Volume 1, Issue 3 - Turn 351

**Admin** Tue May 17, 2011 12:16 am

Hello and welcome to the Turn 351 Edition of the Gazette! We're hip, we're with it. We're coming to you again and with every passing turn we benefit from more and more community participation. This turn we are proud to bring our readership not one, but TWO main features, one contributed by The Gazette's Senior Veteran's Blade Correspondent, Geop.

Without further ado...on to the show.

100 WIN CONTENDER UPDATE
In a shocking development, Palor's Moss lost his return challenge against Negative Evil's, though it appeared from the press box to be something of a squeaker.

Palor was in a disappointed mood leaving the Arena (more on this later), but he was kind enough to stop a moment and comment, "It was close, but [Negative Evil] got the [strat deleted] working that time."

Sleazee seemed positively giddy after the fight, stopping by the press box to note, "I wasn't sure if the Negative One was ever going to make it to 100 wins. Guess it didn't help that I changed his strat up when he lost to Caesar Salad's now dead Bloodsword. That earned him 4 straight losses. However, after his embarrassing display last week against Paid Whore's Moss I changed him back to a previous strat. Turns out that that strat plus him actually hitting worth a damn was a lethal combination, [because] Moss got lucky he didn't get himself killed in a return visit to the tree."

With this win, Sleazee now joins Dux as the only manager with two active 100-win warriors extant. This was but one small part of quite a turn for Sleazee (more on that, as well, later).

Elsewhere in the arena, Negative Evil was joined in the 100 Win Club by Poeg's Saber, who won a random match against alliance-mate The Demon's Valandra. For more on Saber and his accomplishment, we turn now to Geop.

SABER - A 100 Win Human- filed by Geop from Veteran's Blade
A survivor of Poeg’s early ignorance of our favorite past-time, Saber has evolved over time, first from a 50/50 striker to a WoS with a decent record and more recently to an outstanding lunger. Preferring to stick mainly to random fights, Saber has had a tougher go then some of his contemporaries, frequently matching up against the most varied of warriors. Nearly all of Saber's matches have been close ones, and against excellent opponents, and it can usually said that the audience gets quite a show (nor will you often see Poeg, Saber's manager, yawning). Saber and Poeg stand proudly behind their match-up philosophy of dealing with all comers.

It was fitting that in this turn’s random Saber matched up against another LoD for the storied 100th win. Before becoming a member of LoD himself, Saber fought many bloody matches against the alliance. In fact, Poeg often fell back on Saber as one of his “go to” guys for revenging what Poeg felt were bad challenges from the LoD (among others). There is some debate, but our feeling is that Saber’s most notable achievement has to be the back to back slayings of Sleazee P. Martinee's fearsome warriors, Ten Ton Hammer and Krug Skull-Splitter. This reporter can not recall a similar occurrence of back-to-back slaying of peers from the same stable in Veteran's Blade.

In the long run, Saber has grown from an unimpressive 29-21-2 over his first 50 fights, passing on to a respectable 64-36-5 record at 100, and finally blazing forth to his present record (an enviable 100-43-7). And there is still room for improvement. "There's headroom there, for him to learn and train much more. I expect big ger and better things", noted Poeg during the celebration after the fight.

We here at the Gazette agree.

With both of these warriors reaching the 100 Win Club, the 100 Win Update feature will now go on hiatus until Geryon, Blorc and M. Noiceur get closer to this most coveted milestone (or die in some horrible fashion).

FEATURED ARTICLE - First Half-Orc to Hit 200 Fights
It wasn't that long ago that the conventional wisdom around Veteran's Blade was that Half Orcs lived fast, killed hard, and died young. In fact, it was really not that long ago (a few years) that Thud and his 150 fights set what looked like an imposing bar for Half Orc life-spans at 150 fights. Indeed, it took another two years for Maulbearer to take that crown and reset the bar at 175 fights.

Now, two years further on, the previous record has been obliterated and the last of the races of our fair world is finally going to have a 200 fight representative as Sleazee P. Martinee's Zurn Bloodbringer turns 200 fights old in Turn 352. Its worth considering that Zurn is also 60 turns older than the next oldest contemporary Half Orc opponent, although this would not be true if Dux Mortalitas' Naginata had not died tragically four turns back.

