Harmless? and Toothless? merge

On the 1st of October, Starry announced that T? was going to merge into it's sister alliance H? on the forums. He posted the following:

Announcing the Merger of Toothless? into Harmless? effective October 1, 2016

It is with mixed emotions the leaders of Harmless and Toothless announce the merger of Toothless into Harmless effective today.    Kodabear and all Chancellors before him have successfully provided new players to Illyriad, with a safe and productive alliance in which to learn the game.  Toothless was the very first training alliance in Illyriad. Due to the decrease in new players and Koda's growing real life demands, Kodabear requested the merger.   Harmless, which is no longer a military focused alliance, has embraced the challenge and will provide the same services for new players within the Harmless alliance.    Harmless plans to integrate the existing Toothless new player program into our alliance.    We will be accepting new players.   

In May of 2010 the idea was presented to the Harmless Directors that we should do something to protect new players, the idea of Toothless became a reality on May 8, 2010.  As Toothless' founder,  I thank the Directors of Harmless and Harmless members who had the vision and defended the right for new players to grow and learn the game in peace.    I also wish to thank Lord Belargyle of Dlords for his courage and vision, he was one of the first outside of Harmless to support Toothless, on the forums and with his valiant troops.  Many other alliances have supported the right for Toothless to exist in peace over the history of this alliance, thank you so much for your support.   I am very proud of Toothless and the tireless work of all its current and past Chancellors.   Toothless Chancellors and Staff have provided an alliance in which new players can learn the game, grow and then pursue their own interests. 

List of Toothless Chancellors:

Starry
Erebus
LadyLuvs
razbhaat
Aziza Habibte
KodaBear the Great 

The current and past staff are too numerous to list, but my heartfelt gratitude does out to all those that have contributed to the success of Toothless.   I can't begin to estimate the number of players in this game that started out in Toothless, graduates of Toothless are spread throughout many alliances in this game.   It's been a long and rewarding road to watch Toothless evolve into the great alliance they are today.  Harmless hopes to provide the same services to new players.      New players will have the option of continuing on in Harmless once they meet our requirements or move to another alliance that better suits their game play.     The focus of military action (conflicts and wars) will not be offered in Harmless as we are no longer interested in that aspect of the game and pursue peace by all means.  Harmless will offer basic military training, as well as crafting, city expansion and other aspects of the game as has always been provided in T?. 

The name of Toothless will be retained with one alternate account but will be closed to any members.    I'm sure I speak for many when I state the thought of Toothless disappearing from the list of alliances in this game, is just too much to bear at this point.   

This is a new direction for Harmless, our members have always been protective and supportive of Toothless and this merger is a natural fit for both alliances.   

Personally, I want to thank all of the players and alliances in Illy who supported the idea of a safe haven for new players and embraced the philosophy that new players should be allowed to join and play in the game in peace.     It was a great campaign, encouraged and supported by many throughout the early days of this game.     Thank you for supporting the idea and merits of training alliances.

To Kodabear and existing Staff of Toothless....you guys are the best.   Thank you for taking Toothless well beyond our initial dream.    

We ask for patience while we begin this transition.   Thanks everyone in Illy!



This is the third major alliance to begin to merge/dissolve recently. TUF have announced that they are going to begin to dissolve soon after Agalloch and ThorOdin got banned and AianNick abandoned. HUGcr is also in the process of dismantling itself citing a lack of 'leaders or willing leaders to keep it up'. 

TUF under fire with a double siege op

AianNick's town of Freiburg and Kaven's town of just stolen both came under siege at exactly 4 am this morning. OleBlacklord is sieging AianNick's town whilst What The DEUCE? is sieging Kaven.

The siege on Freiburg was broken around 16:45 by ThorOdin, AianNick's alt, taking out over 200k SIN troops in a single hit.

Agalloch seems confident that the siege on Kaven's town will be broken shortly as well.

When I reached out to Saffron in GC, she declined to comment on the sieges.

