Bellicose and his alt Dennis have both been the targets of a strong and successful offensive by Unbow in Western Elgea. According to an Unbow player, more than 20 cities were captured, razed or forced to exodus out of the region. Of these, around 18 are believed to have belonged to Bellicose and Dennis.
As a result of the operation, Bellicose was totally noob ringed and Dennis was reduced to a single town though, due to the fact that it was in exodus when his other city was razed, Dennis has had a starter town spawn in Mal Moshta. As this town falls within TCol's landclaim, it is under their protection currently.
However, it didn't stop there. Since being noob ringed, Bellicose has continued to be attacked by a number of Resistance players; Morgweneth, FIGJAM, Thanes Aristophanes and Lagavulin. In GC, it has been claimed that these attacks are to prevent Bellicose from becoming a threat again but one must wonder at what point it becomes an attempt to force players out of the game.
When I asked Thanes Aritophanes about the attacks on Bellicose, he responded by saying that 'Storm do not comment on ongoing operations.'. How attacks on defenceless players can be considered operations is not clear to me.
I also got a response to the questions I asked by a player from Unbow;
1) Why was it decided to noobring Bellicose?
Bellicose/dennis, as also Bradik, Shagrat and Anas did, did occupy a few cities in the desert of Lan Laross/Western Realms and those cities can be seen as military very important. We did however at first left them there living in peace. But then they tried to capture one village of our alliance. We didn't accept that and attacked their siege and later on attacked the city of Bellicose from where the attack took place. As a reply on that SIN and TA2IN declared war on us. In reply on the war declaration we attacked all cities in our area of alliances related to these two aliances. All in all more then 20 cities were captured, razed or exodused.
2) Was Bellicose offered a surrender deal at any point?
There was no surrender deal offered, while Bellicose and Dennis both had the opportunity to flee to a safe haven in BL, which they didn't take. They exodused one or two villages to a nearby forest. Two weeks after we had removed all cities from the desert we started to remove all remaining villages in our area. When you are at war and still want a surrender deal you do have to ask for it and the terms must be agreed on by the leaderships of the alliances involved.
3) Why is Bellicose continuing to be attacked despite the fact he has been noobringed?
I disagree with the people who attack beginning villages in the noobring. I don't care if they are really new or forced to begin again as a victim of the war. I see it as committing a warcrime when you attack starting villages. I do like fighting a war, but on justified rules. It is a matter of respect for your opponent as they have had respect for us in the past.
4) Is there anything else you'd like to add?
I'm part of the old Unbowed and we do respect our opponents, but disagree with their ideas/statements. As they we are a warmachine. We have our pride and we stand for a free and peacefull Illyriad with no bounderies and some agreements to live in Elgea and the Broken Lands. We will fight for this freedom.
The fact that a member of the Resistance is willing to call out other members as war criminals shows that it may just be a minority in the Resistance who feel such actions are appropriate. If this is true, then I urge the Resistance to publicly denounce those who feel it is fine to attack players after they have been noob ringed. It is extremely difficult even today to get players to talk about the last server war due to the lack of proportional force used in it. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past.
-Eowan The Short
