Arena of Honor - Season 3 Round 1 - A new beginning

It's almost mid-January now and all the end of year celebrations are over but there one more celebration to be had, a new season of one of the best events in Westeros, Arena of Honor, is starting. Thats very good news for [N0X]LadyKnight as she, same as mostly everyone else, enjoyed the past season and wanted a new one to start as quickly as possible. The Old Gods listened to the prayers and the new season started right after the past one ended. With a goal of getting to Glory King this season, LadyKnight decided to play before the sun rises so on the Saturday prior to the match she equipped his troops with the best Valyrian steel weapons and gave her dragon the best skills for the upcoming fight and very early on Sunday morning she woke up and, as she still didn't have a team, she marched towards the mercenary camp and upon arriving there she signed the registration forms and waited for the matchmaking.

The matchmaking only took a few minutes, and the Arena of Honor battlefield opened for everyone to enter. Upon entering LadyKnight was very happy she got warm clothes cause for this fight she was assigned to fight in the snowy north for the House Stark. After she parked her troops on the battlefield, she took a look at the teammates and while he didn't see any familiar faces, she noticed their alliance tags and noticed that most of them were from alliances known in Westeros for being strong. Beside her, Sansa Stark also invited [GuR]Banemap, [Arm]Nanoh, [KgK]LadyViolence, [RdS] Chris Stein, [UIF]KARLU, [GJs]C0UG4R, [iIi]LordDis, [1WR]nekokan and [WWW]Stalker.

After checking the allies, you always have to check the enemies too and LadyKnight sent a few precise spies to see what other Houses are up to, and on the first glance none of the houses stood up as having the upper hand on this fight but a few Houses, namely House Baratheon and House Greyjoy decided to go with premade teams instead of choosing teams made from mercenary camp warriors.

The time for spying was over though, as the fight started with the first 7 strongholds, everyone rushed to occupy them as quickly as possible and after 2 minutes of occupying they opened to build. LadyKnight waited patiently to see what the other warriors in House Stark build and upon noticing they are going with infantry camps she decided to follow their lead. Why the change from trading posts to military camps you might ask? Well for this season the rules were changed a bit by the Old Gods, now military camps also give stats to the NPC's and to the players, so they become stronger than they used to be.

Due to the change in rules, mostly every other House decided to also go with military camps on their outposts, so the fight was announcing to be a spicy one. A few minutes later the rest of strongholds opened along with the first altar. LadyKnight as usually went for the Altar of the Stranger, an altar that buffs the NPC's and thus being more important than it was before when most warriors were building trading posts. She expected some opposition and some fighting, but nobody challenged the altar, so it went into House Stark possession. Then it was time for the Watch Towers to open and they along with catapults are the bread and butter for the houses that build military camps and despite having a full military build, somehow House Stark didn't manage to get any of the Watch Towers and things weren't looking too good for them as just 17 minutes into the fight they were on 6th place, almost 10k points behind the 1st place.

But of course, that didn't break House Stark's moral, and they decided to keep pushing their strategy and hopefully recover the points difference. The fight for altars was going strong and LadyKnight decided to test [UNO]john888 strength on Altar of the Maiden, a fellow spear warrior.

The attack was successful and LadyKnight claimed another altar for House Stark. With taking more and more altars, House Stark's NPCs started to grow stronger and stronger and the attacks started flipping the Watch Towers and Catapults in their favor. However, with losing the initial points from all of them, things weren't looking too good for House Stark, and they needed City of Glory badly to win this. Just in time as they were passing half of fight time, and it was time for the City of Glory to open for attacks. For House Stark it was [RdS]Chris Stein and his cavalry that tried to force entry into the city but his forces clashed with [DUM]Olivia's infantry.

Unlucky for Chris Stein he had half of his rally made of spears and his forces had to succumb to Olivia's infantry. Then [1WR]nekokan took the challenge in the name of House Stark and he started a rally on the City of Glory. Upon arriving to the gates, he noticed that the ownership changed, and it was [NBe]SHIMSHON residing there.

His rally failed too and at this time House Stark figured they don't have a strong enough fighter to take and keep City of Glory, however fight wasn't even close to be done so they swapped their attention on taking every other building. With all the Catapults and Watch Towers in their possession, they concentrated the NPC rallies on the Dragonpits and they managed to occupy all 3 of them too. The fight for 1st place was intense, 4 Houses were at only 4000 points difference and with 5 minutes before the fight ended House Greyjoy managed to take the City of Glory and they launched themselves from 5th place to first place and House Stark was in shambles.

Despite having the City of Glory they weren't so far ahead and House Stark continued to fiercely fight for every altar and then with less than 3 minutes before the fight end they managed to take House Greyjoy's main base building, and they advanced for 1st place and with so little time left the other Houses couldn't do anything anymore so, at the end of the fight House Stark was victorious.

It was a very intense battle for LadyKnight and whole House Stark with an unexpected yet well-deserved end result. Everyone on the battlefield played very well and LadyKnight eagerly waits for the next round of Arena of Honor. See you all on the battlefield!