Pickin' It Up With Fog
By: Priecher
Tuesday Night Club Gaiscioch AvA with Fog. I joined up to see some new tactics in action. Upon entering Cyrodiil, I see the need for a pickup leader. I decided to lead this time rather than follow. I figure I can screw it up or I can shine. Being my first time leading Fog asked Fym to help me out. Which was a great choice because Fym did a wonderful job leading and coordinating while I was stuck at the Gate of Ghartok. Fym also made sure that everything being said in RC is being transmitted to our group. This worked out really well for me so I could pay attention to where I was running trying to catch up to the group. It gets much better as the night goes on, trust me. I may have my order mixed up a little but I am pretty sure this is how it happened.
So the night started out to be AWESOME! As we are leaving South Morrowind we hear the cry of "AD is at the gate". Little did we realize that "AD at the gate" meant the entire AD team in Cyrodiil. I would say close to 40 Veteran Rank Players. We were about 145 strong last night, at that time, my group was 4 strong... so I am sure we all know where my team ended up, repeatedly. That is right we are very familiar with the run from South Morrowind to Gate of Ghartok. Fog and a few others manage to get past the defenders and run to get south. Once south they got up some forward camps. By this time I am pretty sure my group was about 8 or so strong. While my team makes it out and gets organized at the rally point, I am stuck at the Gate of Ghartok. Now, while some people may think I am just dying because of bad luck and a failure to actually do any damage, this is not the case. What I was doing was inviting new players and helping them get past the gate by causing a distraction... I like that version better so that is what I am going to use. After about 10 deaths AD did get bored of killing me and I was able to pass the Gates and make the run to our rally point, or so I thought.
By this time, everyone going around with Fog, has met up at the Bridge NE of Ash. The tactics we were testing are hit and run, Blitzkrieg type tactics. I felt like it was a mix of guerrilla warfare, hitting the supply chains, but also Blitzkrieg, lots of power. It worked really, really well. The only group I felt that had a better tactic was that of the Daggerfall Scum... I mean Covenant, Daggerfall Covenant. After smashing up a couple of resource nodes, I finally caught up.... To the bridge at ash. Which of course is nowhere to be seen. Being the tactical master that I am... I see a forward camp up by the group, so I jump in the water for the slaughterfish to kill me so I can just quick travel to the proper location. In no way shape or form did I stop paying attention, fall off the bridge because I was texting.. At no point did I curse at my monitor and get lucky when I saw the forward camp pop up... It was all tactical planning and happened as expected....
So I pop up at the forward camp and we are running from one node to the next. We are successfully doing a smash and grab battle. Everyone is fighting as a cohesive unit, we are sticking together. No big surprises, other than about 5-10 minutes after we capture an objective they are changing to blue, and occasionally yellow. So, we stop and wait it out, No one is following us. It must be a fluke, a map glitch.... We snap up to Nikel Outpost and try our hand at taking a hardened objective. Within 3 minutes the Outpost is ours, and repaired and we are off and running to the next objective, our first keep.
We decide to move on and assault our first keep. I forget which one exactly but I think it was Ash. Which is just North of Nikel. So the standing rule of the day is, "You either drop siege or you guard the siege". It worked out well, the wall went down in less than 5 minutes. We break into the courtyard, groups are going left and up, groups are going right and up, others are just swarming the open guards. In no time flat we are knocking on the door with a shiny new "Nord Door Knocker". within a few minutes we are in the keep swarming to take the flags... Then the fateful cry goes out, DC Coming in the gate. We haven't even finished taking this one.... Fog makes a split decision to leave this keep to them and regroup. So we meet back at the farm in Brindle, which is now in AD hands, and we retake it in a similarly quick fashion as before. On to Brindle Proper..
The Assault on Brindle started out just like every other assault. Within a few minutes the wall is down and we are in.... but AD is defending it this time... the cry in raidcall quickly becomes, "They have two emperors. Get
The resources outside of Roebeck go down quickly and efficiently. We setup on the main door of Roebeck and that door knocker does a bang up job. We swarm inside, take out the defenses and start the inward assault... Wait, whats this, as soon as we break the door, the cry goes out DC hitting us from behind.... The Daggerfall Coward... Covenant is coming in to overtake us and take the keep for themselves. Again they have too many for us to make any real headway. The group was more than a dozen VR10s and we were just no match for them... By this time we were probably 35 strong between Fog's group and my group. Numbers would not win the day here unfortunately.... So we move out and move on to our next objective.
Somewhere in here I think we hit Arrius and helped to take Dragonclaw.. maybe we just rezzed at dragonclaw and started the assault on Aleswell. This really was a blur and I have a hard time remembering some of it. The assault for Aleswell is on though. We start to smash down a wall, what a sweet little wall it is too.... I can envision the Banner of the Pact flying high on the main Post... the wall is at at quarter health. It is ready to crumble.... and YES it is down.... what is that clanging and buzzing? Oh Dear Lord they are swarming like ants out of the keep. THE FIGHT IS ON! Pickup the siege, drop meatbags... MAN THAT BALLISTA!!! Don't let them flank us, REGROUP AT THE FORWARD CAMP WE NEED ANOTHER CAMP.... Men and machine are up and down... Did we route the swarm, WHERE IS THEIR CAMP? BURN THAT CAMP... PUT UP ANOTHER FORWARD CAMP! The cries of battle ensue and for a glorious ten minutes of time the fight at the breech rages... A pack of trained Eagles trying to hunt baby dragons... The fight is on.. and it is all a battle of numbers.. WHERE DID THEY GET REINFORCEMENTS? My group volunteers to press the assault. Pookha needs help at Chalman... The Warriors of the Fog, break off and head into another battle. The Fabulous Fifteen are moving and trying to keep the swarm locked up... a few minutes go by and the call comes to abandon Aleswell.. On to Chalman...
Chalman Keep is within our sights... The battle rages trying to find an opening... The siege is down... the walls start to crumble... This is the last stop for most of us. The wall crumbles... a few defenders go down quickly... Not another Empress... How many do they have for the love of Pete! We are in... the yard is cleared... We have the siege... the main door is down... Push to the left... Push the first flag... Rush the main flag!!!! The keep is ours we have won another keep for the Pact. The walls are repaired, the doors are rebuilt... Time for a nice long rest...
Now This is the stuff I remember.. I am sure I missed an uneventful assault, or maybe I got the order wrong. There was a lot going on and I honestly did die like 50 times trying to get out of the gate. In the beginning I missed a few things. I did have to stop and pick people up and do invites.. It is a lot more challenging to lead than I thought. I am very, very grateful for the help Fym provided. I hope to lead more in the future and gain a lot more experience leading these groups. As time goes on it should get much easier to communicate and lead groups. I had a blast I hope everyone else did too.