Shenanigans in the City of Glory

Life in Westeros has been crazy. My alliance was merging with another. There was not room for all. Yall know I am not very patient as I am waiting to hear if I made the cut. I have doubts as I feel there are many folks way stronger than I that would want to join this new Super Alliance Team. I expected the worst but there was still a small part of me hoping for the best. After what seemed to be an eternity, Leadership finally got to me. I somehow made the cut and got invited to the new alliance. We would be officially moving to WTF moments before my Arena Of Honor Match.

Due to my mind being everywhere, Ary put together the team. Now that my future alliance was decided, I could focus on the seventh match with the Shenanigans Squad.

Last match we had conquered the communication issues that had held us back. This time, the conversation revolved around the strongholds and what to do with them.

We have normally focused on Trading Posts for the points, with a couple spear camps to help Ary in our clan castle. However, we have not been able to get the watchtowers or the catapults. Finding the sweet spot of camps vs trading posts led to a lively discussion. There are pros and potential cons to each way. Seeing Cavs were in those buildings for this match, we decided to make a couple more spear camps to try and see if we can get them.

For this match we were House Baratheon

I glanced around the map to gauge who the enemy would be. I saw a couple of familiar accounts.

Some unfamiliar but seemingly strong accounts

For the most part, the match felt like it was ours to win or lose. We raced for the strongholds, as the match opened up, and began reinforcing them to try and convert them quickly. When the Altars opened, we began to take those too. Yall know I can be a bit of an altar goblin, but while I went for some and had some losses

I also had some wins.

Relatively little time was spent on the altars. Many altars were taken unchallenged as it seemed like entire teams were afk. We were focusing on what we could do, focusing on the goal of finishing in the top 3.

I took a dragon pit

And lost a dragon pit lol 😂

Finally, it was time for the City of Glory to open. I began with a solo attack I expected to lose, and I was not disappointed lol. There are many NPC troops in the City of Glory as it opens. They need to be defeated before anyone can capture that juicy target. M1lf also launched a solo that was a loss. As my troops returned, I launched a rally thinking lets just rip the band aid.

As my troops were getting ready to hit, UTB’s TracyJ took the castle. I just knew I was going to lose. Head-to-head she beat me in the dragon pit. If she is reinforced, then it is RIP troops lol.  Well, it was too late now… Well not really, I could cancel the rally but where is the fun in that lol… Leeeeeroooooooy Jennnnkiiiinnnnnsss

OMG I won

This win secured the city for us. But our purple frenemies to the south owned the watchtowers, catapults and one of the other Clan Castles. Holding this would be difficult. Tanking NPCs, Catapults and player solos and rallies so early in the match, I prayed we would hold on until the city bubbled. Allowing us to skim points from the other clans. Then they appeared…. I didn’t worry too much because they appeared to be just a bow account lol. 😂

But once he hit, boy oh boy I learned to not judge.

Look at those commanders, yeah, they knocked me out of the castle.

One of the other clans managed to unseat the bow. I used that moment to go for the castle solo and take it back. We still needed to hold it long enough to bubble and the time was slipping away.

Now that we were back in the castle, we had to try and hold. Each attack from the catapults was unnerving as I watched my army of almost 900000, dwindle down to just under 300000.

As the leader of the castle, if I disband now, someone can just swoop in and while we could take it back it would restart our timer till, we get the bubble. Our chat was going crazy as the NPC waves would hit. Wondering if this would be the one to knock me out. I held on and the city bubbled. I let the team know that I am disbanding now and to refresh their troops. Be ready to reinforce again. With the city bubbled I could do this without worry that someone will take it in my absence. The downside is this trick only works once lol. With troops fully refreshed, we made it back to the City of Glory right before the bubble disappeared. Now it was back to an endless onslaught of Catapults, NPCS and players. The end of the match was nearing. We only had to hold on for a few more minutes. Getting the city bubbled propelled us to 2^nd. 1^st was not going to be within reach but if we can hold on just a bit more, we would finish in a respectable position.

Each hit caused me to lose troops. Again, my army dwindled so I had less than 80,000 and no good opportunity to refresh my own troops. Vegeta, Ary and M1lf were rushing back and forth bringing me fresh troops to hopefully extend our hold on the city. There were minutes, than seconds left. Two more attacks launched. Set to hit me right as the match ended. OMG, I thought, I am pretty sure we lost the city under similar circumstances before and went from 2^nd to 4^th. Would this be a repeat???

As the final two attacks hit, and the match had officially ended, I was scared to look. I forced myself to do it anyways praying that we pulled in off…

AHhhhhhhhhh we did it. Our chat was celebratory. We were proud of our placement. Leaving ourselves more open to switch strategies has helped us tremendously. We did not manage to get the watchtowers or catapults despite making more camps so that is still a work in progress as we try and find that sweet spot. Yet, while there is always room for improvement, overall, we did a very good job. We have made some small improvements every match and if we continue to do what we are doing, the end of Season 2 of Arena of Honor will be a lot happier than the beginning lol.