Civil Order (civil)		Stinger | Visigoth | Mange Ananab Tilps | Ruiner | Bellendaine
		versus
		The Violators (-V-)		Skynxnex | Malkavian | Agbaar BeavisChrist | Mr Nobody

This game, the Civilians (teams Tango and Cash) start in the northwest and southeast. After a few pleasantries and movie lines are exchanged, the armies swing into action. Civil's northwest army makes an early strike northeast, and nail their three fetch with a trow. Stinger's trow comes to join the party, but gets trapped by Malkavian's spiders and killed. Meanwhile, Skynxnex's team (in the southwest) sends a big offensive against Stinger in the southeast. This offensive is taken apart, but it does a lot of damage to the Civil army.

Sensing weakness, both of the Violators' armies send assault forces to the weakened southeast army. The other Civil army takes this opportunity to send a mixed fetch / soulless / spider army against the largely deserted northeast, and tag this ball. Meanwhile the Violators' armies coordinate on the southeast remnants and trash them. Unfortunately, Malkavian's army never managed to tag their ally's ball, leaving the Violators down 8-7.

After a week-long hiatus caused by repeated OOS on the first attempt, the match continues. Once again, the Civil armies start northwest and southeast, with their opponents northeast and southwest. The Violators send both attack forces southeast, while Civil's northwest attacks across the northern passage again.

An intricate positional dance starts in the eastern half of the map, until Visigoth makes a micro-second misstep and gets his attack force blown away by some enemy fetch. The ghols make a very pretty lightshow, though! The same thing happens for Skynxnex a few seconds later.

The other two attack forces never really commit to a target, and time runs out with no team making a successful attack. Civil win due to their lucky southeast start (again).

The Violators go for maximum infantry, one journeyman, six wights and six archers; they send small warrior / ghol flanks north and south. However, their Civil opponents have a rather... unusual... troop setup. They go for explosives. Six dwarves are complemented by a few wights, no journeymen or archers. They send all of their forces to the middle (except for a two-dwarf six-ghol flank north).

A very large and very, very messy battle erupts in the center. Civil's four dwarves only get a few hits in, which almost do more damage to friendly troops than foe. And then the Violators hit them with three wights in quick succession, the last one igniting the twenty satchel charges dropped by the fallen dwarves. Blammo!

When the dust settles, only two injured thrall have survived the cataclysm.

A knock-down-drag-out fight starts, both sides maneuvering a very small number of troops around the map. However, the Violators have the edge due to their warrior flanks remaining intact, and are able to largely clean up in an incredibly tense endgame.

This game, Civil opts for no wights, and two less dwarves. They use the spare points for some archers, whereas the Violators don't change their winning formula. The Civilians flank south with a small group of warriors and a pair of dwarven maniacs.

Standoff. For the next eight minutes, the armies stare tensely at each other across the middle, while Stinger's flank takes its Violator counterpart to pieces in the south. The Violators eventually initiate a conflict in the center, which they are winning, when Civil withdraws from the contested flag; their flank and roaming ghols have tagged enough flags to let them win 4-3.

This game, the Civilians take two trow, eight soulless, two fetch, 14 myrmidons and 1 lone zerk. Their Violators counterparts have gone for a floating armada of thirteen soulless instead, with two myrmidons and two trow for backup.

The game starts, and the Civilians are rather surprised by their enemy's proliferation of soulless, and quickly start pushing balls into the middle of the map; the Violators try to push the balls to the outside walls instead. They all come to rest eventually; six on the outside walls, three near the middle.

The Civil fetch go after the enemy soulless on the south wall, and manage to kill five or so before being terminated by the Violators' trow. Meanwhile, the Violators' soulless are inching clockwise around the edge of the map, trying to reach two isolated balls on the north edge. They're too slow, and the Civilians get a single soulless there to grab the balls and keep them until time runs out, giving them a 5-4 win.

A very close match, between two equally skilled opponents! Some great Myth here, with explosions, lightning, and (my favourite) a dwarf body count in double digits. A match not to be missed; here's hoping the contestants feel the same way, even despite the OOS problems that plagued the match.

The Civil Order go on to face Clan Plaid's Dwarven Brigade in the semi-finals.

- Butcher