Holding court at Dux's Tavern, Dux Mortalitas granted The Gazetteer the following brief comments on Sleazee's amazing achievement. "What's truly impressive to me is that [Zurn's] 100-200 fight performance has been as good or better than his sub-100 performance was. To me, this is proof-positive that Half-Orcs can make excellent long-term warriors. Keep your eyes peeled for other orcs to do the same or better! The door has been opened, and time is the only barrier preventing others from following suit or even trumping the feat! It will happen!". Well said, Dux.

Sleazee also sat down with our staff to provide his own unique perspective. "Zurn first graced the sands of our Arena on my 8th week in the game. I knew very little at the time, which shows through his 50-fight record (30-20-2). Now it's hard to believe that next week's fight will mark his 200th fight. I feel that he has already hit legendary status by becoming the longest lived Half-Orc of all time. Hell, he still has fewer losses at 200 fights than Maulbearer had when he died. Only time will tell what will become of him."

The Gazette salutes Zurn Bloodbringer. An amazing run and the only remaining question is, when will it end?

THIS TURN'S 100 FIGHT BIRTHDAYS
We send out happy birthday wishes to Sir Brandox's Halfling Niclitt Fastoun, who sadly backs into 100 fights with a loss on her own challenge to Ilneval's Elf Saraya.

NEXT TURN'S 100 FIGHT BIRTHDAYS
Unless the Gazetteer has missed some execrable, sorry excuse for a sub-.500 warrior, there are no 100 fight birthdays coming up next turn.

BC ROUNDUP

THE GOOD
Turn 351 was not quite the honor-farming, BC-fight-off-o-rama that we saw in Turn 350 (one wonders if The Warlord ran out of turns on his BCs or rolled his wisdom check). That said, there were a few nice BC fight-offs this turn to highlight.

Congratulations to the following managers and warriors who foiled BCs from warriors with more fights in turn 351 (fight disadvantage in parentheses):

Lord Kelvin's Twice the Haggis (23)
Panther's Sarsin (8*)
D-Man's Ray (6)
Xavier's Confessor Eko (1)

*While Sarsin was at a fight disadvantage, the the challenging warrior, Tim Dwight, was ranked significantly lower. Some might consider this challenge to fall more aptly in the "misguided upwards BC category" but we digress.

Congratulations to the following managers who benefited from seemingly misguided upwards BCs (fight advantage in parentheses).

Terminator's Bomuras (57)
JB Bladeswinger's Burnor Bloodbath (20)
Gouged Eye's Kali (14)
Chaosadow's Deadwon (13)
Yopi's Bighead (5)
Folkari's Smasher (3)

BC Fight off of the week goes to Lord Kelvin's Twice the Haggis, who defeated the seemingly excellent Blue Ranger from The Overlord's stable.

THE BAD
As part of his 5-20 turn o' Honor Farming, Tolome BC'd upwards 57 fights to get crushed by Terminator's Bomuras. We here at the Gazette are sure that it was well worth the entire 4 points of honor gained.

THE UGLY
Its like a broken record: for the 3rd straight week, Thingmaker wiped a dazed and confused Kamikrazy off the heel of his boot at the end of their BC matchup. Still, many in the stands were impressed as Kamikrazy ends up surviving going toe to toe with Thingmaker (indisputably one of the greatest living killers in Veteran's Blade), for 8 minutes across 3 weeks with little more than 3 months of experience in the Veteran's Blade's fighting pits to rely on.

And it wasn't just the spectators who were impressed. Thingmaker and Sanguine Savior both had very laudatory things to say after the match.

"It looked like Kamikrazy was almost holding his own," Sanguine said from his private box above the fighting pits. "He was partially blocking Thingmaker's shots with his shield...unfortunately he was also stopping them partially with his face."

"He will someday be a force in this pit, no doubt," Thingmaker told our reporter as he cleaned up after the fight. He continued, "Unless, of course, he kills another of my friends. If we meet again, I will send him to Hell. But for now I will buy him a week's worth of ale... once he gets out of the hospital and regains the use of his throat, that is."

The Gazette sends its respect and admiration out to Frank the Tank and Kamikrazy for surviving this difficult challenge.

After three turns of Blood Challenging, Thingmaker ends up with a distasteful 42 points of Dishonor.

Feeling left out (apparently) after an absence from Veteran's Blade, Scotty Body took the opportunity presented in the death of B.L.S. last turn to drop his first gigaton BC of the new year on Sir Brandox's Cractor. In contrast to Thingmaker's attempt to puree Kamikrazy, however, Suffering Overdue succeeded in wracking up his 4th kill (and 14 points of dishonor) in the match.

In contrast to last turn, when ridiculous BC upchallenges were the new "black", turn 351 was more conventional, with several ugly downchallenge wins by far superior opponents.

