So today I made it up to the Dry Ice mines (though it's more like a quarry isn't it? ha! yeah I quoted the game...) and had my first real great experience with a Stage Battle, I felt like I was struggling a bit with them.. approaching it like an RTS game. What changed was Tim Schafers open letter that I read over at the Double Fine site, I took the advice and applied it... and beat ass like there was no tomorrow! 
 
I started off by making 3 troops, head bangers, razor girls and a thunder hog. 
I made a rallying flag at the first fan spouting thing which makes all newly made troops to head there. I conquered it, rocked it and got more devouted fans. 
I then flew up high into the sky's and demanded my dudes attack one of the Tear Drinkers fan things, conquered it, rocked it and got even more fans with my merch booth. Around this same time I started to get attack on a side that I didn't realize was open.. but the A.I. having nothing to protect it, gave up and went over to the merch booth I had constructed and started trying to tear it down while my guys were picking away at the stage. 
 
While all that was going on I upgraded my stage, brought out even more big guys and had amassed a small army by the time my other guys were dead.. now here's the cool part, I went over to the rallying flag, flew up brought them all over to me and set them loose on the stage, managed to pick out some roadies from on high and set them loose on the last fan fountain. 
 
 It is a bit RTSish, but I didn't really think too much about any of these actions. In an RTS I usually take my time and turtle like crazy setting up an awesome defense before setting out, but in this game.. that just won't fly. In fact it's kind of like the Battlefield titles where you need to take over flags on the level and keep them to keep gaining points, here you use those points to get more dudes to fight by your side and upgrade to get even more dudes. Wrapping my mind around that and not approaching it like your average RTS title I feel really helped me out.
 
Also how awesome is it to use the Fire Barons to encircle a bunch of dudes? 
 
Last thing... I LOVE this game, I really do. But then again I'm slightly biased and love all things Tim Schafer, which reminds me, I need  to go back and play Grim Fandango and Psychonauts, and finally beat Day of the Tentacle which I've shamefully never done before.. and try to figure out where the hell my copy of Full Throttle went and where all my damn Monkey Island titles are, ugh I hate digging through my storage space.