2nd Siege of The Herbert Building
| 2nd Siege of the Herbert Building | |||||||
| Date: | July 14th - August 11th, 2021 | ||||||
| Place: | Eastern Roftwood; minor fighting in Edgecombe | ||||||
| Result: | Zombie victory | ||||||
| Combatants | |||||||
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| Strength | |||||||
| - Survivors : | 25 (initial), 53 (peak) | ||||||
| - Zombies : | 25 (initial), 48 (peak) | ||||||
The 2nd Siege of the Herbert Building was a siege during the summer of 2021 in which a large group of survivors tried to hold The Herbert Building against a roughly equally large group of attacking zombies. It was preceded by a period of tranquility in the suburb of Roftwood, with very little zombies presence. This had prompted some of the survivors in Roftwood to attack Ridleybank, the RRF homeland. When they finished repairing the western part of Roftwood, they launched their attack. The RRF attacked them and recaptured Ridleybank. They then launched a systematic attack at Roftwood and The Herbert Building, the de facto headquaters of Roftwood's survivors.
Prelude
In April 2021 survivors of the RCC aquired the idea to use the system of combat reviving en masse, resulting in an epic siege of the Herbert Building in which 60+ survivors stood against 70 zombies. After the 1st siege of Herbert ended on May 12th, several zombie assaults on Herbert had happened consisting of a few dozen survivors vs an equal amount of zombies. But not on the scale as the first siege.
Halfway throughout June, the zombies started to finally leave Roftwood, making it one of the safest suburbs in Malton. A portion of the survivors took the opportunity and went to the western part of Roftwood (which had been ruined during the entire period), closer to Ridleybank. The rest stayed behind at Herbert. On June 27th, Greenhow NT was easily reclaimed, and proved itself to be a very strategically valuable location for further incursions into Ridleybank.
Soon after, two hands full of determined survivors marched into Ridleybank. There, to their astonishment, they found it almost devoid of zombies. They quickly started repairing Ridleybank's heavily decayed tactical resource points, focussing on the hospital-rich area in the heart of the RRF homeland which could later be used to support a siege of The Blackmore Building. Only a few of this small group of survivors dared to directly assault Blackmore. The attack happened on the 1st of July, 2021 and Blackmore was lit up. Unfortunately, their calls for backup were unanswered and the building was retaken within 12 hours.
This didn't cause the survivors to back down. After biting a needle, repair operations elsewhere in Ridleybank continued. By the 13th of July about 75% of buildings in Ridleybank were repaired. By July 15th news of this undertaking had spread in the RRF ranks and more zombies started arriving in Ridleybank and slowly reduced the suburb to rubble again. The survivors then regrouped at Herbert with the ones they left behind.
Attacks on tactical resource points
While at the 1st siege the zombie tactic was pretty much limited to an all out assault on Herbert, this time the zombies decided a more careful approach. They focussed on the tactical resource points around Herbert first. Margaret General Hospital was struck first on July 14th. Eligius General Hospital fell on July 16th. The zombies then switched their attention to St Eth's, the survivor's forward position to the north, which was ruined by July 19th. The survivors responded to this by using river tactics and recaptured Margaret Hospital and used it in combination with Denis insteat and the supply lines remained intact ensuring no strategic damage. Also St Louis and Joachim's we're lit during this period. At this point in the siege, the total amount of zombies numbered 25, against equally as many survivors.
Another new aspect of the zombie tactics was very thorough use of GK-ing. Unlike the attacks on the hospitals this tactic wore heavily on the survivor's AP. The survivors responded by spreading messages (graffiti, radio, speech, discord) urging others to only use a genny during a break-in, where one is required to preform combat reviving, but this was not obeyed by all survivors.
The mall fell on July 21st, with 8 zombies flooding into the south eastern corner. Unlike they had done with the hospitals, survivors immediately tried to reclaim it. The mall being a large building made it especially hard to defend. Furthermore, some survivors argued spending AP on defending the mall to be not worth it, as combat reviving (Herbert's main weapon) requires only needles, gennies and fuel, all of which can be obtained elsewhere. The mall would never be firmly under survivor control again for the remainder of the siege.
First attacks on Herbert
Albeit heavy fighting elsewhere in Roftwood, the zombies had not tried to attack Herbert itself, which was still brightly lit with 19 survivors inside on the morning of July 25th. This allowed the survivors to stack up a lot of supplies. Later that morning the zombies launched several small attacks on the cades, all of which were easily stuffed by the defenders. These were the first actual break ins to happen during the siege.
During this time, the first attacks against Maiden Auto Repair, used by the survivors as a source of fuel, were also witnessed. The survivors recaptured it quickly, but ongoing attacks by zombies made it very unsafe to sleep in and Maiden would keep changing hands for the remainer of the siege. The next break in at Herbert would take place on July 28th, but it was too small to have a notable effect.
Reinforcements on both sides arrive
On July 30th the survivors received reinforcements and their numbers grew to 30. At the end of this day the number of zombies had grown to 36.
On July 31st, The Wotton Building was ruined, followed by Vivian Cinema on the 1st of August. To the south, the zombies had launched an attack against Denis General Hospital on July 31st and ruined it, followed by adjacent Margaret General Hospital the next day. Total number of zombies had risen to 48 against 43 survivors on August 1st.
The survivors were now deprived of all their hosptals in Roftwood and responded with river tactics by relocating healing efforts to St Louis and Joachim hospitals in Edgecombe and Tollyton.
Simultanously, the zombies also ruined the two factories south of Hildebrand Mall. The survivors were now in a deadly situation, with no acces to gennies and fuel, and FAKs available far away only. The survivors decided to approach this problem by lighting up the factory/auto repair shop-rich area north of Herbert on August 2nd, allowing them to restock. As the zombies followed them there, the survivors retook Margaret General Hospital on August 2nd, re-establishing their supply lines.
Heavy fighting at Herbert ensues
With river tactics proving a very effective weapon against the zombie's new approach, the zombies now switched their attention to Herbert directly. By August 4th they had gathered most of their forces there, while using the remainder to tie down the mall. Throughout the day they launched several break ins against the now 50-man strong force inside.
On August 6th, 10 zombies managed to get into Herbert for the first time during the siege. The survivors repelled it. The zombies followed up with several more small break ins during the day.
The sudden end
On August 8th the zombie death cultists launched a well-prepared, highly coordinated PK-operation against the 53 defenders inside, and at least 25 survivors were killed. The zombies followed up with an all out attack the next day, when 24 zombies managed to get inside the building. A revive attempt was set up at 7pm (GTM) the next day, but the zombies reacted quickly and destroyed several of the gennies used. Messages indicating low-supplies now started coming in. At the end of the operation, 15 zombies were left standing before more zombies started pouring into the building again. Finally, Herbert was ruined in the early hours of the 11th of August after 32 zombies killed the last few survivors defiantly fighting on until the bitter end, causing the 2nd Siege of Herbert to come to a close.
