Pre-game setup in this paragraph,
move on down if you don't care. This game was played on December 03,
2004. That's right, over a year ago with most of the time being
spent after I wrote most of this. This BR will be
written in the first person format with situational updates... I
myself am the most wonderful and brave MehPracticeSmrf
camouflaged and hidden in the southeast corner of the map.
Spread
throughout the report are strategy boxes that I think are/thought were true... at the
moment at least. Read them if you want to get more into depth on the
issue or skip them if you don't care. Remember how outdated this
game and version are though.
Some more
old Footmen Frenzy

This game started
with 10 players in the 4 teams. The players were divided into teams by the
corner they start in as you should be able to
see above. The Teams are numbered clockwise with Team 1 in the
upper-left, Team 2 upper-right, etc. At the beginning however honfazin
transferred all his money
to DeathInAPackage
and yongmo
was backstabbed by both his partners for some
reason and quit soon after (He's not important so I excluded
him from my beautiful chart). This turned the game into a very
convenient 2v2v2v2.
My partner merton
selected a Jaood
to be his hero and informed me to get a Demon Hunter to exploit the
powerful lategame Bloodlusted Demon Hunter strategy I assume. As he
was typing his message though I, in my "random hero" phase of
game playing, rolled the dice and ended up with a Halpmeh. Conveniently
my Halpmeh came with the free random items "Boots of Speed" and
"Jaood Amulet" which made me faster and gave me additional hp
and mana capacity.
Soon after I
had gotten my Halpmeh however Hallogenic-X's
CattleBruiser
strolled out into the middle with his supporting Footmen. Happily I
contemplated the future outcome of the game as I imagined about my Halpmeh
getting repeatedly walloped by a combination of
Death and Cold Strike
amplified by
his Ethereal ability.
Halpmeh
Halpmeh is a custom hero for Footmen Frenzy and has
a unique ability to switch back and forth between ethereal and
physical forms. While ethereal the Halpmeh is immune to
physical attacks but takes 66% greater damage from magical attacks.
The Shocker - This is a renamed Chain
Lightning which does full damage to its initial target and then
jumps to nearby targets if with a progressive loss of strength.
Higher levels of the spell do more damage, jump more often, and lose
less strength after each jump.
Zoz - Lightning Shield turned into a hero
spell. This spell wraps around any non-magic immune unit (friend or
enemy) and deals damage to any non-magic immune nearby.
Higher levels of the spell do larger amounts of damage and a level 6
spell can be placed on player-controlled buildings. This is a great
spell to use when 2 enemy armies are fighting each other.
Tichmeh Armorz - A passive aura that affects
all non-invulnerable units, this spell acts like a Faerie Fire spell
by reducing armor levels on enemy units. Increased levels remove
larger amounts of armor.
Zoz can deal much more damage than The Shocker over
the long term but only if enemy units stay nearby the unit wearing
the lightning shield. Good players however can relatively
quickly kill, dispel, or separate the afflicted unit from their own
formations so it normally doesn't work its entire
duration.
I personally tend to max Shocker, Tichmeh, and Huk!
when I use him. The Shocker will not damage friendly units,
can probably hit more units, and can't be dispelled which I find
appealing. Zoz can be cast more often at high levels and is
good with friendly high hp units but I usually use it less
often. Both Tichmeh Armorz and Huk! are good army
supporting spells (if the armies are good) and should always be effective against enemy
units, even magic-immune ones.
Huk! - A weakened version of a Paladin's
Resurrection. This spell brings back to life friendly corpses on the
ground to fight again. The hero's units get priority over ally's
units though requiring care when trying to bring back a partner's
more powerful units. Higher levels bring back more units.
|
Needless to say I promptly switched
to physical form and informed him of the great new dangers he was now
vulnerable too, mostly composed of sharp objects.
One of my Footmen then took a lap
around the map and returned. After a battle started between ThUnDa_LiZaRd and
Hallogenic-X,
I put a point in Zoz and put a lightning shield in the middle of their
battle (Level 1 Shocker barely does anything). In that way I could do damage to both sides and more importantly
leech kills off of them. Since my Halpmeh was in physical form he also
began to engage in combat. Unfortunately his inexperience in the physical
realm was very apparent as he proceeded to swing his incense holder wildly
while using his axe for
balance. Tragically Hallogenic-X
soon after killed the Zozzed Footman with a Cold Strike spell thereby
ending its effects.
Fortunately for
me however, gayfer
had selected a Paladin and chose to harass the only undead hero in the
game who also happened to be my biggest threat. merton
in the meanwhile was running around invisible with Moon Walk and attempting toambush
and pick off
heroes. Soon after backstabbing yongmo's
hero, Hallogenic-X's and
later ThUnDa_LiZaRd's
heroes were killed by gayfer's
and merton's
ambushes respectively.

