IIIlusionist [253384] —
Original article
The faction scene has been somewhat quiet of late, with only a few wars here and there sparking a little drama from time to time. However, in the last week things spiced up to a rather tasty level, with a number of wars breaking out and stirring things up just a tad.
We will start with the two less action-packed wars: Just Fer A**holes vs Itsi Bitsi Bikini and Ðestructive Anomaly vs BC-Vulpes Vulpes.
JFA vs IBB had no real terms other than locked rosters and no guests. Initially, one would think that the match-up would be an interesting one. IBB have been on an extended training mode for the past year or three, meaning that they have had plenty of time to nurse those stats in order to become a tough faction to fight (at least on paper). The reality turned out to be quite the opposite - JFA ripped up the paper in six hours - strolling right past IBB without seeming to break a sweat. There was plenty for IBB to learn from the war, but they wouldn't have much time to ponder as another war was just round the corner (which we will come to later).
A couple of hours after the JFA/IBB war began, a termed war between DA and Vulpes got underway. Termed wars allow for balancing in order to make them more interesting. DA, as expected, were allowed no guests and Vulpes were allowed eight guests (six up to 3b, two up to 5b in total stats). DA recently had a surge of new members, but after discussions between leaders, Vulpes decided that no changes to the terms were necessary and the war went ahead as originally planned. Vulpes, for whatever reason, did not use up their guest allowance, perhaps because their faction was almost at full capacity.
Funnily enough, the title of the forum war thread was: Future News: DA Slaughters Vulpes, which was a pretty accurate description of events.
In hindsight, perhaps a greater guest allowance or full utalisation of guests would have provided a more challenging and enjoyable war for all.
The excitement escalated further when, out of the blue, Forged Through War declared on Just Fer Killin. JFK have not seen any action in a long time, perhaps none since their big chain. The war started Sunday at noon (TCT) and a fully stacked FTW took the lead, utilizing their grace period of 37 minutes of chaining with no resistance. Moments after the grace period ended, JFK began to mobilise purely through retaliation hits, balancing control after approximately one hour. JFK reached out to their members who were out guesting or sitting in other factions in order to bolster their ranks. While FTW had the advantage of stacked energy and limited cooldowns, JFK still had the stat advantage. Impressively, FTW held their own while JFK whittled down the energy advantage. Settling into their rhythm, JFK went on to claim a small bonus of 6,039 after 16 hours of chaining.
The decision was an interesting move from FTW. Such a bold declare was refreshing, especially when many players are looking at/expected other factions to challenge JFK.
The next war we will touch on is Saints surprise declaration on Vulpes, which started on Friday at 3pm (surprise declaration = no terms). Saints and Vulpes have been going at it on and off for quite some time, with the historical victory tally before Friday's war at 3-to-2 in Saints' favour. Previous clashes did not raise any eyebrows and each faction provided limited (or no) fight backs. This war, however, changed that. Saints had 80% control when Vulpes retaliated, placed bounties on Saints members and then commenced to fight back. There was some back and forth, but, in the end, Vulpes managed to bounce back quickly and claim victory over Saints with a nice 13,663 bonus, making the series of wars even at 3-to-3.
In the midst of all of these other wars, 4:20, a planned event, took place. The 4:20 chaining event consists of players from all over Torn joining one faction and then proceeding to declare on the who's-who of Torn's top factions. For 2016, two teams were formed as Factions: Buster Gonad and Big Test Icicles. Courtesy of Torn stats, participants were listed together and Hydro and Clansdancer had the opportunity to select the players that would be on each side. Players were able to follow the draw live via Torn stats. From scratch, factions were created, sides were picked and the factions were filled in order to run with a start time set on Saturday (23 Apr) at 10am. After the hiccup of deciding that no revives would be allowed (quickly settled with the reviving syrup), Buster Gonad took the lead early and held until the end claiming victory with a 4,819 bonus. All in all, mostly everyone had an enjoyable time. However, the selection process left Buster Gonad with a bit of a stat advantage (which did not discourage the opposition) and appeared to result in Buster Gonad gaining control slowly (but surely) from start to finish.
