Rumblers League 3: TWO VERSUS TWO MINI-TOURNAMENT Match 1

[WyldCard4]

Real Version

ESTRECCA'S CHALLENGE #1.

TWO VERSUS TWO MINI-TOURNAMENT

Premise: Sponsor, the mysterious entity who summoned the members of YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME from their respective universes, has now managed to bring from a possible future another group of pawns sworn to his service, THE HEAVY METAL PEOPLE.

Sponsor, believing that the combined power of his champions -present and future- is enough to defeat any other group in the League, has openly challenged his peers to prove him wrong. A few have already stated a willingness to put the young upstart in his place with their own teams.

Challenged: Whoever wants to fight my present team in combination with the 'future' team I've designed. I'm willing to fight up to four matches/eight teams as part of this challenge.

The Heavy Metal People: This is the 'future' team that will be partnering with my current guys for these challenge fights.

Megatron (Transformers) 7 + Tactigon (6).
R. Daneel Olivaw (Foundation) 8 + Cosmic Cube (10), Sage's Cybershades (4), Thinking Cap (4), Ghost's Battlesuit (4) & Accelerator Unit (8).
R2-D2 (Star Wars) 1 + Megas XL (8) & Borg Nanoprobes (3).
Super 17 (DBZ) 9 + Cosmic Converter Belt (5) & Adamantium Cuirass (4).
Ultron (Marvel) 8 + Motherbox (10), Globe Of Ultimate Knowledge (7) & Nanogenes (7).
Vision (Marvel) 7 + Zodiac Key (5) & Lucy Liu-Bot Girlfriend (4) w/ Moguera (8).

Battlefield: The DCverse world of Biot, homeworld of the Manhunters. NPCs include the Cyborg Superman, about a zillion Manhunters and several Green Lanterns who have been declared MIA and that are used as batteries by the locals.

When? The different matches would happen during the final week of the current Knockout Tournament.

Victory Conditions: For the challenged parties, all works as normal. In my case, I get 0.5 credits per match won. In other words, if I win only one of the matches, I get 0 credits; if I win two or three, I get 1 credit; and I have to win all four, to get my 2 extra credits.

Minor notes about the tournament challenge matches:

*At least some people know, but I'll be using Ultron as leader of the Phalanx in the more recent form shown during the Annihilation: Conquest event. Meaning that his base form is larger than normal, but lacks the adamantium armour present in most of his previous incarnations.

*The items of my robotic team have been integrated in the characters whenever possible.

*Finally, to avoid overlap with the Knockout Final, we'll be having the challenge matches AFTER the KO final match. Match 1 on Thursday, Match 2 on Friday and so on. Hope this is relatively convenient for everyone.

Okay.

CHALLENGE SCHEDULE

MATCH 1 - Thursday

Captain Morgan, The Arbiter & Holacik + druiler001 & skullboy001

MATCH 2 - Friday

Darth Drizzle + Randy Mandy

MATCH 3 - Saturday

WyldCard4 + The MunchKING

MATCH 4 - Sunday

KJS1982 & fudgekp + Tusk

If the days are inconvenient for you, try to persuade other teams to exchange match days for you before Wednesday.

And that's that. Good luck, everyone.

[WyldCard4]

-THE HEAVY METAL PEOPLE

GREAT ULTRON, leader of the Phalanx, in the super-sized form (30+ meters tall) form he uses during the final battle of Annihilation Conquest will be doing some heavy lifting tonight.

1- His nanogenes have been transformed into vectors for contagion of the Phalanx transmode virus and they are going to be used against both the enemy teams and the Manhunter NPCs if the negotiations with Henshaw don't go well.

2- His motherbox has orders to intercept particularly dangerous enemy attacks by opening boomtubes in the path of said attacks and making them reappear behind the enemies who have fired them. Otherwise, it'll mostly be used to regenerate whatever damage Ultron happens to take during the battle, detect cloaked enemies and counter dimension-dump attempts.

3- As his body happens to be made out of the fused bodies of fifteen thousand Kree Sentries, Ultron will be expelling from his body a few dozen of said Sentries -now upgraded with Phalanx technology and controlled by copies of Ultron's own core personality- to get some cheap cannon fodder.

4- Finally, he will be blasting the enemy Lanterns with his powerful inbuilt weaponry. Bzzd and Master Shake will be hit with conventional energy beams, while the Doctor is going to be hit by the infamous encephalo ray. Considering just how much firepower smaller versions of Ultron with less advanced technology can throw around and the fact that the Sentry fleet that Ultron hijacked to make his new body was supposed to destroy a planet in ten minutes, this should give the Lanterns some fairly serious trouble.

