SoW Season 18 - Match 3 - N0X vs PLQ - Halfway Point

This SoW season has played out pretty much exactly as expected so far.

An easy 1st match, a horrible 2nd match and now, for Match 3 and the halfway point of the season, I'm expecting a decent and competitive game. Winnable, assuming we show up with decent numbers and actually bring our A game.

Our opponent is PLQ, a team I remember from previous seasons. They look like a pretty similar alliance to us, with a few strong accounts that could potentially cause some problems, but overall I think we should have the advantage.

Let's just say PLQ isn't bad, we should win, but we also thought that against IlI last season... so let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Now comes the fun part...😅

This Wednesday is not exactly ideal for me. I try to arrange my "business" so I can get home 15-20 minutes before the match, giving me plenty of time to prepare.

Except the day doesn't go as planned. Delays start causing more delays and when the game is about to start, I'm barely finishing work and preparing to leave.

Leave as in... go home. Not get on the map. I'm barely preparing to... go... home...

So before I pack everything up, I log into the game from my phone, load my SoW preset and jump onto the map, with absolutely no idea when I'll actually be able to play.

I barely remember to send 1 march to Winterfell for the health speed buff. I do love anything that saves me some speeds during an event. But I only send the march to Winterfell... and forget to actually launch the firework.

A for effort.😊

0 for execution.😌

Instructions came down to use all buffs and Agile, which is something some of my more experienced friends have been telling me to do before every event for ages.

Normally I'd listen. Today? Needless to say I didn't do 90% of my prep. Good thing I have the speed gear and PvP badges from my preset. To be honest, I'm happy I made it onto the map at all.

On the bright side, I manage to get home surprisingly quickly.

On the not-so-bright side, I can't just sit down at my PC and immediately start playing.

That would just trigger aggro from the family. I'm not looking forward to another discussion about how I organize my life around a PC game, so I have to play this one carefully.

I unpack, very calmly. I even take a quick shower.

Only then do I casually turn on the PC, pretending I'm just catching up on some news.

And eventually, like nothing was planned at all, I casually sit down and launch the game.

Needless to say, by the time I can actually play, around 20 minutes have passed, if not more.

By this point I'm really curious to see how N0X is doing. I wasn't expecting any major problems, so I'm actually pretty relaxed. I'm hoping to load into a beautiful landslide of points in our favor.

Before the game even loads, I check my assignment. Still the same. Good! I'm part of the Armory special division with some very simple instructions. Since this is the original version of SoW, we're running packages, so at worst I might get called for package escort. Overall, this should be pretty straightforward.

As the map loads and I create my first marches, things look good. We're controlling our side of the map, the middle line is looking good despite being lightly contested and we're already making some incursions into PLQ territory.

PLQ is putting up a decent fight, though, so when I hear my team being called forward, I jump into the action and we storm toward their Stronghold.

We're probably reaching the point where denying them teleport could allow us to snowball the game into a comfortable win.

Except... before I even reach their Stronghold, our Outpost needs defending. There are distractions everywhere. So much for the big objective.

And before I can even reach my original assignment, that assignment changes again: Package escort!

Alright, that's easy. Since I'm already marching toward the enemy Stronghold, I make a sharp right and head toward Winterfell.

I arrive just in time for everyone to see my marches and presumably assume I've been in this match all along.

Nobody needs to know I was missing for almost half the match, lol.

And luckily, I arrive just in time for a proper fight as we pick up another package. Perfect!

Time to contribute some points and pretend I was actually playing all along.

Center goes well and I can finally return to my original assignment, contesting their Stronghold, followed shortly by an Armory split counter offensive. At this point, the game is looking very comfortable.

Our incursions into PLQ territory eventually reach all the way down to their Outpost before we split back toward Winterfell once again to pick up another package.

By now, though, the game is pretty much settled. We're firmly in control of the map and set the tone. The scoreboard also reflects our dominance.

Even our Blessings box runners finish their job 10 minutes before the match ends.

At this point we're sitting at 100k points and have already secured the full Blessings rewards.

Then I remember something. Match 3 is the one where we should go for max points. right?

We're not supposed to stop just because we've already hit the rewards threshold. I think that used to be the plan, so we can get back up on the ladder.

And since we still have most of the map under control, the package train makes 1 final trip. There's plenty of time left to deliver it one more time, so we should comfortably push past 110k this round.

And that's exactly what happens. By the time the curtain falls, we're sitting close to a whopping 120k points and a dominant victory!

N0X played a great game against a similar-ish alliance and came out comfortably on top.

Even with my contribution being somewhere between "late arrival" and "guest appearance", we managed to secure a very convincing win. I was more like a cameo this match, but we won easy, so I'll take it.😀

With half the season now complete, I'm expecting the next match to be against the closest opponent we'll face this season.

If we win that one, Match 5 should probably throw us against a top alliance that will wipe the floor with us.

Then Match 6 should bring us back toward a more reasonable opponent in our power and skill bracket.

At least, that's my prediction. Let's see if I'm right.

For now, the 1st half of SoW Season 18 has played out almost exactly as expected.