And the results for October 4th -
Trinsic Steel vs Nugget Two well trained and veteran fighters, slight edge on skills to Steel but a tiny edge on intelligence to Nugget, so we hoped for a close opening match - and for once my prediction was near the mark. Nugget rushed in fast but the early attack but made little impression on Steel, and they settled down to a slogging match where things were almost equal right to the end. Nugget began to tire though, and Steel capitalised and finished off in style.
Sapphie vs Tea A strong, almost glowing green bird, Tea is another from the stables that gave us Cyanide, last season's winner, Sapphie is also a strong fighter, so they looked a fair match. As it turned out, it was incredibly close, both hitting hard and blocking well. There was never more than a sliver of health difference between the two, and it went right down to the last strike - which Tea landed, taking one of the closest wins we've seen all season.
PeckyBalboa vs Shadow Pecky is worryingly tough, and has been powering through all her opponents this season, so we tried a new bird out to see if we could break this winning run. Shadow is as strong as Pecky, albeit less experienced, but looked fast and strong enough to put up a fight - but it simply was not to be, she landed a few hits and maybe took a third of Pecky's health, but was hammered constantly through the match and Pecky was never seriously troubled. Another win for Pecky - this bird is looking unstoppable so far...
Sky vs Trinsic Rose Both veterans, for once some people looked at their relative skills and decided not to bet since it was so close! These two produced a fascinating fight, which swung between them alternating the lead for quite awhile, until Sky suddenly seemed to lose speed. Probably the cumulative effects of all the injuries, she slowed down and Rose saw her chance, and grabbed it to take a well earned victory.
Old Blue Eyes vs Dryad Blue has a few fights, but has been terribly unlucky so far - Dryad was very much an unknown quantity, another new bird who is very strong but quite slow and much less skilled than Blue. The question was, could sheer power make up for lack of experience and speed? The answer, sadly for Blue, was probably yes - Dryad managed a couple of heavy hits right at the start of the bout, and although Blue fought back the drain on her speed from those hammer blows showed, and she could not get a proper series of attacks to disrupt Dryad's slow and solid routine.
Lightning vs Frosty Lightning is a pretty special fighter, with a little luck may even be a match for Pecky, so finding an opponent was tricky, but finally we dragged Frosty out of semi-retirement, hoping she had got back her fighting instincts after a couple of serious defeats in recent weeks. Lightning was keener to start, and landed some light hits, but Frosty wasn't too phased by that and gradually got into her fighting rhythm overturning Lightning's early lead and pushing through to a good, solid win.
For the novelty - since it's often been said the new vollem is identical to a nightmare apart from not being rideable, we thought we'd try a test, so Adria's Vollen took on Ephialtes, both pretty much untrained creatures so we thought that could give a fairer fight (eventually we'll train them up, but with magic using pets that takes quite a while!). We got a very noisy fight, lots of explosions and flames, hissing and wing-flapping from the vollem and rearing and neighing from Ephialtes. Their habit of healing themselves made this a hard one to predict, but in the end even a sneaky poisoning by the vollem didn't help and the nightmare came out a clear, although somewhat battered, winner.
So now, league standings are :
5 : PeckyBalboa
3 : Lightning, Quicksilver, Sky
2 : Trinsic Steel, Trinsic Rose, Tea
1 : Old Blue Eyes, Sapphie, Cerulean, Bernie, Nari, Roadrunner Two, Dryad, Frosty
For the first time, we're going to have to break the two-weekly schedule, since real life has managed to arrange that both of us are unavailable on the 18th, so we have moved the next match to the following Monday, that's the 25th October, 8PM UK time, at the O*T Zento arena!
eckyBalboa