Battle 2 - Cambridge

[Darkwolf]

Date - 01/08/09
System - Cambridge
Challenger - Blood
Result - Sentinels lose 2-1

Participants
[Sent]The GreenKnight[bass]
[Sent]mrbonkers[bass]
[Sent]Grisha [DracO]
[Sent]Rika[DK]
[Sent]-Darkwolf[DK]
[SENT]::KnightHawk::[DK]
[Sent][UF]Phil
[Sent][UF]Tommy
[Sent]Ancient1[FFF]
[Sent]Cobre[FFF]
[Sent]Tronic[FFF]
[PRS]Mairsile
[PRS]Tai-Kamiya2
[Warhawk]Epoulard

14 pilots turned out to help Sentinels defend Cambridge from a squad of Blood, Immy's and Xt, but only allowed ten in a squad, rotated to allow everyone a fight. The first round started with uber-lag as 20 pilots suddenly engaged. It was only when half of them had been killed that things seemed to settle down somewhat. Unfortunately, the Blood squad had the better of this round killing off the Sent squad with only five losses.

With TBK having killed Rockstar early in the battle, the second round went more favourably for Sent. Tronic, Sent's new recruit from FFF, was on form, killing Caspa, Spirit and Warhead, as was Warhawk's Epoulard, who killed Aesir and Deathscythe before having a missile backfire. Hunter and LuYen were both looking dangerous for the opposition, killing four of our pilots between them, before Rika killed Hunter and Phil took out LuYen.

With everything to fight for, the first round started badly for Sent, with Rockstar killing Tai-Kamiya2, Epaulard and Cobre in quick succession before suffering a missile backfire himself. Having then lost Grisha and Rika to back-firing missiles and MrBonkers to Caspa, Sent found themselves outnumbered 8vs4. Phil, Tronic, Tommy and TBK fought bravely on, but faced with 2 to 1 odds one by one fell.

The battle left Sent homeless, and Blood controlling much of Bretonia. The battle has given each of us a taste for more, however, so we will regroup and return.

Good fights, everyone who turned up, friend and foe alike.

[TheGreenKnight]

Very good battle report; your notes are fantastic!

Just a couple of impressions from the battle that I thought I'd share:

- Darkwolf and I were the only ones with teamspeak; I should have taken advantage of this and grouped with him, but he and Mr. Bonkers had been tag teaming Blood very effectively in game, and ahead of time I made the decision to put them together. In the future, I'll make sure TS guys are in the same wings. Of course, I urge everyone to get teamspeak going before the next one.

- In the first round, Grisha and I went on LeChuck. Chuck is known to be a good fighter, and I wanted him taken care of. Unfortunatly, he was bouncing around like ping pong in a dryer because his ping was through the roof. This essentially took him out of the game, but it took me and Grisha out too. I eventually switched to one of the others--Hunter I think--and got him with a lucky missile hit just as I got killed.

- In the third round, we kept the same targets, which sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. In this case I think our targets were ready for us, and were more evasive. I had a much tougher time getting any hits on Rocky. As we struggled with hard targets, the others made quick work of us.

- Also in the third round, LeChuck's internet sorted itself, so he was suddenly effective. We completely ignored him, as we expected him to lag out again.

- Just in general, lag was really an issue, and I'm not sure 10 vs 10 isn't a bit too much for the server to handle. Grectch said the server load was fine, but I'm not entirely convinced. I know a few of our fighters were dealing with internet problems, and weren't at 100% effectivness--Mr B. was talking about returning his new router today, and giving Belkin a piece of his mind. Still, back on GOI we used 8 vs 8 for a lot of reasons--the groups get unstable beyond that, and formation flying becomes difficult. I'm consdiering putting that in my commentary in the CLC.

- One really good problem I had, and I hope to have in the future, is that we had so many available fighters, I was struggling to get everyone into the battle. Normally It's just a matter of giving everyone turns, but Ping was such an issue I was forced to be more judicious--and I couldn't exactly figure out who had what ping. Again, if we had TS going, I could have talked more and probably made more equitable decisions. It didn't help that Gretch kept sending me messages rushing me to get moving because he didn't have all day. In the end result, I think it was only allies that got shortchanged, but I'll have to send a message to Hughsinkler and Raegon about it.

- On an up note, I still can't believe I got Rocky with a Lancer/Catapult combo on the Blood Dragon, in addition to the other kills/assists/forced suicides I got. The BD is definitely a new favorite of mine. Loadout as follows:

1 Thunderbolt
3 Reapers
1 Lancer
1 Catapult
1 Cutter mine
Level 8 grav shield
Port and Starbord Wings clipped

- On another up note, this was a VERY competetive fight, lasting something like an hour and a half. I'm half tempted to say no regens for next time, because I'm not sure having an adreneline rush for that long is healthy. XD Actually, we'll be attacking next time, and I know Rocky wants no regens, so we'll se how that goes. In addition, I'll bet the admins fix it at no regens, because they feel the need to be there to ref it. We'll see what happens.

- I was contacted by Rockstar and other blood members, to say what a good fight it was. I think it was Aesir who flew to O-3 just to tell everyone himself personally. I think we earned a lot of respect in this battle. Everyone really did do a great job, especially for the conditions.

- Thanks to everyone who showed up. I hope you had enough fun that you'll be there for the next one!!

TGK