I sent 51 warriors spread throughout all 11 classes.
Total record: 175-155-1-4
Total awards: 4
I posted four hopefuls in the tourney thread beforehand, so I'll give a brief rundown of how they performed.
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DEAD MAN WALKING (PR) in Eligibles
I was least hopeful about Dead Man Walking, but he turned out to be the best performer of the four. He picked up his WT train to 25 in round 2, and fought 2 LUs and 6 ABs in the first 8 rounds. He went 2-0 vs the LUs and 5-1 vs the ABs. Then came the tougher opponents: other tanky parry-types!
Rounds 9-12 saw match-ups with a WS, a PL, and 2 TPs, all very physical warriors. Dead Man Walking went 2-2, losing to Marcinko and Hugh Kassle and beating That Guy and Khylar. He finished up with a 9-3 TV, a marginal improvement over his 8-3 Eligibles TV from October. But at least he put up another strong showing for his efforts while pushing himself over the Eligibles line.
FISHWIFE (AB) in ADM
Fishwife started out 0-2, then turned it into a 4-3 performance in the Fool's ADM tourney. She managed to get 0 trains in 7 turns, so she has some room available for setting up for Eligibles down the road.
RIB IAYE (ST) in Freshmen
I was mostly just grateful that I got to bust this Bloodgames ST out, as opposed to the last ones that overshot the Freshmen/ADM line. But not THAT grateful, as he went 2-3 and didn't provide me with much excitement.
GAMMA DELPHINI (LU) in Champions
Gamma demonstrated that his Adepts TC was a fluke by going 1-3 in Champions. He got steamrolled by crit throwing Strikers. You win some, you lose some.
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My best performance in the tourney was a surprise, a SL in Initiates named DELTA CANCRI.
Delta had an improbably good run. He is a good design with good bonuses and physicals and solid learning (at 3 skills/FE), but the number of fights which he won by the skin of his teeth was remarkable. He parried out THREE Fist ABs and riposted TWO Strikers to get into the Initiates finals. Whether it was his trusty SH (which he started using because he wasn't critting with the HA) or whether he was hitting favorites in desperation, I don't know for sure. But he liked something that was going on. Unfortunately, he couldn't pull off a third riposte victory in the finals, so he ended the tourney with a 13-3 runner-up. Not too shabby for a natural Slasher.
To round out my Eligibles PR TV and my Initiates SL RU, I had a ST named OMEGA FORNACIS go 8-3 in Adepts and an AB named EPSILON SCUTI get a 7-2 Fool's TV in Initiates.
While 4 awards and a 53% win percentage out of 51 entries isn't the best tourney that I've ever had, it provided me with just enough excitement to keep me entertained. Congrats to all the winners, especially to Vlad and Nomad, both first time TCs!
I suspect I'll be skipping the summer FtF, but I plan on sending some warriors and doing Bloodgames. If I don't make it, I hope everyone enjoys themselves and I look forward to following the results online!
Assurnasirbanipal ArchMaster Poster
Joined: Oct 21, 2002
Posts: 1768
Location: San Jose, CA
Posted:
Wed Apr 19, 2017 2:05 pm
I sent 59, with a handful of very high quality warriors and more than a handful of guys going for experience/skills.
My lone Eligible went to the Fool's tourney and I learned a couple days later that he went 0-3. The Fool's tourney was going to be a future theme for my tourney.
My 3 ADM guys did what I would call 'normal.' Nothing exciting here.
Freshmen was where I felt I had the best chance to win. My PR, Ruth, has been a strong sandbagger and I was busting Woman at the Well. She was my first test of a theory that x-x-x-<even>-20-x-10 is a fantastic bust. I haven't been making many of these anymore because it is a long road without much upside to get to the bust. She had TV'd two of the last three tourneys she fought in, so she had shut down until the bust. At the freeze:
WOMAN AT THE WELL (18-8583) of SHEPHERDS (1713) [54-37-1,160,125FE], will fight Freshmen.
She is a lunger with ST=23(14) CN=22(7) SZ=11 WT=14 WL=20 SP=5 DF=10.
