Week 8 in the European Battle has been a mix of success and turmoil for many clans. While numerous new Clans have begun their attack on Militia owned real-estate, several of the more established clans managed last week to at last exact their revenge.
In particular ISW strengthened their grip in Ireland, retaking IRL-08 from NR7 after losing it last week.
The strategic commanders and planners at NATO should pay a visit to the headquarters of FSQ, who are progressively taking over Afghanistan. However, FSQ face some interesting resistance from the West. The looming presence of FΏ could become a difficult problem unless they can strike some kind of a deal. Watch this space to see how Afghanistan evolves.
Curiously, the Balkan has been a hotbed for conflict as several rival Serbian clans have been clashing heavily over their native territories. RFB seemed to be the leading clan until this week when they lost their focus and lost 3 territories by forfeit.
Meanwhile, things have been heating up in the United States where territories are getting snapped up fast. The temperature soared in USAFL-01 (Florida) as for the second week in a row, IK troops have had to fight Exalted, who’ve been making a name for themselves as one of the most aggressive and dangerous clans in the Battle. After IK’s win last week, the Portuguese morals were high but after to a hard-fought match, they fell to their aggressors.
Exalted have been one of
the clans to watch ever since the Battles started, commanding a mixture of fear and respect, only a few clans seem to have the skills to defeat them. One of those clans is NIF, who have so far beaten Exalted in previous matches.
Match report NIF vs eXalted. 23/Feb/2010NIF vs eXalted was scheduled for the 23rd of February and for those who didn’t get a chance to watch the match, it was breathtaking. The match was scheduled on NIF's server, the defending map choice was de_dust2.
NiF took the early initiative in the Knife round, swarming the Double doors at Long A and brutally knifing the eXalted members one by one as they tried to get through. NiF won the Teamchoice and picked CT… but what they hadn’t planned for was eXalted's carefully prepared Rushes.
eXalted came out blazing the first five rounds, changing the rush tactics every time they won a round and the NiF squad struggled to adapt to the changes until the 6th round when they struck back hard with a crushing AWP team, picking off members of eXalted at distance, clawing back 3 solid rounds.
Things were looking up for the NiF squad but eXalted rallied using smoke tactics and both sides exchanged blows with the first half ending 10-5 in favour or eXalted.
eXalted would now face the wrath of the NiF terrorist squad (widely regarded as the stronger side of de_dust2) and NiF shredded the eXalted defense for the first 3 rounds. eXalted were starting to struggle with their cashflow, unable to gear themselves well enough to hold off the NiF attacks, everytime eXalted won a round, NiF came right back with a win of their own using superior fainting and smoking tactics. NiF also continued to make use of their AWP skills, repeatedly picking off eXalted in the middle.
It was anyone’s game at this point –eXalted were pounded by NiF over the course of 8 rounds before they finally mustered a solid defense and took the 6 rounds they needed for the win 16-11.
Very intense stuff. We expect this rivalry will continue through into next week.
eXalted would now face Zeal once again in one of the biggest showdowns yet...
Match report Zeal vs eXalted. 24/Feb/2010High off their victory over NiF and their win last week against powermongers Zeal – the next big match was to be played on the 24th against a Zeal squad on their chosen map of de_dust2.
Tensions were high before the match, and Zeal pulled in their A squad in an effort to exact a bloody revenge. The match itself pulled in 23 spectators on Source TV.
The Knife round would prove to be a difficult start for Zeal, who fought one man down and lost them all to eXalted who didn’t lose a man, bearing an eerie resemblance to the last match these clans had played. The results would be different this time though. eXalted chose the CT side for the first half and Zeal’s fifth man finally showed up. The core 5 man Zeal squad was ready to party.
In a series of precise and deadly pushes, Zealot punched their way through eXalted’s defenses mercilessly, taking the first 8 rounds in succession and leading in kills 40 to 10.
It was only until the 10th round that eXalted were able to resist the Zeal onslaught, with Eviltjuh and Xeps killing anything that moved at Bomb site A to secure their first round of the night.
The score was now 9-1 to Zeal and eXalted would have to keep up the momentum to survive. The next round brought some hope when they picked off two members of Zealot early but they couldn’t stop the push into A. Having secured the area, Zeal wasted no time planting the bomb and the eXalted backup could not get back to them quickly enough. Zeal won the round and went on to secure the first half 14-1, leaving eXalted in a very difficult position for the second half.
eXalted pushed for a joined rush and Zeal responded with a stinging volley of grenades from both sides… the plan had worked and eXalted had secured Bomb Site B. All the stood between them and first round was Repz… eXalted hadn’t realized that he did not rotate back. Repz executed the last two members with two vicious headshots.
eXalted could not afford another round loss or the match would be over and they launched one final, valiant push against Zealot but their efforts ultimately proved futile. Zeal dispatched of the final eXalted player and took the Match win, final result 16-1.
Anyone who wants to watch the full match can get it
here.
It's a .dem file as opposed to a youtube video, so if you don't know how to watch (or record) .demo files, you should first check out this useful Youtube video by n00bsalad posted
here.
As Week 8 draws nearer to close, we await the events of tomorrow night’s Challenge Period with a great deal of interest. Whilst the top clans pick each other off, new ones are still arriving, so the big question is… which one of these new clans is a sleeping dragon? We’ll soon find out!