The final hit count, though, also shines light on why Buster Gonad's took such a decisive victory: only 13 members of Big Test Icicles made more than 40 hits vs Buster Gonad's 28 members with 40 hits or more. In other words, Big Test Icicles were thoroughly out-chained. Further, looking at the number of retaliation hits made by each faction, Buster Gonad had 119 vs Big Test Icicles' 71 - showing Buster Gonad also out-stalked Big Test Icicles. Both these statistics could well have come down to the stat advantage of Buster Gonad. What isn't always appreciated during warring is that organisation plays a big part and I am afraid to say that Buster Gonad took the trifecta by beating Big Test Icicles in that respect as well.
Based on participants' comments, Buster Gonad were praised for their organisation, communication, players' self-management and the temporary faction ran on all cylinders like any other HOF faction would. Big Test Icicles, though, seemed to lack the necessary leadership to rally the troops in the same direction. Buster Gonads were actively setting up NAPs (18 for BG; 4 for BTI) in order to keep their war base full and faction chat was buzzing with conversation (of the usual random and warring nature) in order to keep things moving. Unfortunately, in the BTI Camp, organisation and direction just didn't happen to the degree needed to balance BG's stat and structural differences. BTI's leaders were MIA a number of times, so very few NAPs were made. Additionally, the lack of communication and lack of preparation of some members limited the morale (and potential success) of the temporary faction.
Even though this war was more for entertainment and fun, and despite Buster Gonads' stat advantage, Big Test Icicles could have leveraged better organization, communication and motivation in order to change the course of the war. Ultimately, BG members stepped up more frequently in order to win the war. Nevertheless, for the most part, members on both side seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves and it was a friendly event.
Finally, we look at perhaps the most interesting and biggest war of the week: Helvete vs. Itsi Bitsi Bikini. IBB declared on Helvete as a filler during their war with JFA on 16 April, but did not finish the war with them. Unexpectedly, Helvete ran a couple of small chains and had the war at 38% on Wednesday (20 Apr) morning. Helvete saw an opportunity for a decent chance of victory and to gain some respect, so they stacked energy and began their defense. IBB were still stinging from the beating that they took from JFA, but had carried on chaining with various ranked wars, with no real fight backs coming their way. Helvete built a huge lead of 88% by the day's end but as they slept on it, Helvete dropped back to 62% overnight. Throughout Thursday (21 Apr), the war went back and forth and the day closed with Helvete in the lead with 65% control. Once again, after the faction's slumber, Helvete woke up to find they had lost a fair bit of ground and were down to 42% control. With the respect mounting and the stakes increasing, they became more motivated. Saturday (23 Apr) arrived and Helvete restarted the assault, chaining through the day and finally winning, claiming a hefty 19,364 bonus respect late in the night. Helvete stood true to their motto of not backing out of a war.
Before claiming victory, three guests were brought into Helvete at around 85% control, bringing member counts at 24 vs 94 (in IBB's favour), helping Helvete bring the war home. I will leave it to players to decide how big an impact the guests made in the closing stages of the war.
To be fair, the Helvete/IBB confrontation turned out to be an incredible war with a somewhat surprising result. Had anyone told me that a faction with max specials, capped respect and 94 members was struggling against a faction with fewer than 25 members, I would have rolled my eyes and carried on drinking my OJ. However, this is pretty much what happened in the war between IBB vs Helvete. So why did IBB struggle to beat a faction with around a quarter of their member total?
The word rusty comes to mind and was floated around in the forums, suggesting that IBB hadn't warred for so long that maybe swapping speedos for combat gear no longer came naturally, and truly the cob webs couldn't be cleared quickly enough. IBB had been chaining since the previous Saturday, so whether a week is considered enough time for a dormant faction to spring back to action is a hot topic.
"Dead weight" was another phrase being thrown around, and that IBB had a lot of it. Time will tell how much they have, and will answer the question of whether this week of warring was enough for IBB leaders to make decisions about anchors and ships.
Another factor in the skirmish was that even though Helvete have fewer members, they have some very strong players that were able to keep online members of IBB in hospital, and IBB were incapable of countering them effectively. Furthermore, IBB did not provide revives, drugs or boosters for members during this war, whereas Helvete did, which would cut the energy gap drastically.
