Arena of Honor – How Not Winning Center Won Us the Game

It's time for our second AoH match of the day, this time in the usual 18:00 slot and it already feels like a powerhouse event. Most of our strongest players are available today, which on one hand is reassuring, but on the other makes me worry about what kind of monsters we’ll be matched against. After the smooth win at 12:00, I can’t help but be cautious: will this turn into a total disaster, or can we somehow pull off another dominant win? Honestly, I expect the former… but let’s see how it plays out.

I spot a super cozy position right in the middle of all the buff castles and instantly claim it, porting straight into the heart of the team. It feels like the safest place to be with what’s coming.😅

I don’t even take time to scout the map for competitors, but I can sense my team’s high energy right away. As soon as the first row of Strongholds opens, we charge in with enthusiasm, sniping them up as fast as possible.

The momentum carries us straight into the second row, where we grab our first Altar nearby. It’s a strong opening, we’re already sitting in first place, showing clear dedication and involvement from everyone on the roster. For a game I expected to be brutal, this start feels surprisingly promising.

Meanwhile, three Houses chose the Troop Camps, which makes our choice obvious: Trade Posts😅. We begin building them immediately. My nerves are still on edge, though, and it shows. In my rush to “help the team,” I disband my Trading Post right as it finishes upgrading to level 2😱, thinking I’m freeing up troops. Only after everyone is on their way back do I realize it wasn’t completing level 3. Instead of speeding up our progress, I’ve actually slowed us down, forcing everyone to resend troops back in. Not exactly the flawless execution we needed at the start of such a tough game.

Once our Trade Posts are fully developed, we’re free to roam the map, but so is everyone else. The battlefield quickly becomes chaotic, unsafe for anyone to linger too long in any one place. Our team moves forward with momentum, immediately getting three Altars of the Maiden. The result is visible right away: our placement climbs, and before long we’re sitting in first place.

On a side note, it’s funny to watch House Lannister, who chose the Troop Camp route, stuck dead last. Expected, of course, their points won’t come in until later when Towers, Catapults, and maybe even the City of Glory come into play. Still, right now it looks like a disaster for them. Let's take a moment to look at the score board right about now🙂We'll compare it to what we see later🙃

At this stage, with heavy hitters flying all over the map, there isn’t much I can do except reinforce the key Altars my team calls out. What surprises me most is just how many houses are contesting Maidens. With three houses focused on Troop Camps, I assumed demand would be low... but no, they’re still hammering us. Fortunately, we put up good defenses, turning back wave after wave to hold our ground.

And oddly enough, almost every attack comes from Cav or Inf. Not a single Spear solo or rally in sight. What can I say? Works out just fine for us.

One poor guy even thought his Inf march with Vorian would turn the tide. Think again, little buddy, no Infs allowed here! This Maiden is ours!

Well… until it isn’t, lol. With just a bit more reinforcement we could’ve kept it, but alas, luck wasn’t with us this time.

The moment the Sept of the Seven opens, I know it’s my cue. Everyone else is too busy with bigger things, which makes this my golden chance. I launch my attack and score a clean win.

I can’t help but remember the days when I couldn’t even beat the NPC guards there. How times have changed.

Meanwhile, I keep an eye on sneaky City of Glory NPCs wandering the map, trying to flip Strongholds for their controlling house. It’s a funny mechanic when someone holds center, almost like having invisible mercenaries working for you.

Still, I manage to chip in where it matters, contesting buildings that swing the balance. Sometimes it’s just a random altar, grabbed mainly for points or denial.

Other times, it’s one of those crucial Maidens, the ones that make or break our entire strategy.

Now that we’ve warmed up and sized up our competition, it’s time to move into the second, and far more aggressive, half of the game, where every play starts to carry real weight. To kick things off, we aim higher than before: a Dragonpit. These were recently buffed, so not only do they grant raw stats, but they also help with good points per minute, similar to a Trade Post. All the more reason to grab and hold one. So Vernei launches a clean rally, and we secure it…

But not for long... An Inf counter with a solid lineup eventually breaks us, though we actually hold longer than expected. Just a few more troops and it might have been ours for good.