Also, all the actions described above will be happening more or less simultaneously. The speed with which Ultron can take over alien machinery (even without the Globe of Ultimate Knowledge telling him how to do that better) is retardedly impressive and his multitasking is quite good, so he shouldn't have too much trouble with that.

OUT: Whoever gets infected with the virus. Potentially the Doctor by mindfrag.

SUPER 17 is going to be protecting Daneel Olivaw during the initial moments of the battle. If somebody tries to attack Daneel, Super 17 will be there to prevent it, be it by absorbing energy blasts or beating the living daylights out of whoever tries anything funny. As soon as Daneel goes cosmic, Super 17 will go into the offensive with Allen the Alien as his target, using his superior ranged attacks to keep the Unopan busy while avoiding the serious dangers of close quarters fighting with Allen.

OUT: No one in particular, but Allen is going to be a really busy Viking cyclops.

DANEEL's first action is going to be to teleport himself using the Cosmic Cube (with no tagalongs) to open space, reappearing a couple of Astronomical Units (that's three hundred million kilometers) away from Biot. Once there, he'll pull tricks previously used by Thanos and the Supreme Adaptoid becoming one with the universe, trapping the enemy combatants inside cosmic energy cubes and charging Bender's power ring with ten times its normal power level. Also, since Thanos' original death was like the lamest thing ever, Daneel will be transporting the Cosmic Cube to a safe, randomly picked location, in the opposite extreme of Biot's solar system. Human(oid) prisoners will be thoroughly incapacitated inside their prisons by making them feel exquisite, mind-numbing bliss, while the more alien enemies will be destroyed with extreme prejudice and obscene cosmic overkill. This also applies to NPCs who decide to oppose me.

Notes: Thanos was able to casually hold freaking KRONOS when he was using the Cosmic Cube for the first time ever. If somebody (I'm guessing the Evil Buttercup Twins with a time stop) try to tear him to pieces before he can teleport away, he will use the intangibility of the Ghost battlesuit or the Accelerator to escape and teleport. He is going to shut down his auditive systems and teleport away well before any human can utter a verbal command. He will also avoid reading the minds of the opposite team and will happily ignore possible attempts by Gorilla Grodd to broadcast commands that could invoke the First Law.

OUT: Everyone. Every single enemy in the field.

MEGATRON commands the Tactigon to transform into a molecular rearranger like Ultron's and uses it to attack Atom Eve, destroying as much organic matter as he can, while his own inbuilt lasers are used to blast Batgirl. If it looks like the Space Worms or the Nanogenes can bring her back despite the loss of most of her body, Megatron keeps blasting until the body stops twitching. After congratulating himself about his power to slaughter small human girls, our brave Decepticon leader will turn towards other targets, starting with those highest in the priority list.

OUT: Atom Eve, for sure. It is possible that this will also take out Batgirl, although the Space Worms should be able to bring Cassie back...
R2-D2 starts with a Megas thunderclap, followed by a superspeed dash and random punching of buttons. After the dust settles, R2-D2 will start beeping angrily (this should qualify as equivalent to Coop's rants) and smash the Big Red Button with his small manipulator arms. Whatever crazy thing happens is likely to be explosive, involve gratuitous ammounts of collateral damage and be really bad for my opponents.

OUT: Much of the scenery. Weaker enemies.

MOGUERA piloted by the Lucy-Liu robotic girlfriend is going against Adam Park and poor Ben Tennyson, with Batgirl as secondary target. Autolasers, plasma eyebeams, the maser gun... If Moguera has it, it is being fired to make both of its targets ultra-crispy.

OUT: Adam Park. Probably Ben 10. If Megatron's attack hurt Batgirl, this attack should pretty much turn her into goo and beyond the regenerative capabilities of the Space Worms.

THE VISION uses the teleportation provided by the Zodiac Key and its phasing powers to move around the battlefield without taking damage. His modus operandi will be to appear behind his intended victim and deal with them either with superhuman strength punching, rematerializing parts of his body inside the target's and/or using the Zodiac Key to banish enemies to the Ankh dimension. His first target is going to be Iron Fist and after that he will follow the priority list, starting from the bottom.

OUT: Iron Fist.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

-YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME

MISS MARTIAN does a move she has already used before, the Martian Dome. She turns herself invisible, while stretching her body to cover the rest of the team, giving them some much needed protection. While doing this, she will also move her items to the inside of the dome and provide as much telepathic support as she can against Gorilla Grodd. After the initial moves phase is over, she will return to her standard form and help in fighting the Buttercups.