TUF is now in confederation with EE, indicating that they are likely to cooperate with sieges in the future.

A siege by He-man on one of Janadorf's towns was almost broken by Walnut though due to a mistake, Walnut 'sent cav to wrong sq so siege force survived and captured'.

UPDATE: What The DEUCE?'s siege on Kaven was successful. The city fell at 10:12 on the 28th.

Author: Eowan The Short

Ppjotr Breaks Siege / Goldy1 returns to SIN

A recent RE siege on Ppiotr's city of Pir Urbas was broken by his alt, Ppjotr at 9:36 on the 14th July. Reportedly, the siege break was preceded by a number of elite cavalry hits and then by some larger hits.

I was online at the time of the siege landing and got in touch with Patience King, the sieger and head of RE. His response, which indicated that this was the start of something larger, has been deleted since the siege break. I would ask all players to not delete messages sent to the Telegraph's reporters as it makes writing articles much more difficult as we have to rely on our memories. If you do not want something reported, mention it in the message or in a message afterwards.

The past week has been a tough one for RE; between the 2 razed towns and this siege break, it seems like they might have bitten off more than they can chew.

Goldy1, who defected from SIN on the 25th June and joined TUF on the 27th rejoined SIN on the 11th July. This could indicate that Goldy1 was a spy, sent to keep an eye on TUF's operations.

UPDATE: I am crap at this news thing. I would like to apologise for my earlier accusation of deletion.
Patience King had this to say about the siege:
'The glorious roman empire is sure that the goals of the siege will be met in full, some people may be surprised on the main purpose of the siege but they are to find out in the future.
Rome has lost several isolated towns and participated in a tourney but we are far from spent.
Consul Patience King'
In this, Patience King, indicates that the objective of the siege was not the raze or capture of Pir Urbas. It will be interesting to see whether the result will help RE break TUF's momentum.



Author: Eowan The Short

RE suffers two razes in as many days

In the past two days, TUF has razed two of RE's towns. The first was on vgsrhhheth in the Long White. This siege was similar to the one on the failed siege on Knight of Ancients, taking advantage of the city's isolation from RE's main cluster in Westmarch. However, RE were unable to break the siege and the town of lonesome fell to ThorOdin at 9:32 on the 10th July.

Elfend was the second town to fall to TUF, this time to AianNick. The Illyriad Times reported that Xander also had a siege on Elfend. The town, formerly belonging to parthenon, was also isolated as it was in Middle Kingdom. This seems to reflect a common strategy for TUF where they pick off towns where help will take a long time to arrive. The town was razed at 18:13 on the 11th of July.

This double raze is likely to have been a big blow to RE's morale but could also reflect a depletion of troops after the recent tournament in which they lost just over 1 million troops. RE will still have enough troops to defend within their landclaim but towns further away might be left with insufficient support.

Author: Eowan The Short

TUF under fire/ New siege on RE

A recent SIN siege on Persona Non Grata by siege came to an end at 00:12 on the 6th July when OleBlacklord razed 'publi city'. The Illyriad Times reported that the siege began on the 5th at 2:00.
When asked about the siege, Jejune had the following to say: 'we met only moderate resistance from TUF -- just one substantial stal hit. The rest were elites or poorly-matched troop types (one attack was with T2 spears, for example). For us, this was a relatively small, standard siege model. We'll look to put together more substantial ops in the weeks ahead as we ramp up.'. The 'substantial stal hit' came from Mexican Dwarf.

TUF has also exodused cities away from inbound RE and SIN sieges, first Pir Cerxes away from a siege by Salgerluk and then My Belle away from a siege by Kerg. This could show that after months of fighting, TUF's forces are wearing thin.

TUF has fought back against RE recently with a siege on Knight of Ancient's city of  'Vgrumkik' by kaven at 11:31 today. The siege is on a plains square, however due to the remote location if the siege, it is likely that no forces will arrive in time to break it.

UPDATE: The siege was broken on the 7th July with the help of SIN forces. Since the siege was broken, Knight of Ancients has left RE and joined WILD.

