Introduction
The 1990s and early 2000s were known for having some of the wildest and most insane unit designs of all time. Some have become iconic, others, like the Kirov Airship from Red Alert 2, have risen to become mainstream-level memes, with people joking about how they love or dread hearing things like “Kirov Reporting”. As things got more realistic and serious, we have grown used to commanding disciplined historical infantry, generic space marines, or standard fantasy orcs, but the strategy genre has a magnificent sub-genre of absolute absurdity. Either illogical, ridiculous, and impractical, let’s have a look at some of the games that have the most insane units of all time.
7 – Tempest Rising
As mentioned in the introduction, we haven’t been too lucky when it comes to having games create amazingly distinct units. While we do have Dust Front and D.O.R.F. to look forward to, the best thing we have at the moment was built as a modern love letter to classic 90s RTS games. Tempest Rising leans heavily into aggressive, over-the-top faction designs fueled by a volatile, glowing alien substance called Tempest. The community requested superweapons, and the team delivered! The GDF has a drone strike station that drops 9 drone turrets to a target location, dealing massive damage and having the turrets deny all enemies in the area. The Tempest Dynasty gets a cool excavator/siege unit, which can, in turn, be loaded with units. Crazy, yes, but I would love to see even crazier “regular” units like Red Alert 2.
6 – Tooth And Tail
This one is more of a crazy unit design because of its art style and theme, rather than the units themselves. A fast-paced real-time strategy game where you command a literal, rebellious animal revolution fighting over who gets eaten for dinner. You don’t build tanks or infantry in the traditional sense, but your frontline shock troops are heavily armed, trench-coat-wearing badgers, your nimble scouts are pigeons, and your heavy artillery consists of chemical-weapon-wielding skunks who gas the battlefield. This is some old school Looney Tunes stuff. Even though I’m not a massive fan of it, because fast-paced RTS games are not exactly my cup of tea, Tooth and Tail still goes down on the list due to its stylish and memorable presentation.
5 – Tactical Breach Wizards
Imagine XCOM or S.W.A.T., but instead of highly trained elite soldiers breaching a room, it’s a bunch of Gandalfs in Kevlar vests using magic. Your squad includes a Navy Seer who wears a tactical helmet over his wizard hood and foresees the future to predict enemy gunshots, a Necromancer who acts as the team’s combat medic by raising dead teammates to finish the fight by shooting them, and your main antagonist uses a silenced wand, which goes harder than it should. The ultimate tactical goal of almost every mission in Tactical Breach Wizards is finding the most satisfying way to magically punch an enemy out of a fourth-story window.
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