Jan 2016 FTF

ArchMaster Poster Joined: Apr 15, 2004 Posts: 2957

January 2016 FtF Tourney Recap

Entries: 30
By Class: 5 Primus, 3 Contender, 2 Eligible, 1 ADM, 1 Freshmen, 3 Challenger, 2 Champion, 1 Adept, 3 Initiate, 4 Apprentice, 5 Rookie
By Style: 8 AB, 2 BA, 3 LU, 1 PL, 2 PR, 2 PS, 4 SL, 3 ST, 2 TP, 3 WS

I was not in attendance and my proxy Assur was launching the second part of Bashpocalypse, so I kept my entries to a minimum, focusing on warrriors who could run completely on auto-pilot (like Primus and Eligible) and warriors who worked reasonably well on a single strategy (most everyone else).

My results were surely going to be hurt by my 5 Primus entries who had no hope of TVing and little hope of achieving winning records and my 5 Turf War entries who were sadly in the same boat! But I still had a few warriors of interest that could conceivably break through to TV or TC.

Primus

My King of Primus team once again took the sands to get serve as punching bags for Alastari's most elite fighters. Some of the warriors ran on fairly standard strategies, the lynchpin of which was to try and avoid getting matched up with maxed ABs. Some others tried some experimental strategies, with mixed results. The two highlights of the tournies were my LU, GOLDENBEARD, and my PS, AXE MURDERER.

GOLDENBEARD was trying double tactics for the first time (probably long overdue) and it went pretty well. He made it past round 5 just barely, finishing up at 3-3-1 and managed to hit two ABs (three hits total) with maxed Defense in the process. He didn't win those fights, but its progress! Knocking DRAT on his ass was satisfying, even if he did bounce right back up.

AXE MURDERER picked up Response tactic favorite in the last King of Primus contest, and he ran it in every minute of every fight. I tried to give my Primus to Sandy to proxy so that I wouldn't be tempted to change his strategy, but Assur ended up with those warriors anyway. I can't say it was a success, but it also wasn't a failure. I honestly couldn't tell that it did anything! There were no weird statements about warriors standing around like you see in basic, and AXE MURDERER continued to dodge, parry, and swing his Battle Axe like normal. I'm going to try more selective use in the future and see if I can get it to do *something*. But the good news was that AXE MURDERER finished up at 2-3 for his second straight Parry Strike stylemaster award. He will be trying once again to ZAP his Activity Level to a higher number. Here is hoping!

Contenders

I ran three warriors in this class, 2 LUs and an AB. Two were just testing the water for the first time, but one was a long shot TC hopeful (in my estimation).

SHEWISH WHALER is a former Eligible TC and is set up well at the top of the class. Everything is in place for him, except for the last handful of CN trains. He went 7-3 in July, so I felt he was on the cusp.

He got off to a good start, avoiding FI ABs for the first four rounds and going 4-0. After that, things started getting more serious. Round 5 was a loss to a Fist AB, DICKY V GOES POSTAL. Round 6 was a win against a Fist AB, HUGE TWIRLING MAN. Round 7 was a loss to a Fist AB, CANDIRU. Round 8 was a win against a Fist AB, PLACES THE LOTION... Finally, a lucky break in round 9 with a non-AB, BIG BROTHER. SHEWISH WHALER was able to win that LU vs LU fight and end up 7-2 going into round 10.

His 10th round match-up was no joke, though. He was facing MARV, yet another Fist AB who was 9-0 at that point. I quietly resigned myself to another 7-3 performance, but SHEWISH WHALER had other things in mind. Minute 1 began with attacks and dodges, back and forth, until SHEWISH WHALER landed a LO attack to the groin! Maybe Dwarves are less sensitive down there, because an Unearthly damage shot like that would put most warriors down for good. But the fight continued on. A LO crit to the forehead in minute 2 sent MARV desperate and another LO crit to the right buttocks added insult to injury. But he still didn't give up! He took one more LO crit to the forehead in minute 3 for MARV to go down for the count. That guy has some moxie, that's for sure.

