N0X vs GEU; Calm Before The Storm

The first match of SoW was a hard fought yet resounding victory for us. The expectation was that our next opponents would most likely be someone similar in strength to us who would be hard to beat but not impossible. We prefer matches like that, not only are they more fun but these highly contested games also help us push ourselves beyond our limits. The Old Gods had other plans however for the second battle of SoW. We were to go up against GEU an alliance considerably weaker than us.

I had been a member of GEU ages ago and even though much could have changed in the years between than and now, a quick look at their roster told me that not much has changed, they were still a group of mid sized players with a love for invasion. We certainly had the upper hand here, not to mention we had 8 more people in the match which meant we had more troops to field.

The battle was joined on two fronts at the Armory and the Hot Springs as usual. But two minutes into the game the battle has already spilt out of the bases in question and there were skirmishes being fought all over the surrounding area. GEU armies were already forced away towards their strongholds on both sides.

It was barely 7 minutes into the game but the map was already a sea of blue. The Hot Springs side proved extremely effective, cleansing the right side from any GEU presence. While on our armory side we were waging war at the Greyjoy Stronghold still. But the fight was going our way and I had no doubt we will have it all under our colours in no time.

Meanwhile the first Winterfell package has spawned, our usual package carrier Spuddles was indisposed for this game so Belore II had taken on the job of package carrier. The first package was collected and delivered with zero interference from GEU. It did disappoint me a little because I would have liked to fight a bit more at Winterfell but the swift delivery of the package meant we'd have chances to get a lot more packages.

We had the run of the map at this point, GEU were trying to take a base here and there without much success, but we had many fighters stationed at every base so these attempts were getting nipped in the bud. Meanwhile the special buildings had begun to spawn. It was decided that our four fighter teams would take turns getting them so that everyone gets a shot at the treasures .

But there were GEU marches trying to sneak in at the special buildings and take away some of the packs. So we assigned groups of fighters to stop them on their way to the special buildings while the assigned group collected the rewards.

twenty five minutes into the game we were 36k ahead with very little resistance. there was a march or two showing up at the WF for the package but they didn't have a snowball's chance in hell to actually touch any of the packages. They were brutally dispatched by Belore and ImperialRock without mercy.

We brought in pack after pack with barely any trouble. I chose to guard the package once or twice just because I had nothing better to do. The special buildings kept spawning and this time I tried to get a few boxes because I had missed out completely the last game. This time when my group was called to collect the packages I managed to get two of those packages. I am well on the way to gather the 50 coins I need for the new bubble skin.

This game had been less than competitive and with GEU forces sitting at their base we didn't have much of anything to do. Duchess Scythe could sense the boredom plaguing her soldiers so she proposed that Belore and ImperialRock race each other to see who is the fastest. Unfortunately the first race went by too fast even before I could lay eyes on it. There was a concerted uproar in the voice chat with every chronicler in N0X clamoring for a do over so we would have a chance to record the race for posterity.

The fortunate few who witnessed the first race tell of how close it was , ImperialRock was in the lead and won by a mere fraction of a second if that. Some even called it a tie. But then ImperialRock added Mengo to his march and the second race was not even close. I cheered for Belore the whole time but it was clear from the get go that ImperialRock was the faster of the two and it wasn't even close. The race didn't have the outcome I wanted but it was a fun little ending to an otherwise uneventful match.

Though usually the scoreboard doesn't reflect the true difficulty of a match, this time the game went just the way the scoreboard says it did. In previous seasons we would have abandoned buildings at 80k and let GEU have some points , I knew Scythe would have wanted that but since we have actively started trying to get into playoffs, giving away points was no longer an option. The next match will be the reverse of this; where we will be relegated to our base while the enemy team takes over the map but we will do our best to hold on like we always do.