The real reason that the northern realms attacked the new colony is because they can't march any further south. Morale losses due to distance from home are BIG. They marched all that way for weeks and then sat around for days waiting for Terran to figure out what was going on before hey finally figured out which way the sword points. By that time they had been in the field for a really long time and they couldn't march much further south. They had to attack something. Anything. So the new colony got clobbered.
Aurvandil stands a good chance. The SA realms can't attack them since he is too far south. My alternative plan for a war against Aurvandil was shot down and now it looks like it will be the only plausible means of waging an effective war against Aurvandil. All Aurvandil has to do is get good reports of where the northern armies are. Once they leave, whack Terran really hard, pillage and burn everything they can and then refit when the northern armies march south again. In the mean time while the Northern armies are in the area they just continue to annex Barcan regions.
