When: Saturday 4th October 2008
Location: High Pass (Human V Chaos Tier 3)
The night had been reserved for some T3 Keep action in the Guilds Calendar (Ingame, press G). However I had not yet chosen a destination. I wondered about the Keep in Avelorn as I could see it from the Warcamp there, however Debaser suggested Stoneclaw Keep in High Pass as a possible venue, given its superb positioning at the head of a valley, with mountains behind and a solid outer wall and defensible courtyard. I scouted it out and agreed with his opinion.
Then started the invites. Got guildies in, and a few pickups mostly from the guild "Cry Havoc". We gathered at the Human Chapter 11 camp nearby the Keep then when sufficient had arrived we moved out, hitting the Outer Wall not long after. The NPC guards fell easily and we made fast headway into the Keep itself after dropping both gates. Debaser provided some much need organisation for the Keep Lord take down and pretty soon he went down and the Keep reverted to Order Held!. Up to this stage we had encountered no Destruction resistance - apparently they were up in Tier 4 taking keeps via the bugged backdoors - however this was not to last long.
After a short amount of time, the Warband moved out and took the closest Battlefield Objective to the Keep, before taking the decision to head south and take Passwatch Keep in Talabecland. We took the Outer Wall there with no resistance other than NPC's and so started in on the Keep, as it turned out this was defended, and so out first real fight of the night began. A back and forth up the approach ramp to the keep with small skirmishes at the Postern Door too. Even with Standards placed by both ourselves and Cry Havoc, we had an increasingly hard time getting anywhere close to down the door of Passwatch. Got so bad that we were pushed back all the way to Stoneclaw and put on the defensive ourselves.
The defence of Stoneclaw should really have been made into a movie. It was that brilliant, not exactly Siege of Jerusalem quality from Kingdom of Heaven but almost as Epic!. The Warband's core members (Myself, Vac, Tharild, Debaser, Nushka, Nabal, Orisha (Cry Havoc)), to name a few all ensured that the group worked well together - despite having only really sieged in T2 before. We had siege weapons and oil setup and positioned well, the warband reacted amazingly to all that was thrown at us, Tharild worked defensive wonders with [spell]Electromagnet[/spell] and no doubt left several attackers bewildered as to how they had been pulled through a door or a wall like they had. The first defensive action saw us push the Destruction zerg (2 warbands worth it was said) from the broken Keep door using several IB's all spamming [spell]Hold The Line![/spell] to benefit our allies behind us, and taking advantage of the now self-repaired Outer Wall gate which was not letting them out (This happens for 15 minutes after it fully rebuilds itself) we forced out way right to their healers and slaughtered them like rats trapped on a sinking ship!
We then moved out into the world and brought down the remaining siege weapons they had with them. Chased them right down to their Warcamp, however they caused a large number of Order casualities there, as we got too close and either got cannoned down or ripped apart by the Warcamp NPC's. This caused them to surge back towards Stoneclaw, and so a second defence began. It seemed to me thaat they had greater numbers for this, but that did not advantage them at all. They broke upon the Outer Wall of Stoneclaw Keep like waves upon a cliff face, all our gun positions were manned and operating (Hellblasters and Organ Guns for the win here), the Boiling Oil was under constant repair and our tanks and other DPS kept making forays through both the Postern Gates and the Main Gate in addition to Tharild constantly snatching Destruction off their Ram with his wonderful skill! Again they were repelled and we chased them towards their warcamp again - liberating the BO near the Keep once again of course. What followed next was not planned for, but was simply a joy to see. Full on open world RVR, 2 larghish groups facing off against each other over small field of terrain between Talabecland & High Pass. Banners where planted on both sides, forces lined up in skirmish lines and battle was joined, with the main advice in chat being for us all to hold together, to stay the course, however their numbers outmatched our skill and we retreated once again to Stoneclaw.
The final action at the keep was just as much fun as the prior ones, but to me it seemed the Destruction lost the will to continue the fight and so we leapt from the walls or sallied from the gates and ripped their siege apart up close and personal! Soon the Destruction forces turned tail and fled, with the majority of the Warband on their tales. It was here I logged for the evening after nearly 4 hours of constant action, and as said above, possibly the best night I have had in any MMO for a long time.
I look forward to many more nights like this!
