AoH Season 6 - Match 2 - Chasing the Skin, Losing the Crown

AoH Season 6 started with a bang and the changes introduced this season completely flipped the event and every strategy we knew about it. Buffing the NPCs turned an already intense event into absolute madness. Last season we bullied the NPCs, took their Houses, took their Strongholds and forgot they even existed. Now it's the exact opposite. The NPCs are the ones bullying us, constantly taking buildings back, and every decision becomes a trade off between fighting players or fighting the map itself.

Our 1st match worked out surprisingly well. We knew exactly what we were walking into and adapted accordingly. I wasn't fully convinced by the strategy at first, but a 1st place finish while holding the City of Glory is hard to argue with.

So for Match 2, we go in with a very similar game plan.

The roster is a little shaky this time as a few regulars are missing, but we shuffle people around and still manage to start with a great team.

Personally, this match has a lot riding on it.

I started Season 6 with only a few fragments short of my castle skin. If everything lined up today, this could finally be the moment. I needed over 38 Fame Points for another Glory Rank promotion and the 10k Glory Coins that come with it, and I also needed good ranks in both Elims and Heals to get enough Glory Coins for the remaining fragments.

In other words... I kind of needed a perfect game.😂A long shot, sure... but stranger things have happened in our AoH matches.

The opening immediately feels good. We get the Strongholds a lot faster than usual. I'll happily take that as the first good omen.

Then comes our classic debate. What strategy to go with.

I argue for full Trading Posts because the NPCs are simply too aggressive to justify defending a large number of Altars. The rest of the team believes Trade won't generate enough points this season since holding the NPC House is much harder now.

Fair enough. So I stop arguing and we settle on a hybrid strategy, adapting our build around what the other Houses are doing.

House Lannister looks like our biggest threat, so we wait to see what they commit to first. Inf Camps? Interesting...

Considering the current Tower troops (Infs), Inf Camps feels like a weak choice, so we answer with Cavalry Camps and sprinkle in a few Inf because... apparently there's some min-max optimization behind it. Someone explained it on Discord but the information flew right by me and decided to trust the experts on this.

For now, things are looking good. We're sitting in 1st place and my little miracle is still alive.

The 2nd row opens and we move immediately.

Normally we're still finishing upgrades on the 1st row, but this time everyone is ahead of schedule.

We technically lose 1st place... except we're tied on points. It's still fine, I'll take it.

Meanwhile the NPCs decide they've had enough of our optimism. The moment the first Altars unlock, all 3 NPC Houses start going for it. Seeing 3 NPC lines toward it... It's honestly ridiculous.

We're sending reinforcements just to defend our opening Altar against... NPCs? That's something we didn't even have to do against real players last season.

As more Altars open, the entire map turns into a spider web of NPC marches.

I try grabbing a random Altar for myself.

No luck. I get kicked just before locking it. At least it wasn't an NPC this time.

I'm slightly disappointed because the enemy march wasn't particularly impressive either, but seeing it's an NBe account I simply assume the difference is somewhere else. No time to analyze reports. There are far bigger problems waiting.

Instead I grab our Sept. Funny how last season I only cared about the healing discount. Now I'm looking at it almost exclusively as another source of passive points. Different priorities these days. Maybe I really am AoH-growing-up.

Unfortunately our great opening slowly starts slipping away.

We're losing more fights than we're winning. And the scoreboard reflects it. We've fallen to 3rd. This is starting to look sad-ish.

When the Dragon Pits open, none of our strongest accounts is available to grab one immediately.

Perfect! I've never actually tested my upgraded account against the Dragon Pit defenders, so this seems like the ideal opportunity.

Before I even get there, though, someone burns extra speeds and "steals" it right in front of me.

Ok, no problem. I recall, reinforce instead and leave the experiment for another day.😀

As we move past the halfway point, the moment I've been waiting for finally arrives and the City of Glory opens.

For my personal objective, we need to hold it. But looking at the scoreboard...our team needs it just as badly.😅

The race begins. We take Center!😏

Lannister immediately kicks us.😣

Targaryen immediately kicks Lannister.😝

We immediately kick Targaryen.😊

Lannister immediately kicks us again.😣

Clearly, solo marches aren't going to cut it.

So we adapt, and organize 3 timed rallies.

Sadly, the first 2 bounce. But the 3rd finally succeeds.

But MiReLa from NBe proves to be a worthy opponent for our entire team tonight.

We manage to defend for a while... but not for long enough.

Lannister eventually pushes us out again.

No problem. We've learned from the first attempt. The next rally wave is organized better, we hit in a different order and reclaim Center with only 2 rallies this time.

For a brief moment it looks like we've found the winning solution.

But then we're kicked out again.

And that's when reality finally sinks in. We can take Center. But we simply can't hold it!

But wait, things get even worse. While we've been throwing everything at the City of Glory, we've neglected almost every other objective on the map. Now it's no longer just a matter of not winning with Center. We're sitting in 3rd place with a very noticeable gap to 2nd.

At that point, what's left to lose? Well... Nothing.😅

So we commit to one final gamble.

We wait until the Catapults belong to our House and prepare one last coordinated assault.

If we capture Center now, Lannister loses its biggest source of points while we gain it ourselves.

It's our only realistic comeback for this match.

Everything works perfectly: The Catapults soften the defenders. Our rallies land exactly when they should. And center falls. This time with much lighter losses. We immediately flood it with every reinforcement march we have available.

If we can hold it for 4 minutes and lock it now... we win the match.

Then we unknowingly create a brand new problem.

By taking Center ourselves, House Targaryen suddenly drops into last place.

Needless to say... They don't appreciate that twist of events.

And now, instead of only fighting the Lannisters, both Houses start timing rallies into us.

The moment I realize what's happening I can already see the outcome.

Our defenders simply can't survive coordinated rallies from 2 Houses.

And once again... we're thrown out into the streets.

With Center gone for good, all that's left is damage control.

Every march scatters across the map searching for small mines, any altar we can get and whatever scraps of points are still available.

It's a desperate attempt. But somehow... it's enough, and we get back into 2nd place by the narrowest of margins.

To make matters worse, Lannister also manages to secure a 2nd NPC House. I'm honestly still not sure how they pulled that off.

Their opening looked weaker than ours, yet somewhere along the way they completely turned the match around.

Before the battle even ends I'm already writing down observations in our AoH Discord so my lead(s) can review what happened before the next round.

On a personal side, things went... reasonably well? I ranked decently in both Eliminations and Heals.😀

Unfortunately, without the victory and the extra Fame Points, it's still not enough to finish my Castle Skin.

Looks like that dream will have to wait another 2 weeks, since next weekend we'll have KvK.

So coming out of this match I have mixed feelings:

We started extremely well...

The mid game was good / above average...

Then we spent nearly 20 minutes trying to force the City of Glory without ever getting to lock it down, and the rest of the map slowly slipped away from us...

I still appreciate the ambition. It's exactly that kind of confidence that has won us plenty of matches before.

But this time, though... the gamble didn't pay off.😅And sometimes that's just how AoH goes.