Arena Of Honor - S2 R8 House Stark

Westeros, such a mysterious land, if i could describe it in two words, those are the two

words I would choose. There are so many layers to this land that it would take years to uncover all of them. If you haven’t seen a dragon roaming the sky, this magnificent beast is a sight to be seen. First, you hear its mighty roar and then you see it, and both make you freeze first and then run for cover. Life in Westeros is never boring, there is always something going on somewhere, if you look closely enough you can find some action around the 7 kingdoms. In every kingdom there was a king or queen that ruled their people and kept their kingdom safe from any enemy that might invade, seeking power and fortune. But above all those, stood one king( or queen, we are not gender bios) to rule all, he or she would sit on the iron throne which was forged from the thousands swords of Aegon's enemies. All kingdoms must bend the knee to the one true king, but one must wonder is everyone loyal to their king? Will they answer his call for battle should he make it? Will they serve him as expected? Some Are hungry for power and might try to overthrow their king from his seat and take the throne for themselves. 

You might think that Westeros is a 24/7 war zone, but that is far from the truth. Westeros also has long periods of peace, where people went about their lives as they did every day, raising their families, working to provide for their family, putting food on the table, it wasn’t always easy and some would have a real struggle with that. These peaceful times were when they would have Festivals, people would get together with friends and family and they would drink and dance to the music. These were good times and it was a place to relax after all the battles and even not after a battle, people do need a place to get together. 

Arena Of Honor was an epic event everyone was looking forward to it was a weekly event, unless other events were scheduled on the same day, like KVK).in this event, 6 of the major houses of Westeros engaged in bloody battles and power games. All were driven by their thirst for power and glory. In this event, each of the fighters brave enough to enter the arena will be assigned to one of 6 houses (House Tyrell, House Greyjoy, House Baratheon, House Stark, House Lannister, and House Targaryen) where they will team with 9 more members from their own clan or other clans, they are free to choose where they want to join. In total, each team has 10 warriors and a total of 30 million troops( each can bring 3 million). Usually, teams are pretty solid and have permanent members, but sometimes teams fall apart and new teams are made, and sometimes members of the team are absent and need to be temporarily replaced. 

I had a permanent team for a while now, some of my teammates have been with me for years, we have become a family ( some would say a disturbed one…lol) and some were fairly new to me but they are becoming close friends and I love having them in the team. Our team included Neik( our real team leader), Ferrious( aka Ferraa), Minch Yoda, Lord Ruki, GASton, LadyOfThorns, Spimmer, Zaki and HusSar( who thinks he is our leader 😆). We have been doing well as a team, we don’t always end up as the winners but it’s not because we don’t work well together, it’s mainly because of who our rivals are, sometimes we are facing stronger foes and they are too hard to beat. We have no way of knowing who our enemies will be until we enter the battlefield, which creates a problem for us in planning in advance. and coming up with a strategy that will work as we want it to work. Under these conditions forces our leader to think fast and make a quick plan and that is not always easy to make.

As I said earlier, Neik, our leader, entered with Ferraa, both of them scouted the other clans to see who our rivals were and what our chances were today. We were House Stark today, and our foes are from various alliances such as: GCM, GJS, UTB and FDH. On paper, we do have a fighting chance and even a shot at the top spot, but nothing is certain and we will have to fight hard and strong till the very last minute. It was almost time to battle and Neik was designating positions, meaning who will take what building at the start, there are 6 strongholds to take and the clan house. As he finished asking, I volunteered to take the clan house, it is an important role. The clan house allows you to attack other houses and also certain buildings like the Catapults, watch towers( which give a lot of points) and mine shafts. Everything was ready, and we were anxious to engage in battle.

Neik was at the starting point, a few minutes before the chaos would start and he looked at all of, then he said :

“ Ok, this is it, we are about to start another battle. This is not something new; we all are well-experienced and know what we need to do. I will let you know as we progress in battle if you are needed in some other location or if an assistant is needed. Stay alive and alert and let's kick some ass!!”

