Beta 14

Dates: May 2004 - August 2004

Winners: Draw between Boraxians and Tibrans

Best-Known Boraxian LC: Anakin

Best-Known Ajaxian LC: Ecvej

Best-Known Tibran LC: DoomWarrior

Best-Known Krilgorian LCs: Gisse, Aesirai

There was one significant game change for this round, that changed the course of the game. The scan towers were all moved from the Outer Ring to their respective home sectors, in order to make it harder for bombers to get the early boost that they had enjoyed in previous games. Unfortunately, this had the effect that very few people chose to fly bombers, resulting in a very protracted game.

The initial fight in the Roids was quickly won by the Tibs. This left the Ajax and Bors in a scrap in Tripe (won by the Bors) while the Tibs jumped to Dreadlar to engage and defeat the Krils. With the Krils at home and the Bors chasing the Jax to Apollo, the Tibs made a quick raid on Boraxus. This early pattern (or lack of it) continued for some time, unusually with no obvious early pairings of enemies.

Eventually, however, the game settled down a bit. The Tibs had a slight lead and were hitting the Krils a bit more than anyone else, while the Ajax were second and engaging the Bors a bit more than anyone else. There were a few brief NAPs, notably an attack on PK by the Ajax, during which the Bors agreed to join the defence but joined the attack on arrival, before the attack broke down and both legions withdrew, unable to mount an effective assault without many bombers. The Krils, understandably irritated, NAPped with the Tibs for a bit after that, the joint forces mounting a couple of attacks on Ajaxus and Boraxus. Eventually, however, the NAP was ended following an attack on Boraxus that didn't accomplish much. Although the NAP ended honourably, the Tibs then intercepted the Krils on their way home from 81103 in the Roids, causing some ill feeling.

The Tibs then mounted an assault on PK. The somewhat demoralised Krils were unable to muster much of a defence on their own, but saved themselves by forming a tri-NAP with the Ajax and Bors, who were themselves still NAPped anyway following the Tib-Kril NAP. With the Bors and Jax jumping in from Dreadlar, the Tibs took the conveniently-timed PK - Tibrar special gate to escape home.

The tri-NAP then moved towards Tibrar, assaulting it in fairly short order. However, in one of TVS's more bizarre episodes the Tib LC (DoomWarrior) persuaded the Ajax and Bors to backstab the Krils as they were jumping in, and the three legions jumped to Tibrar, spent one turn shooting each other rather than the Tibs, and then withdrew again in disarray, leaving the somewhat bewildered majority on all legions, who hadn't been party to the politics, wondering just what had happened. The tri-NAP re-formed immediately though, and while the Tibs managed to push out to CW and the Roids, engaging the Jax briefly, they eventually withdrew back to Tibra after communication problems prevented a planned stand in CW against the combined Ajax-Bor fleet (probably fortunately for the Tibs). The tri-NAP eventually jumped to Tibrar again and this time were comprehensively defeated. The Bors took the brunt of the initial Tibran fire, and after their carrier Lefty_Guns was forced out with heavy damage, they withdrew from Tibrar without warning their allies. The Ajax, caught on the hop, lost a number of high-level ships before they could organise a retreat, while the Krils managed to retreat safely since the Ajax were occupying the Tib firepower.

The tri-NAP withdrew to lick its wounds and bicker over what had happened, and was eventually ended. The Ajax and Bors withdrew towards their respective homeworlds, while the Krils sat in MoK repairing. The Tibs took this opportunity (and another conveniently-timed homeworld gate) to make an assault on PK, while there was essentially no defence. With the Jax and Bors now dancing around each other, and the Krils without sufficient firepower of their own and initially too far from home, the Tibs managed a fairly simple kill of the Krils scan tower, at tick 279 the first game structure destroyed. The Bors eventually tried to emulate this and attacked Tibrar while the Tibs were in PK, but weren't fast enough and had to leave again.

The Tibs then attacked the Krils again. At this point they'd moved to RSC, and were handily defeated again by the Tibs, but they then NAPped with the Bors and between them attacked the Tibs in RSC in force. This battle was initially fairly even, but the Ajax took advantage of the battle by attacking the Tibs' fallback sector in the Roids. Surrounded and outgunned, the Tibs made a fighting retreat through the Roids.

