Stronghold 1: Match detail

This was a close KoTH match on Karak using Limited Rules and Hard Settings. Rusher was playing with a handicap since he was unable to produce catapults or trebuchets, which made it much harder for him to deal with towers and siege pressure. Bradly took the middle keep first but Rusher eventually pushed back with shields and crossbows and retook it. Bradly kept being a real pain with tunnelers, constantly disrupting Rusher and preventing him from comfortably holding the middle. After some back and forth, Rusher finally held the keep for a while and brought the timer down. Then Swix entered the fight and started putting heavy pressure on the middle with mass trebuchets and scattered traps. Rusher tried an interesting shielded knight flank, running around to wipe out Swix’s trebs. It worked for a while, but Swix recovered quickly. Swix also had tower positioning: one tower was hitting the middle KoTH keep, while another helped defend his trebs and nearby base area. The game kept swinging back and forth until Rusher made one final big push with swordsmen, pikemen, knights, archers, and crossbowmen. He barely held the middle keep long enough to win. wp gg