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Templar Battleforce is a Strategy RPG/Turn-Based Tactics game, released in September 2015 for PC, and for iOS devices a month later. It was developed by Trese Brothers, and based in their Star Traders universe.

There, you are playing as Mini-Mecha-piloting warriors that carry the memories of their ancestors known as Templars, who are tasked with defending humanity against both alien threats, rogue humans, and potentially something even more threatening.

Templar Battleforce contains examples of:

  • Amazon Brigade: Doable due to Purely Aesthetic Gender.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: The number of soldiers you can bring with you at the start varies from mission to mission, though you can bring in more mid-mission by "requisitioning" them.
  • Area of Effect: An icon shows which abilities can target more than one target. Even some unit's basic attacks can hit multiple targets, having equal effect against anyone caught in the blast. Also, some abilities with an area of effect have a cap on the number of units targetted, which can be improved through levelling up.
  • Berserker, The: One of the unlockable recruit options, literally called this.
  • BFG: Nearly every templar has one, but the biggest belongs to the Neptune mech, whose tagline is "heavy weapons specialist."
  • Boarding Party: In one of the first missions a Xeno ship crashes into the templar ship it was fighting, leading to this. Your job is to repel the invaders, then to escort a nuke into the depth of their ship to destroy it.
  • Bottomless Magazines: Ammunition is never an issue, even when other supplies are scarce.
  • Bug War: The Templars are already accustomed to fighting the Xeno at the beginning of the game.
  • Captain, The: The first character you have control of becomes this during the tutorial. Unlike all other mech types, you can only have one of these on your team. If yours dies, it's Game Over.
  • Cold Sniper: The Scout recruit. Alternatively may qualify as a Stealth Expert, depending on how you spec them.
  • Combat Medic: The unlockable paladin recruit.
  • Critical Existence Failure: Your soldiers suffer no penalties for being hurt just so long as they have one hit point left.
  • Elite Army: Of the Space Marine Super-Soldier variety.
  • Engineer, The: You start the game with this recruit option, and taking at least one is mandatory for nearly every mission since they are the only recruit capable of taking more strategic points (a necessity in order to bring in more templars)
    • The only time a mission does not require an Engineer is if there are no strategic points on the map.
  • Expy: The Templars have more than a few similarities with a 40K Space Marine chapter what with their emphasis on genetic lineage, veneration of powerful wargear as relics and semi-religious devotion to the Prophet Shalun, though this is due to the two settings drawing on similar sources and works than the Templars being based on Space Marines.
  • Field Promotion: In the middle of the tutorial mission
    • foreshadowed in that the first character you control is called your captain and their mech is referred to as the captain's mech before they are promoted from Corporal.
  • Final Death Mode: Ironman Mode.
    • Higher difficulties feature quasi-final death; once a mission is completed and stats are displayed you have the option to "accept" or "retry." Accepting the results makes any death incurred during that mission final.
      • Ironman Mode is different in that there is no "retry" option available.
    • There is also an Ironman Hell mode, for the true masochists.
  • Genetic Memory: The source of your soldiers' special abilities.
  • Heal Thyself: Soldiers heal entirely between missions, even if the story indicates that only seconds have passed between them.
  • Hero Must Survive: Anyone Can Die with one exception; your captain. If they die, it's Game Over.
  • Heroic Willpower: The stat that allows a character to resist Overheat damage is called "Willpower."
  • Humans Are Survivors: Intelligent aliens have corrupted the galactic core, and a different race of animalistic near-invincible aliens hunt and eat humans. Humans have been forced to colonize desert worlds which are only barely habitable in order to scramble to build spaceships to fight them off. Still, humans persist.
  • Insectoid Aliens: The Xeno
  • Instant-Win Condition: The objective on almost any map.
  • Justified Tutorial: The first character you have control of is a soldier following orders during an emergency.
  • Kill It with Fire: An option if you unlock the Hydra recruit. A Hydra Cannon will not only deal massive amounts of area damage, but their abilities will also leave fire behind on the map to act as an obstacle.
  • Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Humanity may be space-faring, we might have super soldiers in mech suits, but we're still going to shoot that bug in the face with a machine gun. Or slash it with a sword. Or an axe. Plasma weapons are rare and must be unlocked class by class.
  • Living Ship: Used by the Xenos.
  • Meat Moss: The Xeno spread a forest-green slime studded here and there with purple cysts all over their territory. They also grow what can only be called a "maw" on any Strategic Point they capture
  • Migration, The: Blink and you'll miss it, but at the beginning of the game it is established that it has been three generations since the Star Traders were forced to flee the galactic core. A whole lot of humans have been living, working and dying on the giant spaceships the Templars are escorting, and settle for the desert worlds you spend the game defending (despite the fact that they are barely habitable) only because The Xeno attack the caravan and damage the Aer Prima, leaving only the Righteous Fallen to defend the new colonies.
  • Mini-Mecha: The Leviathan mech is large enough that the pilot occupies the chest cavity, with waldoes in the upper legs and arms.
  • Oh, My Gods!: Shalun favors the brave!
  • Old Soldier: Some of the pictures you can choose for your veterans are gray-haired and wrinkled.
  • Overheating: The Leviathan suits incur heat with each action; shown on a red bar next to their health bar. If it fills up, it begins harming the Templar wearing it.
  • Power Fist: Soldiers, Scouts, and Engineers have no melee weapins beyond a punch with their mighty armored gauntlets
  • Plasma Cannon: Each unit has an unlockable plasma gun, although the Captain starts with a plasma pistol. Plasma weapons are shorter-ranged and fire in lesser bursts than kinetic weapons, but each shot gets a +20 "Plasma Damage" bonus.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: Not only does the gender of your soldiers not matter, you can change the name and picture as often as you like.
  • RPG Elements: The game uses a Class and Level System for your Templars. It's still mostly a Space Hulk-like turn-based strategy.
  • Skill Point Reset: Justified in-universe by the templars' genetic memories. There is no cost associated with completely changing a specific recruit's talent or attribute builds, making the game a little bit more friendly than it would be otherwise.
  • Space Marine: The titular Battleforce. A whole squad of them.
  • Space Navy: A whole organization of space marines.
  • Squad, The: Specifically your squad. Aside from The Captain, who is mandatory, you get to pick any composition you'd like.
  • Stealth Expert: You can make the Scout into either this or a Cold Sniper.
  • Strategic Asset Capture Mechanic:
    • Strategic Points, teleporter arrays that allow the deployment of new soldiers, upgrades, and supplies (ex. grenades and buffs). For the Xeno, it's a Mook Maker that produces a new unit once every two turns.
    • Green squares give a bonus to defense, while red squares give a bonus to attacks.
  • Super-Soldier:
    • All of the templars. Highlighted in an early mission which involves you escorting a group of scientists without Powered Armor; they have 1/3rd of the health and move 1/2 the speed.
    • Also directly referenced when your captain reminds themselves not to get angry when regular soldiers don't help them protect a city; they wouldn't be any help anyway.
  • Sword and Gun: The Captain is equipped with a plasma pistol and Leviathan Sword.
  • Turn-Based Combat: A variety based on action points, and where first your entire team gets to take a turn, before the hordes of enemies retaliate during theirs.

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