From: rhodesia@wixer.cactus.org (Felix S. Gallo)
Subject: [NIT Match] Hell's Bagels vs. 12 Angry Men: New Generation
Followup-To: rec.games.netrek
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 92 06:24:13 GMT


It was two o' clock, the appointed hour.  Beneath gloomy skies darkened
with vultures anticipating a feast, the black horde of the bagels
and their accursed minions rode forth from the battlements, holding
high their dread banners depicting a bagel aflame on a field of
argent.  Horses whickered nervously at the musk of the feral
beasts being ridden by the champions of death.  White-faced 
lackeys held tight to the reins of the mounts of sunscreamer,
eggplant, plain, paranoid and the others, trying both to avoid
getting their hands too close to the jaws of the strange creatures
and to avoid looking into the faces of their grave masters.

A murmur passed through the peasants by the roadside as the clouds
eclipsed the sun.  Bones clinked and jangled against ornamental
skulls and chainmail.

"This day," thundered bold no clue, "we take SACRIFICES!  SACRIFICES
FOR THE BLOOD GOD.  WE SHALL GRIND THEIR BONES INTO BREAD AND LEAVEN
IT WITH THEIR BLOOD.  LET NO KNAVE SURVIVE."

The seemingly endless stream of warriors passed through the gates
of the castle, over hill and dale, until it arrived at the ridge
overseeing the field of battle.  At a command, the army came to a halt,
and their swords were drawn as one.

After a minute, eggplant cleared his throat.  "So," he said to
sunscreamer.  "...where are they?"

	*			*			*

As it turned out, the fiendish 12AM:TNG interpreted a note I sent
about playing at 2:00 pm CST as meaning that we should play at
2:00 pm PST.  This clever stratagem was subtle in the extreme, but
we countered it by waiting around for two hours until they showed up.
We broke the tedium by playing "put Romulus and Earth six inches
apart on a server with unlimited bases."  This gave us valuable
practice in 3 on 3 base wars which we were to need later.

I felt a little strange playing against a team which was co-opting
its name from the team which I helped lead to glorious playoff
contention over the summer, but such circumstances mandate mercilessness.
No less than six fake base-ogg opening strategy mis-messages passed
by my fingers, including five individualized ones to various enemy
team members and one to the all board.  They countered with a few
real mismessages to our base, which I thought was especially cool
of them -- hence, they won the electronic countermeasures war, 2-0.

For some reason, both teams screwed up trying to bomb.  They tried
the old 'scout bombs, dies, kills sunscreamer hideously' strategy,
and it worked.  However, they forgot to try the 'bomb their core'
strategy, so we came out up about 30 in a very tense situation in
which both sides had well-defended armies.

They started by taking most of our front line, including our front
line agri, Can.  We levered our way back into our front line, using
up a lot of armies, and finally took one of their planets.  They took
back and took one of our planets for good measure.  For about an hour
and a quarter, the game seesawed; nobody was ever up more than two
planets, and the usual number was one.  They tended to have the
advantage.

About this time, purple haze got a little antsy at my scoutbombing
performance and decided to take matters into his own hands.  While
we bickered a little, they took our agri again and started making
inroads into our other front line planets.  Finally, purple haze
went off to scoutbomb (very successfully) and I shunted into ogging
and taking and escorting.   This was not entirely successful.  With
fifteen minutes to go, we finally managed to retake Can and some more
of our front line.  We lost a few side planets here and there, and
gained a few, but bam, we went into overtime.

Overtime seemed to pull us together and shake us back into our senses.
The bickering stopped, and the brutal ogging began.  We took one of
their front line planets and left another one at 1, but were unable
to capitalize before they took back.  The oggers on both sides shifted
from first to fourth; huge escorted fleets would converge on a planet
only to be slaughtered like pigs.  Our scoutbombers managed to keep
them generally flat, but we kept our planets pretty well protected.

Then disaster struck.  They popped big, and we couldn't stop them from
picking up.  Waves of escorts crashed through us like a car through
tissue paper.  They took back their front line planet, took one of
ours, and brought another one of our planets to two.

eggplant picked two armies up.  Ind was rom at 1, Reg was rom at 1,
and Org was rom at 1.  Those of us in the room with him tensely
escorted him to org -- only to see it taken by plain before he
could get there.  He cloaked and booked for ind -- and was an 
inch away before it turned a gorgeous yellow.  Scooting between
two astounded roms, he walked untouched to Reg and dropped for
the win.  Three planets fell in less than twenty seconds.  The
final score: 11-8-1, a win for Hell's Bagels and what must feel
like a really bitter defeat for 12AM:TNG.

12AM:TNG played a very, very good game.  Congratulations especially
to their escorts, who hurt us a lot.  My call for MVP is doctor,
who was instrumental in many planet takes and who made me into
meat on a rope more times than I'd like to count.

Thanks much to their team for an extremely enjoyable match.  What's
that you say, you want a rematch?  Why, uh, sure!  How about, um,
next year, say...March?

rear ensign sunscreamer
minister of truth, HELL'S BAGELS
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Felix Sebastian Gallo                              rhodesia@wixer.cactus.org
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