Is STFU set to become next military power?

On the 3rd July at 07:42, Bob Diamond took the name 'The Unfettered' hostage by forming STFU. A ransom note was reportedly sent to Agalloch of TUF saying 'I am holding the name 'The Unfettered' hostage'. As yet, it is not known if any demands will be made for the release of the name but sources close to the telegraph indicate that a ransom payment of 1 Trillion gold is being considered.

Not content to simply hold onto the name quietly, Bob then proceeded to declare war on SIN, TUF, MEH and YARR! in the space of 10 minutes. Since the war declaration, MEH's members have fled leaving the alliance empty.

STFU's next target was WILD and when asked why he chose WILD, Bob Diamond replied 'He took my axe and used it as a toothpick! What else was I supposed to do?'.

STFU was then relatively quiet for around 24 hours until, at 00:17 on the 5th of July, Bob began declaring war on alliances again. In just 31 minutes, Bob declared on nCrow, SHAD, mCrow, ITG, Dlord, DKS and RE, mostly for saying cow puns in GC thought the RE declaration is though to be due to their involvement in the wars TUF is currently in.
During this spate of declarations, STFU's membership doubled which shows that many feel allied with Bob's cause.
A peace was negotiated between STFU and nCrow by Rill after she threatened to totally destroy Bob in GC. This appears to be a white peace though neither alliance has yet confirmed or denied this.

However, shortly after the peace was negotiated, TFs declared war on STFU. This was the first war declaration on STFU declared by another alliance.

Bob then declared war on GATE, M-X, X_C and ACHE. Soon after the war declaration on M-X, Bob appeared in GC and announced that the declaration on M-X was a mistake and he offered peace to M-X.

India joined TFs in declaring on STFU at 20:30. Dakota, one of this newspaper's editors, is leader of India.

In total, STFU has been at war with 19 alliances.

So far, there have been no sieges though Bob has sent a large army to attack Lone Wolf of mCrow. Artefore did send an army to Bob's town of Ponzi Scheme but recalled it almost immediately after sending. Bob has also been thieved twice.

Judging by STFU's aggression, high growth and ambition, it seems like they could be on their way to becoming Illyriad's top military alliance, a spot currently held by SIN after the Second Newlands War. It will be interesting to see how STFU expands and whether they move in the Broken Lands.

Author: Eowan The Short

Korlat2 sieged mid-exodus/TUF declares on RE

Korlat2's city of 'black coral' has been sieged whilst she was trying to exodus her towns out of elgea. The siege began landed at 21:03 on the 4th June. Both TUF and YARR! officials have confirmed that the reason why the town wasn't exodused away from the siege was that Korlat2's town of 'malaz city' was already being exodused when the first blockade on the city landed. 'malaz city' is now located at 669|-356 in Zanpur. Spektor is the one sieging Korlat2, it is his first siege for TUF since he joined on the 28th June from Unbow.
At the moment, there is 1 blockade, on the north western square and the siege is on the south western square. Both squares are on large hills with a jungle biome.
YARR!'s Solanar has said that even though the town is in an isolated position, they will try to defend it as Korlat2 was in the process of exodusing the town to the Broken Lands as asked and is active. This goes against Ranalos' comment on the siege of Hedeby when he said that cities in Elgea were 'indefensible'. Spektor has confirmed that YARR! are attempting to free the city as apparently there have been ' a few elite infantry divisions, and a moderate infantry force from his [Korlat2] other nearby town'. There were also some cavalry forces on their way to help free the city before the siege landed.

