REPORT: SHARK Razed ex-SIN City in Fellandire; SHARK-VIC Claim Account Dropped While Siege en Route

Both VIC and SHARK have contacted the Times claiming that a recently razed city in Fellandire by the confederacy was in fact a siege operation originally targeted at a SIN player. A SHARK member, who asked not to identified on account of the sensitive nature of the information, noted on January 26th that a siege on ElJamon, up until recently a SIN member, was in fact meant to target the player while still in SIN. Since then, the city has fallen. These were the siege details:

ElJamon

Warrior Storm

[834|-2341] in Fellandire

Stephen Stormcrow [VIC]

Mon 25 Jan 02:00

According to the information, the siege touched down 28 hours after ElJamon left SIN. The timeframe suggests that the siege on his city was already on the move when ElJamon left or was dropped. Later on, Stephen Stormcrow himself contacted the Times and explained that the VIC siege was actually part of the recent rush of SHARK-VIC counter-sieges in Fellandire and Newlands. Stephen noted the timeline of events of ElJamon leaving SIN:

This city/account appears to have been a sat account by one or more SIN members and up until the day or two prior to the actual siege landing, was a part of the SIN alliance.

Prior to the siege actually landing, SIN ejected this account from their alliance.  While I don’t know the reasoning for this action, I do find it interesting.  Perhaps the alliance did not wish to waste military units defending a sat account, which I find completely understandable.  What I find peculiar is the need to kick the account out of their alliance. Perhaps SIN felt they could avoid negative publicity by not having the city on their roles prior to it actually being razed.

While it remains to be seen if ElJamon was a sat account that SIN lost control of in the run-up to the siege, or if they dropped the account from the alliance to avoid having to defend yet another siege operation on bad terrain (ElJamon’s city had already been defended once and had a building next to it), his player growth charts suggests that the account began to flatline on the 25th when he was dropped from the alliance:

 

The departure of the ElJamon account from SIN in the face of this VIC siege could suggest that the alliance has run thin of defensive infantry in Fellandire, that the account was indeed sat and could not be exodused or pres built, or both.

This is not the first time that accounts have dropped from their alliances to avoid being counted as sieges. Early in the war, VIC’s Pehu attempted to drop out of the alliance with an inbound siege approaching. After rejecting SIN’s terms, we rejoined VIC, but managed to exodus his city away, avoiding the raze.

SIN Kills All 5 VIC Sieges; Breaks 7 SHARK-VIC Sieges in 3 Days

An eyewitness catches what was likely Jejune’s siege break on TSGH-RJS’s siege of Creb

SIN has repelled all five VIC sieges launched on cities in their homeland two days ago, capping a 3-day defensive stand that destroyed a total of seven major sieges by SHARK-VIC confederated forces. Materials provided to the Times by SIN indicate that the five VIC sieges were of varying sizes in terms of total reinforcements, but that all camps featured multiple players reinforcing siege forces. SIN sent proof of other smaller sieges sent by VIC that were also broken, but the Times will not count these as siege breaks on the War Score Card. There is also a report that a SIN city exodused away from a sixth VIC siege.

SIN leadership member Jejune indicated in a message to the Times that the VIC sieges on Ayraelf’s cities of Creb and Jonaira — both situated in wooded terrain — featured upwards of a half million reinforcements each. While SIN wouldn’t elaborate on its strategies used to defeat the Ayraelf sieges, the alliance’s high-profile dwarf accounts may have employed their infantry in the siege breaks. SIN did note that the following siege breaking battles do not account for multiple other attacks that were also used to break the sieges.

Troop counts have been redacted. (Click here to scroll down to the bottom of article and skip the combat reports.)

[UPDATED] VIC’s TURN: Invictus Unleashes 5 Sieges in SIN Homeland, Land Claim

Just days after SIN defeated two substantial SHARK sieges against Ayraelf in southern Gremont, just on the cusp of the SIN land claim, SHARK confederate Invictus has landed five closely timed, coordinated siege operations against prime SIN targets in the alliance’s homeland, with four of the cities placed directly in the land claim itself.

All four cities sit on astonishingly poor terrain considering SIN’s penchant for military gameplay, making these cities easy targets for optimizing terrain advantages in defending siege camps. All four sieges are now posted in the Herald’s siege section, and cities have been hyperlinked to their locations for easy view of the camps and terrain:

Martilicious [SIN]	Doctor	[790|-2264] in Fellandire	TSGH-RJS [VIC]	Thu 07 Jan 03:47
Ayraelf [SIN]	f. jonaira	[778|-2254] in Fellandire	TSGH-RJS [VIC]	Thu 07 Jan 03:47
Ayraelf [SIN]	e. Creb	[811|-2224] in Gremont	TSGH-RJS [VIC]	Thu 07 Jan 04:00

ElJamon [SIN]

Warrior Storm

[834|-2341] in Fellandire

acrid axiom [VIC]

Thu 07 Jan 07:16

The fifth siege arrived a bit later:

[12:05]<System> ** News Flash: Queen Bikini’s [SIN]large city of Exxotica is now under siege by acrid axiom’s [VIC] legendary city of Eleanta

The siege on well-liked GC darling Martilicious as well as the ones on ElJamon and Queen bikini offer VIC a single non-plains square — a forest and a building, respectively — to optimize siege protection. However, blockades on these cities will have to established on exposed plains. For the heavily wooded Ayraelf cities, VIC has a great deal of latitude to establish solids sieges and blockades.

Reports indicate that there was intense fighting at the previous Gremont siege sites for SHARK, and it remains to be seen to what degree SIN’s attacking capabilities in terrain such as buildings and forests have suffered. After being potentially softened by SHARK’s elgean-based sieges, these four VIC sieges are likely to pose an additional strain on the alliance.