Shouldn't an advantage of 70 members be enough to overcome a small faction? How rusty can a HOF become before they no longer deserve to be in the HOF? Could it be a lack of organization, motivation or experience that throws off warring competence or perhaps merely members getting lazy or rusty (!) after spending so long not warring?
Perhaps this war was the wakeup call IBB needed to get active and back into the fighting spirit that they once showed. I am sure IBB have learnt a lot from the past week of warring and will hopefully come back stronger. While it is easy for outsiders to comment on how IBB need to kick members and shake things up, all will come down to the leaders who know their colleagues better than others to figure out how to take IBB forward and come out of this war stronger and better prepared - there is not always a quick fix solution, and they may need more than a week to "de-rust" and get back to winning ways. It must be said, that IBB's willingness to fight despite the fact they do no gain any respect is admirable.
On the other hand, Helvete outclassed IBB both tactically and in chaining ability. As much as IBB can be questioned about their performance, we must give credit where it is due, and Helvete deserve their time in the limelight. So what was Helvete's strategy to fight (and beat) such a big faction?
Helvete have their fair share of players some with big stats while some are a bit more modest. As is the case in most wars, their top stats stalked the opposition and kept them in hospital, allowing the lower stats to build up the chain with less hindrance. Being mostly European players, the faction lost a lot of ground during the night and so had friends of theirs put them in hospital throughout the wee hours in order to slow down the opposition. Having revives off and flying to avoid being hit also aided them in their path to victory.
Tactics and strategy are all well and good, but at the end of the day wars are won due to the effort and commitment of members. Helvete showed that working together, some communication, a little flying and a dash of outside of the box thinking is a recipe to make the seemingly impossible become a reality.
- A total of 6 wars
- 3 termed and 3 surprise declares
- Total bonus respect from termed wars = 9,693
- Total bonus respect from surprise wars = 39,066
- Total number of hours warred (approx.) in termed wars = 28 hours
- Total number of hours warred (approx.) in surprise wars = 130 hours +
Just saying.....
**Editors: Gholden, Glimph & madbuns
We will start with the two less action-packed wars: Just Fer A**holes vs Itsi Bitsi Bikini and Ðestructive Anomaly vs BC-Vulpes Vulpes.
JFA vs IBB had no real terms other than locked rosters and no guests. Initially, one would think that the match-up would be an interesting one. IBB have been on an extended training mode for the past year or three, meaning that they have had plenty of time to nurse those stats in order to become a tough faction to fight (at least on paper). The reality turned out to be quite the opposite - JFA ripped up the paper in six hours - strolling right past IBB without seeming to break a sweat. There was plenty for IBB to learn from the war, but they wouldn't have much time to ponder as another war was just round the corner (which we will come to later).
A couple of hours after the JFA/IBB war began, a termed war between DA and Vulpes got underway. Termed wars allow for balancing in order to make them more interesting. DA, as expected, were allowed no guests and Vulpes were allowed eight guests (six up to 3b, two up to 5b in total stats). DA recently had a surge of new members, but after discussions between leaders, Vulpes decided that no changes to the terms were necessary and the war went ahead as originally planned. Vulpes, for whatever reason, did not use up their guest allowance, perhaps because their faction was almost at full capacity.
Funnily enough, the title of the forum war thread was: Future News: DA Slaughters Vulpes, which was a pretty accurate description of events.
In hindsight, perhaps a greater guest allowance or full utalisation of guests would have provided a more challenging and enjoyable war for all.
The excitement escalated further when, out of the blue, Forged Through War declared on Just Fer Killin. JFK have not seen any action in a long time, perhaps none since their big chain. The war started Sunday at noon (TCT) and a fully stacked FTW took the lead, utilizing their grace period of 37 minutes of chaining with no resistance. Moments after the grace period ended, JFK began to mobilise purely through retaliation hits, balancing control after approximately one hour. JFK reached out to their members who were out guesting or sitting in other factions in order to bolster their ranks. While FTW had the advantage of stacked energy and limited cooldowns, JFK still had the stat advantage. Impressively, FTW held their own while JFK whittled down the energy advantage. Settling into their rhythm, JFK went on to claim a small bonus of 6,039 after 16 hours of chaining.