Some of the forces sent to remove the blockades were from Blaxx Stoneaxe, a player from Roman Empire. There has been high levels of  tension between RE and TUF before, they were very nearly at war at one point this year however, this was the straw that broke the camel's back. TUF declared war on RE on the 4th of July at 03:20.
RE is the third land claiming alliance to join the war against TUF. When asked about why Blaxx Stoneaxe attacked the blockade, Patience King, the leader of RE, said the following:
'Yarr asked us to help break a blockade on a member in Elgea so i asked blaxx stoneaxe to break the blockade on korlat2 , I did not involve any other members in the fight and since yarr did  not ask us to officially enter the war RE did not intend to declare war or have the entire alliance participate in the conflict'

Since the declaration with RE, it appears that TUF have exodused at least one town away from an inbound RE attack. Kentbird's 'Flo's Road' was exodused at 17:52 today away from a diplomatic mission by RE. It is not currently known by the telegraph whether there was a military force inbound in conjunction with the diplomatic mission which would have alerted kentbird or whether the exodus was just a coincidence. UPDATE: Black Coral hasbeen razed by Spektor

Author:Eowan The Short

Josh retreats from Newlands / SIN's players seem divided

Josh has come under fire from both SIN and YARR! in the Newlands, leading to him withdrawing from the region.
Reportedly, there were a number of sieges on his towns however, only two were successful. The siege which caused TUF's declaration of war with SIN on 3 - Legion! Legion who? was razed by Deo Volente on the 27th June at 12:44. The second successful siege was by Ranalos on  bb Assimilated Corpse on the 29th June at 08:04.
Sieges on cc Nightmare Lemonade, bb Assimilated Corpse and cc Default Dwarf were broken by TUF
Although YARR!'s and SIN's sieges have been very close to each other, it appears that they have not been coordinating with one another. With the raze report on bb Assimilated Corpse, Ranalos gave this comment: ' I had concerns, because a Sin siege landed after we launched, and I didn't want to hit that, but Josh cleared it before we got there.'.

It also looks like many SIN players are not involved with the SIN/TUF conflict. According to a source in SIN, the actions which lead to TUF declaring on SIN are not representative of SIN as a whole but instead of a group of rogue players. So far, the rogue players seem to be: Ron Fay/Odoacer, Deo Volente. Elanderrich and Bulani. When asked about the players, Jejune issued the following statement:
'I can confirm that the attacks on Josh were initiated by a few of our members. There is a high level of animosity toward him among many in the SIN ranks for a wide range of different reasons. I cannot confirm any specific motives for some of our players finally deciding to move on him at this juncture, though, because I really don't know exactly why. You'd need to speak directly to the players who were involved in the sieges.
As a policy, SIN believes in pvp and in the sovereignty of players to deal with conflicts in a matter that suits their own gaming objectives. SIN players are in command of their own destinies and are not subjects of our leadership. I don't make any apologies for the actions of my fellow players, and remain steadfast in my support of them. They have done so much in the past to make this alliance what it is today.'

At the same time as a group of SIN players have gone rogue, Goldy1 has left SIN and joined TUF. Before joining TUF, Goldy1 created an alliance called 'SIN HATERS'. Goldy1 was a highly active player for SIN in the Second Newlands War with a number of sieges and siege breaks. Losing him is a real blow to them. Since leaving SIN, he has launched a siege on Eldrathin's town of Alyria. Spektor, Unbow's former general, has also been added to TUF's roster
However, Goldy1 is not the only departure from SIN recently; Kaggen Deimo and Den both dropped out of SIN in the past week and Janadorf and Tink XX have both abandoned as well. As a result of these leavers, SIN has gone from being ranked 10th to 15th in terms of land.
Jejune has been promoted to leader of SIN, a position formerly held by Chandrian. When asked about it, Chandrian said that it was 'merely time for me to pass the torch on to a very capable successor. '. Jejune confirmed that the change of leadership was not to do with the recent events, saying that in SIN 'the top leadership position is a fluid one'.

The recent leavers and the rogue players do raise questions about the stability of SIN and it will be interesting to see if Jejune will be able to restore SIN back to it's former strength.

YARR! have also had a notable account leave them. Drax the Destroyer has been abandoned by Duran. Drax, who previously known as 'The Reaper' and 'Honey Badger', was involved in the current YARR!/TUF war as well as the Stomps/Claimers war and NW2.

