Denied: An Arena of Honor Story | Season 5 Round 5

Welcome, lords and Ladies! Once again, I (Lord FrankTU) recount our efforts to win in the new round of the Arena of Honor. As usual I took part in this match along with my friend INFURNO and his team. Two of the previous rounds had ended in close defeats. That day we were more than eager to turn around our recent form of luck. Read about our trials and tribulations: To the end: An Arena of Honor Story | Season 5 Round 4.

The team had decided to place their trust in INFURNO's strong leadership skills to lead them to victory. On this fated day our team faced many setbacks and challenges. The team's morale reached new highs and lows within just 55 minutes of gameplay. Read to find out if the team was able to finally win and break their streak of 2nd place finishes.

Chapter 1: Warriors of the Three Houses

House Lannister wanted our team to represent their red banners. One of our regulars, [STL] FeuFroid, had not been able to join us. So, we decided to give a new player, [EdF] Matthias92, a chance to prove himself. [FVM] sebastrus chose to lead our rallies. [STL] Anhur stepped forward to lead the cavalry rally to help sebastrus take the glory city.

In the last two matches sebastrus had found it difficult to break through the defenses of the enemy. This was mainly due to the low number of archers sent to his rally. This time most of the members had prepared themselves by making more bowman troops. I had prepared a total of 600,000 to aid his rally.

In this list of warriors representing the legendary House of Stark, I noticed an old friend. [C0M] Schattenking was a brother in arms. I had known him for several years. We regularly conversed about our alliances and the progress we hoped to achieve. "How I longed to fight him in such an event. We would surely laugh and celebrate, one day, when we could recount our glorious conquests in events like these," I thought.

[TIS] sirjaco appeared to be their Infantry Rally leader, while [OwL] Лариса 555 was a strong cavalry leader. If I meet these two in direct combat, I would be easily defeated. However, I couldn't help but notice that this team had been made right before the match.

The third and final team that we would fight today. This team was very different from the previous one. All the players came from the same alliance [QMI] except for one player. From my previous battles with players from this alliance, I had seen that almost all of their members had used bowmen as their main troop type.

I could not help but feel the same dread as last time. A full bow defense in the city would be incredibly difficult to break. I easily understood the stakes. It was imperative that sebastrus received full support. This team could either be a very easy opponent or a very diffcult one. No in-between. Any of the 10 players could act as rally leaders.

Chapter 2: Plan and Action

As always, we followed the 3 steps of our plan. The first step involved setting the stronghold to capture the important catapults and the less important watchtowers. This was crucial, as it would let us earn points while denying the opportunity for other teams to get those points. If we lost the city, the catapults would also help weaken the enemy defense.

Step 2 involved capturing the enemy castles adjacent to our faction city. This was the most important step. We could not fail in this. This would let us gain points from those factions and also let us mine from their big mines, giving us about 24,000 points. The ideal scenario would be to capture at least one other city. But the best-case scenario would be to capture 3, thus denying one other faction from getting these points.

The final step was the hardest one to achieve. It would involve capturing the glory city and successfully defending it until the end of the match. A costly but rewarding step. In the previous two match we had failed steps 1 and 3. If we did complete them, it was at the end of the match after the enemy teams had already taken a large part of the total possible number of points.

Chapter 3: Initial City Captures

We started working on the second line of outposts. I saw that the Baratheon faction city had fallen to our attack. Our strategy with the outposts had worked just as planned. Once more, like in the past, we were the first to capture the adjacent faction's city. sebastrus was the first to reach the city. He has also sent his lords. Soon other members followed to help defend the city. This time I did not celebrate. I had done the same in the last match, and we had not won that. I wanted to be sure before feeling safe.

Immediately after our success, the Starks captured their neighbour, the Greyjoy's City. However, unlike our success, the Starks quickly lost control over the city due to counterattacks. I felt happy as I was witnessing this. "The few minutes of delay would do us good," I thought.

The next target was the Tyrells' city. We had to capture it to gain an advantage over the other two. I kept a close watch over our troops.

What I failed to notice was that the Targaryen had the same plan. Their army, unlike ours, had been successful at capturing the Tyrell city. This meant that they would gain points on the same level as us. We have now lost the chance to have an advantage over the other two.

Nevertheless, I continued my work in capturing and holding important altars. The battle had not been lost. We were still ahead of the others. But no matter what, I could not shake the small amount of disappointment I had about losing this opportunity. However, I could not waste time on this. The towers would open up soon.

Chapters 4: Towers & tribulations

Each of the three factions captured one tower. Even here we could not gain the advantage of obtaining first capture points. For about 9 minutes we held one tower while the Starks, Targaryens, and Greyjoys squabbled over the other two. After the 9 minutes, the Targaryens captured all three. The Starks tried to take one now and then, but once the Targaryens' second line of outposts was upgraded fully, their army could beat all the others.

I once more felt my confidence go away. This had been the third match where we had failed to take the towers. We could not get the catapults. The Starks initially took 2, and we took 1. But the Targaryens soon captured all three.

