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It’s not often a game just blows its predecessor out of the water. That’s certainly the case with Army Men Defense, the latest iteration of the Army Men series now available on the GameCenter.
The Army Men series are an exciting set of tower defense games, set to tap into your inner child as you build fortified defenses using classic green army men. Even your enemies are a mish-mash of other toys, set against stages you could easily plot in your average household.
Army Men Defense in particular takes the series to new heights, with plenty of changes to the formula to keep the game of toy soldiers feeling good. You’ll need to defend against waves of enemies, with various units to deploy.
The Forces Of The Toybox
One thing I really like about the unit types is they’re not trying to be realistic. This isn’t a military sim, where you have to worry about things like artillery and infantry and the like. Instead, there’s some really wacky units you can deploy, like a flamethrower unit or an ice gun to slow enemies down.
It’s silly and fun and, most importantly, readable. I don’t have to remember if it’s the M14 that should be deployed around corners or whatnot, since it’s very obvious that I should be using the ice unit if I wanna slow things down.
This is further amplified by Hero units- these characters have powerful abilities to amplify your forces, such as a powerful electric blast that stuns while dealing heavy damage to enemies.
I’m a really big fan of the hero units themselves. They’re also not constrained to being simple army men, and can be homages to multiple toys such as the transforming robot Tankman. It really sells the message of the game- which is the unadulterated fun of rummaging through your toybox and building your own armies.
A Step Up From Strike
A lot of the core ideas for Army Men Defense are actually lifted from its previous entry, Army Men Strike. That being said, there’s plenty of changes between the two titles that would make you wanna check it out. You can view them in brief here:
| Army Men Strike (Old) | Army Men Defense (New) |
|---|---|
| Units recruited during missions, need to be drawn | Units recruited outside of missions, available instantly |
| Fixed Trenches for unit placement | Free placement within select areas |
| Run as many duplicate units as you can | Only one of each unit type |
Say Goodbye To Autochess
Probably the biggest change between Strike and Defense is that Army Men Defense ditches the more Autochess format of Strike in favor of a more classic Tower Defense.
In Army Men Strike, your forces were basically a deck of cards. You spent resources gained from destroying enemy units to pull for units from your unit pool at random. You could merge these with other pulled units to level them up.
In Army Men Defense, that wasn’t the case thanks to several big system changes. The first of these was how leveling up now works- you do that outside of battle, with your forces entering the battlefield with all their upgrades. This also removes the starting RNG with the units- you can just go ahead and set them up as you please, without the frustration of drawing the wrong unit over and over.
It definitely fixes my biggest gripe with Strike- I’m not a fan of randomly drawing units, and I’ve had way too many close calls from when I really needed an Ice unit but got the flamethrowers or missiles instead. In Defense, it feels like my ability to come up with defensive setups is being tested- not my terrible luck at drawing cards.
Deploying Units
They also changed how you deploy units. In Army Men Strike, defense was fairly linear: the map had various fixed points called Trenches where you could install units. The trenches could also be upgraded, which was necessary for raising the maximum level your units could be on the trench.
These trenches were also mostly locked, meaning until you unlock them through clearing missions you might find yourself strapped for space.
Meanwhile, in Army Men Defense, unit formations are a lot more free form. Instead of the Trench system that Strike uses, Defense instead gives you areas that you can select to put your units into. Ultimately the effect is more to your way of thinking- rather than seeing a board where most of the options are locked, it’s the game telling you “you can build here instead”.
More Involved Heroes
One change fans might take offense with though is the number of units you can have out at once. While Army Men Strike allowed you to have multiples of your units on the field, Defense puts spam units in the backseat by removing that feature.
Instead, Army Men Defense only allows one of every unit type to be out at once. This puts way more focus on the game’s Heroes- like the aforementioned Tankman- as you have to skillfully choose when to use their skills to better help your strategy.
Admittedly, some players might not like the loss of the spam builds. Some of the most fun in any tower defense are the builds that practically run themselves- watching your nest full of turrets shred incoming enemies always gets a kick out of me.
That being said, I don’t mind the shift to a more Hero-centric focus. As a veteran of playing with toy soldiers myself, it’s great to imagine things like your soldiers being led by a giant tank-robot, so needing to call on said Tank-Robot more always helps sell that story to yourself.
Play On The Go
Aside from all that, Army Man Defense has plenty of additional features to keep you playing the game. It has passive reward collection, letting you come back to the Operations Center after not playing the game to collect rewards for your forces. You can also team up with other Commanders via the Alliance system, also letting you speed up building construction through the power of teamwork.
If you’re the type to enjoy addictive Tower Defense gameplay, you’re sure to love Army Man Defense. It’s available now on the GameCenter, so be sure to download it and check it out for yourselves!