So I was pretty excited for SHEWISH WHALER to win his first Contenders TV. Hopefully it is a harbinger of more good things to come. But the tourney wasn't over yet, I still had TC dreams! He pulled the bye in round 11 and advanced to 9-2 and then squared off against PEPP. Going into the tourney, I had thought that PEPP was too young to be ultra competitive in Contenders, but apparently I was wrong. PEPP exacted revenge for MARV's embarrassing defeat, never letting SHEWISH WHALER land a hit on him and punching him into submission. So SHEWISH WHALER finished up at 9-3, losing to the eventual TC. I'll take it.

Eligibles

I was testing the waters with two warriors at the top of the class. I had no expectations that they would beat any of the bust-outs and both finished up at 4-3. It was a good enough result that I plan on running one of them more seriously in April.

ADM

My lone ADM entry was by far my most favorite entry in the tourney.

HORSE D'OEUVRE began life as a 15-5-9-21-17-6-11 BA. He had a fairly unremarkable basic career, getting an 8-3-1 Rookies TV and then failing to accomplish anything else in basic. But as he was +5 Att/+1 Def, I kept running him to graduation and then discovered some pretty neat favorites, featuring QS, VH OE, and Bash tactic. I had found my future Primus BA! But instead of rushing him up to Primus and maxing him out as quickly as possible, I decided that I wanted to see if he could accomplish anything in the ADM classes on the way up.

It took a long while, but eventually he was ready at 25(10)-8(3)-9-21-20(3)-6-15(4) with 182 skills. He trained WT to 24 in the lead up to the tourney, and went for the 4th train to 21 WL on round 1. And he got it! After round 1, he went from 197 skills to 204 skills and he was ahead of the game. He switched to WT training and picked up WT to 25 in round 6, then switched back to WL and picked up WL to 22 in round 7. He was now 7-0 with 213 total skills. He was scraping the bottom with minimum % trains at this point, but each one would give him 4 skills (3 of which are useful to BAs) so it was all gravy. By the end of round 10, HORSE D'OEUVRE was the lone 10-0 in the ADM class, still with 213 total skills.

Round 11 would be his toughest test, against GOLD, a busting LU. It served as a reality check as HORSE D'OEUVRE only got to attack once, an attack which was dodged and riposted. Round 12 pitted him against THE UPTIGHT MAN, a sandbagging AB. As we all know, BAs are THE UPTIGHT MAN's Achilles heel! HORSE D'OEUVRE attacked and attacked and attacked some more taking the Fist AB out in 3 minutes. An 11-1 record was no small feat for a BA in ADM, but things were looking grim. The remaining three warriors were all LUs, a bad match-up for me, and were all busting out and 11-1 as well.

Round 13 saw a tough loss to GRASSCUTTER, who got the jump and never allowed HORSE D'OEUVRE to attack. Round 14 saw another match-up with GOLD. HORSE D'OEUVRE did a little better this time, hitting GOLD twice and sending him desperate, but his third attack was dodged, riposted and that was all she wrote.

I was hoping for more after the 10-0 start, but I would have to settle for an 11-3 TV, watching GRASSCUTTER defeat WARRIOR 1 in the finals from the sidelines.

Freshmen

In the "win some, lose some" category, I busted another BA named HAMMERHEAD in Freshmen. He went in with roughly 160 total skills, got 2 trains in 3 fights and exited the tourney at 0-3.

You win some, you lose some.

Basic

My basic warriors don't deserve too much attention.

I was hopeful for FOOTPAD in Challengers after his 12-3 in Dead Challengers in October, but he scrubbed out at 4-3. My best performer in Challengers was FINGER SANDWICH who had just TC'd Champions in October. He went 7-3 and then promptly got invited when his basic arena ran after the tourney.

My Turf War guys did predictably poorly.

The lone success in basic was an AB named LAMBDA ARIETIS who pulled an 8-3 Apprentices TV and insured himself an Initiates run by landing exactly at 10 FE.

Two Rookies who were on the same team, DELTA CORVI and ETA CORVI, guaranteed Apprentices runs by going 5-3 and 4-3.

Bloodgames

I'm going to keep this one brief as well, as I haven't read the fights yet and I'm not sure I'm going to! I used 6 winning designs that I've graduated before and 4 experimental designs on the styles that I haven't been successful with. In round 1 of the Mail-In Bloodgames I had 6 deaths, and the remaining four warriors survived until the end. My lone kill came from a Basher in round 10. Terrible!