My second and third skill points
went into The Shocker and Tichmeh aura respectively. The former to get
more kills in and the latter to soften up enemy units for my Footmen and
Halpmeh. Then Zoz, Shocker, and Huk! when I upgraded to Ghouls
merton
picked up a "Scourge Bone Chimes" for its Vampiric Aura and
"Claws of +20" while I saved up for a Tier upgrade.
Team Backstab (Team 1,
northwest) was doing
quite well with its Footmen/Archer combo. The Footmen were a decent
shield and the Archers were doing heavy damage with their focus fire,
badly wounding or killing any enemy hero nearby.
The Northeast team was starting to
fall behind with both player's heroes having died once already. gayfer
and Hallogenic-X
were involved in a feud and were trading hero kills while other battles
raged about them. They then decided to pick on the next weakest
team, mine, but took heavy casualties doing it and helped me get enough
gold to
upgrade.
Undead Tech
The Undead are a powerful offensive race
whose racial ability increases their movement and attack
speed. While the Undead can't increase the hp of their
units, they can deal plentiful damage quickly before they die. Very
useful when combined with a hero or unit to stun the enemy, these
units can quickly deal damage and kill these immobile foes. The
relatively low hp of the Undead and their lack of magic immunity
does make them very vulnerable to powerful Area of Effect spells.
If performed quickly enough, the spells can seriously damage or
injure an undead attack force. Tier
1 : Ghouls - Ghouls are the weakest of all Undead
units. With good race upgrades and a Vampiric aura they can
do heavy damage to their enemies before dying. A
Scepter of Shockwave however can wipe out a line of full health
Ghouls with ease. While useful early game, these units are
usually too weak to survive long in mid/late game unless you can
prevent your enemies from progressing to that point. |
Team Pool (Team 4, southwest) was naturally
doing quite well with a strong shield of upgraded Grunts allowing the 2
heroes to level quite well. After reaching level 6 DeathInAPackage's
HatoUp moved into Team Backstab's base and started a Stampede. Both gayfer
and merton
moved in to hinder his ultimate, with merton
ending up killing both the HatoUP and the Paladin with Moonwalk
and Bloodlust.

(7:50) Feel the Ultimates

Soon after using Dust of Appearance
to reveal and allow macg3freak's
Archers to kill merton's
Jaood, Hallogenic-X
came down and used his Camato Yannon ultimate on my poor little piggy. He
had been busy incensing md1415's
Fox who was at the front lines and providing Tichmeh Armorz aura support
for the army. These 2 kills quickly raised the CattleBruiser to level
7.

Team Pool decided to take advantage
of this weakness and sent their armies in our direction. Many Ghouls
and Footmen were lost to the upgraded Grunts but they were steadily
overwhelmed especially when our revived heroes' auras returned. My
Halpmeh began wandering around trying to rub his sexy body against as many
enemies as possible without being surrounded while merton
was killing at random. md1415's
metamorphosed
Fox became trapped against a wall and was killed by merton's
lusty Jaood while under Halmeh's aura.
Hallogenic-X
was using Dust of Appearance well against merton's
Jaood previously so I think merton
got a few of them to reduce their
availability.

A second attempt a few minutes later
was also foiled when DeathInAPackage's
HatoUP attempted a Stampede but was put to sleep by a purchased Renegade Wizard creep,
md1415's
Fox became trapped without mana by my Ghouls, and merton's
Jaood began single-handedly annihilating DeathInAPackage's
HatoUP and army of Troll Berserkers.
(12:30) Tunnel Vision