It was time to battle!!

At the start of the battle, I rushed into the clan house with my strongest march and I captured it. Immediately my team sent troops my way to reinforce. In the meantime, the others captured the Strongholds and reinforcements came as well. The more troops the faster they can upgrade it. This time we divided between Trading posts and Cavalry camps. The first line of Strongholds will be Cav camps, which will help us attack the structures later. Everything was working as planned so far, but it was just the start and it was too early to tell how the battle would go and what rank we will end up in. The 2nd line of Strongholds opened up and our troops went to capture it, it was an easy task and they did it very well. When it was time to upgrade them, I thought it would be a trading post, but I was wrong. Neik and Ruki(who helped him lead this event) decided that for now, it would benefit us more to turn into Cav camps, and later in the match switch to trading posts. Well. they are in charge, no? So I have to trust they know what they are doing( at least that was my hope 😛).

Time was passing by and we were already 15 minutes into this battle, it was time for more buildings to open up for grabs. The next one to open was the altars, there are different kinds of altars, and each holds a different bonus or buff. The watch tower opened up as well, it was a high tower, so tall you had to look high up to see the end of it, it had a hexagonal red colored roof with a large space for a guard to stand watch, on the lookout for enemies who seek to harm. Now, so u understand this event better, the altars can be attacked by any individual on the map, but the watch tower can only be attacked by the clan house and it grants a large amount of points, so you can understand now how important it is to hold the house, it is crucial. As soon as it was open, our clan house launched an attack on the Tower and it was a success, the guards there did put up a fight, they were reluctant to give out control of the tower, but our troops were a bit much for them and we now control the tower. And just like that we jumped from 4th place to 1st!! Damn…. I told you they were important, didn't I? 

“ Oh look, we are 1st !” i heard someone say after we took the tower, joy was felt all around our group. Neik and Ruki both rushed to bring us back to reality and get us to focus. “It’s not over yet guys, we still have more work to do, keep an eye on the house and make sure we have all our altars”. He was right; we are in the lead now, but it is still early, and we can lose our spot if we don’t focus. OK… focus…yes… So, for the next few minutes, we focused on taking altars till more buildings opened up and we could race to capture them as well. 

Sept of the Seven, an important building to hold, gives the faction that occupies it a 100% increase in healing speed, which helps a lot when it comes to saving a lot of speedups (We will need them in other battles, so we must spend them wisely). Once it was open, Ruki raced there as fast as he could and he was successful in taking it, which was very good for us. We need every point we can get, the fight for 1st spot won't be an easy one, so like I said, every point helps.

“WE LOST THE HOUSE!!!” A scream was heard in our camp that stopped all of us and gave us a shock. But I think I was the one most shocked, i was the one guarding the house, it was my lord in there and i lost focus. I felt like a total failure like I let my team down… will I be the reason we lose our 1st spot? It was a scary moment for me, the last thing I wanted was to let my team down. I tried to send another lord deployment to take it back, but Ruki was faster and he took it back, Phew!! That could have ended badly for us, it would have caused us so many problems, and we could have dropped down a lot, so I'm really glad he stepped up and claimed it back. Our clan quickly sent troops in and the house was once again secure. There is a lesson to be learned here- PAY ATTENTION TO THE HOUSE! :D 

After my “little” blunder 😂, i went on to help take the Altars, so i sent one deployment with a few troops and i managed to take it. After that, i scouted another Altar that was taken by another clan, he was a spear guy like me, so i decided to give it a go( YOLO?).I needed to make up for before, so this was my way, i got my troops ready with my lord march and together we raced there, with the hopes of winning this, and so happens we did!! Nicely done! The rest of the team was also busy taking altars and our house was sending attacks on several locations and took them, things were looking good so far for us, we were all hoping it would stay this way. In a few minutes, the Glory City will open up and we need to be ready to fight for it, it is a major point giver and it could be a game changer.

