almost teenage-like friendship with each other.
- Your Head A-Splode: Epic Scout kills the RED Engineer by trapping him beneath his own Sentry, crushing his head between the Sentry's main body and the rocket launcher barrel as it tries to reload.