Author: Eowan The Short

TUF declares on SIN after Josh sieged

At 3:40 on the 26th June, Deo Volente's sieges on  3 - Legion! Legion who? belonging to Josh landed. 7 minutes later TUF declared war on SIN in retaliation.
This is the latest in a string of wars for TUF which started on the 20th January with the Death/TUF war and since the start of this year, TUF have spent just 68 days at peace. It appears that their war with YARR! will continue.
Last month, SIN concluded the Newlands War 2 in victory, making them one of the most powerful alliances in the Broken Lands. Josh was involved in both the Newlands War 2 and the earlier Stomps/Claimers war which could be part of the reason why he was targeted in particular.
By attacking TUF, SIN could be looking to prevent the alliance from reaching a size where they could pose a major threat to them. As it is, TUF has already been weakened by months of fighting meaning that a war with SIN is likely to be very costly and possibly disastrous unless TUF receives support from another alliance. Support from another alliance is possible, a recent poll on the Illyriad Times shows that SIN is 'the Most Loathed' top ten alliance in the game by a large margin. However, the recent displays of military strength by SIN will go a long way to make alliances think twice before joining TUF.
When he was asked about his declaration of war on SIN, Agalloch had the following to say:' this is not the first time they harrass a TUF player but this time we arent willing to roll over to their dirty tactics we are taking a stand against shitty playing  of that sort enough is enough'

The siege on Josh currently has 3 sieges, on the North Eastern, Eastern and Southern squares around it. There are blockades on the South Eastern, South Western and Western squares and there is an encampment on the North Western square. The Northern and Southern square have dropped equipment on them, indicating that fighting has already begun over the city. All the squares around the city have the plains terrain so it is likely that cavalry will be used to try and liberate the city.

I have reached out to Deo Volente for comment but, so far, there has been no response.

Author: Eowan The Short

TUF targets Urlond Bloodaxe

In the space of 36 hours, Urlond Bloodaxe's cities of Haledur and Khedesh were razed. Haledur was the first to fall at 17:06 24th June to Agalloch. It was previously located at 845|-1817 in Pawanallpa. Khedesh was razed at 00:06 26th June by Josh.
It is believed that these sieges were partially due to poor terrain around the cities, with a building, small hills and small forests in the adjacent to the cities.
When asked about the sieges Josh said the following:"We chose Khedesh and Haleldur towns because they were also further away from the other cities in Pawanallpa and would be a bit harder to defend effectively with towns next door and spammed elite divisions, as well as other shenanigan tactics. Also, the fact that Urlond has verbally been trashtalking both me and Aga made it just a little more exciting. Furthermore, the battles have been a bit scarce. Apparently though, it was a very close race on the town Haleldur, with cav attacks from robmc, Ranalos and Solanar hitting the siege square Agalloch was on just twenty-thirty minutes after the raze came in."

The success of these sieges could show that YARR! is beginning to run low on troops in the Pawanallpa area after a number of successful sieges earlier on in the war. Ranalos, robmc and Solanar's late attacks could have been sent from towns in parts of the Broken Lands where there has been little fighting such as the Pirate Isles and Almeny.

In the past 4 days, TUF have managed to raze or capture three of YARR!'s cities. This marks a significant increase in their success with their only other siege win being Kaven's siege on Popayan in May. TUF seem to have found their stride and it will be interesting to see how YARR! fights back.

