All good things must come to an end. When looking at the post-New Year Humpday schedule, defeat was inevitable, dare I say, invited. Names that shake the hallowed halls of professional Halo dotted our horizon. Instead, we lost to a team led by a guy who refers to himself as Lord and a bunch of Halo LARPers, the Praetoria Guards – how embarrassing.

Other Lords from lore:

Lord British


Lord of the Dance


Little Lord Fauntleroy

Lord of the Flies

Count Dooku

Bungie

New0001 – Save us
Frankie – No code
Thug Larz – "Frank, Luke, stop fighting"
TJ Scoot – "durr durr durr"

Praetoria Guards

PraetoriaGuards is a Halo fansite with a rich community and judging from our limited and horrifically unfun interaction with them, they are a kind-hearted group of merciless and coldblooded jerks who will cheat at every chance. They also frequently hurt puppies.

LordGideon – Douchelord
Smackafield – Stand-by
Eisen Feuer – Cheater
Dobko – Tried to call in an Airstrike
DarkKnight DS – Is not Batman
Jatsu – Huh?
KilaM0Mjaro – Nothing negative to say, her name is hilarious.
Heroic Odysseus – If you’re so heroic why didn’t they let you play in the games that count?

Game 1

One Flag CTF on High Ground
Tone of Game: An unassuming youth enjoying a video game in the company of an amorous golden retriever.

Well we already know the outcome, so here’s what happened: Praetoria Guard apparently plays together quite regularly, where Joe, Frankie, Lars and I play together once a week for usually three games. Three games that up until now we’ve won the majority of. I don’t know how they did it but they used the exact same strategy in both of their rounds and in both cases scored like prom night. Try not to laugh to hard when you watch the film and see what they did to us.

It wasn't an entirely bottomless pit, though. Somehow Frankie escaped their base on our first offensive effort with the flag, but that triumph was exposed for the sad falsehood that it was when they rebuffed us pretty effortlessly on our second attempt. It's almost like they let us score during the first game. We were just a yarnball to these kitties.

Final Score: 2-1 Praetoria Guard Wins
(Watch the strategery here)

Game 2

Team Slayer on Guardian
Tone of Game: muted

Picture says it all. Deduce what thou wilst.

Final Score: 50-36 PG wins :(
(Just follow Frank in the film.)

Game 3

Tower of Power on Spire
Tone of Game: Zany

Defeated, with our heads in our hands, we agreed to play the third round. We gave them party leadership and tried a Forged environment with a Forged Gametype. We played the LordGideon-created Tower of Power on Spire.

Tower of Power is a variation of One Flag CTF where the Flag carrier turns yellow (“for visibility” explains Gideon) and is more affected by gravity, resulting in lower jump heights. What makes Tower of Power really shine, however, is the custom Forge map, Spire.  

The flag is located on an elevated platform that Gideon forged roughly half way up the towering spires on the “UNSC Cruiser in the sky” side of the map. To shorten Sandtrap’s otherwise overwhelming length for infantry, he placed a series of teleporters that shorten run distances and effectively shrink the map. A single Hornet is available to both the offense and defense (placed near the Banshee spawn) and the attacking squad has a Scorpion at their disposal. To counter the presence of the Scorpion and vehicles in general both teams have a bunch of weapons at their disposal, Spartan Lasers, missile pods and anti-infantry measures, like spire-topping mounted turrets and a Sniper Rifle, suspended on an elevated platform below the spire.

Assaulting the Flag is a vertical endeavor and at first glance it looks like the defenders have every advantage, but a cache of ranged weapons at the attackers’ disposal give them a counter to each of the defenders’ tools.

The game was a blast and Gideon joined our side after Frank’s Internet got wonky (again). We’ve included a link to LordGideon’s file share below, if you’re logged into Bungie.net you can tell your 360 to download the map file “Spire” and the gametype “Tower of Power” from his File Share.

Final Score: 2-0 Bungie Wins
Download the film
Download the Map/Game Variant (the goodies are at the bottom of LordGideon's fileshare)