She is ambidextrous, is bright, is clumsy, has awesome endurance, can withstand almost any
amount of punishment, can carry almost limitless weight, is very quick on her feet, does
awesome damage, has a Master in initiative, has an Advanced Expert in riposte, has an
Advanced Master in attack, has a Master in defense, has an Expert in decisiveness, favors
the shortsword, favors a moderate offensive effort, favors a high activity level, and
preferentially learns riposte.
While her ending record was flawless, the fights were anything but.
R1 matched against Flying Pig and I groaned. I didn't want Flying Pig on Round 1! It was a long fight and Flying Pig drew first blood, but after that it was all WatW.
R2 against Squyer. All WatW
R3 against Misty Jenkins. After two minutes, Misty had hit WatW three times to send WatW desperate to WatW's single hit. M3 opened with another hit by Misty and desperate again. WatW hit Misty once each in Minutes 3 & 4 to win. She also hit Will 24 (3 trains in 3 tries)
R4 against Sandy. Sandy opened with a LS crit to the head, but failed to know WatW down and the next attack was her last.
R5 against Merlin. All WatW
R6 against Bill Murray. This open handed AB was good. For 5 minutes, WatW couldn't touch him except for parry damage. At the end of 5, though, Bill Murray started to get tired. At the beginning of M7, WatW connected and knocked BM down. Two more attacks and the fight was over. WatW hit her Will 25 train.
R7 against Furtive Returns. This 7'2 monster hit WatW twice in the chest to open the fight without a knockdown or desperate message. WatW dodged attack number 3 and never looked back.
R8 against Def Jam Shirt. Def Jam opened with a knock down and sent WatW desperate on the second attack, but WatW decided to parry the third attack and get back up and turn the fight around.
R9 against Majestic Bell. MB opened with 2 Broadsword crits two different locations. The next crit WatW decided to dodge and riposte.
I had 4 warriors alive after R9. The other three were all on the bubble and only Job got a TV, his first in awhile.
R10 against After 10 Beers! All WatW
R11 against Glamdring. Glamdring opened with 3 SC crits (to 3 different locations) to send WatW desperate. Following her prior fights, she turned on the defense and then knocked Glamdring down in the middle of M2. The rest of the fight was all WatW.
R12 against Maximillian. Almost all WatW. Max had one moment of hope, knocking down WatW at the end of M2. WatW popped right back up and stole the initiative and ended the fight with one more attack. Also hit Deftness to 13 her final train.
R13 & 14 vs Flying Pig. I was a bit surprised the Flying Pig was untouched at this stage except for the earlier R1 loss. With the additional training, Flying Pig's only contribution to the fights was soaking up damage and breaking weapons. I'd put my money on Flying Pig having it's day at some point, but it wasn't today.
By far this was the highlight of my tourney. Over the next two days I read the rest of my tourney slowly. Some other notes:
Challengers: One of my baggers got his first TV. A fairly big milestone for me. I haven't had success with a 'true' bagger before this. 4 fools here - all deservedly so.
Champions: Jim was one of my other real hopes for glory. He lost two close ones to a couple of strikers and lunger destroyed him with a first attack knock down. He did not look at all like he did during his Adepts run.
Also in champs, I had a Striker break his weapon and proceed to punch himself to an infirmary death! Pretty spectacular!
Adepts: My double-21 basher showed me why I was a fool to waste an 'A' setup on a basher and went to the fool's tourney.
Initiates: 4 of my 7 went to the Fool's tourney. 2 of the other 3 died in the infirmary, including Uncontrollable, former Rookies TC, who died after a single hatchet crit to the ribs in the runoffs.
Apprentices: 1 TV and 3 Fools out of 8 sent
Rookies: A disaster with 7 Fools and a R1 death out of 13 sent. I did have a scum TV.
Stats at the end of it all:
210-170-6-5, 1 TC, 5 TV's out of 59 sent.
Managerr ArchMaster Poster
Joined: Jul 12, 2002
Posts: 4283
Location: Omaha
Posted:
Wed Apr 19, 2017 2:22 pm
Quote:
R7 against Furtive Returns. This 7'2 monster hit WatW twice in the chest to open the fight without a knockdown or desperate message. WatW dodged attack number 3 and never looked back.
