History Main / DefensiveFeintTrap

* Iorek of ''HisDarkMaterials'' does this. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome And it is totally freaking awesome.]]

* Resident CrazyAwesome general Mat does this in the the 5th book of the WheelOfTime series. He's gathered together two companies of cavalry and some pikemen and bowman in the midst of a chaotic battle. One skirmish in particular, he sets the pikes up in a box, or "hedgehog", with bowmen hidden on the hills to either side, and send his cavalry off to the North and South. once he knows the enemy is coming, he has the pikes march directly towards them, then suddenly retreat to a pass between the hills. ''"They will think we wanted to run, then realised we could not and turned like a bear to the hounds. Seeing us less than half their number and fighting because we must, they would think to roll right over us. Can we but hold their attention until the horse comes down on them from behind...."'' It works, partially due to the enemy leader being with this lot, and a call of "[[IShallTauntYou Protect]] [[BerserkButton the]] [[TheMessiah Lord Dragon]]!" goes out. It's a CurbStompBattle and Mat ends up [[spoiler: killing Couladin, the enemy leader in single combat.]]

* Played Straight, and then Happened Accidentally by the Americans at the [[TheAmericaRevolution Battle of Cowpens]]. The Americans were in 3 lines. The first two lines were to fire and retreat to the 3rd line, in order to tempt the British to charge in headlong for the kill. This trap didn't quite work, and resulted in stalemate. When the British hit the third line, it buckled and fell back, promting the British to charge for real. The American line halted, about faced, and [[OhCrap fired at point-blank range into the British]]. The battle ended quickly after that.

* Played Straight, and then Happened Accidentally by the Americans at the Battle of Cowpens. The Americans were in 3 lines. The first two lines were to fire and retreat to the 3rd line, in order to tempt the British to charge in headlong for the kill. This trap didn't quite work, and resulted in stalemate. When the British hit the third line, it buckled and fell back, promting the British to charge for real. The American line halted, about faced, and [[OhCrap fired at point-blank range into the British]]. The battle ended quickly after that.

* Played Straight, and then Happened Accidentally by the Americans at the Battle of Cowpens. The Americans were in 3 lines. The first two lines were to fire and retreat to the 3rd line, in order to tempt the British to charge in headlong for the kill. This trap didn't quite work, and resulted in stalemate. When the British hit the third line, it buckled and fell back, promting the British to charge for real. The American line halted, about faced, and fired at point-blank range into the British. The battle ended quickly after that.

* This happens quite a bit in RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms; [[TheChessmaster Zhuge Liang]] was such a master of such traps that the one time his rival came across him sitting on top of a small fort-city playing calming music, gates wide open, and the streets empty except for a few janitors, the rival decided to back off in case of an ambush. (Turned out to be a RefugeInAudacity--Zhuge Liang didn't have the forces for a confrontation.)

This can be done either by heroes or villains, though heroes tend to consider such tactics "dishonorable". When done to a hero, the trap's fatality depends on the heroes level of BoringInvincibleHero, but will usually give them at least a good run for their money.

** Sakura also used one of these to get rid of Sasori's Kazekage puppet. After getting nicked by one of his PoisonedWeapons she takes one of the antidotes, which Sasori didn't know she had, while hiding doing do with said (large) weapon and destroyed the Kazekage puppet when it when in for the CoupDeGrace.

* In the''{{Freelancer}}'' backstory, the GMG's main tactic during the 80 Years War was to lure the Rheinland ships into explosive gas pockets in the GMG's home nebulae.

[[AC: RealLife]]
* The Alamo

->''"If there are no sharks in the water, it's probably because the crocodiles have eaten them."''
--> -- '''Australian saying'''

** Wolfenstein 3D featured a level where opening a door would cause an army of Nazis to come at you from all directions. A sound tactic here (and all around the game) was to retreat to a earlier (hidden) room and as the enemies followed you, open on them with a machine gun since they're conveniently bunched up and bottlenecked at the entrance.

* Although it's an Attack method, {{Order of the Stick}}'s Roy uses this on a ogre with a spiked chain build. Luring him towards the cliff that it falls over after mindlessly leaping backwards.

* Often happens with Demomen or Engineers in ''TeamFortress 2.'' A Demoman will lay a stick bomb carpet somewhere, or an Engineer will put up a sentry, then they'll go off and engage the enemy. If planned properly, they can simply retreat into the sticky bombs or the sentry and kill their opponent instantly.

** Pyros, too. A common tactic when outgunned is to retreat...but stop just around the next corner, flamethrower ready. Works best if the Pyro's managed to puff some flame at whoever is going to give chase before said chase starts.

* SunTzu made it clear of the importence of Feigned Retreat through his book ''TheArtOfWar''.

* An accidental one of these is what basically won the Battle of Hastings for William the Conquerer. Harold's forces had a strong position at the top of a hill, and William's plan to remove them had basically failed because Harold's shield wall was so strong and well disciplined. The battle devolved into vicious hand-to-hand fighting at the shield wall until a unit of Williams, nearly destroyed, turned and ran down the hill. Nearby units (realising that their flank was now open to attack) turned and ran too. Some of Harold's forces gave chase and in the following melee, the battle completely changed face. Harold's forces who gave chase were essentially butchered, leaving a hole in his lines. William regrouped and attacked again, only this time the now weakened shield wall faltered and he won the battle.

** In Diablo II, named monsters have a group of mook buddies that stick to them on an AI "leash." Getting mobbed is a ''very'' real danger in this game (each hit disables you for a set amount of time, leading to a CycleOfHurting if there's a lot of things hitting you at once.) Thus, the pack of normally-laughable friends who avert this trope tend to be more dangerous than the miniboss itself.

* In ''{{Final Fantasy XII}}: Revenant Wings'', enemy leaders and yarhi/espers/whatever will often do this in battles involving Summoning Gates and Soul Crystals. Naturally, the group that had had the command to 'attack' will continue to follow the command, and chase after them if not interecepted quickly. If not intecepted.....then, well the group will end up in a trap of ever-spawning leaders or yarhi/espers/whatever from the Summoning Gate/Soul Crystal, and either fight till they die, of get very injured/die whilst they escape.

* Often happens with Demomen or Engineers in ''TeamFortress 2.'' A demoman will lay a stick bomb carpet somewhere, or an Engineer will put up a sentry, then they'll go off and engage the enemy. If planned properly, they can simply retreat into the sticky bombs or the sentry and kill their opponent instantly.

** Pyros, too. A common tactic when outgunned is to retreat...but stop just around the next corner, flamethrower ready. Works best if the Pyro's managed to puff some flame at whoever's going to give chase before said chase starts.
* In ''DragonAge'', this is basically the entire battle plan for Ostagar: Lure the darkspawn (orcs, basically,) into charging the main force, ambush them from behind. [[spoiler: We'll never know for sure if it would've worked, thanks to Loghain having other ideas.]]

Two enemies are fighting, though only one is doing so furiously. The other is going for pure defense, not so much fighting as retreating as fast as prudence will allow. With such a resounding rout, the attacker presses his advantage and just before landing the finishing blow... notices he's followed the defender into a nest of his allies. OhCrap.

* In the ''{{Dragonlance}}'' novels during the siege of the High Clerists tower during the War of the Lance the Draconians pulled this off on the overconfident Solamnic forces.

** Wolfenstein 3D featured a level where opening a door would cause an army of Nazis to come at you from all directions. A good tactic was to retreat to a hidden room and as the enemies followed you, open on them with a machine gun since they were now bunched up.