I have new designs drawn up for July where I'll be back at it again.

Conclusion

Record: 90-93-3-0
Awards: 3

I didn't send my best stuff and I wasn't in attendance, so I couldn't ask for much more. Still, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was hoping that my BA bust-out would end up in a final fight with Assur proxying. The story was too good to resist!

At the end of the day I sent 30 warriors, and got a 9-3 Contenders TV, an 11-3 ADM TV, an 8-3 Apprentices TV, and a 2-3 Primus stylemaster. I can live with that.

Congrats to all the winners, condolences to all the losers. Thanks to Assur for being a great proxy. I should have better warriors prepared for the April Mail-In and I'm already looking forward to it!

Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2016 8:24 am

Awesome write up OAB!

I always enjoy your Tourney recaps, almost makes you feel as if you were part of the action.

Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2016 10:09 am

I'll give a recap of my tourney, even though I don't run as much as I'd like. A good portion of what I entered was sent just so I'd have something to pick up for that round! Some were sent just for skills and trains, some were run because they're fun freaks, I'd say roughly only 1/4 of what I sent actually had a shot at TV or better.
Primus: One entry, Hagar, a Lunger with superhuman damage, who's not capped out on SP or CN, and thus has very little chance as usual. His first 4 opponents were Primus ranked # 42, #2, #8, #13... tough season! He won one fight against the last guy, #100, , so 1-4-0 with one CN train to 15.
Contenders: One entry here, Odin my zombie PL is kind of at the lower end of this class too. 3-3-0, two stat trains, Archmaster Attack with a long way to go. Now I'm gonna go all ST til he hits 25, and hope he stays down in Contenders for a while.
ADM: 2 entries, both young'uns here for the skills.
Freshmen: I actually had hopes here, silly me... Had my WS adept runner-up from last year in this class, with 25CN and sitting on 20 WL. I tried to bust his WL but only got one stat train while going 2-3-0.
Challengers: One entry, a frustrating PR who looks awesome on paper, but another 2-3-0.
Champions: One entry, a pretty good Striker went 7-3-0, eliminated by my table mate in a fight I should have won.
Adepts: Had only 2 here, both Strikers, one I felt pretty good about went 10-3-1, counting a grudge win. I must say I managed him well throughout the tourney, like in round 6 he was facing a TP whose record was 4-1-2... I went with Slash tactic, and killed the TP in one minute! As he got to the later rounds, I found all his opponent's styles, responsing a faster ST here, slashing an AB there, finally losing to a Lunger when I didn't crit. I have high hopes for this one in the Champions next time around.
Initiatives: Only 3, nothing to see here, move along...
Apprentices: This class I actually had quite a few (for me), 8 entries. Lost 2 AB's from the same team on the same round (that takes talent). One plain 21WT Striker who was just there for skills surprised me and went 9-3-0, and in round 12, he was facing another Striker. Classic rock-paper-scissor matchup, who's gonna do what? So I picked no tactic, I found out later he went responsiveness, so I guessed right but he still beat me for the elimination.
Rookies: Didn't win much here. I had sent some ahead of time, including one nice Basher who got lost on the way to RSI somehow. I sent him in with my tourney stuff, but they don't have his rollup. Hope they can find it someday.
I got 10 rollups when I got there, didn't like much and got 10 more (the second batch was gonna be my bloodgames budget, so I didn't do that). Sent in about half of them to get rolled up, whittled that batch down to 4 entrants. Out of 20 sheets, 100 rollups, I ended up with ONE fighter (4-3-1 ST) that I'm going to run in future tourneys.
Crapmasters: Got Consortium's sheet and did the only thing I could with it: I made 3 scum TP's! They were actually pretty solid. This could have worked on a good day, (yeah right) but I think they were 6-9 overall. It was just a matter of when they were going to find 9 AB's.

I think I did pretty good, considering I only had about 8-10 guys who I thought had a chance, and ended up with two 9-3s and a 7-3.
A great time was had by all, even though the Wi-Fi was terrible! Hope to be there next year.

Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2016 6:23 pm

So, who won the Aimer class for the mailin Bloodgames? I had a guy do really well.