There followed another period of legions maneuvering for advantage. The Tibs and Krils made one attempt to attack Ajaxus, but the co-ordination was poor and the Krils withdrew from Ajaxus before the Tibs even got there. After a period of severe lag resulted in another aborted Tib attack on Ajaxus and a brief general cease-fire, the Tibs attacked the Krils in RSC again, and then chased them home. Finding themselves in Dreadlar, the Bors and now-weak Krils sitting at home, and the Jax in Aquarious, the Tibs NAPped with the Jax and they mounted a joint assault on PK. The vastly-outgunned Krils never really had a chance, and despite a late Bor movement towards Ajaxus causing the Jax to leave a couple of ticks before the end PK was eventually destroyed, finally knocking a legion out.

The Tibs went home, and so did the Bors after the Jax started moving to Ajaxus. There was some more general messing about and skirmishing, with the Tibs strong, the Jax moderately strong and the Bors and remaining Krils weak. The Ajax attacked Tibrar using their HW gate, and were eventually expelled again by the Tibs, who then moved to attack Ajaxus in turn with the remaining Krils. They didn't accomplish much there, however, and withdrew to the Roids. The Jax then tried to hit their stragglers in The Three Suns, but the Tibs came back from the Roids and intercepted them, the battle resulting in losses for the Ajax.

With the Ajax now holed up at home waiting for the Tibs to move further away, the Tibs moved to RSC and then to Boraxus. Although they potentially had the firepower to blow the Bor scan tower, the Ajax had jumped to the Roids and the Tibs didn't think they could afford to take the blast damage. They therefore withdrew to RSC and hit the Jax again in the Roids, the battle eventually being joined by the Bors on the side of the Ajax. However, the numbers and timing of the initial jumps meant that the Tibs won this battle reasonably easily.

However, in the mean time the remaining Krils had attacked Tibrar and had heavily damaged the Tibran Scan Tower. The Tibs went home to kick the out the Krils, who withdrew via TMC before the Tibs got there. Seeing an opportunity to cut a large chunk of the Tibs' lead, the Ajax and Bors then mounted an assault on Tibrar before the scan tower had repaired, but were repulsed with the Bors taking further heavy losses.

The Bors then went home. The Ajax and Tibs fought a few skirmishes, which eventually ended up with the Tibs in the Roids as the Jax jumped from T3S to Garen, with the remaining Krils in TMC and a few Bors in Aquarious having used the special gate from 81103. The Tibs jumped to T3S, cutting the Ajax off from Ajaxus. They then hatched a plan to give them a crucial few ticks free bombing - their fighters and carriers, along with one or two cruisers who would be inactive over the following ticks, jumped to Garen in a carefully choreographed pattern designed to look like a good but not unusual or particularly disciplined jump, intended to fool the Ajax into thinking they were attacking Garen with their full fleet. Their cruisers and bombers jumped to Ajaxus very late in the same tick. The plan worked even better than they'd hoped, with the Ajax engaging their forces in Garen for two ticks before starting to move home, and not arriving in force in Ajaxus for five or six ticks after bombing had commenced. This headstart was insurmountable to the Jax, and despite the Tibs withdrawing briefly for repairs, and the Jax inflicting heavy losses on the Tibs in the final stages of the defence (four Tibran cruisers were killed), Ajaxus was destroyed.

Unfortunately, however, the losses taken in the attack on Ajaxus proved crippling for the Tibs. Although they were still comfortably the strongest legion, and indeed repulsed a tri-NAP attack on Tibrar shortly after destroying Ajaxus, about half their active cruisers had been killed, and their scan tower had been destroyed by the Bors and Krils while they were attacking Ajaxus. The Bors were greatly outgunned, but nevertheless had sufficient firepower to be able to defend Boraxus against the Tibs, who although they had a lot of firepower in ship-to-ship combat had only three or four active cruisers and another three or four (mostly low-level) bombers. Despite hunting down most of the remaining Ajaxians, and eventually destroying the still-standing Ajax Scan Tower, these numbers didn't change all that much, and with the Bors refusing to fight outside Boraxus, and no further source of points for the Tibs or lure to get the Bors to leave home, the game was deemed stalemated and ended around tick 760.

Submitted by VoxDei on 28/08/04