I'd been meaning to do a match review for some time now. Thanks to WS's nifty scripts for making it so tempting to sign up for one. (As soon as I clicked submit I thought, "what the hell have I done?!?") They are a lot of work and my hat's off to those reviewers who take the time to, well, review =). I chose to review this one since I know a few people on both teams and happen to like the both of 'em =). It, ahem, got a little long, but it's mainly for the team's involved. That being said on with the review..

Game One - CTF Caer

PT is filled with idle chat mainly from MoL's side. Apparently there was a dispute about Gordo's host and both teams go into the match irked about it. Cruiser makes a plea to be abused in the review but he doesn't give me the opportunity till the last game =(. Grumpy notes 'dfm' followed by 'figure it out'. 'Divorce follows myth' would be my guess. =)

Game on. MoL goes with a 2 prong leaving North unguarded except for a lone scouting warrior. TO 3 prongs it with a biggish mid and lite flanks to both side.

Both mids meet and the battle rages. Wod and Joan for Orleans / Archangel and Chris on arc for MoL with Cruiser and Slither running warz. Joan feigns a rush with her 16 warz in the first moments of the encounter but at the site of the MoL duf backs off. Wod picking up on the duf threat, gets it pinned between his crosshairs, and kills the little bugger. A second midget is scurrying around for MoL in knee-deep water though. Wod blunders, and focusing all his attention on the little guy brings up his own duf to toss at him while he's still in the water. Problem is Wod's duf is standing on the shore and gets molotov'd by Slither of MoL's alert midget. MoL on the other hand is pecking away at Wod's arcs while he is busy shooting at the duf and it isn't long before they have a comfortable lead in arcs mid. When Wod comes to he has lost 7 arcs and killed 2 of MoL's. He never did get the midget.
Pus arrives for both squads at the middle. El Gordo hits the TO warz freezing them in place. He calls for "flame!!" but the MoL arcs are to busy shooting other things. Maybe the squirrels or something. Orange King runs pus for TO and hits mostly warz, significantly weakening them. TO's mid gets driven back with Joan asking "what to do?" Run Joan, run.

Mid is decided before the flanks see any action.

Up north Grumpy and Se7en are taking a leisurely stroll through the park. Se7en does manage to sneak a few ghols around and pus Gordo's inattentive ghols killing his pus with one of his, but their progress is slow.

Down south, Apoc and Phantom Mullet are doing an excellent job pushing on the TO flank. Apoc has the advantage in numbers on arcs and is using them. Phantom is working too, pushing with his warz, but he fails to see Sarnac's duf perched on a hill and takes a molotov as a wake up call. Apoc speedily takes out the duf. With the weakened warz and MoL attacking from the water, Sarnac probably should've rushed his warz but he doesn't capitalize on the opportunity. The TO duf dies and Apoc turns his attention back to the arcs and flames them very effectively setting the south scrambling. Arcana returns the favor a second later and flames away. When the arc fight is over Apoc has 3 arcs to TO's none. Sarnac turns and runs.

Both teams arrive at the other's flags at about the same time.

Let's follow MoL's flag for a moment. Grump is on arcs with se7en on warz/duf for TO's slow moving north. They get into range on MoL's flag and an arc fight ensues between Grump and Archangel, MoL's cap, El Gordo, makes a nice cameo here tho and satchel pusses the TO forces. GJ Gordo. He seals the game apparently as TO gets thrown off balance and can't recover. Grumpy wants to go around the hill to attack from the bigger clearing despite se7en's cries for urgency (The TO flag is under heavy attack by now). Grumpy doubles back abandoning the better terrain but the push is weak and the TO attack goes down without doing much damage.

As this is happening on MoL's flag the TO defense is struggling to stay afloat. The MoL mid that has pushed thru is menacing with 6 or so arcs, the weakened pack of warz and a deep red duf. Joan's war pack and Wod's thrall are holding. Melee is jousting for position while the MoL arcs are picking away. Sending out 4 thrall Wod pushes on the MoL offense and Joan backs him up. She splits off 2 warz to hunt down the arcs while the MoL warz bunch for the fight. Sarnac of TO arrives on the scene just in the nick to maul the remaining arcs for MoL while Joan loses the melee fight. With Sarnac's reinforcements TO seems poised to defend, but Apoc is hot on Sarnac's heels with his still rounded flank including Uri the dwarf. Uri goes to work and TO can't orchestrate the dwarf's demise. TO loses the flag to some well placed molotovs.

