In a recent DM93 newsletter, the Consortium Rep offered The Consortium Total Parry spotlight. With a Tournament Mailer coming shortly in April, it seems only appropriate to offer a spotlight explaining Mailers and how one Consortium Total Parry from DM93 fared in a Mailer.
Key things you will learn:
So, on to the spotlight:
The purpose of this spotlight is to give newcomers to D2 a sense or feeling or information about tournaments, in this case a Mail-In tournament. Hence, John Dillinger of Famous Hoosier, a former Noblish Island warrior, was selected as the guinea-pig. (Note: Famous Hoosiers was a previous entrant here for The Consortium. River Rats led by Commodore Perry is the current Consortium rep.)
So, a tournament. Four times a year RSI holds tournaments. Winter and Summer are Face-To-Face Tournaments where managers compete on-site against and can change strategies each and every fight if they wish. The winter Face Site has always been in Tempe, AZ, (The RSI Home Site) while the summer event in held in varying cities east of the Mississippi. (The last ones were in places like Washington, DC -really in the Arlington suburb- and Kansas City, while summer of 2019 will be in Tampa,FL.) The Mail-In Tournaments are done completely via mail and managers submit predetermined strategies for their entered warriors. (Each warrior is allowed a primary strategy and also a secondary strategy which will be employed against selected styles.) Both events cost $7.00 per warrior and are great fun. Warriors compete in classes, thereby allowing similarly experienced warriors from all arenas to be fairly matched with each other. In tournaments, a warrior's chance to learn skills or earn stat increases is half that in normal arenas. Supposedly, the chances of dying are also halved.
The Consortium entered John Dillinger of Famous Hoosiers from Noblish Island in The Spring Mailer. Prior to fighting JD in The Mailer, they wanted to give him the best possibility to succeed. They prepared to fight him in the Apprentices class. Classes are segregated by FE - Fight Equivalents. What is a fight equivalent? Each arena fight counts as one fight and any tournament fights count as a half fight. The Apprentices Class is for warriors with 1-4 FE. Having no tournament fights prior, The Consortium wanted to max JD for Apprentices. By max they wanted him to fight with the maximum FE possible in that class. By doing so, his chances to succeed were optimized. In order to assure that he was maxed at tourney time, the manager had to sit JD out one fight on Noblish. Had he been fought, he would have acquired 5 FE and would have had to compete as one of the least experienced members of the Initiates Class. (5-10 FE)
Pre-Tournament, JD looked like this: 19(+1)-19(+1)-13-3-21(+1)-3-9, a Total Parry who was Very Stupid, Ambidextrous, Clumsy, had Awesome Endurance, could take Tremendous Damage, could carry Tremendous weight in armor and weapons and did Great damage. Many would call this warrior a scum. We hesitated to call John Dillinger that to his face.
JD did quite well in the tournament, finishing 5-3 against the best Apprentices in the land. He also learned/trained very well, earning 4 stats and a skill. Perhaps a general fight-by-fight summary would prove of value?
First, let us list for you the two strategies chosen and the training regimen mailed in for JD.
Normal strategy: 3-3-3-3-2-3-3 APA/F 3-3-3-3-2-1-3 0+ = LG + FI 5-5-5-5-7-8-5 bu = DA + WH P-P-P-P-P-N-P Alternate strategy: (against TP) 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 ASM/F 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 0+ = SM + FI 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 BU = FI + WH P-P-P-P-P-P-PTraining Regiment = DF, DF, DF, WT, WT, WT, skill the rest of the way (e.g. round one through three train DF, round four through six train WT, round seven and on skill.)
Strategies, armor, weapons, backups, tactics, alternate strategy against, training, etc, etc are all variable, and explaining normal Consortium choices would require a much, much longer spotlight. Perhaps another day.
As to JD's tournament action:
Fight one against a sz14 ambi LU JD parried 19, and absorbed 5 hits to win with no swings in 3 rounds. He earned a DF train. (His DF to 10 which also came with a riposte skill)
Fight two, another lunger sz8 who chose a longsword he had neither the ST nor DF to wield. JD parried 18, and absorbed 3 hits, winning in four without swinging. He earned another DF train! Lucky! (The math on that train for 21 WL, 2nd trained DF, tournament halfing ratio = 105% x 50% x 50% = 26.5% chance.) AND, that DF was 11 for him, so it came with 2 attack, 2 parry, and 2 defense skills)
Fight three, an aimer, and the bane of all scum. Sz5, scimitar, lacking strength. While JD parried 13 attacks, he was hit by 9 regular and 3 critical swings and lost in three rounds. He missed the DF train, which was only at a 13% probability.
Fight four a plunger at sz5 with ale/l and a scimitar. JD actually dodged one, was hit five times, one a crit, but parried 21, before breaking his SC. Then the opponent swung twice with fists, JD parrying both, one which did damage to the opponent. Finally the opponent pulled a backup scimitar and swung five times all parried. JD won in round 8 without swinging. JD did not get his WT train at appx 50/50.
Fight five is a scum similar to JD. The opponent is smaller at sz10 and too low WT for the BS/ME he holds. Both of these are advantages to the scum opponent as points are distributed elsewhere rather than in WT or SZ. Remember JD is going to use his alternate strategy against TPs. The opponent is as this: ASM/H, BS/ME (lacks WT) with a backup SH and SM. The fight goes 23 minutes and JD wins on endurance. The first swing of the match was in round eight by the opponent. Through 19 rounds the only 2 swings were by the opponent which JD dodged and parried. By round 20, both are tiring and able to hit. The opponent has 2 BS hits and a ME hit which caused JD to drop the shield. JD was able to get in 2 SM hits, 1 WH hit, and 2 FI hits during that time. This time JD does get his WT train and moves from very stupid to just plain stupid.
JD is starting to feel good about his 4-1 record and is gloating like a gangster. His downfall is coming.
Fight six is a sz9 striker with a scimitar, which JD defeats in six minutes with no swings and 30 parried swings. He was hit five times and had to suck up 2 normals, 2 crits, and 1 extra value blow. JD earned the 2nd WT train of his tourney (26.5%) taking him to 5 WT and collecting the five skills at 5WT Init, Rip, Attack, Defense, and Decise.
Now JD is 5-1. He thinks he is The Godfather.
Round seven is against a sz6 aimer, another bane to all scum. JD was celebrating way too early! The aimed blow came out in asm/s and a dagger and ripped up JD in six bloody minutes. The aimer's actions were like this: 10/32/2. (crits, swings, extra value blows) JD parried 13, amazingly dodged 9, but took too much damage otherwise and lost. Sadly, he did not get any skills in his first ever skill train either.
JD's eighth and final fight was a sz7 striker who obviously knew how to fight a TP like JD. The opponent was in ale/l ba/-. The opponent banged away for 4 minutes and finished JD with a devastating blow. JD parried 21, 2 of which were crit parries, one each with LG and WH. But he was hit 8 times, of which 3 were crits and 4 were EHB's. JD did learn a defensive skill. He also must have bled a lot!
Such is JD's Mail-In tournament saga. He was a solid 5-3. He earned 4 stat increases, which added 12 skills and he learned one additional skill. He now is a meaner (Can John Dillinger be any meaner?) 19-19-13-5-21-3-11 TP.
-- Written by: John Wooden, Famous Hoosier Manager (Consortium affiliated)
Amended by: Joe Jalopy, C Car Manager (Consortium affiliated)