In Tea We Trust vs Manifest Destiny.

Qualifying Round 1 - Saturday 5th September - 18:40

Strategic Cruisers Claim Wins For Manifest Destiny Against In Tea We Trust

Reported by: Clarity Brown

Manifest Destiny [MANY] fielded a heavily tech 3 fleet against In Tea We Trust [TLEAF] in the tenth match of the qualifiers for Alliance Tournament VII, snaring themselves an expensive victory in a match that was to prove gruesome for both sides.



In Tea We Trust: 2 x Astarte | 2 x Proteus | Damnation | 2 x Ishkur | Retribution | 2 x Vengeance

Manifest Destiny: 2 x Tengu | 2 x Proteus | Guardian | Lachesis | Keres | Thrasher | 2 x Cormorant

The match started with both teams loosely clustered around the central arena beacon, both set up for a toe-to-toe fight. Rogue Bomber, in a Thrasher for MANY, was the first casualty; the destroyer was a fragile target capable of damage outweighing its size, so an obvious choice for a one-shot reduction in the opposing team's damage. The MANY Cormorants - "Little Pew Pew" and "Medium EMP Bomb" flown by Lucivec and Chris Sincalir - swiftly followed suit.

Manifest Destiny evidently had bigger targets in mind for their first kill; two minutes into the match saw Twirlip of TLEAF part company with the burning shreds of his Astarte and MANY weren't coy about widening the hole in TLEAF's damage output by sending Deckard B26354 (TLEAF's other Astarte) to join him.

TLEAF took a good stab at levelling the playing field again; tightly-focused fire melted a hole through the hull of Hunter Nay's Guardian, robbing MANY of their remote armor repair and capacitor transfer, while Nagapito's Ishkur [TLEAF] took care of Lachus' Keres [MANY].

The first strategic cruiser to fall came next; MANY's Tengu pulled back to long range and swung around the clustered fight, shelling missiles into the affray in search of mr kangaroo's Proteus. Meanwhile, JarkaRuus's Lachesis was held down by the TLEAF Ishkur (flown by Jorin Molinn), quickly succumbing to fire. MANY's own Proteus (flown by Soryn Kael) was dangerously close to collapse and unable to speed out of the clump of close-range combatants with his microwarpdrive scrambled by Kavin Nipoukandev's Vengeance.

Soryn Kael [MANY] continued to cling stubbornly to life as he and his comrades worked on the second TLEAF Proteus belonging to Joe Public - Kael's ship starting leaking air mere seconds after Public's became a recycling issue. That left MANY with a Proteus and two Tengus breathing down the necks of five assault frigates and a Damnation from TLEAF. TLEAF didn't give up, though, and threw everything they had at Rus N's Proteus.

Manifest Destiny refocused on the assault frigates as the TLEAF Damnation started to put as much range as possible between itself and the main scrum. Nagapito [TLEAF] was first to fall in his Ishkur, closely followed by Kavin Nipoukandev's Vengeance. Rus N was sustaining significant damage but the near-simultaneous destruction of Ottersmacker's Retribution and blunter's Vengeance set him free to move again.

The survivors of the MANY team went straight after Contagiobee's retreating Damnation - bullshoals and StubWan in Tengus and Rus N in his scorched Proteus.

It took 10 more seconds for those three surviving ships to claim victory for MANY, but TLEAF can walk away knowing that they made their foes fight for every single point.