“Appear strong when you are weak” | Invade k302 | N0X & GCM & WEE invades

Hotep had been busy. Between getting a cold and preparing for a math test there had not been much time for the game and especially not for anything like hunting with his alt. So he planned to spend Tuesday evening just like all days that week with a mix of learning and taking breaks to calm his body and mind down. 

But fate did not want him to do just that. He had just finished eating when he saw a message from NO REAL on his phone:

NO REAL: “Would you be there for a strong target?”

Hotep was unsure. Should he? He had to do other stuff, but he for sure wanted to take part in this target NO REAL had found. Still unsure, he responded.

Hotep: “in principal”

NO REAL: “14mil troops with Jon and Dany”

Now Hotep knew he had to take part. Rallying someone strong sounded like fun and he did not want to let NO REAL down either as he probably had not many other fillers available. He logged into his Mass Shadow account and joined NO REALs alt alliance that was the alliance they would use for this hunt. Besides NO REAL and Mass, they would have help from “CrazyChicken” , a player that NO REAL had invited. It was CrazyChickens first hunt and so he had to learn a lot. Such a strong target as first hunt was maybe not the easiest choice, but would be for sure a fun one.

When NO REAL started the rally, Hotep joined the voice chat, where Chicken, NO REAL and a few players from Chickens alliance, [0Ch], were. While everything was going on the spectators would comment and encourage their alliance members.

Hotep then joined the rally and looked at the target for himself. 1.5 billion, but low merit. Besides Dany and Jon on the wall the account also had war gear on, so it could be quite costly, even though NO REAL should counter the spearmen of KingArtus

The rally of NO REAL was 3 minutes away from launching when another face showed up on the kingdom and not just anyone. Someone Hotep was quite familiar with: Lady Lory. 

Lory and Hotep had spent some time together in WEE a few years ago and recently Hotep had watched Lory’s videos on her solo and duo invasions. 

It seemed like NO REAL was not the only one who had found the target. If Lory jumped before NO REAL started the rally and so thought no one was there or if Lory was on the kingdom already anyway, Hotep did not know. Maybe Lory even wanted to hit NO REAL or someone else from 34k. NO REAL was on the rally disband button in case he got soloed. 

It would not come that way though. NO REAL got a message from Lory, asking if she can join and sure she could. They still had room in their rally anyway and they would need every soldier possible.

And just like that, they were fighting together and Lory joined the rally.

Soon after the rally would launch.

Wow! No one of them had expected such a great result. It seemed like Artus was not that strong after all. He had his Jon with weapons and a 3-star Dany, but he had no base on his weapons and the formation was not really working either. Leila to just buff one female commander that was not even 4-star? Not good. And Jon in a weakness lineup, when weakness attacks can not crit? Also not good. His stats themselves were not super impressive either.

All of these things combined led to an easy victory for NO REAL’s rally, with the counter being one additional factor. Artus had been able to pretend to be stronger than he actually was. So much so NO REAL did not dare to solo and he got the attention of two separate hunter groups.

Fitting for this situation, Hotep remembered a quote: “Appear strong when you are weak and weak when you are strong” from Sun Tzu around 2500 years ago. 

Artus was weak, but with his commanders and war gear let NO REAL and the rest believe he was stronger and so he was not soloed. If he had logged in before the first rally hit to bubble, the deception would have been perfect and the strategy would have worked, but luckily for the hunters, he did not.

To get back to the action, NO REAL set up another rally, although Hotep would have also liked to see Lory rallying, just to compare Lory’s bleed lineup Hotep knew she was using to NO REAL’s hybrid. 

The second rally went just as well and with just 2.6 million troops left, mainly bowmen, NO REAL asked Chicken to solo. Normally the person who finds the target has the right to solo, but as it was Chicken’s first hunt, NO REAL wanted to get him into that part of hunting as well, something Hotep agreed with. Something similar had his friend Ace done to him the first hunt he did after returning to the game over a year ago.

Chicken used the same setup as Hotep: Hybrid cav with Leana as 5th and it is a good hit, although not cheap. Chicken had good stats and synergy, but was missing some base attack to really be effective.

After the last solo, NO REAL, Chicken and Hotep thanked Lory before she departed and the 3 plus their spectators were celebrating Chicken’s first hunt being a great success, even though the target was not as strong as expected. Chicken had gotten some important experience and Hotep was sure he would see him rally-filling again soon enough.

For Hotep it was a good distraction from his stress regarding the math test and he also enjoyed hunting with Lory again, it had been a while. Especially that he was there with the Mass account, the account he had asked Lory about regarding what setup to go for close to 2.5 years ago, that was something Hotep really appreciated. Hopefully this would not be the last time the two would meet…

GOT WIC Chronicler HotepRa