The Shadow Master again dropped his 65-fight warrior Jerlin on Chen Man Ching's 15-fight Horned Puffin, reaping 9 points of dishonor.

Panther again dropped her 41-fight warrior Goraxe on The Overlord's 13-fight warrior Shady Grove, reaping 8 points of dishonor.

The Overlord dropped his 36-fight warrior Warfare on Gy'Gax's 18-fight, .500-record warrior Khak, reaping 5 points of dishonor.

NOTABLE DEATHS
This turn saw only one 50+ warrior die in challenges, but three, including two 100+ warriors from Palor's stable, perish in random fights. Fortunately, fate spared us, this turn, from having to speak of any execrable warriors. All four dead warriors are well worth spending a few moments discussing.

We turn our attention first to the passing of Xavier's Drow, the first warrior in his stable to die above 50 fights. One manager close to Xavier was kind enough to go on record about the life and death of Drow.

"I always maintained that [Drow] would be a frustrating warrior," said Acheron after the day's fights were done. "Still, despite Drow's small stature and stunted intellect, Xavier managed to squeeze a decent overall record out of a warrior I never would have allowed into my training facility. I know that despite some highlights, he was often extremely frustrated with Drow and I suspect there will be a party, rather than a wake, tonight."

Elsewhere in the arena, as the dust cleared on Turn 351's fights, Palor found his collection of 100+ fight experience warriors cut nearly in half, with the passing of Xephon (slain by Sanguine Savior's much more experienced Mystical Charade) and Backup Driver B (slain by alliance-mate Solincar Nelflan's Half-Orc Norlik) in random matches.

Sanguine Savior spoke to The Gazette briefly about the death of Xephon, noting "It was a great defensive match, but massively lopsided in fight experience." Palor was not available for comment after the fight.

Palor declined comment on the death of Backup Driver B.

The final 50+ death of the turn was visited upon Ilneval and his Half-Elf, Rhaegar Targaryon, killed by Shopslave's slightly younger Half-Elf Swish,just two fights short of reaching the 100 fight mark.

One manager spoke to The Gazette about Rhaegar on condition of anonymity. "He seemed to be an interesting warrior to me. When [warrior name deleted] fought him, it didn't seem like he had much of a pain threshhold though. Regardless, to live to nearly 100 fights will always be an accomplishment in this arena."

Rhaegar Targaryon had struggled over the last 20 fights of his life, going 8-12 during that time.

The Pit Gazette again sends its condolences to the friends and family of the fallen warriors!

HONOR ROUNDUP
Tolome began his honor farming quest this turn with a large number of excellent upchallenge attempts...which resulted in a 5-20 turn record. On the bright side, he did manage to accrue 21.3 points of honor at the same time.

In an interesting wrinkle, several managers and warriors achieved nearly BC-like levels of dishonor through judicious (and somewhat ridiculous) use of downchallenges this turn.

In challenging Jackie K's Sidekick (7-15-0 before the fight), Panther and her warrior Kalis (12-9-2 before the fight) managed to gain 5 points of dishonor. Separately, Ffunker's Gaelle and Rachels' Adam Dayz each gained 4 points of dishonor for similarly ugly downchallenges on wheelchair-bound opponents. Excellent show, all!

In other news, three bounties were collected this week.

At the top of the pile, Panther's Salvo Edger challenged and killing Vic Vegas' dirty halfling Peloneustes, reaping a non-cash reward of 1.8 Honor points in the effort.

In a random match kill of Hosehead's Elf Sonofabiscuiteater, Ilneval and his Half-Elf Tehelya Ride emerge with a whole 7 tenths of a point of Honor.

And finally, in hot dwarf-on-dwarf action, Drakus and his warrior Violet emerge with 7 tenths of a point of Honor for fighting off and killing Master Misfit's challenger, Sponge Glutton.

Finally, fans and competing managers were heard grousing around the arena as Acheron attempted and failed to kill Gramps' Saint Nixon for the second straight turn. One manager who wished to remain anonymous commented to the Gazette "At least he won this time. But why doesn't he give someone else a chance!".

Cliff Banana maintained a huge lead in the all time Honor Rankings despite Tolome's movement this turn. It would be redundant to note who holds the top spot in Dishonor.

MANAGER OF THE WEEK
Though it required a significant amount of dishonor gained through downchallenges (and one random against a peasant) the Gazetteer cannot ignore a 22-3-0 turn when it occurs. Manager of the Week therefore goes to the one, the only (thank goodness, if you're a new manager) Sleazee P. Martinee.

