The following is a recap of the custom clan match between the Site Administators of Tied the Leader and HBO. This match was pre-arranged and held on Wednesday, February 08, 2006.
The retelling of a custom game with the TTL Gunslingers would typically include a full-spectrum tactical analysis of whose flag got captured and which n00bs got pwned. We would pay gruesome and unforgiving attention to each round and the violent complexities that contributed to the results. Our clan would have picked a match. Our guest opponent clan would have picked a match. The challenge would culminate with an exhibition match of Team Slayer in which team lines were broken and shuffled.
That was not to be the way of things for this bout. The purpose of our battle with the team of Halo.Bungie.Org was to create a social gathering of some of the HTML hounds that stoke the fires of the Halo Community and enable all of us to get acquainted as gamers. At approximately 10PM Central Standard Time that evening, members of both teams assembled in a pre-game lobby as planned. A custom-game marathon of 10 matches followed, with the Torch of Party Leader passed to a new member for each round.
Six Gunslingers flocked to our banner, all selected for their contributions to the new face of Tied the Leader. Leading and speaking for the Gunslingers’ Ka-Tet was XerxdeeJ, Founder and Minister of Propoganda for TTL. On sniper rifle and always on point was The Cobalt Nova, our Supreme Webmaster and Ringleader of the Halolympics. Serving double duty as cannon fodder and combat correspondent was El Burritoh, Clan Art Director and Machinima Editor in Chief. In charge of team morale and custom uniforms was the lovely and suprisingly dangerous Pink Tawko, the Forum Designer who foretold of an elusive skill gap that never revealed itself. Padding our score and leaving the airwaves of team chatter wide open was Air Explosive, Forum Moderator and Infrequent Voice of Icecold Reason. And finally, The Gusnlingers’ Favorite General, Waynoka, successfully lead defense on the only flag match of the evening and did so through a flurry of self-assured [and clan approved] taunts.
Seven broadband-enabled souls flocked to the side of Louis Wu, Webmaster of HBO and Supreme Allied Fanboy Pied Piper of the Haloverse. Throughtout numerous roster changes, fellow HBO Site Admin and Forum Denizen CYBRFRK fought faithfully to the last battle alonside his long-time LAN Fest cohort. As a suprise guest, Frankie, the ubiquitous Bugie.net Webmaster set off a bomb of web-junkie hysteria with his unexpected arrival. Upon surverying the room, his first question was for Pink ["Are you a hot chick?"] delivered with all of the deadpan satire that rings through his writings of Weekly Updates on Bungie.net. Schooly D, The Dreaded Number 7, sat in for a jam session with his Ringworld-bound clanmate and taught us all a lesson on what it takes to have one’s own clan named after thier very own gamertag. Filling out the remaining slots on the HBO roster were Free2BMe, KP, Eamon, and deanero. We were instructed to give deanero a hard time in the recap of this gamenight, but no good jokes about Spanish currency came to mind. Please insert your own, here.
Match #1: Team Oddball
Map: Zanzibar
Variables: Lots and lots and lots of Rockets
Effect: The Normandy Invasion in reverse with more TNT
Stats: Bungie.net
Playback: Video Recap
Highlights: Every team stormed down the seawall, across the beach, and established a front in the surf. Enough TNT was hurled onto the beaches of Zanzibar to level a small town. After establishing an early lead, the Gunslingers became outnumbered and overwhelmed when reinforcements answered the HBO alert. Their team got more hits, in essence.