MVP goes to Apoc for his nice work on the flank and his timely arrival at TO's flag for the nab.

14 - 0 Mo

Game Two - FR Lichen

TO trades for max warz where MoL gets a few extra duffs. 30 sec's into PT Orange, the cap for TO, gives out the orders. Grumpy and arcana are heading south and the rest of the team is heading to D the temple. As PT winds down Joan let's out the always encouraging "we're fucked". Game on and both teams head out. Lots of confusion among MoL as they try to work out who is where. Eventually they 3 prong it. TO has 42% on their temple for D yet Joan seems frantic, hollering to Orange that they're going to get pinched.

At 4 minutes into the game some very poor defense at the MoL temple costs them the flag. The attacking TO force run by Grumpy and arcana now has an early jump and is pushing on to the MoL home.

The TO flag is under heavy attack at this time. Pus has decimated their arcs and Joan is pretty verbal about her displeasure.

St. Joan: "Orange this sucks"
St. Joan: "We're dying here"
Orange King: "Just give us 90 secs and the game is ours Joan"

MoL is pushing hard and TO doesn't stand a chance at holding their temple flag. Wod calls for Joan to fallback and reinforce their home. Seconds later Orange agrees and orders Joan back, but she apparently isn't listening and insists on dying where she stands as the MoL duf trashes what's left of her warz.

Soon after the TO's forces have arrived at the lightly defended MoL home and proceed to carve up the thrall there for the win. Finishing %'s for the record are 23% for TO and 43% for MoL. A nice win for TO. Kudos to Orange for a well orchestrated plan and a cool head under fire.

The score is now 30 to 29 in MoL's favor. Everything hinges on Trow assassin.(O the agony

Game Three - Assassin Trow

MoL starts east with Cruiser as cap, TO is west run by Se7en. Both teams split 3 ways with MoL sending their peasants North on a strictly defensive flank. TO plans to stash their peasants down south. As the game kicks off TO notes how they rarely say 'gl'. The team offers up explanations as to why. Sarnac's response makes me chuckle..."screw em." Heh.

Game on.

Everyone splits to their sides. Some confusion again on MoL's side while they work out who is where.

Wod and Joan are again mid for TO. Cruiser has the trow for MoL's mid with Apoc and Slither backing him up. A couple of min's into the game Wod has pulverized Cruiser's trow and manages to kick some art soon after. MoL's mid is looking grim and is forced to give ground.

Meantime South has stalemated as artillery fires back and forth across the river.

North is where things are getting sticky. TO has spotted the MoL peasants and are looking to score. The battle rages. Gordo and Phantom MoLlet are defending for MoL while Orange and Grumpy are working to break their defense.

Here is where Cruiser gets some heat as requested. After having lost the trow mid he starts to bitch at his team. He is "wow"'d and "amazed" at their inability to, well, something. Frankly, I'm not sure what it is he's amazed at. The MoL morale is taking shots from their cap. Luckily everyone is too busy fighting to care that he's complaining.

MoL's south gives up the fight at the river and goes to pinch mid where Joan and Wod are busy working on MoL's ever-so-slowly retreating mid. Wod notices the pinch and calls Joan back before they get hammered.

Up north El Gordo gets off a nice fireball and takes out the enemy lock setting the TO north on the run. MoL gives chase.

Back at mid. The TO south has come up behind the pinching MoL'rs and is returning the favor. Wod's trow finally dies at the hands of Apoc's "supa myrk". Joan rushes what's left of slither's mid force and wipes it out at little cost to herself. When the chaos dies down TO has 66% to MoL's 60%.

With 5 minutes on the clock TO surrounds the MoL peasant defense up north as se7en sneakily moves the TO peasants to MoL's far south. A good rush would have gotten TO the game. All they needed was one kill to win the match, but they don't communicate and go in piecemeal getting picked apart by the MoL defense.

Game Over. The game draws and MoL takes the match win.