Lore:Battle of Syphilis
| Battle of Syphilis | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Kingdom: | HOTS | Jenn-Kellon | |||
| Towns: | Syphilis Dark Citadel |
Hammerfell Kyara Greater Havens Climax Others | |||
| Strength: | 13 warriors Town Guards |
25+ warriors Pet Bears | |||
Story
The attacking Jenn-Kellon force consisted of players from many towns from both the Wild and Home server. They gathered at the White Light. It took a long period of time to gather their forces, so Syphilis and their allies at Dark Citadel had plenty of time to prepare. The leaders of the raid, Sye and Maul, lead them to Syphilis, but were slowed down by problems on the way.
Once the army reached the town, they built a catapult to lay siege to the town's only entrance. After realizing the catapult was not doing much damage, the army attacked the gatehouse directly. The Blacklighters started suicidal hit and run attacks, forcing some of the attack force to heal. The first wall of the gatehouse soon fell and the attackers proceeded to the second wall. About this time, Xplict and Serph decided to unlock the gatehouse. When the doors opened, both the Whitelight leaders charged inside the town and the door was relocked. Both Sye and Maul were quickly killed while the rest of the army was still at the gate.
After the second wall was broken through, the rest of the army entered the outer edge of Syphilis. With some help from some guards, the Blacklighters were able to push the rest of the attackers out of the town. While some Whitelighters stayed to fight, others started to run. Some that escaped the counter-attack, died from wild beasts before they got home.
Notes
Forum post[1]
Post from Kyara [2]
Pictures from Raid (from Adoll} [3]
Review
This is a prime example of how a Siege Battleplan can go horribly wrong. The first mistake the WLers did was to gather a large force at an obvious rally point, the White Light. Now while its generally a good idea to go to such a place, this also makes it easier for the enemy to observe such activities. And gives them a pretty accurate number of soldiers that you are bringing.
The second error was bringing the entire force as one group, you NEVER want to do this in an actual battle. The primary reason being that the larger the force is, the slower it must go to stay together. In this case, the WLers had at least 25 soldiers in the army. To correct this error, the attackers would need to divide the army into 5 groups of 5 (not counting pets), with the co-commanders each leading two groups with the 5th group supporting the main army. This also opens up a few other battleplans to try out if the opportunity arises.
Now I can't blame them for trying. But the third mistake was building the catapult, currently in Wurm catapults are not very effective in doing damage. What can be done instead is the Support group builds a small fort near the battlezone to give the attackers a safer place to rest and heal.
The fouth mistake is the leaders falling for the trap Xplict and Serph deployed to lure them into the compound. Its never a good idea for a leader to charge in blindly, much less both of them. If one of the main leaders goes down in the battle, the army's morale takes a severe blow that is very hard to recover from.
In summary: This battle could've been a legendary victory had it not been for a few rookie mistakes in the leadership and a dip in morale mid-fight.