The decision was an interesting move from FTW. Such a bold declare was refreshing, especially when many players are looking at/expected other factions to challenge JFK.
The next war we will touch on is Saints surprise declaration on Vulpes, which started on Friday at 3pm (surprise declaration = no terms). Saints and Vulpes have been going at it on and off for quite some time, with the historical victory tally before Friday's war at 3-to-2 in Saints' favour. Previous clashes did not raise any eyebrows and each faction provided limited (or no) fight backs. This war, however, changed that. Saints had 80% control when Vulpes retaliated, placed bounties on Saints members and then commenced to fight back. There was some back and forth, but, in the end, Vulpes managed to bounce back quickly and claim victory over Saints with a nice 13,663 bonus, making the series of wars even at 3-to-3.
In the midst of all of these other wars, 4:20, a planned event, took place. The 4:20 chaining event consists of players from all over Torn joining one faction and then proceeding to declare on the who's-who of Torn's top factions. For 2016, two teams were formed as Factions: Buster Gonad and Big Test Icicles. Courtesy of Torn stats, participants were listed together and Hydro and Clansdancer had the opportunity to select the players that would be on each side. Players were able to follow the draw live via Torn stats. From scratch, factions were created, sides were picked and the factions were filled in order to run with a start time set on Saturday (23 Apr) at 10am. After the hiccup of deciding that no revives would be allowed (quickly settled with the reviving syrup), Buster Gonad took the lead early and held until the end claiming victory with a 4,819 bonus. All in all, mostly everyone had an enjoyable time. However, the selection process left Buster Gonad with a bit of a stat advantage (which did not discourage the opposition) and appeared to result in Buster Gonad gaining control slowly (but surely) from start to finish.
The final hit count, though, also shines light on why Buster Gonad's took such a decisive victory: only 13 members of Big Test Icicles made more than 40 hits vs Buster Gonad's 28 members with 40 hits or more. In other words, Big Test Icicles were thoroughly out-chained. Further, looking at the number of retaliation hits made by each faction, Buster Gonad had 119 vs Big Test Icicles' 71 - showing Buster Gonad also out-stalked Big Test Icicles. Both these statistics could well have come down to the stat advantage of Buster Gonad. What isn't always appreciated during warring is that organisation plays a big part and I am afraid to say that Buster Gonad took the trifecta by beating Big Test Icicles in that respect as well.
Based on participants' comments, Buster Gonad were praised for their organisation, communication, players' self-management and the temporary faction ran on all cylinders like any other HOF faction would. Big Test Icicles, though, seemed to lack the necessary leadership to rally the troops in the same direction. Buster Gonads were actively setting up NAPs (18 for BG; 4 for BTI) in order to keep their war base full and faction chat was buzzing with conversation (of the usual random and warring nature) in order to keep things moving. Unfortunately, in the BTI Camp, organisation and direction just didn't happen to the degree needed to balance BG's stat and structural differences. BTI's leaders were MIA a number of times, so very few NAPs were made. Additionally, the lack of communication and lack of preparation of some members limited the morale (and potential success) of the temporary faction.
Even though this war was more for entertainment and fun, and despite Buster Gonads' stat advantage, Big Test Icicles could have leveraged better organization, communication and motivation in order to change the course of the war. Ultimately, BG members stepped up more frequently in order to win the war. Nevertheless, for the most part, members on both side seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves and it was a friendly event.
