Round 2

This is just 1/16th of the full tourney draw

Opponent: Meshuga

My opponent in this game will be one of my Meshuga, a player ranked around #10 in the active league. If I were ranked in the LSN league right now I'd be in 8th place (relatively to the active players which isn't that much of the whole), Meshuga is only slightly lower than me which means he also doesn't quite suck which is again unfortunate for me.

Looks like Meshuga's opponent in the first round didn't finish the game in time.

Deployment

August 31, 2006 - 3:20 pm

Most Likely Deployments
Marines	A Grenadier and Grunts would be a good deployment. Destructive firepower and support would be ammo limited however. A more conservative route would replace a Grunt or two with a Medic. An information oriented player would put in a Sniper for vision but it would seriously limit the number of support units with a Grenadier. Plus it sucks against Spawn up close where they mostly like to be. A Commander here would be a nice mini tank but also have much less hp than a real heavy unit.
Machina	Two probable deployments. You'd have to be really bold to deploy a Tank with only 1 support unit but who knows. Pretty much all other races and deployments would be able to run rings around you but trying to beat through its hide would be a pain. Most likely a mix of Hunters and/or Exterminators for firepower and mobility.
Spawn	Individually the strongest units so very dangerous to see. My deployment should stand up to most deployments, but a pure Drone deployment or a Queen would really put me in danger.
Grey	Unlikely to see Greys deployed here, you generally need more troops to be safe. A Saucer might be a dangerous surprise, but once you run out of energy running is your only option and 40 turns is a long time.

I have no idea what to deploy this game so I'll just drop the same one as in the first game. Copy-paste ensues.

With the low fp available, I decided to go with a Spawn deployment able to deal with infantry. Two Drones, a Splatter, a Goo Spitter, and a Buzzer. Its a risky deployment with little ranged firepower but it might work. Maybe. If I encounter large units I'll be in deep trouble.

This time I'm on the opposite side of the map but the original plan remains mainly viable.

There aren't enough force points available to deploy in this game to have a truly balanced deployment. Guessing the enemy deployment in this game may be a key part of winning, having the appropriate units to fight the enemy gives a strong advantage prior to actual fighting. Somewhere corners have to be cut or certain units ignored to face the most likely opposition.

Name	Unit	Reason
zip	Buzzer	Its me! I want to be the fly. Wheeeeeeeee!
Johnny_Vegas	Goo Spitter	JV chose to be the Goo Spitter. Is he trying to tell us something?
Planetkilr	Splatter	Slow, explodes, dies to perform its job. Perfect.
LuckyNewbie	Drone	Mindless cannon fodder. Also perfect.
Psyonic_Reaver	Drone	Last person I talked to on AIM besides the others. Good enough.

Turn 2

August 31, 2006 - 3:25 am

Plan: Charge forward into the large building on the right and hopefully don't get seen (or killed).

Results: Nothing as expected.

Turn 3

August 31, 2006 - 3:40 am

Plan: The plan is to bite a wall until a breach is formed and then charge through. Again like last game a breach is unlikely so more likely we're gonna just sit there for a turn. A picture of the desired outcome is below. You can see that the breach point is between the two buildings and thus less likely to be spotted by enemy units unless they are relatively close and thus killable. If I run into a heavy unit or pack of Drones I am dead in a very sad and immediate way.

The assault team moves into position while JV uses the facilities

Results: As Zip the Buzzer hovered behind a building he pondered the tastiness of the wall in front of him, but then an orange chunk of metal flew up and he decided to bite that instead. Also the above units actually managed to breach the wall and move into the alleyway.

Turn 4

September 4, 2006 - 3:05 pm

Plan: While Zip follows the tasty orange metal chunk around, the others will attempt to replicate the maneuver with the next building and if not will peek around the edges at the end of the turn.

Results: Alert! Alert! Emergency! TANK SIGHTING! ALL UNITS SWITCH OFF COMBAT RESPONSES AND RUN UNTIL THE GAME ENDS!!! DO NOT ENGAGE IT!!!

Click for Movie!

Oh yeah, Zip managed to kill the Hunter in spite of being shot at by the AI at close range. The Hunter stopped to shoot and hold the Buzzer in firing position close to the AI, but the AI missed and the Hunter only managed to get 1 shot off. I'm up 1-0. =D

Turn 5

September 4, 2006 - 3:35 pm

Plan: As I said earlier I have nothing that can reliably kill a heavy unit such as an AI. Johnny_Vegas the Goo Spitter can immobilize him for 10 some turns and erode away 20 health if he's accurate with every shot (at which point he dies). That still leaves the AI with 35 health beneath a 3 armor shell. So now my only choice is to run away like a thief with my 1 point lead for the next... 35 turns. I don't think we need to hear about the rest of the game unless something interesting happens.

I'm going to stash Johnny_Vegas and Planetkilr into a building where they should be immune from anything the AI can do. The remaining 3 units are significantly faster than the AI and should be able to avoid it unless he gets absurdly lucky at long range.

Turn 17

September 13, 2006 - 2:00 pm

Results: Meshuga ran out of time on Turn 17 and the game ended.