Glue the Moose			Manic Depressant Dwarves
	35 : 0			5 : 35
locke	15 : 12			16 : 24
	13 : 6			13 : 13
	1 : 1		Dung Chewer	1 : 13
	12 : 9
monk	1 : 1
	8 : 6

Map: Drowned Empire
Game: Flag Rally
Time: 12 Minutes
Scoring: 4 per flag, 5 for win

The numbers next to each player are [kills] : [losses], as displayed in the film of this game.

Reviewed by jiblet:

jiblet: This was an interesting game to watch, as it appeared that MDD's strategy might have been enough to defeat GtM, were it not for GtM's obvious tactical superiority. Both teams took 12 souls, max stygs/warrz, but with MDD beefing up on thrall and a few ghols for tagging while GtM took no ghols, and few thrall in favor of 4 dwarves. In the end, it is the dwarves that both buy GtM the time they need and deal out the damage to turn the battle in their favor.

GtM starts at flag 2. They leave Skip at home with a dorf and small thrall force. Kap and Red Phoenix are sent south to flag 3 with half the fast melee, a dorf, and 6 souls. Monk, Locke and Dor go east to flag 1 with an equal force, but they also bring along Hero with a defensive flag force of thrall and a dwarf.

MDD starts at flag 5. They leave a mere 4 thrall to guard, and send the rest of the thrall west to flag 4. They send 12 warrz straight north to flag 6, and the rest of their force they send through the middle to flag 1.

As soon as the forces spot each other, GtM sets up defense based on a few stygs/warrz, thrall, souls, and dorf on flag 1 while sending most of their melee and the other dorf east to take flag 6. MDD calls for more defense on flag 6, where their stygs are then diverted. Meanwhile Kap and Phoenix are laughingly approaching the huge thrall horde on flag 4. This is basically how the groups break down. Here are the battles:

Flag 1 - Despite the souls being way outnumbered as well as melee, GtM defends this flag gloriously. It boils down to MDD's souls repeatedly getting chased back by stygs and just not killing enough to make up for their 36 points worth of unit trading. Hero's defensive dwarf really puts the hurt on MDD's warriors who get just a little too close. They get caught up between their job attacking and trying to get rid of GtM's 4 stygs that are holding Souls on water. Meanwhile GtM's souls are pickin away at the already badly damaged warrior group. They eventually rush hill, but can't even hurt the thrall guard and all fall dead.

Flag 6 - There is a little chasing around of the dwarf here, but monk gets gypped big time by 2 dud cocktails. Granted, it's raining, but those puppies would have popped many stygs, probably enough to take the flag even, but alas they go out, and Locke's melee is forced to try to defend dwarf from MDD's advancing horde. Forces clash, GtM's dwarf dies, MDD's melee overwhelms GtM, but Locke wisely retreats to flag 1 before losing everything.

Flag 4 - Thrall vs dorf, soulless and melee? Kap and Phoenix shut down the thrall, giving them quite a few nice veterans which come in handy later. MDD does manage to kill 4 of the 6 soulless with thrall. Go figure, I think it was because Phoenix was controlling both dorf n souls, and dorf was a little busier. Anyway, not much to say here. GtM takes the flag with little trouble.

From here GtM is in a good position. They have 4 flags, are a short way away from MDD's pathetically guarded home flag, and are still holding MDD to 3 flags. Kap easily takes flag 5, and hurries north to get Flag 6 from behind. As he arrives, MDD inexplicably moves their tightly clustered formation of warriors into a much looser long line formation facing the other way!!! Half of the warriors are dead before they even turn around to start fighting, and so the last flag is easily taken. However MDD does manage to contest flag 3 for a while with a group of 3 warrior who are doomed, but it gives them just enough time to sneak 3 knights up to flag 1 to kill the lone thrall defender as the rest of the defense that had been on that flag chases away the remainder of MDD's once might looking melee force (and soulless).

GtM's strategy seemed a bit better, but I think they really won because of superior skill. MDD's strat was based on a huge flank to one side, but they did use it to it's full effect. Instead they had a bunch of warriors sitting around idle when they should have been jugging the hell out of flag 1. GtM on the other hand didn't make many mistakes. They knew what to do and when to do it. They lost a few dwarves, and soulless, but it's a small price to pay for a victory this solid.

m0bitz:

For a team that believed in the power of the Dwarf to get six of them in the previous game (see Cracks/Territories), it was surprising to see MDD get none, and fail to even consider the possibility that the enemy would employ a few. This would play a big role in their loss here.

To guard against a southern flank and protect a south flag, MDD decides to send a ton of Thrall...unsupported. I can only imagine how wide the Dwarf's eyes must have been, looking upon a mass of lonely Thrall in tight formation. And though the Dwarf did meet an untimely death due to a bad timed lag bubble, he had already caused enough carnage for his 'mates to mop up.

GTM had a well-organized plan, and stuck to it. The southern flank continued on, capturing another flag guarded by 4 Thrall, while its northern flank stayed with the base forces, and maintained a staunch defense. As the southern flank continued to mow over anything that opposed it, one has to wonder why MDD didn't decide to regroup and prepare for them. Instead, they played GTM like they had all the time in the world, cautiously plinking Thrall with Soulless.

In the end, GTM demolished MDD's paltry Warrior force guarding its last flag, for another win.

Glue the Moose: 6 flags + win, 29 points.
Manic Depressant Dwarves: 4 flags, 16 points.

Back to Game 1 | On to Game 3, The Desert Between Your Ears Stampede