Ah. With a few strokes of the finger you are now looking at this page: a blue and white field of text, broken only by pictures and slight aberrations in font. In fact, in this little world of mine, the only unifying substance is a game played by eight people on the internet one quaint Saturday night. The game is a 2v2v2v2 free for all, the game takes place on Twilight Ruins, and the game starts like all good stories start... with an acolyte at 12:00.

Warcraft: An Acolyte's Story

Of course this acolyte was no ordinary acolyte. His name was Jeff, and he belonged to Poor_lil_Newb as well as, to a lesser extent, his orc partner DarkDemon. Jeff is basically a good, average guy. Sure he worships demons and summons monsters that frequently end up feasting on innocent babies, but his parents and I are betting that it is probably all just a teenage phase....

Anyways, on this particular day Jeff was given an exciting mission. Instead of harvesting gold, Poor_lil_Newb sent him northwards to the 12:00 position as a scout. Jeff was undoubtedly excited, and went immediately north to find the undead Cattlebruiser's base (yes ladies and gents, CB is in this battlereport, that = +2 for report score). Being an enthusiastic acolyte, Jeff decided to attack Cattlebruiser's acolytes; a move that resulted in some nearby ghouls stopping their wood harvest and attacking the invader. Protests rang off immediately from Poor_lil_Newb, and Jeff subsequently made his heroic escape.

It was a tense couple of seconds. Jeff hovered quickly out of the undead base, followed closely by Cattlebruiser's ravaging ghoul. The scene was like that one part of that Indiana Jones movie where Indiana is running out of a cave with a giant boulder chasing him -- except without the cave, boulder, or Indiana (definitely with the excitement though). The ghoul started getting nearer and nearer to Jeff. Its hard, sexy feet pounded louder and louder as they got closer to their target. And then, without warning, the ghoul retreated; leaving Jeff safe and sound.

Yet, Jeff was still wounded, and when Poor_lil_Newb saw his poor, half-dead acolyte, he and DarkDemon decided on their target for the game... CB.

Jeff immediately swung around and headed back to Cattlebruiser's base. Upon arriving, Jeff started picking on another acolyte. CB responded by doing some fancy gold mine maneuvering where weak acolytes would move to the back mining spots while healthy acolytes would move to the front spots as replacements.  Jeff didn't have enough time to get too frustrated with CB's tricks because a newly created crypt fiend soon after popped out of a crypt and killed him. Nobody cared. 

On CB's right, his ally, Angel, (yes ladies and gents, theangel/thepalisade is in this report --that means -3 for report score) also suffered some harassment.  This is where Mr.Puddles (my ally) and I entered the game. Toward the game's beginning I decided to harass the northern base (which belonged to Angel) with my warden hero. Unfortunately the harassment didn't go too well because a death knight was present upon my warden's arrival that was quite happy about throwing death coils at her. My warden retreated, and finally CB and Angel had peace at home.

A Broken Peace

CB's peace did not last long, for Poor_lil_Newb and Darkdemon were quick to continue their campaign of harassment. Using wind walk to infiltrate Cattlebruiser's base, Darkdemon ordered his blademaster to start killing acolytes. Despite a couple of fiends and a nerubian tower defending the gold mine, the blademaster was able to kill two of CB's acolytes before escaping.

Now at this point you probably have a few questions. So, I have I decided to compile them here with a few suiting answers.

1. This report sucks.

a. Umm, that's not a question?

2. Drintr, you ungosu son of a gun, you told me there were eight players in this ffa. What have the other two players been doing?

a. I'm about to get to that, sheesh.

3. Is it true that having thepalisade in your battlereport gets you -3 points?

a. Yes

4. Mr.Puddles (Drintr's ally) has a funny name. What has he been doing all this time?

a. Yes, Mr.Puddles is a funny name.

5.  You didn't answer my last question.

a. He's massing ghouls with a dreadlord hero. Sheesh...

To fully answer question #2, Lingor (a.k.a the almighty Zerg~ling -- having him in your br means +1 for report score) had been building an army of footmen. Using the footmen, Lingor decided to do a quick raid of Darkdemon's base. The raid resulted in the destruction of two bestiaries and Lingor's men escaping with few casualties. After the pre-game annoyances were done, everything started to get a little boring as about 2-3 minutes of creeping occurred. I don't want to detail any of this creeping, and so instead I have decided to use this momentary pause-in-action to sum up what everyone is building.

