Arena of Honor - Season 3 Round 1 - Testing the midday waters

Not even 2 weeks after the New Year Celebrations ended, [N0X]Shado's favorite event, Arena of Honor was about to start, and he couldn't be more excited for a new season of fierce battles. Prior to the first round he sent a few ravens inside [N0X] alliance and outside trying to find a team but he either got negative answers or no answers at all so for this round he decided to embark on a solo adventure once more. Upon thinking at what timeslot to choose, he decided to test a new timeslot this time and go midday at 12:00 instead of the usual early morning or evening, wanting to see what warriors play at that time and what teams are registering. On Sunday, 12th of January, he woke up early to prepare his troops and dragons for the upcoming battlefield and after everything was ready, he marched to the mercenary camp to register for the upcoming battle. He signed the required papers and then waited patiently for the matchmaking to start. Things happen really quickly in Arena of Honor, and not even 30 minutes after registration the matchmaking started.

Just 5 minutes after, the battlefield opened for the warriors to enter, and after Shado entered, he noticed he was assigned by the Old Gods to fight in the North-West forests, very close of the icy norths, for House Greyjoy. Along him for this fight, odds decided to assign [IXA]Nat5, [IXA]Masha STB1, [FDH]TomasB, [FDH]Slashhaylol, [PQL]zibi, [BLS]kingArtus, [GEA]gunnarson, [PhD]Oxdradium and [tSB]Trufik.

While Shado's team wasn't looking bad at all, upon sending spies to check other House's teams, the reports that spies bought back were worrying to say the least. Most of the other Houses invited fully premade teams to fight for them, and as you know fighting premade teams as a mercenary team its quite hard due to lacking a way to communicate. Upfront, the strongest Houses were looking to be House Stark and their [YGI] team, House Baratheon with their [FVG] team and House Targaryen with the [ape] team. However, that didn't discourage Shado and hopefully his team members either and he decided to answer to Jon Snow's question: "Can a man still be brave if he is afraid? Yes".

As usual, the battle started with the opening of first set of strongholds, and everyone rushed to occupy them. With the change made in the rules saying that NPC's get stats too from the military camps not just numbers, a lot more teams decided to go with military camps instead of the usual trading posts and so did House Greyjoy. However, problems already started to hit House Greyjoy as most people decided to go with spearman camps, but the team also built a trading post and an infantry camp. Without being the commander Shado couldn't demolish them to build spearman camps instead, he even tried sending ravens to the people holding the buildings, but they remained unanswered. Without anything left in his power to change this, he decided to move on.

Then the next set of strongholds opened, and House Greyjoy encountered the same problem, 2 warriors built different troop camp and a trading post, having only 8 proper buildings out of 12 was really bad for the team and disaster was up to the horizon for House Greyjoy. Battle ain't waiting for bad decisions though and quickly after the battle for altars heated and Shado decide to go for House Baratheon's Altar of the Stranger to try and strengthen his House's NPC attacks. He met [FVG]Cappo there and a fight emerged.

Unfortunately for Shado, his infantry couldn't handle all those bows on the Altar walls, and he had to admit defeat. As expected, due to the mix buildings on strongholds, House Greyjoy NPCs were losing all the battles for Towers and Catapults, and they were going lower and lower in the rankings, at the half of the fight being on 6th place with no real way of recovering the gap in points. But there was one more chance for them to do something, the opening of City of Glory in a few minutes. Meanwhile the dragonpits opened for attacks and Shado went for west one and found another [YGI] warrior there. The eviction letter was presented to Platon 90, but he decided to ignore 'it and a fight emerged.

Shado emerged victorious, but it wasn't time for celebrations as just before City of Glory opening, another disaster hit House Greyjoy. House Stark managed to occupy their main building.

It was a combination of Shado's sharp eye and [YGI] sending a weaker warrior as their lord reinforcement that saved the situation, for now at least. Now it was time for House Greyjoy to play their last card, as City of Glory opened for attacks. Seeing as nobody is trying to open a rally, Shado decided to try his luck despite not being the strongest of the team. He assembled a rally and upon arriving to City of Glory gates, he found [Jps]lovells there.

Lovells was way too strong for Shado to crack so he had to admit defeat. Shado then tried again hoping the wave of rallies from other houses will weaken lovells but the result was the same, a defeat. Seeing as nobody else from House Greyjoy is rallying the City of Glory, Shado stopped too and with the City of Glory lost and a 6th place guaranteed, Shado tried to build some Trading Posts instead of Spearman camps to at least get some points per minute and maybe get a few more rewards. However, that didn't work either as nobody from the team noticed the rebuild to send reinforcements for a faster construction time.

The match ended with House Greyjoy on 6th place, probably the worst match for Shado in all the seasons. As he expected, the Houses that had strong premade teams took the first 3 places. Even though it was a bad first round for Shado, that won't discourage him, you know how they say: You win some, you lose some, just have fun. Hopefully, next rounds will be better, maybe he'll even find a proper team, who knows, we'll all have to wait and see. See you all on the battlefield!