That was crap! (The not going desperate part)
Congrats!
Manta Advanced Expert Poster
Joined: Jun 20, 2015
Posts: 194
Posted:
Wed Apr 19, 2017 7:27 pm
Anybody else only get a portion of their tournament? Mine might be a mess trying to figure out what didn't get mailed.
Rune Unchartered Poster
Joined: Jan 07, 2017
Posts: 24
Posted:
Wed Apr 19, 2017 7:51 pm
Manta wrote:
Anybody else only get a portion of their tournament? Mine might be a mess trying to figure out what didn't get mailed.
I was missing 40% of my Rookie fights (and I sent in a lot of Rookies). Sandy said she'd reprint rookies for me, so maybe check and see if its just Rookies that's missing for you and they can reprint.
62 Warriors entered. Overall record 160-178-5-4 for a win rate of 47.55% and 3 awards. These metrics were overall a step back from a previous trend up.
Rookies: An appalling record of 58 - 86 or 40%. All four deaths were in rooks and, to quote Winston Wolfe, there was "no one who'll be missed." I called three warriors out in this class. The 13-8-14-21-9-6-13 BA, +4 ATT (EX) went 1-3. My 21-13-10-13-9-5-13 +4 ATT N/R TP went 4-3-1. The 13-4-10-21-15-8-13 ST N/N went 2-3.
Apps: Here my main hopefuls were two 21/21 LUs. The first, 9-7-8-21-21-7-11 N/N, Adex ATT, went 3-3. The second, 7-9-10-21-21-5-11 G/N with Ex ATT, INI and DEF, went 8-3 and picked up an award. Probably my second best class -- I am calculating these as I go along -- at 53.8%.
Inits: Again, an pretty sad 40% record here. The Nebuchadnezzar AB who TVd rooks: 7-7-8-15-17-9-21 N/G Adex ATT went 1-3, a testament to his manager's skill. The 9-4-17-21-10-12-11 ST L/R, Adex DEC, and Ex in ATT and INI I had hopes for as a runner up went 2-3. Moving on!
Adepts: Pretty successful class for me. Overall 52.3%. I called out two warriors, the primary one being a 12-11-8-17-21-4-11 LU, R/G, with 4 ADEXs. This warrior wound up going 7-3 but continuing a reasonable tourney success streak with an overall 22-9 tourney record. The second one, a 11-13-5-21-9-14-11 N/N ST who had had some success previously went 10-3 and garnered my second award. Overall tourney record of 25-9-1, this warrior unfortunately is not learning enough to make a champs run.
Champs: Ruff Ruff TC'd this class. That took quite a while to sink in.
RUFF RUFF (47-8860) of SPROUT OF MY MIND (816) [7-5-0,89,29FE], will fight Champions.
He is a lunger with ST=10(2) CN=8 SZ=5 WT=21 WL=21 SP=10 DF=11.
He is left handed, is a genius, is very quick and active, has a good endurance, can not take
a lot of punishment, can not carry a lot of weight, is incredibly quick and elusive, has a
Master in initiative, has a Master in riposte, has an Advanced Master in attack, has an
Advanced Master in defense, and has an Advanced Expert in decisiveness.
With one champion fighting, and champions being my highest class entered, his fights were at the top of the stack and I got to read them one by one without interruption. I had heard from people whose opinions I trust that the big guns were coming out for this prize and I ought to consider saving Ruff for the FTF. Jim was unhittable. Delphi spanked Ruff in Adepts. I came close to sitting him but ultimately decided life is short and put him in. It turns out he went in at 168 skills which I discovered when he hit is PAR EX at +3 during the tourney.
OAB tried to educate me about the need for a ST strategy and I had no appreciation for what he meant. Then seven of Ruff's first 11 fights were frightening strikers. Now I understand.
Round 1 vs PUNKA: A death intent probably saved Ruff in this fight where he was winded and got one last swing off which triggered the KD and got him a couple more hits which ended the fight.
