To the end: An Arena of Honor Story | Season 5 Round 4

Lords and Ladies!! Once more, we recount the tales of my (Lord FrankTU) attempts to gain the "Glory King" title in the fifth season of the Arena of Honor. The last round did not go as planned, and the team had to settle for 2nd place after a hard-fought battle that saw us lose hope more than once. If you'd like to read about that battle, feel free to click here: Desperation: An Arena of Honor Story | Season 5, Round 3.

Today, we focus on the 4th round of the 5th season. Our lord joins INFURNO once more to fight and win it all. This time, however, the morale of the team was not as high as it was in the previous match. Fresh from a close defeat, the lords desperately needed a victory to regain the confidence they once held.

Chapter 1: The 3 Powerful Houses

The Queen on the iron throne chose to place her bets on [STL] INFURNO's team. The team consisted of the same players as last time, except for one new addition. [FVM] Sebastrus would once more lead the team in their conquests for the Glory City. [STL] Anhur would act as the second in command and lead the second rally to soften the defenses.

INFURNO had made new strategies to counteract the issues from the previous match. The team was eager. "This has to work," I thought. There would be trouble further into the season if we missed out on points in the first few matches. sebastrus had had problems in the previous match due to a lack of troops for this commander lineup. This time, several of the players had trained to fill his rally. I made about 300,000 troops 15 minutes before the match.

This is the house challenging the Lannisters' claim to the throne. I could see that there were several strong members on the team. As I looked through the profiles of each player, one caught my eye: "[NSI] MidDle Earth." My alliance, sRH, had fought this alliance in the Siege of Winterfell event, but sRH did not win that match. This player looked strong, so I made a mental note to check on them regularly.

The second strong player from their lineup was [BeB] BOrke. The Lannisters would have to prepare themselves for the constant assaults from the Targaryen army. They would surely march over after taking Tyrell's City.

Robb Stark, the young wolf, had chosen this team to represent his house's banners. His men wanted to avenge Ned Stark's death. Just as in the show, the Lannisters would be hunting the Starks. I wished that we would be able to take their castle and hold 3 castles to gain a large amount of points. So that even if we lost the glory city, we could still fight to the end.

I kept looking at the 10 members of this team, but could not identify who could be their rally leaders. Each and every one seemed to be on the same level, but none of them seemed to have immense power. I knew that this would be a problem, as we might not be able to plan a counterattack quickly should the need arise.

Chapter 2: Preparation

We rushed to take the outposts. Every second was important. I quickly captured 4 outposts and reinforced 2 others. How I wished I had a 7th Army I could use. We had to win this at all costs. We couldn't afford to lose another 20 points like last time. No one said it out loud, but the pressure to win was immense.

Each and every member hurried to send their armies. The faster the outposts were upgraded, the easier it would be to capture the towers. As I looked over to Stark's city to see their progress, I noticed that they had configured their outposts in such a way that it would counter ours. This was bad. They had singled us out as the enemy. We were already at a disadvantage. This team had experienced leadership. They wanted to WIN.

The very next moment, we landed on the Baratheon Faction city. We were successful in capturing it. This was an incredible moment. We had captured the city in 3 minutes from the start of the match. 3 Minutes! I felt my confidence lifting. Maybe we could indeed win this as we had always done before.

Chapter 3: Making new records

I looked over to the map on the right. I could see something blink. I was momentarily happy. We must have captured the Tyrell’s city. The 3rd city, as we had intended. Little did I know.......

The Tyrells had successfully defeated our City's defense. Our forces retreated to our castles. Our hearts sank. Why us. Why now. As quickly as we had captured the Baratheon city, we had lost ours. We were losing to bots. This had never happened to us. We were making another record. One we didnt want to.

I slowly made a rally. "We must not give up now", I thought. "There are 48 minutes left". Our rally leaders frantically tried solo attacks. Then, as I was losing hope, one of the player's solo attacks defeated the Tyrell forces. sebastrus quickly moved to take the city with his main army. The others sent large numbers to help. We had to hold and prepare the second line to counter the Tyrells. Solemnly, I felt it was better we lost the city now before the towers opened. We would have a chance to manage this. We were now aware that they could counter us.

Chapter 4: Towers and Catapults

Now we began to focus on the towers and catapults. They were part of the second step in the 3 steps to victory. As expected, we were able to get the tower closest to us. The Starks were able to capture their tower as well. The Targaryens were slower, but they, too, were able to capture their tower. All three factions were on equal footing.

I then noticed that the Starks' tower had been captured by the Greyjoy faction. After some time, the Tyrell faction captured the tower from the Targaryens. "This could prove beneficial to us," I thought happily. But immediately, the Targaryens captured the Greyjoys' tower. They were lucky, as the Tyrell capture took place only after the Targaryens had sent troops to capture the Greyjoy outpost. The Starks now took this opportunity to capture from the Targaryens. This proved to be very interesting and too complex for our needs. I was worried. If this were the case, then we wouldn't be safe from the other factions if the Tyrells fall.