An entire step had failed. Now the pressure was on us to capture and hold the glory city. If my fears were true, the bow assault by the Targaryens would cost the team a lot of healing. The catapults would pulverize our armies. We would have to spill a lot of our blood to defend it. I was not sure if we had enough blood to spill.

I pushed away these fears. There were another 30 minutes left after all. Half a match. After all, we had lost a previous match in the last few minutes. Why couldn't the opposite happen? I hoped that would be the case as I continued fighting to capture altars.

Chapter 5: Glory City

As always, our rally leaders were quick. Sebastrus and Anhur made two rallies. To my disappointment, I saw that the rallies were not being filled as quickly as we needed them to be. Everyone was fighting to hold our altars. Nearly a minute has passed, but Sebastrus's rally had only 1.9M bow troops, and Anhur's had even less. 1.7M...

15 seconds before sebastrus's rally lands, [OMI] IkaBatumski's rally lands. He is successful. Our rally that lands immediately, however, is unsuccessful.

Just as I had expected, the rally failed. The number of archers in the rally was too little to matter. With the enemy having slightly better equipment and commanders, our losses were high. Furthermore, Anhur's rally had not landed before sebastrus' rally. It was a disaster. Quickly, both of them rushed to make another rally.

The outcome was not different. Anhur's strong cavalry barely scratched the surface of the strong bow defense. Once again his rally size was too small. We were simply spread thin. Soon, it became apparent after multiple rallies that we would not be able to complete the 3rd step. Now we had failed 2/3 of the required steps for victory. We still had the lead, but it was like trying to save a wax house on fire. Whatever confidence we had was now gone. We began to give up on the match and fight for our favorite 2nd place once more.

Chapter 6: Hope or refusal to accept defeat?

Just as I was about to resign, we captured the Tyrells' city from the Targaryens. Finally something had worked out. I quickly removed troops from a nearby altar and sent my commanders to the city. Time was of the essence. I was the quickest one there. I silently prayed that my stats would be enough to hold on to the city. We could not lose this option. Not this late.

I couldn't help but notice that the gap was too close for comfort. We really had to up our game. The extra mine with 8,000 points would let us get 16,000 points. We had to hurry. This would mean sacrificing the altar. I hoped that we wouldn't lose the important altars and that the enemy would rush to take the small mines instead. This was crucial; we couldn't ruin our chances by losing important stats. Every one of us moved at lightning speed to reinforce the mines. All of us knew what was at stake.

The Baratheon castle had been captured by the Starks. I almost threw my mouse. Why? Why does nothing work as we want it to? Something works, and then the other does not.....

For a grueling one and a half minutes I watched as the clock slowly went down. I didn't want to do anything. I was done both in body and mind.

Chapter 7: To the bitter end

Something came into my mind. I moved like an emotionless machine. I sent a solo attack to fight. I knew I was going to lose. It was inevitable. Suddenly when my attack landed, the Stark army fled the city. I was shocked. Was this me? No way. Then I saw my army coming back. I had lost, but sebastrus had won. HE HAD WON!!

I was engulfed with emotion. I could barely move the mouse. But I had to do something. I had to. I sent aid to the defense. We will hold or die here. The Stark army sent a slew of attacks on the castle. We held to the final man. It was hard and costly, but we prevailed. The small mines opened. INFURNO shouted orders and marked specific mines for each player to take. We rushed over. We still had the lead.

For a moment, the Targaryen faction crossed us in the ranking. But we quickly took back our place with a 2,000-point lead. Our three mines were leaving them in the dust. We were very successful with the small mines. We were going to fight tooth and nail for this. We had done so much. It could not end now. I would not let it.

10 minutes were left, and we had a 10,000-point lead. It was incredible to watch each member work so hard. We had long forgotten to ration our healing. It was all or nothing. We all knew it was a race to the finish.

A single message stopped my heartbeat. How had I lost? I had been defending with the same army for the past seven times. How? Why now? I had let my team down at the very moment they needed me. I noticed that our stats from the altars had disappeared. I had not been mindful to warn the others.

We tried hard to recapture it. The Targaryens took this chance and fought hard. sebastrus was stuck in the Baratheon city. The others were not strong enough. Our 10,000-point lead went down to 1,000.

7 minutes. 1,000 points. We were sure to lose. The others fought valiantly. They rushed to capture small mines that still had points. We had to maintain the lead. Time went slowly. Six minutes, five minutes, four minutes, one minute...

Finally it came down to 1 minute. We still lead!! Somehow we still had the lead. Our brave men had fought very hard. They were moving heaven and earth to make this happen. We still have a 1000 point lead. We were going to win!!

We lost the match at the last 3 seconds......

Chapter 8: End

This match felt worse than the previous 2 matches. 3 seconds. I will never forget this. I could blame no one else but me. My loss of Tyrell's city cost us 10,000 points. With that we would have won comfortably. INFURNO tried hard to tell me that it was not my fault, but I could not accept it. I wished to forget this match, but it would always be in my memory. I really want to do better, but every match I lose more and more confidence. I felt invincible in the 4th season. I felt like a lion. Now I feel like a cat acting like a lion. I can only hope the next match will be better....