Bashing Back: The Battle of Pitneybank

"Dump, Kill, Cade, Heal" -Anonymous graffiti and Regular Radio Broadcast

"Barragabzh na gannna hab harmanz!!! Na ganna zab harmanz!!! Harmanz ganna ba bah bah! Harmanz ganna ba zambahz! Bah bah, bazarh harmanz! Barharharharharhararh!!!!" -a zombie

Bashing Back: The Battle of Pitneybank
Date	January 2nd-January 31st The conflict is defined as beginning at the end of the fall of Fort Creedy. It ended with the fall of the northern corners of the mall and the fall of the Morrish NT on the 31st.
Place	Pitneybank, mainly the Farmer Building, The Morrish Building and Giddings Mall. Cassus Belli: First Ruining of Fort Creedy Turning Point: January 23rd Updates
Result	Zombie Victory
Groups At Farmer: TNR, Malton Rangers, C4NT, CDF, AaR, USAI, DEM , E.N.D, rrn, zsg, MDD and RHVP At Morrish and Giddings: TNR, MR, THC, C4NT, AaR, USAI, SHURLMNP, DEM, E.N.D, RHVP, TDB, TF, FANNY, CDF, 151st, ACC, TTFW, ARFCOM, the DA, D52, B.A.T., ATO, /zom/, NFA, DR, NW, VZW, DotP, CC, UC and MDD. The Second Big Bash, officially comprised of: Cybele's Shamblers, De-vivification Experts of Malton, Eastonwood Ferals, Extinction, Feral Undead, Infected Swarm, Killer Zombie Tomatoes, Lebende Tote, LUE, Rowcliffe Must Fall, The Minions of the Apocalypse, The Alliance, The Ridleybank Resistance Front, Thulsa Doom's Temple of Set, Undeadites, and Williamsville Horde of Organized Zombies. Commanders Blanemcc, Redwave, Padre Romero, Johnny Lunchpail, El Satanno, Randomzero, Booleanearth, XxCannon FodderxX, Laundry_hamper, DanceDanceRevolution, Doctor Sarcoma,Clint Clintstone,Tommy Crowbar, and Deletion. DonTickles, Brona, Keith Moon, Gogolnik, Captain Grisum, Brainzombie, Mrhton, Plinker, and many others (insert your name here). Strength 800-1300 overall, Roughly 300 Creedy, 950 Giddings (at its height), 150 Farmer, 200 Morrish. Around 400 at the beginning of the siege, over 700 at the time Morrish fell. Casualties 900+ (300 Creedy, 150 Farmer, 300 Giddings, 200 Morrish.) Unknown, but moderate. Several breakins of around 50 were repelled, and at least one numbering 100 or more.

The Battle of Pitneybank

Prelude: The Fall of Creedy

Fort Creedy, which had held 700 survivors, fell in early January 2008, possibly due to coordinated efforts by the PKA and The Second Big Bash as members from both groups had been noticed by the defenders. The fort fell after a short 8 day siege in which survivors were apparently uncoordinated and may have showed a lack of traditional tactics; possibly because there was precious little time for them to exercise said tactics, but what time they had was used up in a panic as the zombies broke through the gatehouse and began devouring those who tried to fight. Due to such a swift zombie victory, the tactics of the conflict are being closely examined by survivor and zombie alike. One factor that may have contributed to the fall of the Fort was the lack of internal communication: some survivors who were inside Fort Creedy at the time of the attack weren't even aware that anything was happening aside from an increased number of zombies in the area. Because of a combination of sloppy tactics and little time, the fort and the surrounding buildings fell, and many of the zombies moved on to The Farmer Building.

A caricature of Fort Creedy survivors.

The Fall of the Farmer Building

After the fall of Fort Creedy, revives continued slowly even though there were 80+ survivors inside of the Farmer building, with more survivors arriving. The numbers peaked a few hours after the Fort fell, the building at one point had 150+ zombies outside. This seemed to be a natural continuation from Fort Creedy, taking the nearest NecroTech facility to stop the survivors from helping defend the suburb. At this point, there were 150+ survivors inside the Farmer building. Survivors held off several large break-ins in the early hours; but by midday January 3rd, 2008, the Farmer Building fell to a horde numbering some 280+ zombies, again survivors that fought were only slaughtered and others fleed, some to safer suburbs, others straight into Giddings Mall and the Morrish Building. The buildings around the Farmer Building had been ransacked, leaving much of south Pitneybank barricadeless and in the hands of the Second Big Bash.

The Siege of the Morrish building

After the Farmer Building was taken, survivors did all that they could to be revived quickly while Rotters waited at the nearby Revive Points, eagerly blocking anyone with a syringe. Normal revive point populations were swelled to massive numbers, of both dead survivors seeking a revive, and zombies with brain rot attempting to use their presence as a shield against revives in a fairly common tactic. The Second Big Bash took a little time in bringing their full force to bear against The Morrish Building, recieving reinforcements from throughout Pitneybank and the surrounding suburbs. This offered some extra time for the other survivors to rest, revive, and heal while the Bash was preoccupied, however those inside the Morrish Building and it's two neighboring entry points were still busy barricading and attempting to revive those who had been killed.

Survivors were much more numerous at the Morrish Building than they were at the Farmer Building, and easily equaled or exceeded the numbers of the Big Bash, and thus were able to hold the building for significantly longer.