All other factions had another faction countering them. I could see that it was important for one faction to gain control of the other two. But there was also the issue that they could defeat us as well. So it would have to be a faction we could defeat. It was frustrating to see the match fall out of control on this level. But through all this, the one good point I could see was that we still had control over the one tower while the others fought for theirs.

While this was going on, the catapults had opened up for capture. So I had to shift the focus of the faction city to them. It was crucial that we got the first capture points. The Starks were faster; they captured the first catapult while our attack still needed a minute to begin. We had been bested. But now we could test our strength against the Stark faction. If we could defeat them and hold the Tyrells in defense, we could have 3 catapults and 1 tower. Which would be a decent compromise.

We took one of the catapults, but Tyrell finally took all three towers. So Tyrel could now beat our formation. But before we could concentrate on this, the Glory City opened up.

Chapter 5: Glory City

sebastrus quickly made a rally for us to join. Within one minute, we held the city. The rest of the team rushed to support it. We needed to win defenses. With the towers out of reach, it would be difficult to maintain a lead or fight for one without the Glory City. All of it depended on this.

Initial defenses were easy. Most attacks were solo attacks that failed without doing any damage. Some of them barely killed some of the defense army. At this point, there was no other focus. Every member knew this was pivotal to turn the tide.

As suspected, the various rally leaders from rival houses rushed to rally the city. My assessment of MidDle Earth and BOrke being the rally leaders for the Targaryens had been correct. A total of 8 rallies had been made. This meant that each second was valuable to send reinforcements. Suddenly, as I was healing my troops to prepare for the onslaught, a "Defeat" appeared in my mail. I could feel all the energy leave my body. I rushed to check the city. My worst fears had been proved true. The Targaryens had broken through the defense. 

BOrke has broken through with a pure spear rally. Our members had been slower than anticipated. We barely had 2.3 million troops in defense. Most of them were a mix of the four types, rather than one to support the rally leader's troop type. The defense had been disastrous. 

Chapter 6: Attempts at a counterattack

INFURNO gathered everyone. We had to act quickly and try to capture it. We did have a strong infantry leader. We could counter the Targaryens. All hope was not lost. Just as we were about to start, we noticed that the Starks had been successful in defeating the Targaryens. If we could win against the Starks, a three-way battle could guarantee no one held the city at the end of the match. That would help us win, as we now held the 3 catapults and could fight it out in the mines. INFURNO, sebastrus and Anhur made separate rallies. I waited anxiously in hopes that our attacks would win.

Defeat after Defeat. [NpW] El Mencho's defense was very strong. Never before had the team lost so easily. Today has been such a bad day in terms of new records being made. Every minute, each and every one grew impatient and frustrated. Nothing seemed to work. Deep down, I could feel the day had been lost. Despite there being 25 minutes left in the game, I did not have the energy to continue. I had failed the team. I did not have enough troops to join all the rallies and support them. The day had been lost.....

Chapter 7: Damage Control

All we could do now was to try to hold onto the 2nd place we currently hold. Our points were 43,892 while the Targaryens had 28,827. Even though we had a 15,000-point lead, we knew very well how fast that could disappear. We held all 3 catapults. It was a matter of time before the Tyrells would focus on them. The only buildings we were capturing from the starks were the catapults. The mines had opened as well. 

The team focused their efforts on the mines as INFURNO gave the order to transform the outposts of the captured Baratheon fortress. We had to try to counter the Tyrells with their help. The Targaryens and the Starks had failed to capture the Tyrell and the Greyjoy cities. So we made use of this to increase the gap between the Targaryens and us. Now the point difference sat at 30,000. 

The small mines were very difficult to hold onto. There were many battles with [PnT] plamrk from House Stark. A lot of blood was spilt. But we had to use each and every point we could get to get as many rewards as we could. It was a fight to the end. I spent countless days of healing and numerous speedups in hopes of helping the team keep Rank 2. 

Chapter 8: Finale

What a frustrating day it had been. So many losses. So much to do. I felt empty. Last time we could at least take away something from the match. I knew that I had to change some things in my approach to the battle. I needed more troops to help sebastrus. The 2.5M rally could barely fight against the 5M defense. INFURNO was on the same page. It was one of the most important changes we had to make before we fought again. 

I had never seen some of the members so silent in the chat. No matter how much damage control we tried, we could see that today was very annoying. The team desperately needed a win. We were not 3rd, but 2nd didnt feel like winning either. We had to win. The taste of victory had been too sweet to forget. My failure to capitalize on last season's chance to get the glory title weighed heavily. This is going to be a difficult few weeks as we hope to regain our winning form. Let us hope we have a better chance in the 5th round.