Wordless Winds, Winter's approach,
Dun and dancing, Dark snow falls,
Pale the peaceful, Prancing flakes
The erst echoes, Yule arrives.
Glisten gleefully, the gilded snow.
Rimmed with red, the ruined glow.
Slashing swords, Singing death.
Hail the Heroes, All who's left.
Hwæt! Gather 'round gleeful and gallant! Heroes and Heralds! High Lords and Huskarls! Thegns and Thralls! For the world has turned and Yule is upon us once more! Whether you be surrounded by the gentle sleet of first snow, or the beaches first foam - Yule cannot be denied.
Line up and be counted, for the Valfather watches our mortal deeds with interest! His halls are barren and the need for new heroes is pressing. Take up your weapons, remember your runes and hold true to your oaths and perhaps the Valkyries will choose you - if you die valiantly that is.
Last year's pleased the Aesir greatly, they blessed us with continued prowess in battle and thirst for blood that has yet to be quenched. The Vanir as well, pleased at our fraternity, gave us generous harvests from PGI.
But we, the proud hardy men of the North, cannot become compliacent. We cannot merely rest on our laurels from past glories. For to displease the Gods, or to become lazy in our harsh environment is to court utter and total ruin.
Our enemies multiply and surround us. The Clan's 'Mechs are OP and our numbers dwindle. Therefore we look again to Asgard for the blessing and support of the Northern Gods. And if they cannot be roused to our aid, then at least our swords will be sharpened and our skills honed for the coming onslaught. So, we call to you loyal units and lone wolves of the FRR, join us in Yule, ere it is too late.
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The BORING stuff:
DATE: Yule this year will be held on the 6th, 13th and 20th of December. The Majority of the games will be played on the first two dates, and if we're really lucky maybe all of them.
TIME: The Yule Tournament will begin Saturday the 6th, 13th and 20th at..
NA Timzones: 9PM EST, 8PM CST, 7PM MST, 6PM PST
All of the preceeding times are actually on Sunday the 7th,14th and 21st.
EURO Timezones: 2AM GMT (London), 3AM CET(Berlin), 4AM EET (Helsinki), 5AM MSK(Moscow).
Oceanic Times: 1PM AEDT(Sydney, Australia) , 12:30PM ACDT(Adelaide, Australia)
Where: The FRR Hub, where else?
Duration: I will attempt to have the Yule Tournament run for at least 2 hours each night. If your unit shows up at least an hour late, it is okay, I know these times are tough on European units. However, if possible, try to come on time.
Format:
Bracket:
The the Yule Tournament will be a double elimination tournament with an undefeated bracket and a one loss bracket. The undeafeted bracket will be known as Asgard bracket and the one loss is Midgard. It will be very similar to last year's bracket:
DIFFERENCES FROM LAST YEAR - Initial set-up:
In an effort to streamline this event (least amount of down-time as possible), matches will be played on a first-come first-serve basis. That means if you two teams show up on time, we will have them play each other right then and there. This means that in the early portions of the tournament teams will not know who they are going to play, until right before the match starts.
After the first match ends we will put teams with one loss and one win into waiting rooms until we have another one win or one loss team available to play them. Then the 2 win team will go to a new waiting room and wait until another 2 win team is available to play. The one-loss one-win team will also wait for another one-loss one-win team to become available.
Sorry if this sounds confusing, I will answer any questions on it, but I believe that this will allow the matches to go at a much faster rate.
The Matches:
Best out of Three:
Last year each match consisted of a single game. The winner of that game moved on. This year the matches will consist of a best out of 3. The first team to win two games, wins the match.
Drops:
I am going to go ahead and trust the FRR here. The matches will just be 4v4. There will not be any observers in any of the early games unless specially requested and accepted by both teams. It will be up to the teams to play fairly and to be honest about who won.
In a 4v4 drop the game goes live the moment their 'mechs start up, like in a normal match. No moving to grids prior to the start of the game. All game-types will be set to skirmish and an entire match will be fought on a single map.
If there are any observers they have to immediately kill themselves by running out of bounds. No powered down mechs to confuse people.
I need every fourman team to try and have one person with Premium time on. If its absolutely impossible we can probably find an observer to drop with you, but that will take time - so please try to have a guy with Premium.
Maps:
Yggdrasil Bracket
The first match will be fought on Frozen City day.
The 2nd match will be fought on Forest Colony Frozen.
The 3rd match will be fought on Alpine.
The 4th match will be fought on Alpine
The 5th Match will be fought on Frozen City Night.
The 6th match will be fought on Frozen City Night.
Midgard Bracket:
The 1st Match will be Tourmaline;
The 2nd Match will be Caustic.
The 3rd Match will be River City Day.
The 4th Match will be on Canyon Network
The 5th Match will be on Viridian Bog.
The 6th Match will be on Forest Colony.
Please remember, each of these matches consist of multiple games. So every game in a match will be on the same map.
Mechs:
Inner Sphere Mechs only! Welcome to FRR, a faction in the Inner Sphere. If this upsets you, perhaps you should investigate moving to a Clan faction.
Teams of four, NO WEIGHT LIMIT. Instead one mech for each weight class. So ALL teams should have one light, one medium, one heavy and one assault. That is all, I don't care if you have the fattest of each class or the lightests, just make sure you have one of each.
Hero Mechs are OKAY. Technically they aren't supposed to be P2W.
Other Rules:
All consumables are OKAY. All builds (As long as they are IS) are OKAY! Bring pop-tarts and lrm boats and splash cats and whatever else you can think of. Odin doesn't much care how you win, so long as you do.
What does the Winner get?
At the moment, renown.
HOW DO I APPLY FOR THIS AWESOME EVENT, MtD?
If you have four people willing to participate, and are aligned with the FRR, then make a reply here saying you want to play and what your team name is, and who will be on it. If a unit has 10 four-man lances who want to play, that is fine. If you are a lance that isn't part of any unit, but is clearly FRR aligned that too is fine.
There just needs to be four of you, one of you needs to have premium time, and you all need to be able to make the event times.
Subs are totally allowed, up to 50% of your team.
At the moment that is all I got. Probably add more later as people remind me of things I forgot. Sorry it took me so long to get this written up, I've been quite busy within the Isengrim for the last few weeks.
YULE 2014:
True Berserkers don't need arm-armor!
Edited by Mech The Dane, 14 December 2014 - 03:34 PM.