City of Glory, a true beauty to behold, is not something you get to witness on a daily basis, located at the center of the battlefield, a fact that grants it a safe distance from any enemy who might want to invade. . If you are wondering why I described it as a beauty to behold, Well, its surrounding was a marvelous white snow landscape, which only brought out the colors of the castle, and red blood showed well on a white surface. Also, it has status placed in each corner, they are a magnificent work of art, a real threat to look at. One more "minor" detail I almost forgot to mention: there was a giant blue ice dragon on top of it, a real live dragon (when he stood still one could mistake him for a statue) breathing blue ice fire on anyone who is brave( or really dumb …I'll leave that up to you) enough to get close to it. 

The city was open for attacks and many houses were already attacking it, so Neik and Ruki decided it was our time to have a go at it as well. Holding the city can be highly important, it is a huge point giver, as I mentioned earlier and the faction that holds it can gain 20% of the other faction's points. So Spimmer, one of our strongest Cavalry guys, was ready with a rally to attack, and as soon as we all filled his rally, he launched it. We marched there and hope filled our thoughts, can we take it? Can we keep it after? We arrived there and we struck hard, we weren’t having any outcome other than a victory. We fought well and we claimed the castle!! “ Reinforce please, fast fast!” Neik shouted as Spimmer won us the City. Fast as lightning our troops rushed into the city, reinforcing and ready to take attacks that will surely come.

They did come for us, from all over, every clan wanted a piece of us, they wanted the City. We held strong for the first few attacks. But then came the attacks from house Lannister and took it from us. Our troops bounced back and many were injured in these attacks, our Hospitals were filled and our medical team had their hands full. There was a lot of chaos in our camp after we lost the city. Neik was debating whether we should go for it again or focus on defending what we have. On the one hand, taking the city and holding it long enough for the protection status to start will gain us a huge amount of points. On the other hand, we were leading and we were gaining a good amount of points from the other buildings we had, so after much consideration, Neik decided we were not going to fight for the city and our mission now would be defense and maybe go for other clans Altars( Maiden mostly for points). 

From this point on, till the end of the battle that is what we did, We stood guard at our walls and we fended off any enemy who came to harm us and take our buildings. We were set on winning this round and we were not letting anyone take it from us, this was our turn to shine. It wasn’t an easy task, our enemies tried to overthrow us, they wanted the glory for themselves. But we were more determined and we had good leadership that made the right call and made changes at the exact moment it needed to be made. 

This long and hard battle ended. We won 1st place!! It was a team effort and we all worked great together( despite my little mistake with our house). We were all a bit tired, and somewhat bruised from battle, and all needed some much-deserved rest, food, and drinks would be a nice addition. I’m pretty sure I heard someone say there will be a celebratory party at camp… sounds good, our parties are always fun. House Lannister took 2nd place and house Tyrell took 3rd, they fought well also and they earned their spot in the top 3, well done for them.

Round 8 of the 2nd season has ended and I couldn't be happier, my team won and I did my best to be valuable for my team. It was a team effort and Neik felt really proud of the outcome of this battle. He has all the qualities of a great leader, he is a well-experienced fighter and he knows what it takes it lead a team, sometimes to victory and sometimes he knows what to say after we lose or if we don’t get the outcome we wanted. You can’t win every time, and it’s something we deal with in every battle we engage in or in any event we participate in. ,

The Arena was closed and all the clans were back at their base, at some bases there were celebrations going on( including ours) and in some, there weren’t any. Those who lost will reflect on what went wrong and try to improve for next time, hoping for a better outcome for them. Who will my team face in the next round of AOH and what rank will we be able to claim? Can we recreate our great victory from today or will we face tougher enemies that will deafest us this time? So many questions went through my mind as the battle ended and I was sitting in base, having a drink and celebrating with my team. I guess only time will tell…