ArchMaster Poster Joined: Apr 15, 2004 Posts: 2957

Lugal_gg wrote:

So, who won the Aimer class for the mailin Bloodgames? I had a guy do really well.

The three winners from the mail-in Bloodgames (only three warriors graduate, the top three killers of different styles) were:

TAMBA (97-6138) LU managed by Dr. Feelgood
PYG (97-5962) BA managed by Mannequin
ZBIGNIEW (97-6115) PL managed by Manager

I'm not sure who the top AB was as only 4 warriors reached the recognition point threshold to get listed in the Stylemaster section.

Meanwhile, all three winners from the FtF Bloodgames were managed by a single manager, TMM!

Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 9:07 am

My tourney recap:

I was mostly concerned with time. I was running over 100 and even with the improvements to my technology, I wasn't sure how busy Saturday was going to be. I was confident I would be able to handle the load, but wasn't positive. I did pre-print strats for my rookie bashers.

My main goal for the tourney was 10 kills in Rookies. This was Bashapocalypse part 2! My table mates were laughing at me pretty hard as I read Rookies. I wasn't rooting for victory, I was rooting for kills. They found it hilarious that I'd be disappointed in wins!

Friday - I was pretty much ready for the tourney, so got to chat, do arena strats, and relax. Great turn out for Crapmasters.

Saturday - I had no issues keeping up and was able to take the regular breaks. Rookies started off fantastically, with 9 kills in the first three rounds!

Sunday - After racking up 11 kills in rookies, I felt my tourney was a success already, and Sunday was relaxed and I was able to enjoy Dr. F and Stillgard's hilarity and success! I finished Rookies with 'only' 12 kills. Had two warriors go deep. Made a minor mistake with the adept that I don't think would have mattered that ended him in 3rd place and the rookie basher who was in a great place (a basher among 6 aimed blows and a lunger) couldn't down Snotling. He did make Manager sweat, hitting him 3 times quick, but alas to three different locations...

Primus: nothing to see.
Contenders: 2 Bashers past round 5 and Shiny Penny learned all his Attack skills during the tourney! WOOHOO! Watch out Talahya!
Eligibles: 1 warrior looked like normal
ADM: Probably the most fun class to watch outside of Rookies. I proxied OAB's nasty Horse, watching him mash many warriors to a pulp. Meanwhile, my own basher was making his own short work of an almost all AB tourney (10 AB's faced in 12 rounds). Pretty fun, having two bashers in the runoffs, though!
Freshmen: Woman at the Well surprised me with a TV and is closer to ready than I thought. Amazing what a different two damage classes can make! Job just missed another TV.
Challengers: nothing to see.
Champions: Had a very amusing result here, a striker finished his career in spectacular fashion, not only losing his 3rd fight, but getting himself killed in it!!! Very entertaining, though I would have 'preferred' a different result, even if his career was 'over.' Meanwhile a basher I'm prepping for Challengers had a nice result and learns.
Adepts: 3rd place striker to TMM's two super lungers. My 'mistake' was that I decided I didn't need to turn in a strategy, forgetting that I had his weapon configuration for strikers, not lungers.
Initiates: 8-3 TV, just fine.
Apprentices: Yet ANOTHER Basher TV for me! never get tired of these! Other than the basher, my apprentices were the 'low point' of my tourney, but they really weren't that bad.
Rookies: I already mentioned the great part about rookies (12 kills and the deep run by a basher). I had 3 other TV's as well.

Outside of Rookies:
166-158-1-3, 5 TV's out of 52 sent. My rookies will increase the win/loss percentage, but decrease the TV percentage but I still haven't calculated my final rookie record. 4 TV's out of 53 rookies, 12 kills and 1 death.

Had an awesome time, tons of fun. And my wall was by far the best papered wall in the room!

And while it was a ton of fun, I don't anticipate there will be a part 3. I'd always intended this as a one time event, spread across a mail in and a face to face.

Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 9:32 am

Forgot to mention Crapmasters.

My own crap was crap.

I tallied results on Saturday night and was able to follow along on Sunday as Manager and Grimm completely destroyed the field.

Deeders had no business being 3rd place with the team he got, but as everyone at his table attested, nobody has more crap handling experience than him.

