Edited by: Grahf
Picture Presentation by: Grahf
If you play Myth and you've got a ripped sound set-up, you know, like laptop speakers or those desktop speakers that double as earphones, you've experienced the chaos of battle as though you were standing in the middle of it. The clashing of sword on shield, the cracking of bone under thrall axes, the dull sound of a volley of arrows landing in clumps of helpless, but obedient cannon-fodder, and the joyous cheers of dwarves lobbing molotov-cocktails at random shrubs on the periphery of the battle. In that huge clump of melee units, you look for the thrall with the yellow, or red, or blue shoulder pads, hoping that maybe yo ucan micro-manage them to victory. Reinforcements come just in time to extend the battle and keep you in it for a little while longer. Your archers are cutting down their right flank, and your dwarf's moving up into the perfect position to turn this battle into a gib-fest. Then it happens... that camper army moves in behind you and cuts down your archers. Tired of blowing up shrubs, your dwarf lobs his coctail at that melee, only to watch it bounce off a tree and land on his head. It's kind of a sad, touching, suicidial moment. Nobody told him to shoot yet, but he did it anyway. It would have been a nice shot, if that tree wouldn't have been there. And, although I'm sure your melee units are sad to see the dwarf go, they realize suddently that their last hope of rescue was a stupid short guy with a beard who didn't know any better than to lob a cocktail at a nearby tree, and now he's dead. In a word, they realize that they're boned. So, I guess you're out of the game. Many men, and various other creatures from beyond the grave and territories unknown, died (sometimes for at least the second time) for no apparent reason. It sounded good over those ripped speakers though, didn't it? This is the point where you check the in-game rankings to see if maybe there are other players left in the game who are sucking more than you tonight, and you notice that you're not dead yet! You've stil got a unit! Who is it? Well, if you're lucky, it's your Journeyman. Yeah, he could have been useful in the battle, but chances are that he just would have died as ingloriously as the rest of your army. Now is his chance to shine, and we come to the topic of today's Myth strategy article... the Journeyman duel. Here's the idea: Whether the rest of your army died gloriously or not is really not the issue. I've seen the Journeyman, sole survivor of an army, take the game, but that also isn't the issue here. Chances are if you've only got your Journeyman left, you're not the favorite to win this one any more. What you want to do is go out in a blaze of glory. How is this best achieved? The answer, attentive reader, is the Journeyman duel.
First things first. If you have enough time time on the clock, you want to get your Journeyman moving from your startup spot, where you left him, and get him into range of the main battle, assuming you haven't missed it already. If the battle's over, you can skip ahead a little in this article. Let's assume you get to the battle. It's generally not a good idea to charge in heroically and start beating down on warriors with your shovel. If however, you do choose to do something like that, it's customary to yell "I regret nothing!!" as you charge into battle. I'd advice against charging your crazy, shovel-wielding Journeyman into the fray though, because despite not being a cowardly death, you want to hold out for a truly glorious one. Besides, you can always pit your Journeyman against entire armies later, if you are unsuccesful in setting up the duel... you'll see, just stay with me on this one.
Anyhow, once you get to the battle, stay away from the huge clump of melle units and do your best to sneak up on anything sitting idly on the periphery of the battle. If you're lucky, someone wasn't paying attention, and by the time they notice you, their ghol, or archer, or whatever will have succumbed to the blunt side of your shovel. If there are only Thrall in the melee battle, maybe sneak up and heal one or two, making sure not to get trapped. What you're doing here is honing your shovel-pummeling skillz, so that later, when hopefully, you fight the other guy's Journeyman, his shovel will be no match for yours. Pick up as many kills as you can, but soone ror later, you're going to piss someone off, and the archers will start shooting at you, and they'll send the warriors after you. Now you're in trouble. Run like hell... away from the archers. That Journeyman suit is most likely slowing you down, but there's nothing you can do about that, and no one wants to see what's underneath anyway.