I guess you could say there's enough mass to convert these people to Catholicism... umm, never mind.

After Lingor's attack on Darkdemon, followed a few minutes later with a slightly less successful attack, Darkdemon and Poor_lil_Newb abandoned their campaign against Cattlebrusier and prepared to attack Lingor.

Rallying together raiders, necromancers, and ghouls -- Darkdemon and Poor_lil_Newb went downtown to Lingor's base. Lingor was prepared for their arrival, and ordered his footmen and spell breakers to engage the enemy forces. Unfortunately, Lingor had been to cheap to buy a scroll of regeneration to heal his (previously used for raiding) footmen prior to the attack, and the damaged footmen fell quickly to a chain lightning and frost nova combo. The few remaining spell breakers and footmen fell back to Lingor's main base just as Resist teleported into Lingor's town hall.

Lingor quickly countered the advance of the enemy forces by casting a flame strike on Poor_lil_Newb's ghouls. The strike successfully killed the ghouls and allowed Resist's crypt fiends an easy time focus firing on Poor_lil_Newb's level 1 crypt lord. The crypt lord was killed relatively quickly while Lingor and Resist advanced their troops to target other heroes. With only a few necromancer-skeletons and raiders remaining, Poor_lil_Newb and Darkdemon retreated.

At the same time as Poor_lil_Newb's attack, CB and Angel attacked me. My archers immediately retreated back into the moonwell protected center of my base upon seeing the ghoul and fiend combination being used by my enemies. Luckily, Mr.Puddles and his ghouls were quick to arrive to assist in my defense. Despite a frost nova spell hitting the ghouls while they were clumped together (and thus freezing them all), the ghouls proceeded to successfully fend off the attackers' forces. Combined with focus firing from my archers that killed Angel's crypt lord, the battle victory started to lean towards the defenders. Then, with the use of Mr.Puddle's crypt lord and an impale spell that targeted a clump of crypt fiends; CB and Angel retreated (Angel, who had lost everything but his death knight, retreated by simple fleeing, and CB retreated through teleport scroll).

Take 2

Just like a f****in tramp of a girlfriend that says she's not going to cheat on you again, only to excuse herself to the restroom and start mooching the first guy she sees on the way (ya, I know, that analogy sucked) Darkdemon and Poor_lil_Newb attacked Lingor for a second time. This time Darkdemon had more raiders to attack with, and Poor_lil_Newb had more necromancers, ghouls, and even an obsidian statue to heal. But most importantly, the two teammates had a plan.

The attack began by sending a small attachment of their force to attack one of Lingor's buildings. When Lingor and Resist arrived to defend their homeland, Poor_lil_Newb and Darkdemon retreated in separate directions. The retreat caused Lingor's forces to move a bit away from his town hall, leaving his army away from the safety of his base's tower and militia. At this point, Poor_lil_Newb sent his forces to engage Lingor's full army of spell breakers. Resist, who had just bought a Sea Naga hero, assisted Lingor. Once Lingor's forces were truly engaged, Darkdemon struck with his raiders: sending them behind enemy lines to ensnare and surround Lingor's blood mage.

The blood mage was only able to get one flame strike off at Lingor's ghouls before being killed.

The ghouls pushed hard against Lingor's spell breakers.  Both sides lost men, although Poor_lil_Newb was able to use this to his advantage by having his necromancers constantly raise skeletons from the corpses. Lingor's remaining hero, a level 3 mountain king, let off a few slams to repel the incoming army, but his efforts were in vain.  Meanwhile, Darkdemon had his raiders ensnare Resist's Naga Witch and then surround and kill her.  Reinforcement necromancers arrived, and soon Lingor and Resist's men were completely overrun with skeletons. The defending army was defeated, and Lingor's base destroyed.    

Expand Your World

To quickly skip by this boring, expansion-oriented part, I will simply summarize with some complementary minimap service.

Mr.Puddles expanded to the southern expansion near his base.

Poor_lil_Newb expanded to the expansion spot to the right of his main.

With an escaped peasant, Lingor started rebuilding a base at the 6:00 gold mine.

Lastly, Cattlebruiser took the base between him and Angel.