@Dr. F - You had no business running that loser design to a TV. He should have gone 0-3 like the other two and given me the Crap Master title for giving the worst sheet. ALL YOUR WARRIORS ARE CRAP! Especially Legacy and those loser Bloodgame bashers!

Advanced Expert Poster Joined: Jul 30, 2003 Posts: 178

Assur one man's trash is another mans treasure. You of all people should understand that!

Unchartered Poster Joined: Feb 05, 2005 Posts: 28

Well, my first Tempe FTF come and gone. Fun to see some of the folks I knew from Newark and meet some that I didn't!

The Tempe Orderboard:

Adepts: 1
Inits: 22
Apps: 22
Rooks: 22

Until I just summed them, I had not idea I was that consistent across the classes. Shocked

Adepts: Had a nice double 21 AB here, just shy of an invite with a gazillion ratings, give or take. Hoped to get his invite right before the tourney but it was not to be. 5-3-1 for a 63% showing, albeit by one warrior.

Inits: I probably had highest tourney hopes for my first TV ever, a LU from Newark rooks. He didn't disappoint, but came up just short in the end at 7-3. One fun rollup, a 17-17-3-3-17-12-15 TP that had gone 6-3 in Newark died on round two. A +4 DEC 21 WT ST I had hopes for did well but not well enough at 6-3. Overall, 54-64-1-1 for a 46% run.

Rooks (saving Apps for last): I think the big surprise for me was a couple PS's I threw in the mix, mostly as tokens. Don't get me wrong, the rollups were decent, but I simply wasn't expecting much. One went 7-3-1 and the other 6-3 which shocked me, though perhaps it ought not have. I bumped into a few other PS's overall who had nice records, so perhaps they're not all THAT bad. Had a couple 21 WT STs go middling for 5-3s and an oddball SL (6-12-14-17-17-11-7 N/GR, yes THAT's the types of folks I run) go 5-3. My least successful class, and I ain't complaining, at 55-65-3-1 or 46%

Apps: Blew me away and gave me a taste for why you peeps love tourneys. Yes, a taste for blood in the water. Reminds me of a couple boys I knew back on the farm as a kid, both had dogs. Well, the dogs got into it and one dog chewed the crap out of the other with blood everywhere. So the boy with the winning dog was all grins when Papa came home... until Papa took the winning dog out back and shot him. "Got the taste of blood, boy, and we can't have that."

Anyway, Otto Sees Otto almost didn't run. I just barely got his timing fight in and was debating on whether to even bother at the time. He certainly wasn't in my top 10 or anything. After all, he'd managed 0-2 in the Halloween mail-in and 0-3 in Newark. Best as I can tell, he was just silly nacky which got him to 10-0-1 until a dumb manager started screwing with his basic strategy. He pretty much went the entire tourney without issuing crits. He may have had one or two, but I tried every weapon I could to try to help him and failed miserably. He even entered with a WH once, though Sandy was behind that and credited him the fight. I'd like to think that he had a chance at TC if I hadn't fooled around with what got him there, but there you have it. Two other TV's, with one other surprise going deep at 12-3-1, rounded out a very fine class and by far my best showing. The last TV was a scum which Assur suggested could TV without adding 14 points on the rollup. Laughing

In the end, I came in at 84-68-5-2 or 55%.

Overall, I was very pleased with this tourney. I learned a lot more and built on previous tourneys. Now I understand why people talk about wingmen for their best warriors. I've never had the opportunity to really see how that can impact things. If only I had had a couple peeps to take out a striker or two! Crying or Very sad

Anyway, overall I went 198-200-10-4, or 49.7% with three TVs which built nicely on Newark where I managed 166-218-6-4, or 43.2% with my first TV. Of course, that improvement is largely due to the tireless patience of the folks on Chatzy.

Looking forward to the Big Easy!

Vlad

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 2:15 am

I got my Blood Games and FtF fights in the mail today. The FtF wasn't that great. But one of my favourite fights was between my aimed blow and another one. I think it was one of LHI's warriors. the whole time I read the fight, I imagined it like those 70s kung fu movies. Basically, it went something like this.

https://youtu.be/IQUYxqUO1b4

My guy would be he one in white.

I was pretty close in the Blood Games, but it wasn't meant to be. So on turn nine Matt Majors was killed. Maybe this summer will be the one. Very Happy