RK - The Battle of Muirkirk

I've participated in a limited war in RK over the past month which culminated in 'The Battle of Muirkirk'.

Early in the month, took custody of Clan's sword, 'Blackwind'. This was the last artifact made by Ragehammer MacTavish. Was planning on a bit of an adventurous tour of Galloway with Ragehammer and another clan member, so we had set up our farms for a long absence and gathered supplies for our trip.

As we set out, a brewing crisis up in the County of Glasgow (where thieves, robbers, bandits and political rebels had formed an army and were extorting the local fishing village) suddenly exploded on the national scene (when the rebels decided to march south, threatening to lay waste) and the call went out to members of the Royal Scottish Army to join the colours. The town which our County's Regiment was to form up in was Wigtown, also the first town on our tour.

The players in my mob were all all soldiers of some rank, and armed with sword and shield for our own travels, and months of patrol duties had ironed out the technical issues involved with combining our actions. So we were the right blokes in the right place at the right time. We marched straight into the ranks and formed the skeleton of one of the eight platoons such a regiment contains (this later grew to five burly scottish warriors as a couple more from our town unit were assigned us upon their joining the ingame regiment).

After a couple of days rallying in Wigtown, the regiment marched north into the county of Ayr, halting for a couple days in the town of Girvan where we were joined by the Ayr County Regiment and more individuals marched under the colours. I had my work cut out in the pubs of Girvan trying to keep various ranking personalities from ripping each other apart while diplomatic solution was sought with the rebel army to our north.

Word arrived of the opposing rebel army, marching and recruiting on the road to our north, taking advantage of the truce that had been called for them to negotiate. The combined regiments marched to force them out of the town they were in. The rebels retreated to the next town up the road, stormed its walls and looted its town hall. This took them an extra day.

That was their mistake, as that gave us time to march up to the town and seal it off. We proceeded to storm the town the following day. About half of the rebels fled, most of those that remained were cut down or, at the least, severely wounded, at relatively small loss to the Royal Scottish Army (though our two fatalities were sore missed and much mourned). The following day we returned in full regimental strength to the south, leaving the locals to clean up the mess in the town hall.

On the road to the south we came across the rebels who had fled the town of Muirkirk when we had stormed it. We massively out numbered them and cut them down on the side of the road. We proceeded South.

Over a week later, I have disbanded my platoon from the Regiment and we are preparing to resume our interrupted planned adventurous trip!

Another quiet day in the Renaissance.

These events are known as 'The Battle of Muirkirk'. Through it all, was much instability in our squabbling and brawling National Assembly as it goes through its birth pangs, and the forums were down as are being restructured. An interesting time indeed.

The two Royal Regiments who put down the rebels had about 60 players in them combined. The rebel army probably numbered less than 25 at its peak. There were two fatalities in the Army, Rebels suffered about 15 dead. Death in this game means that you must remain in the town you 'die' in for 45 days, with loss to stats etc, if you die in a town - if you die on a 'node' (on the road) I believe you are permanently killed.

To co-ordinate the actions of this many people ingame, especially as the forums weren't working properly throughout, requires an active functioning online community (and don't forget, roads still need patrolling, farms still need working, towns and counties still need administering to keep the world moving on). A great gaming experience well worth the massive investment of collective hours days months and years which lie behind it imho.