Champion City Siege S76: The Battlefield of Despair

Hello, Lords. It’s time for our weekly battle report once again. Not long ago, Amai took part in the 76th season of the Champion City Siege. Unless the match-up times make it difficult for me to participate, I’d never want to miss an event as entertaining as this one, which also offers such generous rewards. However, this round turned out to be nothing short of torture. Please join me as I recount this ordeal…

Embracing a New Era for Archers

MondryBrogan has the very best archer line-up around at the moment; he really gave me a proper thrashing in SOW!

For this round of the Champion City Siege, I was matched to the Citadel of Justice battlefield. This time, apart from myself, there weren’t many HHH members or friends I knew on the same battlefield. It seemed I’d have to find a team to join on the spot, and that’s when I spotted the Hof Alliance led by MondryBogdan. MondryBogdan hails from the powerful TLT Alliance, which recently merged. During the recently concluded Siege of Winterfell, Amai’s HHH Alliance had faced them twice, and on both occasions, the HHH Alliance was thoroughly crushed. I am well aware of their strength; Hof appears to be an alliance formed by TLT members specifically to participate in the Champion City Siege, so joining them seemed like a sound choice. MondryBogdan’s line-up features an archer formation that has recently begun to evolve. Archers have been out of the mainstream for some time now; ever since the archer line could be significantly upgraded through Cossomo, Missandei and Brienne, I have yet to have the opportunity to fight alongside archer players of this calibre. I am therefore extremely keen to join the Hof; the chance to witness this battle first-hand is a golden opportunity.

The Reaper Descends: TheOnlyKing

However, I was well aware that this battle would be no easy victory, as from the very start, the renowned members of NBe began arriving on the battlefield one after another. NBe is already one of the strongest alliances around; not only do they possess astonishing combat prowess, but their fighting spirit is also formidable. And before the battle even began, the moment I spotted that particular player, I knew things were going to be trouble: the formidable TheOnlyKing, whose name speaks for itself.

TheOnlyKing lives up to his name: wherever he is, it’s not so easy for anyone else to claim the throne!

TheOnlyKing is undoubtedly one of the game’s foremost killing machines; long before this, his formidable spearmen had already struck terror into the hearts of his enemies. Yet there is no doubt that he possesses the ability to push every formation to its absolute limit; It’s not as though there aren’t other formidable players on the map. Aside from MondryBogdan, Biet of GJs, LORTH from RoD and CruCio from RnR are all renowned warriors on the military merit leaderboard. However, TheOnlyKing’s appearance immediately made everyone else pale in comparison, and even MondryBogdan couldn’t help but warn everyone in the chat channel:

‘Everyone needs to brace themselves. Train more archers—we may suffer heavy losses…’

An Insurmountable Barrier

As the battle commenced, TheOnlyKing swiftly moved into the Great City. NBe’s headquarters were located at K416; with no need to recruit temporary external members, the skilled and trusted NBe members rapidly made their way to the Great City to provide reinforcements. MondryBogdan and Lilaccat issued a rally call, and Mondry deployed his finest archers, comprising Cersei, Cassana, Cossomo, Missandei and Brienne, alongside a force of nearly 8 million. Meanwhile, Lilaccat fielded an infantry formation led by the Faceless Man Jaqen, attempting to gain the upper hand through unit type advantages. Following the first wave of these dual rallies, Mondry’s despairing remark summed up the outcome of both rallies

‘Lilaccat, did you at least get a report?’

I don’t need to provide a battle report at all; you can tell from the conversation just how helpless we were at the time.

Not a single soldier had managed to return alive from TheOnlyKing’s forces; even a top-tier player like Mondry had already begun to consider giving up. Fortunately, there was a turning point.

A Fleeting Glimmer of Hope

Having experienced the staggering disparity in strength posed by TheOnlyKing, it seemed that all factions had ceased their rash attacks, and NBe allowed mml to occupy Great City. Whilst no member of NBe should be underestimated, this outcome was at least no worse than attacking TheOnlyKing. Mondry once again called on all members to attempt an attack, and I was well aware that if we were to earn enough points to redeem rewards, these few remaining rotations might be our only precious opportunities. I frantically pressed the race boost button and finally joined Mondry’s rally, shouting a reminder as I did so:

‘The rally is full – let’s get moving!’

To be honest, this is much closer to the kind of battle reports I expected to see when I joined the Hof Alliance back then. Mondry and mml are undoubtedly top-tier players, but this only serves to highlight just how powerful TheOnlyKing really is!

We successfully launched two rallies. As you can see from the battle reports, mml is undoubtedly a top-tier warrior; he’d maximised the formation of all his infantry, and even the newly unlocked commander, Gregor Clegane, had already been awakened. Thanks to MondryBogdan’s archers, we held a significant advantage in both formation and numbers; I earned enough points from these two attacks to claim all the rewards.

A Desperate Ending

However, NBe once again handed Great City over to TheOnlyKing, plunging the vast majority of players—who hadn’t managed to secure points during the brief period when mml was holding the city—back into despair. They were left with no choice but to trade points for extremely unfavourable battle losses time and again. I suggested to everyone in the chat:

‘Hold off on attacking for now; there are still plenty of NBe members who haven’t earned enough points. Let’s see if they’ll rotate their defences!’

Hof can only launch suicide attacks based on battle reports with such a completely unreasonable casualty ratio, but is it really worth it?

After TheOnlyKing took over once more, only few of NBe’s members had secured enough points. I genuinely believed this was the only way to force NBe to deploy a lord who could at least allow us to trade blows. Unfortunately, the Hof members fell victim to FOMO; they were unwilling to gamble on NBe rotating their defences for the sake of their members’ rewards. They preferred to trade several million casualties for a few hundred thousand kills, slowly accumulating points. Unwilling to accept advice from temporary members like myself, they launched one suicide-like attack after another. In the end, Hof actually suffered three times as many casualties as NBe, whilst NBe’s kill points were more than twenty times higher than ours. At such a colossal cost, only ten Hof members earned enough points to claim their rewards, and of course, I am one of them.

From start to finish, not a single one of us had the chance to see TheOnlyKing’s battle report; I have never experienced such a despairing Dominator Battle. Fortunately, I’d accumulated enough points early on, so in the subsequent battles I only contributed a small number of soldiers and sent my dragon into the fray; my losses weren’t too severe. My friends, if it were you, what would you have done? Would you have followed Hof’s example and gone for the full points at any cost? Or would you have tried to force your opponent to rotate their defences? Or do you have other suggestions? Let’s have a chat about it!