In the sake of fairness and disclosure, below you will find all of Sleazee's challenges from Turn 351 in descending honor score (Sleazee's warriors marked with a hyphen).

ROYALE FERMIERE (1150) (13-11-1) v. -ENTER THE PHOENIX (377) (14-2-1)*
-ZYRATH'KA WAR-DANCER (358) (10-5-2)* v. LUICIFER (1216) (10-5-1)
-TOTAL TRAUMA (354) (72-41-0)* v. GRINDER (684) (58-39-3)
-RAWG BRAINSPLATTER (358) (50-21-5)* v. ZANDER THE WANDERER (874) (43-32-0)
-THE RAGE TO OVERCOME (377) (66-30-5)* v. HOBO JOE (717) (57-20-0)
-BORN OF HATE (377) (3-3-0)* v. PRS SINGLECUT (1277) (3-2-0)
-FISTFUL OF TEETH (394) (24-7-5)* v. MIKEY THE MORON (234) (17-13-1)
-HORACE PINKER (354) (38-19-0)* v. ELRIC (43) (26-32-2)
-SLAUGHTERAMA (394) (14-3-1)* v. DEATH DEALER DOS (234) (10-6-0)
-THE SALAMINIZER (394) (17-14-1)* v. OTTO BRAUER (234) (12-18-0)
-JURRG DEATHSCREAM (358) (16-34-0)* v. KELDRIK (817) (13-36-0)
-HARBOTH GUTGORE (358) (34-37-2)* v. TRATORI (44) (28-36-1)
-HOUSE OF SUFFERING (377) (17-17-0)* v. GIL HIBBEN (238) (15-14-0)
BURGER BAIT (883) (30-40-0) v. -EISA SHE-FIRE OF ICE (374) (36-44-1)*
-CELTIC FROST (354) (56-34-1)* v. LEMUR (105) (45-31-2)
-ATHROGATE IRONFORGER (374) (30-20-0)* v. LOBO TOMMY (1002) (22-37-0)

It's interesting to note that Sleazee is uncharacteristically carrying several sub-.500 warriors on his roster at the moment. Certainly one could argue (and The Gazette would say with confidence that Sleazee will) that this does not help his honor score from turn to turn as he chooses challenge targets.

Sleazee had the following to say about his amazing turn when he stopped by Dux's Tavern at the end of fight day:
"I owe it all to Pitzyte! Like I said before, it's improved my game and gives me firmer and fuller-feeling turns! But seriously, my stable went 12-13 the two previous weeks. In the 1st week all my winners won and the losers lost. In the 2nd week all my losers won and my winners lost. This week they all pretty much won."

Sleazee's stable had never gone 22-3 in four years of play.

(Dis)Honorable Mention goes to Ffunker for his 18-7-0 turn sadly accompanied by several downchallenges right out of the Sleazee playbook and at least one chippy rechallenge.

It is an interesting day in Veteran's Blade indeed when these two dark characters claim the Manager of the Week and Runner-up trophies.

RANDOM NOTES
Even with an honor bounty collected, Panther managed to accrue 11.4 points of dishonor in Turn 351.

Poppa Balrog had six warriors die this turn, including one mysterious monstering of a 40 fight warrior allegedly due to the outcome of a wager with Sanguine Savior, two other more understandable monsterings and two lamentable deaths in normal combat.

WHISPERS AROUND THE VETERAN'S BLADE
The city guard is not talking, but we hear that an assassin was caught and executed while attempting to infiltrate the grounds of a major alliance personality this week. Reports vary, but the big money is currently on Sanguine Savior being the target.

Tensions are running high in the city this week in response to both to Sleazee's excellent turn and comments by the No Bozos Squad. Rumors are flying of coming war and strife and we can't wait.

Elsewhere, rumors are swirling that Dux Mortalitas is less than happy with the recent performance of his stable. Are more big changes coming?

Was Rhaegar Targaryon betrayed in his final fight by a previous injury? A member of the mortuary staff who worked on cleaning up the deceased stated that there was no way that the final blow of the fight should have been enough to do him in. It appears that as they started the process of embalming this lamented warrior, they discovered a massive amount of internal damage that likely contributed to Rhaegar's passing.

That's if for this week's edition of The Gazette! If you'd like to submit items for a future edition or provide feedback and clarifications, please pm them to my account on pitt.bloodspit.net.

-The Staff at The Pitt Gazette