Then a third attempt less than 2
minutes after that went into our base losing many electronic lives but
doing no serious damage. Both the attacking and defending armies
were destroyed but considering how DeathInAPackage
had upgraded to Tier 3 Raiders and I had made it to Tier 2 Crypt Fiends
before the battle, we came out slightly ahead in experience earned. I had to switch
Halpmeh to ethereal form to avoid his dying under the swarm of Raiders. merton
had to use his Town Portal twice to avoid being surrounded and killed but
the second time ended up behind enemy lines and killed DeathInAPackage's
HatoUP from the back.
Undead Tier 2: Crypt Fiends
Tier 2 : Crypt Fiends - These
ranged units have more firepower per shot than the any other
Undead tier except for Tier 4. Their bug attacks can follow
retreating units and kill them relatively far away when
targeted. Heavily upgraded Crypt Fiends can be highly
dangerous while unupgraded ones are kind of amusing to toy
with. Crypt Fiends are also the first Undead unit to get
their racial ability: slam. Slam reduces the attack speed of
nearby enemy units for a short while letting the Undead units
survive longer. While good units,
Crypt Fiends like all other Undead units are still vulnerable to
Area of Effect spells due to their limited hp. They also
give a nice bounty when killed but are dangerous to get to get
nearby. |
A fourth attack was a
sent a minute later and ended even quicker. DeathInAPackage
apparently had a strong dislike of merton's
Jaood and kept attacking his side of our base and taking out his
speed-built Cannon Towers. He was able to kill merton's
army of Footmen very quickly while I had to hang around our base to kill
the incoming Raider packs. My Tichmeh Armorz aura was helping us a
lot as his Raiders had negative armor levels when fighting us. Using
Huk! to resurrect some of my lost units helped my forces to withstand the
next attack and brought my Renegade Wizard back to life after it died to
Shadow Strike.

After a battle between everyone in
the middle, a sixth attack supported by a
level 2 Stampede a couple of minutes later was also thwarted as the
Raiders ran into our Footmen/Crypt Fiends supported by a couple Avatars of
Vengeance creating invulnerable Spirits. The Stampede was
interrupted
again by my Renegade Wizard's Sleep spell. The HatoUP then chose to Town
Portal out rather than face the Jaood standing right next to her.
I advised merton
to upgrade to at least Tier 1 at this point several times since he was
clearly the target of a vendetta. He didn't.

A seventh consecutive attack against
our base was launched after a slight skirmish that started in the middle
cost both merton
and myself our heroes to Hallogenic-X's
CattleBruiser. merton's
Jaood could handle Team Backstab's army, but when a Camato Yannon hit him
he collapsed in an instant. My Halpmeh was cruising around the
middle in ethereal form and the impacts of the CattleBruiser's regular
spells was not pleasant. DeathInAPackage's
army were eventually killed in our base by our combined forces and merton's
Jaood dealt with the HatoUP. DeathInAPackage
had something to say about that.

(20:30) Spend that money

At this point ThUnDa_LiZaRd
must've figured out how they were this game's whipping boys and quit
leaving gayfer
alone and outmatched. gayfer
had been harassing the CattleBruiser but being so far behind in levels his
attacks weren't very effective unless it had been injured first. After
getting killing the CattleBruiser one more time then getting his Ghouls
whipped by the Jaood, gayfer
quit as well eliminating Team 2.
Teams 1 and 2 had been busy fighting
while our battles occurred to the south with Team Backstab benefiting from their
weaker opponents. Hallogenic-X's
hero had the highest level out of all the heroes but
that isn't unusual for a CattleBruiser. Hallogenic-X
had recently purchased a HatoUP as well getting up to level 3 so
far. macg3freak's
Archers had done their job well and unwary Footmen and heroes were in
serious danger near concentrations. The inherent weakness of Archers
had occurred to macg3freak's
and he had been saving up for Dryads until this moment.

The above Shockwave netted me enough
for to upgrade again to Tier 3 while merton
continued his hero killing adventures. Team Pool launched a heavy attack against Team Backstab with
Raider groups shielding DeathInAPackage's
Stampeding HatoUP and md1415's
metamorphosed Fox. Hallogenic-X
and macg3freak's
armies crumbled under the highly upgraded Raiders and ultimates, but
merton
annoyed DeathInAPackage
again by Moon Walk/Bloodlust ambushing his hero yet
again and md1415's
Fox was picked off while the
armies fought on.
Undead Tier 3: Skeletal Mages
Tier 3 : Skeletal Mages - One of the most
prolific spawned Tiers of the game, Skeletal Mages are highly
vulnerable to Area of Effect spells due to their low hp. This
is offset however by their low kill bounty and rapid spawning. Skeletal Mages are highly
offense oriented units able to
rapidly deal damage but very vulnerable in return, they are usually able to deal enough kill
more than the equivalent value of their
enemies than they lose in turn (except to Tier 4 and Raiders under
certain circumstances). |
With the death of their heroes I
sent my forces into Team Pool's base and started rubbing my Halpmeh
around. merton
came over to assist while I had to switch back to ethereal form to avoid
being swarmed by the Raiders. Angered by his mistreatment yet again,
DeathInAPackage
used a Rod of Envy on the Jaood after his hero had been revived. The Rod put merton's
Jaood to sleep for 2 minutes and gave the Team Pool the advantage again.