Author: Eowan The Short

Castle Pills under Siege

Dark Dan I's large town of Castle Pills is currently under siege by Ranalos of YARR!. At the time of writing, there are two blockades on the city, to the North West and the South East and a single siege to the West of the city. Both blockades are on plains squares whilst the siege is on a small hill. Reportedly, there were 2 more sieges earlier which were broken by TUF.
Dark Dan I was in YARR!/Dead until the 14th June when he switched sides to TUF. Whilst in YARR! he placed Castle Pills in the Pirate Isles which caused it to become a target upon his defection due to the high concentration of YARR! towns in the area. Ranalos seems confident of victory, saying:' DD went to Tuf and failed to exo out of the Isles, which is our alliance core, and so he will lose that town.'
However, TUF do not seem to want to give up the town without a fight. Josh released the following statement:'The battle in The Pirate Isles rages on but we have reduced the first 2 sieges to zero and they put reinforced with more troops on the small hill and put a new siege there, so a 3rd siege is busy getting pummeled. From what I know is going to happen with more incoming troops, it looks like Yarr! will not raze the town.'
If TUF manage to break the siege and blockades, it is likely that the town will be exodused  into a more defensible location.

UPDATE: Castle Pills was razed by Ranalos on 24 Jun 2016 at 06:47.

Author: Eowan The Short

Hedeby formerly belonging to Akiles has fallen to TUF's Mexican Dwarf

At 17:11 server time on 22nd June, Mexican Dwarf's forces stormed the keep at Hedeby and captured the town. This marks TUF's second successful siege in the YARR!/TUF war, the first being kaven's siege on Popayan. Mexican Dwarf was aided in the siege by Xander though there was little resistance from YARR! due to the distance from YARR!'s Broken Lands strongholds and Akiles' inactivity.
When asked about the siege, Ranalos released the following statement:'Akiles is 19 days inactive and in Elgea, where I have spent the last 7 months advising people they were indefensible. I'm not going to kick him to avoid Tuf getting the points because I don't care about the score card.'
Since the siege, the town has been renamed to 'YARR trophy town'

Author: Eowan The Short

YARR! in turmoil after RUM/Hell incident

On the 9th of June, Josh's PublicRelations[YARR!] account sparked controversy when he attacked a Hellfire[Hell] player called Squirrel. Hell is a training alliance in the Broken Lands which has close ties to TUF though is not a training alliance specifically for TUF. Within seconds of HR's attack, TUF retaliated by declaring on RUM, a trading and crafting alliance which is closely linked to Yarr. RUM contained at least one war runner, in the form of SamODell.
When Josh was interviewed by Dakota, he gave this statement on the events:'What happened was that Agalloch had payed for a Terraform, the terraform account landed 5squares from him, which meant the terraform would have to join TUF, which it did. So the town had to be razed and Aga was at war.. so he contacted squirrel in Hell to do it for him, hoping we wouldnt kill it. But I saw what was going on and killed it. That caused a lot of drama and ultimately it caused Agalloch to attack RUM, then a lot of the RUM players got upset (lots of different people in there) which then made Curm angry, since he is the leader in RUM.. lots more but thats generally it'

After the declaration of war, RUM's ranks were purged, leaving just Mac Stoith (Curmudgeon's alt) and Muad'Dib, and its name was changed to Deadmen Walking[dead].

Tensions simmered for a few days, within YARR! until they came to a head on the 13th when Curmudgeon left due to a confrontation with Josh over how the  Hell/RUM incident was handled.

Soon after this, a peace was offered by TUF to YARR! though this was soon withdrawn by Agalloch. When asked why, he refused to give a comment claiming he didn't have the time to explain his reasoning fully. It is thought that any kind of peace with YARR! would involve the disolution of the Pawanallpa Land Claim.

After the peace negotiations were started, Josh moved his HR and PR accounts into TUF. Around this time, other YARR! players also started to move out or look for other options.

Around the same time, TUF declared on The Fremen[DUNE], citing the presence of Stilgar as the cause. Stilgar is believed to be at least partially controlled by Curmudgeon and reportedly had attacked TUF.

YARR! then started to bring itself back together under Ranalos though neither TUF or YARR! have mounted any significant operations since.

Currently, Curmudgeon is in Deadmen Walking, Mac Soith is in  a new alliance called Hog Hunters[BACON] and Stilgar has changed his name to Rigor.Mortis and joined Deadmen Walking. TUF have also offered DUNE peace, possibly as a result of Stilgar's move to Dead

Author: Eowan The Short