Now that we have that over with, on to the more interesting stuff:

At this point, Angel was also wanting to expand, and subsequently he chose the expansion spot right beneath his base. Unfortunately, that spot was just left of my base, and I wasn't going to let Angel/thepalisade/dragonsven/ JUST PICK A NAME AND STAY WITH IT *breathe in* take it. A series of hit and run tactics occurred as I would take my archer and mountain giant army and attack Angel's forces trying to occupy the disputed expansion spot. In retrospect, the raids were a bad move on my part because I seemed to lose more men doing them than Angel did defending against them.

On the other side of the map and still using crypt fiends (but now also using obsidian statues), Cattlebrusier started scouting for creeps and action. Soon enough, CB bumped into Poor_lil_Newb's expansion. When Poor_Lil_Newb and Darkdemon arrived to defend the base, CB retreated. Unfortunately for CB, Darkdemon was able to use his raiders to net and kill his retreating level 3 lich and level 4 death knight. CB's slow moving obsidian statues were also destroyed.

In the mean time, Angel retreated from the 'disputed expansion point' between him and I, and headed towards CB's men to assist in their retreat. Angel got rather unlucky, because this was also when Mr.Puddles had decided to travel around the map to hit Angel at the expansion where he was previously fending off my raid groups.  Mr.Puddles and Angel's men collided just as Angel was leaving the expansion. Puddles was quick to have his ghouls tear into Angel's abominations, and when seeing that Mr.Puddles carried the advantage, Angel teleported away.

Mr.Puddles did not have time to get too happy over his victory, as just over the hills Poor_lil_Newb and Darkdemon were arriving. Darkdemon had taken the time previously to tech to taurens, and thus the ally's attack force consisted of obsidian statues, taurens, raiders, shamans, necromancers, abominations, ghouls, and just about any other cult figure or monster you can think of. When Poor_lil_Newb saw the Mr.Puddles' ghouls, he cast impale to lift half of them in the air and stun them.

Mr.Puddles countered with an impale from his level 3 crypt lord, causing Poor_lil_Newb to counter again with impale and a level 3 frost nova spell. The damage from all the spells was too much for Mr.Puddles' ghouls, and most of them died from the spell attacks alone. Meanwhile, Mr.Puddles' heroes decided to make their escape back to Mr.Puddles' main where, once they arrived, they would play off the previous disaster as an effect of unfavorable weather. Although, while the crypt lord was able to flee successfully, Puddles' level 5 dreadlord found himself surrounded and then finally killed by a frost nova blast.

CB and Angel must not have liked being excluded from the fun, because they then entered the scene. And while Mr.Puddles retreated from PiN and Darkdemon, CB and Angel charged right at them.

Poor_lil_Newb fired a frost nova at the pack of abominations leading the attack, and then he proceeded to use his necromancers to cripple every tier 3 melee on the screen that did not belong to him. Cattlebruiser only had a few crypt fiends present, and thus most of the army attacking Poor_lil_Newb and Darkdemon was owned by Angel (and thus crippled). Poor_lil_Newb then brought out another surprise by activating a scroll of protection.

Angel's abominations started to fall, and pretty soon a full retreat was sounded. Darkdemon and Poor_lil_Newb followed the fleeing forces right into Angel's base, where Darkdemon and PiN, aided with PiN's Lich's ultimate spell, proceeded to destroy everything.

The reigning champions were obviously smug, but to understand what happens next we need to back track a little bit...

Jeff: The True Story

When Jeff died so many paragraphs before this one, a letter was sent to his brother, Ferdinand, who was currently working as an acolyte in Mr.Puddles' main base. Ferdinand was obviously saddened over the loss of his only brother, but the untimely death (but then again, when is a death ever timely?) caused Ferdinand to go into a state of reflection more than one of mourning. Jeff had spent his life summoning monsters that destroyed cities and devoured babies, but in the end, what did he have to show for it? A dead body? Ferdinand did not want to end that way. Instead, Ferdinand wanted to be remembered as a reformer: the acolyte that would find a way to allow the undead to live peacefully in the world. The plan would of course require a few treaties and the destruction of all other undead forces on the map, but then again, what plan is good without destruction? At the very least, no babies would have to be devoured to complete it.