Team Pool's armies were more than
able to handle my initial wave of Crypt Fiends and Skeletal Mages but the
pile of bodies allowed masses of invulnerable Spirits of Vengeance to be
raised. Coming to block the base entrance behind them were 2 control
groups of Skeletal Mages that had spawned rapidly during the previous
battle. My Halpmeh did leave the base to go the middle Archvault
where he was promptly killed by Hallogenic-X's
respawned level 16 CattleBruiser.
With the loss of my hero again, I
decided to simplify the battle by trying to take out md1415
who was still at Tier 0 with focus fire on his Barracks. My
reinforcements plus more streaming from my base and some of merton's
Spirits changed target and started burning md1415's
barracks down while the few
defenders hacked into them. This of course opened up the base
chokepoint again and DeathInAPackage's
HatoUP ran into the middle and picked up a Wand
of Negation. A couple of casts
later and the Spirits died but the Mages survived. Long enough to
take out the Barracks at least. Hallogenic-X's
HatoUP also showed up
toward the end to have a Cold Arrow and Shadow Strike fight with DeathInAPackage
which ended before anything happened.

DeathInAPackage
got off the last shot however as merton's
Jaood came out of his slumber a few seconds later and died to an arrow
from the Orc barracks. The killing of the Jaood also gave DeathInAPackage
just enough cash to upgrade to Orc Tier 4, Taurens.
I had sent another
wave of Mages into the base when they were hit from behind with a
Shockwave from Hallogenic-X's
CattleBruiser and disintegrated. Rather than
try to flee past the death machine Halpmeh Town Portaled out and the CB killed
the pale blue HatoUP instead.
As I was leaving the base again with
another batch of Skeleton Mages, a flood of red and blue units flowed across
the middle toward our base and I promptly advanced in the opposite
direction. While I engaged macg3freak's
Dryad army just inside our base, merton's
Jaood was fighting Hallogenic-X's
entire army of Footmen in the middle which wasn't
too unreasonable if not for the CattleBruiser. Soon after
dispatching the Jaood, Hallogenic-X
joined up with macg3freak
and sniped both my Halpmeh and the Renegade Wizard on the right
flank.
Mouseover picture

Although we had lost both our
heroes, my Skeletal Mage army was still good enough to hold off Team
Backstab's combined forces and heroes.
merton
gave me 2k and then repeatedly told me
to upgrade to a Cannon Tower and then to Abominations when my reserves hit
4k but I finished reviving my hero first since we were in no real danger.
After our both our heroes were revived, merton
Moon Walked off to recharge in the middle and then ended up killing Hallogenic-X's
CattleBruiser just before dying again to the army and HatoUP standing nearby. The Claws
of Ultimate Devastation
which combined with 3 "Claws of +20 Attack" and Frost
Orb added a combined +166 damage to
his normal amount of chaos damage.
Undead Tier 4:
Abominations
Tier 4: Abominations - A
powerful offensive tier, abominations are fast and can deal heavy
damage quickly to enemy forces. They come with the Undead
Slam ability and Disease Cloud upgrade which deals damage to
non-undead units over time. The usual problem for
abominations, as with all undead units, is their low number of
hitpoints and the consequent vulnerability to Area of Effect
spells. If Abominations are allowed to survive long enough
to deal their damage, they can decimate enemy forces with the
combination of powerful attacks and their damaging disease.
|
(30:00) Retaliation

With the
removal of his ally, DeathInAPackage
attacked hard after Team Backstab's attack. After deploying a line
of Taurens in our base, the Halpmeh sent another Stampede tearing into the
clashing lines. merton's
Jaood was still being resurrected in his barracks and his Tier 0 Footmen
were no match for the heavily upgraded Taurens. The Footmen were
mostly eradicated before my Renegade Wizard could finally reach the HatoUP.
The mass of
upgraded Tauren then turned their attention to merton's unupgraded
barracks and began to tear it down. merton's
emergency Peasant teleported in
and began repairing the barracks but its contribution was nothing to the storm of
damage being imparted. Seconds before the barracks was destroyed the Jaood
returned to the battlefield before dying with it.