The next ten rounds were generally STs and mostly took the form of losing the initial draw, getting desperate, dodging and then taking the ST out. A lot of luck (or knack) going on here. Plus the AMAS DEF didn't hurt!
Ruff entered his 12th fight at 11-0 and ran into the monster that is Presto Geisha. A 24 FE warrior entering champs to position for a future run, she gave Ruff all he could handle. That concept is just frightening given RR's FE and skills.
Round 12: Presto came into the match at 10-1. Thank GOD. A couple back and forths and a knockdown into the sand and Ruff was beaten.
Round 13: Ruff got the jump on a Howling Wolf LU he had no business getting the jump on, knocked him down with an initial attack and that was that.
Round 14: Presto Geisha again. Criminy. Ruff and Geisha went back and forth again but this time, rather than dodge Ruff's second attack, Geisha took a shot and landed her in the sand, effectively ending the fight. Score one for the home team!
Round 15: Hello, Presto! I'm beginning to think this is the finals. Bear in mind, having never been in this position, I wasn't sure. Ruff got the jump again, missed and Geisha dealt him a couple shots, the second of which was enough to send him desperate. Ruff missed with a desperation swing and Presto dumped him on his ass with a riposte. That was enough to tie the game at 12-2 for each warrior and give Presto the 2-1 advantage vs. Ruff.
Round 16: I see the draw being Presto yet again and I know this is the final. I also have a pit in my stomach, given Ruff's 1-2 record against the Geisha so far. To come this close... Ruff again got the jump, a MAS in DEC earned the previous fight couldn't have hurt, and nailed Geisha with a crit which sent her to her knees. As Commodore Duvall said in Maverick, "That, as they say, is that!"
First order of business: Grats to DMob for such an excellent run by a freaking 24FE warrior in Champs!
Second order of business: I owe a beer and a big sloppy kiss to whomever put that first loss on Geisha.
Third order of business: I could not have done this without the kind support and patience of the Chatzy group over the last few years as I got up to speed with the current nuances of the game. Thank you!
The Consortium ArchMaster Poster
Joined: Nov 23, 2002
Posts: 10136
Location: on the golf course, in the garden, reading, traveling, and now Consulting
Posted:
Thu Apr 27, 2017 1:03 am
Mr. TC Vlad, you need to give yourself more credit for a nicely designed and developed warrior, a solid strategy, and an excellent desperation strategy.
Kudos
_________________ The Consortium: Crapmaster 2013, Crapgiver 2014; 1213 ADM graduates (40+ manager IDs) including 176K+ fights and 118K+ wins plus 4 teams with 1500+ wins (Animal Farm DM11 @2085; Bulldogs DM11 @ 1976; Lenpros DM30 @ 1792; Fandils DM46 @1727
Visionst01 ArchMaster Poster
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
Posts: 1714
Location: South Carolina
Posted:
Thu Apr 27, 2017 10:27 am
Congrats old friend. Now you need a TC in Freshman and a TC in a dead tourney to catch me.
_________________ Visionist/Chris
Active:
Mid Earth in DM 29 Lapur
Clan Longbeard in DM 81 Shadowspire
Vladimer Advanced Expert Poster
Joined: Jul 15, 2014
Posts: 191
Posted:
Thu Apr 27, 2017 10:54 am
Thanks, gents!
Visionist, I have someone in mind for the former and lord knows people are killing enough of my warriors to give me candidates for the latter!
I saw that you might be returning and really hope that is the case!
theDarkOne Grandmaster Poster
Joined: Aug 03, 2003
Posts: 543
Location: The Dark Citadel, CT, USA
Posted:
Thu Apr 27, 2017 11:13 am
Congrats on the TC. If that had been my warrior he'd have been manually graduated by Lee!
168 skills! Nice.
Spirit Expert Poster
Joined: May 01, 2013
Posts: 72
Location: St Joseph, MO
Posted:
Fri Apr 28, 2017 7:11 pm
Mr Vladimir sir, congrats again! Enjoy it to the fullest, you earned it! I'm pleasantly surprised he was still in champs with 168 skills.
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