The second to last war Abington was in, where Carelia was fairly quickly forced out, RedSpan was destroyed, and Abington barely managed to not lose more than the islands against most of the rest of Atamara. Armitage the War Queen led, with Xuanye the Great as the most amazing General I have had the privilege to serve under in the game. We once had a two month streak of new orders every turn, with new settings and movement, with 100% cohesion in the main battle army of ~90-100 nobles. That was glorious.
Xuanye was a really impressive opponent. Though I do think that Abington was lucky in some respects. If not for server issues playing havoc with movements just outside Wayburg, I think the allied relief force come to save Kybcyell would have arrived in time to halt Abington's takeover. Kybcyell would still have been on very dangerous ground even so, but instead Kybcyell was all too easily snuffed out and as soon as that happened, no-one was quite as interested any more. There were easier pickings to be had elsewhere. The loss of Kybcyell so early on changed the whole dynamic very quickly.
I was part of Darka at the time and remember leading a small army down to sack Wayburg.
I have fond memories of how General Herumor(?) led an army across the continent to sack the city of Suville around that time, emphasising Darkan ability, slating everything about Abington and advertising Darka's services as mercenaries to the General's channel all the while. Couldn't really fault all the pompous bombast either. He delivered everything he said he would :-P