Ferdinand set to work and immediately recommended to Mr.Puddles to keep up production of ghouls and perhaps build a third hero, preferably a death knight for his aura. Ferdinand knew that the force would be necessary to counter the growing strength of Poor_lil_Newb and Darkdemon. Later on, when my scouting warden found Poor_lil_Newb and Darkdemon destroying Angel's base, it was decided that an attack should then commence in the hope of catching PiN and Darkdemon off guard.

At the time I had just finished upgrading my army to mountain giants and dryads. Mr.Puddles had a nice assortment of ghouls and heroes, and with our army we attacked Poor_lil_Newb and Darkdemon at Angel's base. The attack was a success.

The horde of ghouls and dryads had an easy time defeating the battle weary enemy. A retreat was sounded by Poor_lil_Newb, although by then a large portion of his and Darkdemon's forces had been destroyed. Instead of following the fleeing army, Mr.Puddles and I finished destroying Angel's base, and then moved to CB's base.

That would be the last victory for our armies. During the time it took us to finish Cattlebrusier; Poor_lil_Newb and Darkdemon had reorganized their men. Ghouls don't stand up well against blood lusted taurens being healed with wards while abominations mop up everything else, and our army, in short, got owned.  Once the ghouls were destroyed I knew my dryads would be next. My forces retreated while my mountain giants remained to ensure a safe escape.

Matters became steadily worse as Zerg~ling had somehow risen from the dead. At the beginning of the game when his base had been destroyed, Ling was able to sneak off a single peasant to an expansion gold mine. The peasant was able to rebuild a fully functioning base at the lower middle expansion spot, and soon enough the base was pumping out spell breakers and knights.

Once Ling had a large army, he and Resist attacked Mr.Puddles' expansion -- destroying the undead layer quickly and efficiently.

In the mean time, PiN and Darkdemon continued their advance. They destroyed my recently built expansion left of my base, and then headed to my main. Knowing that my dryads could not defend against the attacking force, I sent them to safety inside Mr.Puddles' base. Despite my best efforts to deter the attackers with words, my base was destroyed and my hero was killed.

PiN and Darkdemon may have very well continued to Puddles' base, but their plans were stopped when an army of 3/3 crypt fiends and obsidian statues belonging to Resist attacked Darkdemon's expansion. Zerg~ling, of course, accompanied Resist with the attack. Darkdemon teleported to his expansion, and immediately his shamans started casting blood lust on his taurens. This was a bad move because just as soon as blood lust was cast, the spell was then transferred via spell breakers to Zerg~ling's knights. With little effort Darkdemon's entire army was demolished.

At this point, Poor_lil_Newb arrived at the scene by simple attack move. He ordered his necromancers to cast unholy frenzy on his abominations, and then proceeded to raise dead. Since he was attacking from the other direction than Darkdemon had defended from, PiN had the advantage of there being no melee in front of Resist's crypt fiends.

 While Zerg~ling tried to micro his knights to get in front of the crypt fiends and hold off the incoming force of skeletons and abominations, he was too late. The skeletons ripped through the crpyt fiends using their advantage against crypt fiend armor (normal attack > medium armor). The attack became nastier when PiN turned on his crypt lord ultimate, and locus filled the scene to feed on the fiends. Without the crypt fiends for support, the knights and spell breakers were easily killed. While Resist used his level 6 death knight ultimate to raise taurens from the dead, even that trick was unable to hold off Poor_lil_Newb.After this last battle, the game ended rather quickly. PiN and Darkdemon proceeded to destroy every expansion and base.

While the first time they attacked Resist's main base they were defeated, the second assault destroyed the base.

Mr.Puddles built another ghoul army, but lost it when he attempted to attack Darkdemon's expansion. Still determined to win, Puddles built another ghoul army that he ended up losing to a single blade master ultimate. Soon Mr.Puddles' base was invaded. With Mr.Puddles dead, the game ended.

Before I officially end this battlereport, I know that several readers are probably interested in the fate of Ferdinand the Reformer. To be honest, not many people know what happened to Ferdinand. Some say he was killed in the final attack on Mr.Puddles' main. Others say he escaped and went into accounting. Although, the most popular opinion holds that Ferdinand went to the same place this battlereport went when I first mentioned his brother Jeff in the first place-- straight to hell.

Peace and Love,

                           Drintr