DeathInAPackage's
few Taurens that survived killing
merton
were quickly annihilated by my
remaining troops and the HatoUP fled to fight another day.
(32:00)
The Deciding Factor

A few minutes
later DeathInAPackage
launched a heavy attack with 2 control groups of Taurens against Team
Backstab. Both of
Hallogenic-X's
heroes were killed by the rampaging
Tauren and level 6 Ice
Shards from the
HatoUP. I however was unwilling to run into the Stampede running
around in their base and instead sent my 2 control groups of Abominations
against DeathInAPackage's
base.

In both cases
there was heavy disruption to the bases and many units killed but the
overall effect of the attacks was negligible. Cannon Towers in both
bases dealt heavy damage to the battling units on both sides but the
faster replacement from the defenders barracks turned the battles.
By the end of the attack Hallogenic-X's
base was down to 206 hp, but DeathInAPackage
was too busy trying to repel the invaders in his base to send units to
finish him off.
All parties
then stopped to repair and respawn more units. No armies ventured
out for a few minutes because of the risk of further flanks. I sent
my Halpmeh in to harass DeathInAPackage's
Taurens in their base before he chased me out. On the way however, Hallogenic-X
ambushed the light blue HatoUP and killed it with a Camato Yannon. Team Backstab then must've felt they had some sort of advantage and sent
their armies charging forward.
When I saw
the moving mass of red Riflemen and blue Dryads come pouring out of their
base I had 1 thought, "Look at all that free money." It
would take a truly huge and heavily upgraded low tier army to defeat
either DeathInAPackage
or my own Tier 4 army and this army wasn't even close. Seeing the army swing southwest instead of toward
me I knew I had to do something fast. Flank them hard and turn them
into my money or watch DeathInAPackage
get rich.

I earned
about 2000 gold off Team Backstab for little damage and another 2000 from DeathInAPackage
barely defeating
his Tauren army. Team Backstab then complained to me about my attack
and how they apparently thought they were going to be able to kill off DeathInAPackage
with their Riflemen and Dryads. In the meantime I of course began to
blow the
cash I earned off them to bring my barely upgraded army up to par while
ignoring them.
Team Backstab
again launched another attack against DeathInAPackage
with an even smaller army which I belatedly moved to counter. I say
belatedly since their army mostly disappeared in seconds under the mass of
Taurens facing them. Despite the fact that their army had died
before mine had even arrived, Team Backstab decided that I was the cause
of their failure and began to hypothesize about my life.

After a few
more skirmishes, feeling outmatched by the fearsome wit of this dastardly
duo, DeathInAPackage
and I took turns attacking them until they died. Or rather I should
say we would let the other get started attacking them before the other
would charge in and hit them in the back. During this time both DeathInAPackage
and myself both got second heroes, Paladins, which were ideal for
supporting both our heroes and armies.
DeathInAPackage
had softened up their defenses and
Hallogenic-X
expended his defensive Stampede on them when
I sent the final blow on them. macg3freak
had reached Tier 4 Night Elves (Glaivethrowers) but that wasn't sufficient
to stop lots
of upgraded Abominations (with Devotion aura and supported by Tichmeh
Armorz and Resurrection) from overwhelming them.
Endgame

With the
removal of Team Backstab there was some more chatter from them while DeathInAPackage's
army swarmed out of his base and bore down towards mine. My army itself was still inside Team
Backstab's base and needed to make the long trek over.

At this point
Hallogenic-X
babbled something incoherent and then quit. At
which point the game disconnected, probably because neither
DeathInAPackage
or I was a suitable host.
Game Over
Wasn't that
interesting? What? Not happy with the ending? Too bad.
This was originally intentioned to be an independent report, then I
decided to make it a 2-parter to make up for the crappy ending. Then I
stopped working on the second part
so now its independent again.
Even though
my units were less upgraded than DeathInAPackage's
Taurens, I'm pretty sure I could've taken him out to end the game.
My Halpmeh had army weakening spells while DeathInAPackage's
HatoUP's were less effective. My Area of Effect spells would've
weakened his army even with their superior upgrades while my Tichmeh
Armorz aura negated his armor upgrades. Finally my Resurrection
ability would've made sure that I had more units overall then he
did. The HatoUP's abilities while powerful would've been less
effective on my greater numbers except for the Stampede which I could
probably negate with the Renegade Wizard. A Rod of Envy to take out
a hero would probably have turned the battle toward one side or another,
but with second heroes both of our primary heroes could've been taken out
for 2 minutes.
There was
also the option of the less interesting stun/sleep lock but what's the fun
in that? Let's also not mention the fact that I forgot to buy Scourge Bone
Chimes after merton
was sent on his not so merry way.
|