Deep Beyond the Wall... But At What Cost?

Before SoW Season 18 starts, we have one quick Glorious Battle match to get through.

From what I understand, matchmaking hasn't exactly been kind to us, but you play the hand you're dealt.

My own objective is much simpler anyway. After the recent account upgrades, I finally want to finish the Deep Beyond the Wall album, one of the last collections I'm still missing in Book 2.

GB has always been one of those events where the action happens whenever it feels like it. When it starts, most of the important fights take place at reset while I'm deep asleep, so I rarely get to participate in anything meaningful for the first few days.

This time, though, the action comes looking for me. Only two days into the event we're already racing for Depots and preparing to defend a Fortress.

Since it's the middle of the day for me, this looks like the perfect opportunity to... help my faction, and definitely not chase photo shards.

Naturally, I have to plan the game around my work and not the other way around so I miss the first Depot race entirely. I do make it for the second one though, just in time for the Fortress battle, which is what I was really looking forward to anyway.

The battle starts in four minutes and my march is already waiting outside the gates. Time to see who we're up against and whether my newly upgraded account can finally bring home a few nice "Victory" reports.

Longreach is also busy defending against Tempest, so they'll have to split both their attention and their strongest accounts.

That sounds good enough for me. I commit full T4 marches and cross my fingers for some lucky fights.

Instead, my first report is... underwhelming.

It could have been worse. At least I didn't run into Infantry.

Instead I ran into Grey Worm.

No matter. I came here to fight, so back in I go.

This time it's Infantry... but it's Jaqen.

I'm honestly surprised I survive long enough to do as much damage. Then again, my 129 Resilience versus 43 probably explains why.

The battle itself isn't going our way either. We get pushed out and the occupation bar immediately starts swinging toward the enemy.

To make matters worse, on the other side of the map Tempest captures their Fortress as well. At the time I don't realize it, but that moment pretty much seals our fate.

At least my third report finally completes the collection for the day. Grey Worm? Check! Jaqen H'ghar? Done! And now Brienne! 😅

One Spear, one Infantry and one Cavalry report later... mission accomplished, all rare Pokémon have been collecterd.

Against Cav I even manage to look almost respectable. Well, not really, but better than my previous reports.

After only three fights my healing bill is already ridiculous. GB is supposed to have "normal" healing costs, but I guess nobody mentioned what happens when your "normal" troops keep getting flattened by maxed accounts over and over. And I probably never had to heal this much before.

My troops loss counter keeps climbing while my kill count barely moves.

The confidence I had when we started this starts disappearing together with my speedups, but I send one more march anyway. If we're going down, I might as well help hold the line a little longer.

The fourth fight is against Cavalry again.

Still a defeat, but at least this one feels respectable. Trading roughly one kill for every four losses suddenly feels like progress.

Unfortunately I also realize I forgot to speed-finish up my previous heals. My hospital filled up, meaning everything that should've been wounded... is now permanently dead. Excellent display of professionalism on my part.

With the southern Fortress gone, Longreach can now throw everything they have at us.

The pressure instantly doubles and our chances of holding drop just as quickly.

I send one last march before heading back to work. There are still about thirty minutes left on the timer, so I'm hoping the rest of the faction can somehow stabilize things. Maybe I'll come home to a few nice reports and, if we're lucky, even an overall successful defense. Who knows?

Before logging off I remembered to speed up my heals and, as a nice little bonus, those heals push me into first place for the daily quest. At least something is going right today. I don't think this will last, but we'll see.

A few hours later I get home and immediately open my mailbox.

That's strange... No new PvP reports?

For a brief second I'm stuck... what happened here? Did I not send out the march? I did, I distinctively remember sending and then healing...

Turns out the Fortress fell barely four minutes after I logged off. My final march never even reached the fight because by the time it arrived... there was no fight left to join, lol.

Somehow, that empty mailbox was even more disappointing than another defeat report would've been.

For my first real GB battle... that was rough. I burned through a ridiculous amount of troops and speedups in exchange for two elimination stages, a handful of Battle Tokens and a pile of Bravery Tokens.

Now I remember exactly why my GB album has been collecting dust all these years.

This event is right up there with CCS when it comes to rewarding raw account strength, and even after all my recent upgrades, I'm still nowhere near the level needed to enjoy the fighting.

So for now, it's back to trading. Hopefully the next we declare on will be more kind with my matchups, because this kind of trading isn't sustainable for me over one full week.