Ok, we've come to the crucial part of this article. At this point only experience and tact will save you. Alright, so you're running like crazy and he's sent an excessively large percentage of his army after you. There are still five minutes on the clock, hopefully, and you're playing "body count" so he's got to kill you if he doesn't want to wait it out. Besides, maybe you didn't do so bad earlier and you've winning by 1% or something? Ha ha... ok, seriously though, he's most likely really keen on killing you (in the purely virtual sense of the phrase, I hope). If you've got enough of a lead on his warriors, he will most likely ask you to stop being a jerk (he might find some other, more derisive name) and stop running. If this is the case, you've got something to bargain with. You've got something he wants - the ability to shorten the game by two or three minutes - so you've got the upper hand here. If you know your opponent still has his Journeyman, then you can get right to requesting a fair duel. Tell your opponent you'd like to challenge his Journeyman to a fair fight - one versus one. Tell your opponent if he complies to your request, you'll stop running and fight. Stipulate also he send his Journeyman out first, ahead of his army, and that he keep archers and melee out of range. If you really know this dude, you might not need to be so specific about the rules of engagement. At any rate, it is during this phase of the Journeyman duel that skill and experience are so necessary. It's hard to get someone with a full army to agree to these terms because naturally, he will want to swoop down on you like a giant sloth on steroids. Taunting him in various ways may be necessary, if he refuses to duel you. Also, try and get all of the other eliminated players on your side. If you can get them to cheer for the duel, cry for blood, or otherwise pressure your opponent into accepting your challenge, then you're golden. It might also help to have chosen an appropriate name for your Journeyman. Popular and always beneficial names include: "Rambo," "Herman," "Caine," )as in, "I am Caine, I will help you." - the dude from "Kung Fu, the Legend Continues"), "Splinter," "Master Ninja," and "Jo Mamma."
Alright now suppose your opponent agrees and sends out his Journeyman. You're going to have to trust him on this one, but it's usually a good sign if his melee units stop moving. This is when to stop running. Turn, heal yourself if you have the roots left, and make haste to the duel! Petty name-calling and any other b.s. you can come up with about how aweseome your Journeyman is, should be encouraged. Eliminated players should pick their favorites and place their bets at this time. Now, when you get close enough, assuming you still have a root, heal your opponent. Not only is this considered a courtesy, but if you time it right, I'm pretty sure you can interrupt the evil Journeyman's initial swing and cancel out the first blow. In this way, a show of fair-play can be twisted into an underhanded trick. Once the healing finishes, undo that good deed and kill that Journeyman by the shovel! After the two Journeyman start exchanging blows there's little to do but watch and hope you'll win. Hopefully your battle experience and the bluntness of your shovel will do most of the work for you. If all goes well, soon your Journeyman will be standing in front of a pile of robes and roots. Quickly steal a root and heal yourself, because by now the warriors are coming to avenge the death of their inferior Journeyman. Now is th time to die in a blaze of glory. Show those warriors the finish on your shovel... up close. If you lost the duel, well, it was a glorious death, and that is what we wanted. Be sure to congratulate your opponent on a duel well fought, and thank him for accepting your challenge, regardless of the outcome of the duel. An opponent who accepts the Journeyman challenge is a truly great opponent indeed!
Less interesting, but necessary - there are two scenarios left to discuss. For the first, we return to our epic chase from earlier. Your Journeyman is running from a horde of angry zombies. You don't know if your opponent has a Journeyman left or not. Journeyman tend to survive longer than most units, so it's less likely his Journeyman is already dead, but in the case there's no Journeyman left to fight, unless you've got a sawed off shot-gun and a chainsaw, you're boned. You could try and pick a duel with some other unit, but that's just stupid. Don't even think of asking to duel an archer. That can only end in three ways - a sad looking victory, death by an arrow, or in the worst case, death by punching. You'd never live that one down and be shunned by the Myth community until you get a new e-mail address and register a new account under a different name. Turn around and accept your fate. Oh, and don't do that e-mail address thing I just mentioned. That's bad too.
The second scenario to be discussed is the one in which your opponent does have a Journeyman, but refuses to fight the duel. You're most likely dealing with a rank obsessed player who has not even the most vague concept of the meaning of "glory" (sometimes you run into these kinds of people.) It's up to you here, what you want to do. Run around the map in circles just to spite them, or turn and fight for whatever reason you want to give them.
"A fight against an inglorious opponent is, naturally, devoid of glory." - Conslothcious
