A 5 Minute Power Play That Won The Match Mid Game

So with the final day of AoH Season 5 upon us and two tickets sitting in my inventory, it looks like I'm playing two matches today.

As luck would have it, my usual 6 PM Lead wanted to play the 12PM slot on his alt, so... here we go again. 😉

I don't know much about this noon team, but apparently it's on the lower end of the personal rating brackets and the midday slot is generally a bit more relaxed, so I'm expecting some easy Fame points.

The map opens and, after a quick scout, I only spot one account that could realistically become a problem for us. Promising start!

The Stronghold opener, however, is once again slower than I'd like. Nothing unusual there, but we're definitely leaving a few free seconds on the table.

The Towers are Spear, so we naturally open with Infantry Camps. Oh great... Troop Camps again.🙄

Looks like we've chosen the hard route again.

As expected from our slow first row, the second row also develops a little behind schedule.

On the bright side, I actually end up capturing two Strongholds on the first row and another one on the second.

I have to admit, I'm making a bigger impact than I usually do and I'm starting to enjoy this smaller team.

Before the opening phase is even over, though, something catches our attention: House Lannister is already taking a third House?!?

Wait... what? Apparently one of the other factions opened with Spear Camps against Spear Towers?!?! And simply couldn't defend their NPC House.

That's... certainly a decision. Not a good one, just ... a decision to learn from.😅

The downside for us is obvious. A House controlling three Houses this early can snowball out of control, especially when they also have the strongest account on the map.😔

By now we're fully committed to Troop Camps, so there's no turning back. We continue building Infantry across the board...

...until someone suggests converting two Camps into Cav to give us a slight edge over Lannister's full Infantry setup.

I like having a small edge, especially the kind that pulls our team ahead in the end.

And if you're wondering why I'm spending so much time talking about the opening...

...it's because these first twenty minutes quietly decide the next five. And while twenty plus five doesn't sound like much... keep reading.😜Just like Tolkien somehow managed to spend pages describing a tree, this setup becomes surprisingly important for everything that follows.

Our Camps secure the Towers and all those sweet first capture points. All nice and dandy so far.

Then we casually grab all three Dragon Pits. Not because we desperately need them... simply because the other Houses are busy fighting over random Altars.👍

As we approach the halfway point and Center is only minutes away from opening... the opportunity of the match suddenly appears.

Our Infantry and Cavalry NPCs break through the defenders of House Lannister's natural NPC House.

We notice. The Lannister's notice.

The difference is... we react first!

The next five minutes become an absolute race against the clock.

First objective: Defend the newly captured NPC House before Lannister can lock it down under our Stark banners.

Reinforcements immediately start flooding in, combining with the surviving NPC defenders to make the position almost impossible to crack before the bubble goes up. First problem solved!

Now comes the tricky part.

There's barely a minute between our House bubble coming up and the City of Glory opening.

We have just enough time to recall our troops and stabilize the rest of the map before our Rally Lead rushes Center.

Everything has to work smooth now!

While we're fighting spam marches, Center opens our Rally Lead speeds in to get it. Everyone piles reinforcements inside.

Center is ours... and we also defend three Houses.

Everything was decided within roughly five minutes. I honestly couldn't have scripted it better. We executed this play better than I was planning it in my head.

Seeing those double icons next to our name on the scoreboard is one of those moments where you just know the game has tipped heavily in your favor.

From there the pressure is simply gone. The rest of the match feels more like maintenance than warfare.

There's still the occasional fight, a few nice reports on my side and, naturally, a couple of reports where someone reminds me my account still isn't exactly top tier, even after my recent upgrades. 😅

By the final minutes we're generating so many points that I think it's the first time I've seen us break the 10k points/minute mark.

When you're scoring that fast, you know things have gone very, very right.

Overall this turned out to be a really enjoyable match. More importantly, it pushed me one step closer to the Castle Skin that's been my main goal all season.

After the rewards came in I could finally buy another 10 fragments, bringing me up to 80 out of the required 100.

The shop refreshes tomorrow and, realistically, I doubt my final match will generate enough Glory Coins to buy many more fragments.

But, this was the perfect warm up before the real event later that evening, when the 6 PM team takes the stage.