OUT: No one. But my present team will live. And she is enough to keep one of the Buttercups busy after she goes on the offensive.

RAND AL'THOR can see Gorilla Grodd because both have the One Ring and he is going to use this to destroy the damn monkey beyond any possible resurrection (Grodd gets burned from the inside out, beheaded by a dimensional gateway and then whatever is left is balefired with a beam fired through a miniportal opened with Archemus' Staff). At the same time, the Creeper will be getting a similar treatment. After that, he will use Folding Light to make himself completely invisible and start moving around the battlefield, using flows of Air to restrain enemies, burning people from the inside out, smiting enemies with homing magic lightning and finishing the thougher nuts with balefire beams (only Shake's shields stand a decent chance of withstanding a balefire blast, because of the nature of the attack).

OUT: Gorilla Grodd and the Creeper, 100% guaranteed. .

GISELLE VILLARD raises her standard anti-teleport bubble shield around Miss Martian, then summons some water to trigger Miss Martian's curse and fuses with the clone. The combo character breaks Miss Martian's talisman and while the Yin part goes to help in the fight against the Buttercups, the Yang goes against Peter Pan. The primary tactic for dealing with Pan will be to remove his earplugs with Thinking Cap telekinesis and convince him to remove the Mask with telepathic suggestion, but Giselle's ability to shatter magical composite beings will be tried if the other methods cannot be used for one reason or another.

OUT: Peter Pan.

BENDER creates a construct clone of himself and sends it against Iron Fist. After that, he'll activate shields to maximum, amp himself and go against Master Shake to determine who is the strongest Orange Lantern (with the power boost he gets from Daneel it should be trivially easy). The masked Peter Pan and Bullet are his main secondary targets and they should be easy to capture by Bender now that he is wielding two Orange Rings.

OUT: Iron Fist. Master Shake.

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE is going after the enemy items. He is going to use the summoning spell to take out of enemy hands certain choice items (the Staff of One and the Lost Room items, chiefly) and transform the sonic screwdriver into a pacifier or a turnip. After he has dealt with all the critical items, he'll start his usual "teleport in-cast wordless nonlethal-teleport out" attack pattern.

OUT: A few valuable enemy items.

AGATHA attacks the Doctor using the exact same tactic I tried in the "no magic" challenge match and hope that it works now that the Doctor's concentration is being disrupted by Ultron's encephalo-beam attack. If this doesn't work, Agatha will command the Tactigon to become a widebeam stunner and go crazy against the enemy.

OUT: The Doctor, hopefully.

[WyldCard4]

OBELIX and ARAGORN charge the enemy shouting very, very loudly. They probably die in incredibly humiliating fashion yet again. Pity.

OUT: Nobody of importance.

CONTINGENCIES:

Common sense disclaimer: All usual contingencies regarding dimension-dumps/resurrection/dealing with hot water/helping allies when possible/fighting mind control... apply for this fight. The characters fight smart, trying to doubleteam enemies and don't stop fighting when their primary missions are over. They will also defend themselves to the best of their abilities when facing surprise attacks.

Dealing with the NPCs: Ultron will be hacking the Manhunter communications network and try to convince Henshaw to stay the hell out of the fight, but that it might be a good idea to increase security around his prisoner Green Lanterns. Phalanx Ultron and this incarnation of the Cyborg Superman share similar goals, so there are grounds for an alliance of convenience, particularly if Ultron sweetens the deal with technological information obtained from the Globe of Ultimate Knowledge. Despite this, if Henshaw decides to attack both groups of intruders at the same time, the Ultron Nanovirus are going to take over any Manhunter that enters the battlefield and Ultron is plain better at super-hacking than recent Henshaw, even without the assisstance of a Motherbox and the Globe.

Priority target list (characters):

Bzzd.
Alpha Ray Allen.
Buttercup.
Master Shake.
The Doctor.
Peter Pan.
Bullet.
Atom Eve.
Gorilla Grodd.
Iron Fist.
Adam Park.
The Creeper.
Batgirl.
Ben 10.

Priority target list (items):

Staff of One.
Lost Room Belt.
Sonic Screwdriver.
Gauntlets of Atlas.
Stormbreaker.
Omnitrix.
Lost Room Comb.
Impala.

And that's that. Let's see if I can win this one...

