N0X vs RRH: A difficult start | AC Round1 | Events with N0X

For the first match of AC, Hotep’s alliance N0X was matched up with RRH, a hard matchup for the first match of AC.

It would also be the first AC match with N0X for Hotep as he joined them directly after the previous season. Hotep had gotten the roles of racer and rally lead for cavalry, although the rally leading role was mainly because N0X lacked cav accounts, and so he was one of the better ones they had available. So Hotep would just do his best and see if it would be enough. 

Before the match, it was already clear RRH had a bit better participation than N0X with 97 to 93 (at the end 95), so N0X did not only have to face a stronger opponent, but also an opponent with more participants.

Then the match started, and although Hotep had some lack issues, making it impossible for him to race, N0X would get both Mother and Warrior, the two most important buildings. 

Then they would swap in Belore on the warrior. The base attack was very important, and so they wanted to put their strongest account in there.

This plan would not survive long, though. RRH speed rallied Belore out of the warrior before the bubbles for the other castles even dropped. N0X was caught off guard, and so the spear dominant RRH leads had no issue kicking the cav account Belore.

A similar fate would dawn for the mother, with another wave of rallies clearing the mother while N0X was busy rallying the outpost. With 3 months of break from AC, N0X had clearly been too sleepy to react quickly to these well coordinated attacks.

At least N0X would get the outpost though

This was one of the rally reports. Peugeot, who had raced into the Outpost, was defending with a double weakness formation, but had almost no cav stats, and so half of his troops did almost nothing. That together with Ice Bear’s weakness being strengthened by Baelish, Dany and Night King, it was an easy win for ice bear, kicking enough troops for “Leandra de” to take the Outpost in the next rally.

Then the ports opened, and N0X won both races and swapped VERGO into the enemy port.

RRH tried to intercept, but was too slow; their solos just bounced off VERGO's strong Spearman line.

A following rally wave would be much more successful for them, though, and OrvaL took the port. It seemed like N0X just could not hold against a rally wave from RRH; they had far too many winning rallies even on their strongest leads. This would be proven right when ice bear got rallied out as well.

When CR opened, they won the race again and swapped DYW inside, although Hotep was not very hopeful about him holding either.

The match was clearly not going well and something had to be done, so when Belore said that Mother might be solo able for cav accounts, Hotep jumped at the opportunity and gave it a try.

Sadly, Hotep was not strong enough. With Daeron and Jon in the lineup, SIRJOKER was a bit above Hotep in terms of solos, and even though Belore and another player were able to win solo, RRH was quick enough to reinforce, so Mother would not fall. A rally wave on Mother was also unsuccessful as RRH started sending Joker more and more Spearman to counter the cav.

And as then DYW also died to a speed rally wave, it was clear to Hotep and everyone in N0X that the match was impossible to win. Even if their strongest account, ImperialRock would not have been in WxC, he still could not have prevented RRH from winning every rally wave on everyone (besides Rock himself), so even he could not have turned the tide.

At that point the command to just go for winning rallies to get some eliminations was given, and so Hotep did some rallies on Mother, winning them without too many issues.

Hotep also tried on another building, the enemy port.

Although OrvaL and SIRJOKER had the same lineup, OrvaL had much better weapons, better stats and more high-tier troops, so this time Hotep lost.

N0X lost both mine races, and so even dreaming of the 50k point rewards was pointless now.

When Esteban got into the Targaryen Stronghold shortly before the end, Hotep saw his chance to rally once more, knowing he could beat him, and so he healed his t5 and went for it.

Hotep did 2 rallies and kicked out a lot of troops, getting 2 easy wins. Although EsteBan ran Jon and Kevin and had a lot of spears, he lacked stats for the latter and base attack as well, with just 4 red weapons.

Then Hotep attempted to solo but ran into a lot of spears, and so he lost. After calling for an inf solo to clear to spear, Hotep was able to finish off EsteBan’s Stronghold and the match with a capture of the Stronghold.

The match was over, and the battle lost, but with now a lower rank, N0X should get beatable opponents next time, so they were optimistic they could still have a good season. 

Hotep personally had mixed opinions on his personal performance. On the one hand, he was happy that he was able to help with solos and rallies in such a top matchup, but on the other hand, he still hoped to be able to do more. If he had been able to solo the inf player in Mother, just like Belore did, he would have had a much bigger impact. He had to get back to work to get his account in an even better shape, although getting anything done before the next AC match was basically impossible…

GOT WIC Chronicler HotepRa