Finally, we look at perhaps the most interesting and biggest war of the week: Helvete vs. Itsi Bitsi Bikini. IBB declared on Helvete as a filler during their war with JFA on 16 April, but did not finish the war with them. Unexpectedly, Helvete ran a couple of small chains and had the war at 38% on Wednesday (20 Apr) morning. Helvete saw an opportunity for a decent chance of victory and to gain some respect, so they stacked energy and began their defense. IBB were still stinging from the beating that they took from JFA, but had carried on chaining with various ranked wars, with no real fight backs coming their way. Helvete built a huge lead of 88% by the day's end but as they slept on it, Helvete dropped back to 62% overnight. Throughout Thursday (21 Apr), the war went back and forth and the day closed with Helvete in the lead with 65% control. Once again, after the faction's slumber, Helvete woke up to find they had lost a fair bit of ground and were down to 42% control. With the respect mounting and the stakes increasing, they became more motivated. Saturday (23 Apr) arrived and Helvete restarted the assault, chaining through the day and finally winning, claiming a hefty 19,364 bonus respect late in the night. Helvete stood true to their motto of not backing out of a war.
Before claiming victory, three guests were brought into Helvete at around 85% control, bringing member counts at 24 vs 94 (in IBB's favour), helping Helvete bring the war home. I will leave it to players to decide how big an impact the guests made in the closing stages of the war.
To be fair, the Helvete/IBB confrontation turned out to be an incredible war with a somewhat surprising result. Had anyone told me that a faction with max specials, capped respect and 94 members was struggling against a faction with fewer than 25 members, I would have rolled my eyes and carried on drinking my OJ. However, this is pretty much what happened in the war between IBB vs Helvete. So why did IBB struggle to beat a faction with around a quarter of their member total?
The word rusty comes to mind and was floated around in the forums, suggesting that IBB hadn't warred for so long that maybe swapping speedos for combat gear no longer came naturally, and truly the cob webs couldn't be cleared quickly enough. IBB had been chaining since the previous Saturday, so whether a week is considered enough time for a dormant faction to spring back to action is a hot topic.
"Dead weight" was another phrase being thrown around, and that IBB had a lot of it. Time will tell how much they have, and will answer the question of whether this week of warring was enough for IBB leaders to make decisions about anchors and ships.
Another factor in the skirmish was that even though Helvete have fewer members, they have some very strong players that were able to keep online members of IBB in hospital, and IBB were incapable of countering them effectively. Furthermore, IBB did not provide revives, drugs or boosters for members during this war, whereas Helvete did, which would cut the energy gap drastically.
Shouldn't an advantage of 70 members be enough to overcome a small faction? How rusty can a HOF become before they no longer deserve to be in the HOF? Could it be a lack of organization, motivation or experience that throws off warring competence or perhaps merely members getting lazy or rusty (!) after spending so long not warring?
Perhaps this war was the wakeup call IBB needed to get active and back into the fighting spirit that they once showed. I am sure IBB have learnt a lot from the past week of warring and will hopefully come back stronger. While it is easy for outsiders to comment on how IBB need to kick members and shake things up, all will come down to the leaders who know their colleagues better than others to figure out how to take IBB forward and come out of this war stronger and better prepared - there is not always a quick fix solution, and they may need more than a week to "de-rust" and get back to winning ways. It must be said, that IBB's willingness to fight despite the fact they do no gain any respect is admirable.
On the other hand, Helvete outclassed IBB both tactically and in chaining ability. As much as IBB can be questioned about their performance, we must give credit where it is due, and Helvete deserve their time in the limelight. So what was Helvete's strategy to fight (and beat) such a big faction?
Helvete have their fair share of players some with big stats while some are a bit more modest. As is the case in most wars, their top stats stalked the opposition and kept them in hospital, allowing the lower stats to build up the chain with less hindrance. Being mostly European players, the faction lost a lot of ground during the night and so had friends of theirs put them in hospital throughout the wee hours in order to slow down the opposition. Having revives off and flying to avoid being hit also aided them in their path to victory.
Tactics and strategy are all well and good, but at the end of the day wars are won due to the effort and commitment of members. Helvete showed that working together, some communication, a little flying and a dash of outside of the box thinking is a recipe to make the seemingly impossible become a reality.
- A total of 6 wars
- 3 termed and 3 surprise declares
- Total bonus respect from termed wars = 9,693
- Total bonus respect from surprise wars = 39,066
- Total number of hours warred (approx.) in termed wars = 28 hours
- Total number of hours warred (approx.) in surprise wars = 130 hours +
Just saying.....
**Editors: Gholden, Glimph & madbuns
Original article
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