I'll list three of my long-term Mandarin/Duck crewmembers who are particularly near and dear to me.
In no particular order:
Gorath: A Pastafarian, Gorath was a member of the team that posed the biggest non-Duck competitive threat to the Paddling during the days of Cogs Season 1. He was renowned for his mortar gunnery, a skill which was put to great use when he came to top deck for me on the Dancing Feather during the Mandarin days. Though the Pastafarians bowed out of Icarus competitive after Cogs Season 2, I had the good fortune to randomly pub with Gorath sometime in late January/early February of this year, and was immediately blown away by his skill on any number of weapons. At the time, I was in need of substitutes for front and top deck on the Feather, and so after a few Box Socials together he became my regular top decker, providing me with many a clinch, nearly impossible long-range mortar kill which neatly tied up what would have otherwise been very difficult situations due to overaggression/poor positioning on my part. A true beast of a crewmember in all respects.
Favorite Gorath moments:
The camera angle really doesn't do it justice here, but this kill was made going full throttle, adjusting altitude at almost 300m from target, a slim Junker hull. A great kill, especially with the respawned galleon looming ominously in the distance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8E3IJM1Oi0#t=706Another great kill that helped make up for a really messy game on my part. The CsRy pyramidion was going full backpedal, in the clouds, adjusting altitude, close to mortar max eff. A real relief of a kill, given the sloppiness on my end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8_NVkcqP4Q#t=1019Lueosi had me by the balls here, but Sammy softened him up a bit and I managed to turn the tables. A great almost-finisher by Gorath - not quite a kill, but pretty damn good considering the relative speed and distance of the two ships:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8_NVkcqP4Q#t=1900Illmatar: For me, the original Hades master. Illmatar is a man of few words but of numerous long-range, highly accurate magma blasts. I first encountered Illmatar as a new duck just a couple weeks before the RAFT's Paddling game in late August of 2013, and was immediately impressed by his ability on the gatling. He ended up becoming my regular bottom deck, and was unfailingly available for practices and games. Both his skill and commitment were instrumental to the running of the Feather, and his amazing Hades gunnery allowed for truly nutso kills at ranges where it just shouldn't have been possible. The silent destroyer.
Some of my favorite Illmatar moments:
In a Gents game, managed to land almost two full clips of hades on the Gent Mobula at around 1300m, giving us a key long-range kill to take the Bo3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl7Wy2ZPboo&list=PLXy5l_wXGi3hH_MPUaGRWJTfF_HpZvkBO#t=1361Vs. SAC, Illmatar managed to drop the hull of a respawned junker, giving us a shockingly fast one-clip kill and probably saving the Quackbar from a death due to a mistimed engagement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8E3IJM1Oi0#t=585Another vs SAC. It's not readily obvious, but Illmatar was actually trick-shooting through a tiny crack in the vertical debris of Paritan here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XkahTSGoVw&list=PLXy5l_wXGi3hH_MPUaGRWJTfF_HpZvkBO#t=1385N-Sunderland: My Icarus brother from another mother. Sundie and I spent countless hours strategizing together on how to tackle the Paddling and a myriad of other competitive challenges. Renowned as one of Icarus' top engineers, he was also a brutal gunner, excelling on a variety of weapons, both heavy and light. I first saw N-Sunderland in some Let's Plays of Dr. Spaceman's flakfish, and had the good fortune to encounter him in some random games shortly after I started Icarus back in November of 2012. We became good buddies and regular shipmates, and it was to my great surprise and satisfaction that Sunderland was one of the RAFT crewmembers I had on my ship after I was selected as captain for the RAFT following a long, 6-month absence from the game. It was Sunderland's ability with the mercury that allowed us to snipe out the Lucky Duck's lumberjack during our "snipe rush" approaches vs. the Paddling, and along with Illmatar he formed half of the Hades gunnery team which gave the Mandarins the ability to get the fast mid-range kills upon which our strategy so depended. While I think his true passion for the game died out sometime in November of 2013, after the RAFT disbanded and the Mandarins coalesced, he stuck around long enough to give the Mandarins the edge they needed to pull through and win the Sky League.
Some of my favorite Sunderland moments:
Popping out the Lucky Duck's LJ with some highly accurate merc fire under full kerosene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH2-sqWa6JI#t=902In tandem with Illmatar, a grab-bag of nasty double art-hades quasi-insta-kills:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hh0UgHYPa8#t=236https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hh0UgHYPa8#t=723https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcnWn_8_RL4#t=563https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8_NVkcqP4Q#t=1964Honorable mention:
Echo! Echo was only around for a few of the Mandarins' matches at the end of the Sky League, but he proved absolutely invaluable as my front decker. A great communicator and a crack shot with the Artemis, his previous experience as a competitive captain allowed him to give me just the right amount of spotting/positioning information at the right times. Two of my favorite Echo moments: first, during the Mandarins-GwTh Sky League game, he promptly alerted me to an extremely well-executed Fiasco Total hydrogen ambush, allowing me to duck under Fiasco's balloon-damaged pyra and come up on its stern at medium range with hades-art; and second, his uncanny ability to keep mental track of which components were active on enemy ships, allowing him to properly isolate and disable a key turning engine on an enemy CsRy pyramidion during the last game of the Sky League finals, permitting us to make a tidy flank completely unmolested and secure the Bo5 victory.
