History Main / EliteArmy

[[AC:Comic Books]]

[[AC:Literature]]

* The Malazan marines in ''MalazanBookOfTheFallen'' fit this resoundingly well.

[[AC:Tabletop Games]]
* It takes just a few hundred [[SpaceMarine Space Marines]] to conquer an entire planet in the ''[[{{Warhammer 40000}} Warhammer 40,000]]'' galaxy.

** The Grey Knights are considered to be the elite of the space marines, with their previous codex lampshading how hard it is to actually play said army without using the allies rule due to being constantly outnumbered.

* The Clans from ''{{BattleTech}}'' number less than the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere, but thanks to having a culture completely devoted to military prowess, they nearly ended up conquering the entire Inner Sphere.

[[AC:Theater]]
* In the battle of Agincourt as shown in ''HenryV'' 12,000 English troops are up against 60,000 French. After the battle there are 10,000 French dead and 25 English.

[[AC:Video Games]]

* The US Army in ''{{Command and Conquer}}: Generals'' leans this way.

* The Battle of Thermopylae, although the [[{{ThreeHundred}} graphic novel and film]] exaggerates this a bit.

* The United States Marine Corps often looked like this in comparison to their Latin American opponents during the Banana Wars. Kind of inevitable when the Marines were highly trained and armed with (at the time) modern weapons, and supported by ships and air power, whereas rebel forces in places like Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua used knives, spears, thirty old firearms, and occasionally ''rocks''. The more well equipped faired a little bit better. ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_occupation_of_Veracruz A little.]]''

* The United States Marine Corps often looked like this in comparison to their Latin American opponents during the Banana Wars. Kind of inevitable when the Marines were highly trained and armed with (at the time) modern weapons, and supported by ships and air power, whereas rebel forces in places like Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua used knives, spears, thirty old firearms, and occasionally ''rocks''.

* When applied to high school delinquents, one example is "Kitano's Hekikuu Army" in AngelDensetsu. They have only four main fighters but won a fight against a far more numerous enemy force in the last chapter.

* Spartans. Both real and [[{{Halo}} fictional]].

* In the later books of the Ender's Shadow series, Bean commands a special unit of 200 Thai soldiers, who execute a number of critical missions, then commands the small army of the newly-created Free People of Earth under the Hegemon.

* The Protoss units in ''{{StarCraft}}'' are expensive, but powerful.

* Most military strategy games have at least the three races: A race that uses the ZergRush, a race that's the JackOfAllStats and a race that uses this trope.

* [[Berserk]] has the group of mercenaries known as the Band Of The Hawk, featuring [[TheLancer Guts]] and [[TheHero Griffith]] and under 8 others, who dominated all in their path, and overcame almost any challenge. Well, ''almost'' any challenge.

* During the Battle of Mogadishu, later depicted in the novel and film ''BlackHawkDown'', a small group of 160 American, Malaysian and Pakistani soldiers fended off somewhere from two to four thousand Somali's.

* Most military strategy games have at least the three races: A race that uses the ZergRush, a race that's TheMario and a race that uses this trope.

* The Mobile Infantry of the original ''StarshipTroopers'' are like this, before {{The Film of the Book}} turned them into a RedshirtArmy that liberally practices HollywoodTactics.

* The US Army in ''{{Command and Conquer}}: Generals'' leans this way. Ironically, the real-life US army is 6th largest in the world.

'''Examples:'''

'''Comic Books'''

'''Literature'''

'''Tabletop Games'''

'''Theater'''

'''Video Games'''

'''Real Life'''

* During the 15th and 16th centuries, small armies of Spanish Conquistadors managed to conquer the entire Incan and Aztec civilizations, due to a combination of disease, EnemyCivilWar and liberal amounts of ThisIsMyBoomstick.