No time for me to feel bad as I notice someone scouting the Maiden I secured earlier and they soon take it. So I rush in to contest. The scout report looks good for me, seems to be an off march, no Advisers, and my favorite target type: Cavs. I hit, I win, and the report is very satisfying, from an elimination point of view😏Small victories like this keep me hyped.

But bigger questions loom. What do we do for the rest of the match? The team is split. Some argue we should play it safe, defend our Maidens and prep for small mines. Others, particularly the stronger accounts, want to gamble everything on the City of Glory. This debate has haunted several of our recent matches, but today the decision isn’t really a majority vote. A few of our heavy hitters simply commit to center, and the rest of us have no choice: divided, we lose; united, we at least have a shot.

As the City of Glory opens, Vernei is already inside. He snipes it faster than I’ve seen people grab buildings in Alliance Conquest. Reinforcements are called, but not enough of us react in time, and within a few hits he’s kicked out. The first attempt of this strategy fails miserably.😭

So we adapt. If speedy solos won’t cut it, timing a combined team effort will. We coordinate like it’s AC, lining up Cav and Spear rallies to land within one second of each other, immediately after the catapults hit. Perfect sync! The first rally bounces, the catapults hit, and then... boom... the second rally takes the City. It’s a flawless sequence, and for a moment it feels like we’ve made it work.

Amazing success. We immediately speed back home to heal and reinforce center. But holding is a different beast than taking.

We manage to stand firm against the first waves, but the reality sets in: the strong Inf accounts on this map can eventually break any Spear account. Sure enough, Vernei is eventually forced out. We could take it back with our Cav account, but why bother? The outcome is obvious, at least to me. Whoever takes center just becomes the next target for their counter. It’s a revolving door around center.

So we change the strategy one more time. The new plan: don’t hold center. I bet you weren't expecting that! So for the rest of the game we just deny other Houses from holding center. If no one can sit on the City of Glory long enough to lock it, we win by points. With that shift, the entire team gets behind the same goal, and suddenly the chaos dissipates and order follows.

Even as the center fight rages on, we still have to watch our other buildings, especially the Maidens.

From time to time, I manage to chip in, whether it’s reinforcing, contesting, or just causing trouble with my usual shenanigans: spamming marches at random Altars hoping someone slips up. If I manage to steal even one building out of five tries, that’s a 20% success rate I’ll happily take. Most attempts fail fast and I'm usually contested by other spam marches.

But sometimes I get to tie up a lord march, and that alone feels like a small win, since that's not being useful somewhere else.

But when we, ourselves fall pray to enemy aggression and lose our altars, we come together really well and counter with brutal force.

We crash back with full force, and some of those rally reports give me chills. They reveal titans colliding, max rally versus max rally. My troops feel like flies buzzing around a warhorse marching into battle, but it reinforces a strong point: teams win games, not individuals. Every clash like this flips the elimination charts until the final minutes.

In the end, our strategy works. Nobody manages to hold the City of Glory long enough to benefit, and that denial becomes our win condition. And remember House Lannister, who were dead last early on thanks to their Troop Camp gamble? Against all odds, they end up holding center at the very end, pushing themselves into a podium finish. From disaster to glory, it’s a twist I never saw coming for them.

With under two minutes left, the score is pretty much set in stone. The map goes quiet, no buildings with real troops left to flip. So, for fun, I march on the City of Glory myself. I do get in… only to be slapped out moments later by Tyrell NPCs, like I’m nothing. Ouch! That hurts my ego more than the troops.

Still, what a match. Packed with bold decisions, internal debates, last minute rallies, and a final change in strategy that initially divided us and soon after pulled us together, it’s a reminder of what makes Arena of Honor so good. We didn’t “win” with center, but we won by making sure no one else used it to surpass us.

That’s two AoH first place finishes for me in a single day. Two very different games: one was relaxed, almost playful climb from last to first; the other a tense back-and-forth with internal conflict and important decisions under pressure. Fortunately, both ended the same way: Victory! And at the end of the day, that’s what makes AoH it so enjoyable: not just the outcome, but the people I play alongside. Amazing teammates, great memories, and a pleasure to share the battlefield with them.