[WyldCard4]

The Doctor is pulling out a familiar move . He’s syncing himself, Grodd, and Bzzd one second ahead of time, creating a temporal pocket. (45 seconds.) This is the perfect hiding place, impossible to find for anyone who doesn’t know how to look for it. The Dalak’s used it to hide essentially an entire solar system, (5:20)and it required multiple Dues Ex Machinas working together from the inside just to get a signal to the Doctor. There should be absolutely no way for the bad guys to detect our trio now. But it is possible to emit signals through these pockets, as seen by the Sonataran’s being able to control the millions of machines they had stashed, or the sub wave frequency being used to summon the Doctor when the Dalak’s had hidden all those planets.

The Distraction Corps: Allen will rain lightning down on the opposition and counter any attempts on approaching our team. Meanwhile, Ben 10 turns into waybig and smashes whatever he can from where he stands and Bullet will patrol both the underground and the skies, stopping any sneak attacks.

Grodd meanwhile will take adavantage and dominate three minds Hank Henshaw, Vision and Super 17. Henshaw, who will in turn control a couple hundred manhunters, Megatron and R2-D2.

Henshaw will command the machines under his command to attack Ultron. Since the tactigon has been shown to replicate any weapon in the known universe, Megatron will fire a Ultamo destroying blast with the heat of a small sun. This should fry his circuits and put his motherboard out for atleast the match. During that time, the couple hundred manhunters will seek out and destroy the weaker of the fray, ala Agatha, Dumbledore, Aragorn and Obelix.

Grodd will in turn command Super 17 to blitz the crap nuts out of her team, most specifically Daneel. Remember, Super 17 is put a few feat away from him and he need to bite down to activate the acelerator. Vision, in the meantime will go intangible and invisible and brain splatter Rand.

Shake will turn his attention to the green lanterns. Since they are already trapped and being drained, Shake should have no problems to turn them into his minions.

Eve will transmute objects near Bender into Gold. This should keep the greedy bastard busy long enough for a construct to absorb him.

Peter Pan will Drive at maximum speeds towards Ms Martian, open up the closet via TK and trap him inside. Once in, the boggart will shown her What she will become. If this doesn't stop her, she will be teleported to the sun.

Buttercup will stop time, split the talisman and give the amulet to Ying. They will proceed to hunt down Giselle, wait till time restarts and smash hard on her temples.

Batgirl will use her tactigon to blast the dead bodies, stopping them from regenerating.

[Estrecca]

Originally Posted by WyldCard4

snip temporal hideout

As far as I am concerned, this removes two serious threats from the battlefield, so I am cool with that. In the endgame, since I am pretty sure that Cosmic Cube trumps temporal pocket, Daneel just wishes the missing guys to come back.

However, it is possible that Ultron's initial attack will tag your guys before they have a chance to sneak away.

The Distraction Corps: Allen will rain lightning down on the opposition and counter any attempts on approaching our team. Meanwhile, Ben 10 turns into waybig and smashes whatever he can from where he stands and Bullet will patrol both the underground and the skies, stopping any sneak attacks.

Allen's lightning is ineffective against my organics, because of Miss Martian (thanks, Ring of Universal Energy Immunity).

Ben 10 is getting blasted by Moguera - that isn't even MENTIONED in your strat. Best case scenario for you: Waybig has an enemy larger than he is attacking him.

Grodd meanwhile will take adavantage and dominate three minds Hank Henshaw, Vision and Super 17. Henshaw, who will in turn control a couple hundred manhunters, Megatron and R2-D2.

For the benefit of the readers who might not be aware of the fact. Biot, the Manhunter homeworld, is located in the DCverse and that means that Grodd's Mind Gem isn't working.

As for his targets, I am less than certain if Grodd with his normal power level can control from another dimension Henshaw (who is not in the immediate neighbourhood and may be a complete nutcase, but isn't exactly weak willed), the Vision (who has sometimes been described as being flat out immune to telepathy) and Super 17 (three quarters robotic and not exactly weak willed, either).

In any case, since Grodd has to mindfrag Henshaw before Megatron and R2 are hacked by the Cyborg (supposing that things get this far), Megatron and the Megas' initial attacks aren't stopped.

Henshaw will command the machines under his command to attack Ultron. Since the tactigon has been shown to replicate any weapon in the known universe, Megatron will fire a Ultamo destroying blast with the heat of a small sun.

The heat of a small sun?

Dude, the High Evolutionary -who had Adam Warlock and Quasar as support in that fight- considered that the only way to stop a normal sized Ultron was to turn the star inside which he had made his lab into a freaking supernova. And Ultron's consciousness survived.

In the much larger and powerful form he is using in this figh, even if the Motherbox cannot regenerate Ultron for whatever reason, even if Megatron isn't taken over by Phalanx nanovirus the minute he is compromised, even if Ultron doesn't detect the impending attack and shields himself... Well, the Motherbox has orders to open boomtubes in the path of incoming attacks and send them back to their source.

