No Surrender - Arena of Honor Season 5 Round 2

https://youtu.be/hHNjn1RQhKM

As Westeros is getting thru winter and getting closer to spring, [N0X] Shado and his team are getting thru the 5th season of Arena of Honor. After a decent first round where they managed to secure a 2nd place against the strongest [NBe] team, they are hoping that they can avoid another confrontation with them and finally start winning some rounds to climb the Glory ranks. The 2 weeks between rounds went on quickly with everyone being busy with upgrading their commanders and dragons and forge valyrian steel weapons for their troops and in before they knew it was already Sunday evening and time for them to head to the Arena of Honor battlefield. Once they arrived there, everyone got ready, the team got registered and everyone waited patiently for the matchmaking to be done by the Old Gods.

Once the matchmaking got completed the battlefield gates opened and everyone stepped inside eager to fight. For the 2nd round of this Season Shado and his team were chosen by Sansa Stark to fight in the name of House Stark and together they marched towards the frozen north where the House Stark Clan Castle is located. As soon as they arrived there everyone started deploying their camps and started doing last minute strategies while Shado also decided to send a few spies across battlefield to see what other houses are up to.

https://youtu.be/u3i-4Rx5s7g

Unfortunately for the team, the spies got back with very bad news, the [NBe] team was once again present on the battlefield and not only that but there was also a very strong [RoD] team present on the battlefield. Facing 2 very strong teams was going to be very challenging for the team but they also had a lot of strong members decided to give everything and try to win the fight. The time for strategies ended quickly as the horn announcing the start of the battle got heard all over the battlefield and the strongholds dropped their bubble and opened for attacks.

https://youtu.be/7FRmN_tSURQ

Once the occupation time was done, the construction time was up, and the workers started working on upgrading the strongholds. Unfortunately, they decided to do a strike mid-construction and that triggered a cascade of unfortunate events for the team. Due to not having the military camps in time the NPCs didn't have enough troops to conquer the Greyjoy's Clan Castle on the first attack and by the 2nd attack the window of opportunity was already lost. With only 1 Clan Castle as opposed to [NBe] having 3 and [RoD] having 2 it gave the team not many chance to do anything signifiant in the fight, but they decided to give 'it a try anyway and instantly swapped from military camps to trading posts. The altars started opening and dude to having way less strongholds than the enemies in this round, the team would need to hold a lot of the altars if they wanted to have any chance to win. As always, Shado did his best to reinforce his team-mates but since the pressure was high, he had to also do solos attempts.

Despite knowing that most of his solo attempts will end with a lot of loses for him due to how stacked the battlefield was, he decided to do'it anyway. He was taking so many loses that the medics weren't keeping up with the healing and were about to go on strike. He then decided to rely more on reinforcing and less on solos and that strategy worked a lot better for the team as they were managing to occupy more and more altars and despite having only 1 clan castle they were managing to keep up in points.

With a part of the altars, they wanted secured it was time for the team so head their attention the the center of the battlefield, as City of Glory was about to open for attacks and it was their chance to win the round.

https://youtu.be/OBpgH8Pu3ww

As soon as the City of Glory dropped bubble the strongest warriors of each team decided to test their solos on each other and for a few minutes the city was changing sides every second or so without giving time to the other members to reinforce. The first ones that managed to stabilize the situation was House Targaryen with TheOnlyKing and now the Starks and the Lannister's were forced to rely on rallies to retake the city. MAKIMA and LadyArthena started the rallies for house Stark while HeavensSake and ofSimpleMind did the same for House Lannister.

Within seconds the rallies were filled, and they started marching towards the city. Tens of millions of troops marching towards the center of the battlefield were making the soil under their feet tremble as they were approaching the vales where City of Glory is located. Once they arrived there, they noticed the forces that ToK managed to amass in order to defend the city. The troops started charging and within seconds the vale that once was white due to the snow there was turning red from the blood spilled by the troops falling from both sides.

The attacks managed to break TheOnlyKing's defense and without the reinforcements coming in time, the ownership of the City of Glory swapped, for a while at least, as it was now time for the House Targaryen to go on offensive. For minutes after minutes, the city was under constant siege, and it was looking like none of the houses will be able to fully occupy 'it but every time they were managing to take the city, the House Targaryen were adding a few more seconds to their occupation time and ultimately, they managed to secure the city despite the constant rallying coming from Starks and Lannister's.

Despite all their effort, Shado and his team ended up on a 3rd place showing once again that on such high stakes battlefield even the slightest mistake can cost you a lot. They are leaving the battlefield with hopes that the next round they'll be able to do better and hopefully start winning some rounds and climb the glory ranks. Will they be able to do that? We'll have to wait and see. See you all on the battlefield!