SoW QGD vs M1B

The horn sounds resonate through the islands of the Greyjoys, it is time again for them to sail towards Winterfell, fighting for them this time is Queensguard (QGD). Hearing the blast coming from the sea, the Starks know they as well have to call their own heroes to defend their ancestral home : SHADOWS (M1B). Queensguard has yet to achieve a win in their multiple attempts to besiege Winterfell, this time they hope their third try will be the successful one. As for M1B, the defense of Winterfell has always been a success so they should feel rather ready to face their enemy. 

As the battle starts, QGD have a huge numerical advantage compared to M1B with 33 knights ready to serve while the latter only have 6 brave ones joining the defense. The timer reaches 0 and everyone jumps out to start the siege !!!

QGD starts by taking control of the Greyjoy cities, the outposts and they also place people at the strongholds waiting for them to open. Some of their soldiers go immediately for Armory and Hot Spring right after the outposts are taken. As for M1B, they only take the Satrk outpost 2, one of their man did go through the first outpost but went straight for Armory and didn’t stop to take it. VOZDUH for M1B arrives at Armory while Zahrada and Royalpage launch an assault on the enemy appearing on their grounds. LordLionel rapidly joins the assault and now it’s a 9 vs 3 marches and VOZDUH is completely overwhelmed. 

While VOZDUH starts to run deeper into enemy territory, Cartaphilus has started a solo attack on Hot Spring. To be fair, only Xyrox is guarding the city and so, it might be a good idea for M1B to use the rare occasions they will get to fight a 1 on 1. Sadly for them, reinforcements for QGD arrive fast in the name of Igris Red2 and Syntran. The 1 on 1 turns now into a 3 v 1 for Cartaphilus. The fight goes on but looking back at Armory the situation has completely reversed in favor of M1B with VOZDUH actually returning and helping his Russian teammate to fight off QGD, making the last of their forces flee to the Greyjoy stronghold.

As the troops from armory flee back to Greyjoy stronghold 1, the strongholds on the map open up and are now ready for action. Greyjoy stronghold 2 is taken easily as the M1B troops on this side of the map are still occupied at Hot Spring. On the other hand, VOZDUH is coming towards the first Greyjoy one and the troops there are clearly not enough to win, the situation is urgent, if he is able to push any further, he will be able to arrive at the outpost and M1B will control the entire left flank of the battlefield. At Stark stronghold 1 though, an anomaly, a surprise, a ray of hope, Gohar I is fighting ManyaSHA for control of the stronghold, and the second Stark one is empty, none going for it, everybody on the right flank is too focused on Hot Spring where Cartaphilus is holding his own extremely well, too well even, now the question might just be were QGD at a disadvantage when they started fighting him 3 v 1. 

The first Greyjoy stronghold is lost after VOZDUH takes it over easily fighting the few soldiers who had stayed to defend it. But M1B were still not controlling the left flank entirely. Gohar I was joined by one march from Lady Emma 01 and were now in control of the Stark stronghold 1, though still fighting ManyaSHA but it is still time for the rest of QGD to gather and try an attack on VOZDUH. On the other end of the map, Igris Red2’s last march was beaten by Cartaphilus who also lost a march while fighting Xyrox. But now, he still has two marches to fight off what is left of Syntran and Xyrox. M1B may not have many soldiers but as suspected they are mighty, so mighty even that very few of them are needed to overcome the numbers of QGD. 

QGD does have one person that can rival that might : Gohar I. He is so strong that M1B had no choice but to send more troops towards Stark stronghold 1 which also meant pulling troops away from other buildings, Axeman used that opportunity to capture Armory again for QGD and the Greyjoys. Right after, the enemy at Stark stronghold 1 leaves except for 2 marches, much easier to handle for the strongest QGD warrior who is now able to conquer the stronghold, giving M1B a taste of their own medicine. 

By the time the dragons appear, everyone is on his own end of the map and takes control of his dragon bringing it to his own base easily. When that happens, QGD launches its soldiers throughout the map to claim the treasure of Winterfell : the chests that appeared around the map. So while each alliance claims one dragon to its base again, QGD takes a clear cut advantage thanks to the chests they opened, allowing them to take an even bigger lead.

That lead proved to be enough for QGD to win their first siege of Winterfell this season for the Greyjoys, finally able to bring back good news across the sea. Ultimately, because M1B focused on the dragons rather than the cities after they started appearing, they got stuck at just the right time for QGD since they just got most of the cities back except for Stark stronghold 2 and the Stark outposts. It is now that the lack of numbers actually started to cost them heavily, because they could take their dragon which they did but they couldn’t focus at all on the other dragon nor could they focus on the dragon drops, the treasure of Winterfell or even the cities that were now almost all in QGD’s control. All in all, they fought valiantly for the few that were present but the lack of numbers forced them to make a choice and they chose dragons, which allowed them to get a certain amount of points true but also allowed for a complete victory for QGD. Had there been more people for them, it would've been a real challenge for QGD. For the latter, they let the enemy get some points by taking one dragon each time they appeared because they understood that M1B could only be focused on one thing and one thing only, meaning if they focus on one dragon entirely, the map would stay blue and the Greyjoys would win without the need to fight much more so, liking their odds, they let it flow naturally instead of putting their chances in jeopardy by trying and stopping M1B in their tracks.