CCS for the underdogs

Champion City Siege has ever been the contest of the strong; I remember countless CCS battles when I have had to go in as a bubbled castle because the chances of getting zeroed by a whale were astronomical. In fact I still have nightmares about the many times when I had dared to come out of my bubble to reinforce a rally only to have lost the majority of my troops at home because I wasn't fast enough to send my troops out to bubbled castles.

But with the new version of CCS there is no such fear plaguing me. I look forward to every CCS now. Even if we don't often have the firepower to win the event, at least a bunch of us N0Xians get to have fun and some tokens if we are lucky.. Over the last few CCS, StarrySunset had been our banner bearer. I had expected that to continue this CCS as well. The event was at a respectable time and turnout shouldn't be an issue. Usually there would be ravens waiting for us before CCS from Queen Scythe or her council. But this time the upper echleons of N0X were worryingly silent. So, with only about an hour left before the battle for Lordsbane Fort was to begin, I did what anyone in my position would do; I made it straight to General Belore's castle. 

I found him in a good mood (which isn't always the case, but weekends tend to lighten him up a little). 

Me: What's plan for CCS? 

Belore: And good evening to you too. I am not sure about CCS plans. 

Me: Will you be there? 

Belore: I'll probably jump in for the battle diamonds alone. But after last time's slaughter I want to see who the opponents are before committing. 

Me: That's fair. I no longer have the gold to recover from that sort of incident. 

We had a little more small talk about UC and what not and then I made my way towards my castle to prepare for the upcoming battle and to find where my wayward husband EldaS has gone off to. He'd need to prepare his troops as well or I might have to take charge of his troops as well for the battle to come. Belore said he would be there and that's good enough for me to pledge my troops to the cause.

When I got to the battlefield, husband in tow there weren't a ton of N0Xians on sight. We were only about 10 of us and StarrySunset was nowhere to be seen. So, naturally leadership of this whole operation fell on Belore II, second of his name, Prince Consort of our fair kingdom. As I looked around the fields around Lordsbane Fort I could see there was quite the eclectic bunch gathered to fight over it. We had a castle or two from FDH, BDR and even HOH. While the larger groups seemed to be from NoS, BTa, and OBV. 

Battle was soon joined with every faction eager to plant their flag on the Fort. Within the first few minutes the Fort must have changed hands more than a dozen times. Belore hadn't managed to breach the walls of the objective even once yet though l could see his troops making their way to the objective continually. It became quite clear that we would need to change strategy.. Queen Scythe started to count the bubble timers so we could try to sync our marches with the fall of bubbles/ This strategy seemed to work as Belore II finally managed to plant himself in the Fort.

We hurried to fill up the castle but our numbers were just not what it should have been. As Scythe kept saying, having a total of 30 N0Xians might have made all the difference, but we had to make do what we had, unsurprisingly we weren't able to hold on to the objective for too long. But we had every intention of trying.

Due to how hectic the event is, the objective kept changing hands continuously and there wasn't much chances of rallies, but Belore managed to pull off a couple of those. I tried to support him along with rest of N0X but soon my spears were quite depleted.

The occupation time rankings were quite packed, though BTa's Eighty Six was ahead by quite a bit followed by Belore II and CHrystal. We had sort of abandoned the plan of holding the castle for any length of time, instead focusing on taking the castle whenever possible, keeping it away from others. If we made sure no one person kept holding it for too long, Belore might yet have a chance to win the competition.

Even I managed to sneak in there for a few seconds.a couple of times. At first I was sending full marches hoping to get a few good wins and maybe get myself some of those tasty Battle and Bravery tokens.

But after getting my troops annihilated a few times, I learnt my lesson, I started to send 1 cavalry troop to the objective, while Scythe kept count for us. With Chrystal and Belore being able to get into the objective more consistently things were looking good but Eighty Six was still firmly planted at the top.

Meanwhile some friendly fire was directed at us from BloodBunny, Why friendly fire you might ask? Afteral BloodBunny was in OBV and not N0X, but you see we had a no aggression pact cooked up with OBV. for this CCS. The deal being they don't attack when N0X is in the objective and we return the favour. But in the madness of CCS, mistakes were made. We hit them once or twice unintentionally and they did the same. But queen Scythe is well versed in diplomacy and ultimately no NAPs were broken.

Eighty six and Belore continued to fight for domination as the event wore on; sometimes coming to blows directly. Here Eighty six made the mistake of sending full cavalry march into Belore's spears, A mistake he won't be repeating anytime soon. But the event was only 15 minutes away from closing and Beloire was still in the second position. I guess N0X will have to settle for second once again. But at least we had two of ours in top 3, not bad at all right?

Then suddenly Eighty six shed his BTa tag; apparently he had been a DEP member all along, and DEP had already won a CCS this day so joining them meant Eighty six won't be eligible for the title which would now go to the person with the second highest occupation time; Belore II.

Belore II had led N0X to another victory but they say behind every successful man there is a woman, and this was true here as well. If Queen Scythe hadn't made quick, on the fly adjustments ton our strategy for the event and taken it upon herself to call out the timers, Belore might have had a harder time getting to the top.

Personally for me, I was quite proud to see him with the CCS crown, he might not be the strongest guy out there but he is certainly more than deserving of the title. This is also particularly good for N0X and k96 as we love those scrumptious buffs from CCS. At the end of the day we did suffer some losses in terms of troops but it was a lot of fun and the rewards more than made up for our losses. Hopefully we will have more fun events like this to look forward to in the near future.