Rabble Forces (RF)		Leonidas | Guerro Umbra | Dminor
		versus
		Final Reign (FR)		Mackay | Aaron Three Domino

This game, Final Reign started in the southwest and southeast, Rabble Forces' two armies starting in the northwest and northeast. At the start of the game, Mackay immediately takes half the southwest army on the offensive, leaving only soulless and a fetch to guard their home ball. Unfortunately, his teammate Aaron Three (who is managing the defense) is somewhat slow putting the ball in the water, and Dminor's trow turns up to say hello. After a few missteps on both sides (Dminor missing a chance to tag, Aaron missing a chance to grab the ball onto the water), Dminor is able to push Aaron away from the ball to tag it. The other Rabble Forces army sends a pair of spiders in to grab the ball while Final Reign have been forced away from it, however Leonidas' fetch nukes them before they even get close. Dminor gets bored and goes away (after accidentally letting his trow stand still under heavy soulless fire, killing it), leaving Aaron Three to reclaim his home ball.

The RF home-ball swap proceeds well, and Mackay tries a spider charge at Umbra's massed soulless in the northeast. Unfortunately the two fetch make short work of the clumped spiders, and his trow + myrmidons are forced to slink off to the other RF ball in the northwest. This ball is also guarded by soulless, and Mackay's remaining troops get torn to shreds by javelins that they can do nothing about.

After Mackay leaves, Umbra sends the fetch and quite a few soulless to link up with their trow and myrmidons, who are harassing Domino in the southeast. A significant portion of RF's troops are here, but they mill around the outer range of Domino's sight for a while.

Meanwhile, Domino's spiders are taking advantage of Umbra's absent fetch, and are able to take out the few remaining soulless. At about this time, RF starts to fitfully attack his defenses, and he goes into severe attention deficit (much to the displeasure of his allies, who want to tag the northeast ball that his spiders are sitting on!). RF's attack is uncoordinated, and their small forces are eaten up. A final rush comes just as time is running out (with soulless reinforcements from the northwest), and Guerro sends in a lone myrmidon to contest the two balls. Unfortunately, this myrmidon gets bored and wanders off, meaning that sudden death ends and the battle is undecided. A very bad thing for RF, as both armies could have tagged both balls, making the score 13-7. As it is, they have to settle for a 6-10 loss.

This game, Final Reign again have the coveted southeast start, with a nice supporting position in the northeast. Both teams bungle the initial ball-swap a little, but it gets sorted out quickly and the real attacks start. Mackay loses his unattended trow to soulless fire in the southwest, and his myrmidons charge the inaccessible soulless in a futile attempt at vengeance. Meanwhile, FR have managed to get the center ball, but their spider gets it stuck in a clump of trees away from the main defense - whoops. RF seize the opportunity to mount a coordinated assault on this ball (defended only by a group of spiders) and take it, suffering some friendly fire in the process.

RF's southwest army moves most of their soulless away from defense, for no apparent reason. This lets Domino rush their position with three spiders and take out the few remaining soulless, to tag their home ball and bring FR back into the lead.

The final minute sees three bungled attacks taking place; northwest, north and southeast all coming under attack. Unfortunately, the northern attacking forces have no soulless to defeat the enemy soulless guards, and in the southeast, although RF manage to get the ball away from the enemy soulless, their myrmidons fail to run away with it (!!) and leave without tagging.

This game, Rabble Forces take six wights, four journeymen and no archers, healing three wights for pus. By contrast, FR take no journeymen and four wights. Dminor's wight-hunting ghols do a superlative job and take out all four of FR's wights, but RF's jubilation is short-lived, as Leonidas' pus ghols get satchel-bombed on the opposite side of the map. Blam!

FR split their infantry 50/50, and leave all of their archers unguarded on their home flag... ?! RF's entire army heads to the center, crosses uncontested, and then splits up to chase FR's two forces, munching up any thrall left for defense along the way. FR's archers at home are also massacred messily, but the 30 points worth of archers do manage to take out one 2-point warrior before being cut down.

In the north, FR's army splits their warriors and thrall up, leading with the warriors into the enemy army, which is mixed thrall, warriors, ghols and a journeyman.
Mackay: can i win this battle?
...
Mackay: freaking ai
...
Mackay: sorry

Needless to say, things go badly. The RF troops heal their veterans, and head to the NE flag where Mackay's thrall are sitting. In an incredible display, five veteran warriors (plus a few thrall for support) chew their way through over twenty thrall... quite impressive.

FR are able to hold on to the southwest flag at the end for a single point.

Both armies are mostly the same; Final Reign only take three wights this time, and heal two for pus. Their one mobile wight has nearly submerged when Aaron Three accidentally hits 'T'... fortunately, there weren't that many friendly troops nearby, but it still doesn't look very professional. This time, only 2/3 of RF's forces head to the middle, Umbra peeling off to confront the south FR flank at the ford.

RF cross the middle and again annihilate the FR home flag defense, but they take heavy warrior casualties doing so (trying to moonwalk past the six guard thrall to get to the archers). The south flanks grow tired of staring and crash into each other; Umbra's nicely timed wight turns the tide of battle in favour of RF despite Final Reign's significant numbers advantage, and RF punch through to claim the SW flag.

At this point, the remaining FR forces are bottled up in the northeast, and they attack the 1/3 of RF that is there. Again, they lead with their warriors, but this time they engage while standing in a bottleneck. It's not pretty, and they are nearly destroyed by the inferior RF force, poor journeyman usage by Guerro their only saving grace.

Leonidas tries a satchel bomb on the FR flag thrall in the northeast, but poor pus usage means that it doesn't go off... twice. In a very long sudden death, the N and NE flags are taken back and forth, crescendoing when RF walks a wight right up to the NE flag and explodes it, setting off the satchel charges from their earlier bomb. Again, blam; all the defending thrall are paste. RF take all flags to win 10-0.

This game, Final Reign take only three soulless, spending the rest of their points on two trow and a lot of infantry. RF eschew infantry, taking a large armada of 14 soulless. The game is rather brief; RF's two trow kick balls onto the walls, and their soulless sneak around into position, sniping at the FR army down below. FR don't seem to realise that you have to keep at least one ball to keep the game going, and abandon all their balls to give RF a nearly bloodless victory.

Well, what an interesting match. Not quite what I'd expect from the quarter-final; both sides have their moments, but there are frequent blunders (pizzaparty!). A fierce battle, but like the AP vs F match, I can't help but feel that it would have been a better match with a full team from the losing side.

- Butcher