I took screenshots throughout the battle because I wanted as much intel as possible. I assumed it would take several armies to take this castle and the only images we had were top down. Therefore I was going to use this opportunity to build an AAR (After Action Report.)
At this point the battle had begun. As you can see they were sniping us from the walls. The interesting thing about this castle is how wide the walls are. Their ranged had plenty of room and were not at all limited to the towers. This first orders Kesh gave were to build 4 catapults. In the next series you will see we took down the center wall and ladder spammed the right wall. If you look at the original pictures the right wall is sealed off from the rest of the castle. Once we took it.... we gained a nice foothold that was very hard to take back.
As you can see the catapult had taken down the center wall and we capped their flags on the right wall.
Kesh tried to build a Forward spawn in front of the breach... we tried to protect it but they were able to break it.
The Battle was pretty much localized in the breach and the stairwell to the right at this point. We did open up a second breach with the catapults but I don't think I have any good pictures of it.
The first successful forward spawn was built on the far right wall. PErfect placement (great job engineers) on the roof of the tower. They tried once or twice to put siege ladders to it but never even attempted more than a half ass push. (2-3 guys) Thus our Forward Spawn was safe and the course of the battle shifted in our favor. It seems to me that if they made a directed effort to break that spawn they might have been able to hold out a lot longer.
Because of the New Forward Spawn we pushed them away from the breach/stairwell and never even came close to loosing either. Most of the fighting took place in the courtyard for a short time. Then they retreated to their last remaining wall and tower.
At this point I noticed the archers having a field day from the center tower. Meaining.... I got killed by an archer from the center tower lol. We would eventually take the rooftops and that tower before finishing off their last wall. Personally I feel like Occitan made a huge mistake allowing us to easily take those rootops especially the highest one. I'm not an archer.... nor am I an experienced strat player.... but as a 2h... I was a lot more comfortable knowing our ranged held those positions.
The fighting became pretty bogged down at the stairwell. They surged... we surged... it was a good fight.
I took a few more overhead shots given the new status of the castle. Again I was collecting intel so we could assualt the castle but... no need lol.
By this time they had one wall left. Their pikes were stabbing us from above. Everytime we managed to take the stairwell they took it back. We pushed.... they pushed... it was gridlock for the most part until we got a few more forward spawns up and started ladder spamming the tower on the right of the stairwell. They managed to push us back a few times but we eventually secured everything but the last part of the wall.
We built a new forward spawn in the breach and I think it cut down on our run just enough to get us the extra push. Once again... the engineers won this battle.
Now it's almost over. It's nothing but a stout and bloody fight. It took us a little while and we even surged over their flags a couple of times. But they managed to push us back.... until we finally finished it.
The final blow was a ton of ladders spammed over their remaining wall. We just kept pushing them from both sides and eventually we capped their flags.
I didn't even manage to take a final screenshot.
Keep in mind these weren't action shots. I was trying to capture as much information as possible. But.... Kesh did such a great job commanding the battle.... that we managed to cap their flags and walk away with something like 7000 troops and god knows what gear/gold. Congrats to everyone in the FCC.