Worst possible scenario? Megatron gets blasted after he has already destroyed Atom Eve.

During that time, the couple hundred manhunters will seek out and destroy the weaker of the fray, ala Agatha, Dumbledore, Aragorn and Obelix.

Manhunters who enter the arena are getting taken over by the nanovirus cloud. Nice idea, though.

Grodd will in turn command Super 17 to blitz the crap nuts out of her team, most specifically Daneel. Remember, Super 17 is put a few feat away from him and he need to bite down to activate the acelerator. Vision, in the meantime will go intangible and invisible and brain splatter Rand.

Grodd has to think to mindcontrol Super 17 and the others (supposing that he can) and then to command Super 17 to attack Daneel.

Daneel (who pretty much has faster thought speed than Grodd anyway) only needs to think to teleport away. So Daneel is certain to get away.

Runaway Cosmic Cube user, ftfw.

Also, I ask how the Vision is supposed to locate Rand at all, since the guy is invisible and protected from magical, telepathic or (low level) technological detection.

Shake will turn his attention to the green lanterns. Since they are already trapped and being drained, Shake should have no problems to turn them into his minions.

The part where Ultron is blasting him might give him some trouble.

Eve will transmute objects near Bender into Gold. This should keep the greedy bastard busy long enough for a construct to absorb him.

Eve just got her molecules scrambled all over the place. Even the Space Worms are going to need some time to repair this, supposing that they can repair it at all.

No shiny, valuable distractions for you!

Peter Pan will Drive at maximum speeds towards Ms Martian, open up the closet via TK and trap him inside. Once in, the boggart will shown her What she will become. If this doesn't stop her, she will be teleported to the sun.

In invisible dome form, she is too large to get pushed into the wardrobe.

Also, when her future counterpart tried to show her what she had become, it made M'gann slip into full blown White Martian mode... which ended with her one-hit kill of her future self (and killing a White Martian in one blow is a Superman+ level feat). So the boggart isn't stopping zilch.

As for teleporting into the sun... it might have been a good idea to remove her ring before doing that. As it is, the ring should protect her long enough to escape from the sun.

Buttercup will stop time, split the talisman and give the amulet to Ying. They will proceed to hunt down Giselle, wait till time restarts and smash hard on her temples.

Scenario 1. Miss Martian is already in dome mode when the time stop starts, the Buttercups crash against her body when they try to get to Giselle.

Scenario 2. They make it around Miss Martian before the time stop is up. Since Giselle is making a shield and she casts at thought speed, the shield teleports the Buttercups out as soon as time restarts.

Scenario 3. The Buttercups manage to tear Giselle to pieces before she can cast anything. Now, they are trapped beneath Miss Martian's body with Bender, Rand and Dumbledore.

No matter what, it sucks to be an Evil Powerpuff Girl.

Batgirl will use her tactigon to blast the dead bodies, stopping them from regenerating.

Batgirl is attacked and possibly killed by Megatron, then overkilled by Moguera. Besides, I have no regenerators and the nanogenes are being used for something else.

[Estrecca]

Bumpage.

Questions? Opinions? Votes?

[Holacik]

Originally Posted by Estrecca

Bumpage.

Questions? Opinions? Votes?

Opinion: Everyone should vote for me. End.

[The Once And Forever]

Doesn't look good for HoliSkull. Assuming everyone gets their moves off, Estrecca comes out on top by a lot.

And I'm not sure all of their moves work.

[Tusk]

And the Mr. Marllarky award goes to . . .

Looking for a bit more debate, but for right now, Estrecca's got a lot of stuff that barely has any significance of accounting for.

[KJ Stewart]

Summaries please?

[Tusk]

I'm gonna vote now for fear of the comp. at home freezing.

Estrecca's pointing out of some contingencies and some gameday errors on the part Hol/Skulls part seem to bring the cows home to his side of the woods.

Tough match, though.

[Estrecca]

I have to finish the strat for my next match before the deadline, so I don't have time right now to post a summary.

I should be able to post something in an hour or two (which would still leave at least an hour for people to vote).

If somebody has questions, please ask them before then, so that I may answer all the stuff in a single post.

[KJ Stewart]

Holacik/skull, you haven't really defended your team or strategy at all here. Anything to say?

[Holacik]

Originally Posted by KJS1982

Holacik/skull, you haven't really defended your team or strategy at all here. Anything to say?

There's a reason for that.

[KJ Stewart]

Originally Posted by Holacik

There's a reason for that.

Ah, is that essentially a concession?