When the zombie attacks stalled, mobile groups from both sides moved to the siege. With what seemed to be a stalemate at the Morrish Building, zombies attempted to target buildings nearby in an attempt to cut off the supplies for the NT. Both Byrne Auto Repair and Bromley Auto Repair were battlegrounds for several days as the zombies and survivors fought for their possession. During this, they were often only lightly barricaded, and both were ruined by the Big Bash several times before being retaken by survivors.

Sorties in the Surroundings

The zombies attempted to cut off the survivor fuel supply by attacking the auto repair shops to the east and west of Morrish. After some misunderstanding and forgotten orders the Bash moved north to take some of the survivor strongholds after the first fall of the auto repair shops; most notably, the MacMillan motel which had been lost and retaken repeatedly throughout the battle. While only slightly important in the larger siege because of the survivors that attempted to hold these buildings, taking these gave a slight morale boost to the Bash, which encouraged them to move on to Giddings. It also cut off some of the Free-running routes north into Spracklingbank. In the end however, the survivors regained control of the auto repairs as the Bash turned it's attention to a bigger target. This gave the survivors their own morale boost as the entry points were back up and running, giving them a clear gateway to the fighting. However the zombies were far from ready to admit defeat.

In the surrounding revive points the revive process was slowed down due to huge numbers of revive point occupants and large numbers of rotters in the crowds. This slowed the flow of survivors going back to defend the Morrish Building to a mere trickle.

The Assault on Giddings Mall

After the two week assault on the auto repair shops, and Morrish, the Bash changed tactics: Walrond Square was clogged with Rotters to an extent never seen before, and the main force shifted to the northeast corner of Giddings Mall. Surviver casualties due to break-ins were matched by revives, and survivors followed the "cade-dump-heal-kill" protocol for sieges. At this point the survivors outnumbered the zombies and the siege only became a slight inconvenience for almost a week.

Break-ins were a very common sight however, with small groups of 10-20 zombies getting inside the mall at least 3 times a day throughout the duration of the siege with dozens of 0:00 based attacks. The northern half of Giddings was almost constantly filled with small numbers of zombies trickling through, and offered quite an annoyance to those who were attempting to rebuild the barricades. Survivors that tried to attack the zombies outside soon learned that it was a futile effort as the PKer's on the Malls inside were a much greater threat and the dropping Barricades needed constant attention. PKing efforts combined with the numerous small break-ins caused survivor attention to be diverted to the quickly falling barricades of the northern corners, and it may have been only because of the force of numbers; the disproportionate ratio of defenders to zombies and PKers, that the zombies were still held back.

The Update

As time wore on, zombie moral started to decline. DonTickles, a Zombie commander, announced a "crunch time", right before Kevan added updates that made maintaining a break-in much easier for the zombies and much harder for the survivors attempting to defend. This provided a substantial morale boost to the Bash, and break-ins at the Giddings Mall grew longer and more deadly as barricading was now considerably more difficult while zombies were standing inside the mall. From this moment, the new siege protocol became "dump-kill-cade-heal". The siege had turned into more of an outright battle; instead of two sides fighting over the status of the barricades, they were directly fighting one another for possession of the mall. The battle spread beyond the Northeast corner, with a smaller but still sizable force of zombies (70-80 at any given time) attacking the Southeast corner of the mall. Zombies began to target generators more frequently while PKer & GKer alike would lend a helping hand to the advancing Zombies.

South Pitneybank during Giddings Mall Siege

With slightly more than half of the Bash assaulting the mall, several groups of survivors emerged from the Mall, retook the Farmer NT and began clearing Fort Creedy. During the long siege of Giddings before the update, they succeeded in reestablishing the Fort and rebuilding the southern area of Pitneybank. After the update, however, the zombies remaining at Creedy broke through and within days Creedy was again in ruins. The survivors who were still fighting in the fort were quickly killed by a sizable zombie force. The zombies then began another siege of Farmer, which fell on January 27, 2008.

The Bash's Beachhead and The Fall of Giddings

After the update, break-ins became more frequent, larger, and longer. Several break-ins allowed more than 50 zombies inside. Survivor defenses rapidly became uncoordinated and while survivors tried to regroup after each attack the zombies invaded the mall in groups of 60-80 at a time. At first, these larger incursions were repulsed by the survivor groups, but on Jan. 29, the zombies gained a large toehold in the southeast corner of the mall. After first breaking into the mall's Northeast corner, the zombies then shifted their focus to the Southeast corner. Making full use of the confusion caused by the shift, the zombies pounded on the southeast corner's barricades. While most of the survivors fought for control of the Northeast corner, even more zombies broke into the less defended Southeast corner, flooding into the mall and killing the few survivors remaining in the Southeast corner. By the next day, over 300 zombies were standing in Southeast Giddings, while survivor numbers in that section had dwindled to less than 50. The Southeast corner was ransacked and ruined in the early hours of January 31, 2008. With this beachhead secured and the doors left open, hundreds of zombies flooded in and the survivors were soon outnumbered by 20:1 as they either fled the mall or were killed by the zombies. By 18:01 GMT of the 31st, the last survivors were either dead or had fled and all corners had been ruined. At this point there were over 500 zombies inside the building. The Bash had taken down Giddings after a month long siege.

Zombies attack the SE corner.

The Last Stand

After the fall of Giddings, the Big Bash quickly turned its attention to the Morrish Building, where the remaining survivors of Giddings Mall had gathered and waited with the Morrish Inhabitants. The battle was short, with zombies bringing down the barricades and several hundred quickly flooding inside on the evening of January 31.

Survivors suffered from a lack of First Aid Kits, ammunition, and a large revive queue from the fall of Giddings. By the end of the night, zombies outnumbered the few remaining survivors 3:1, and as the new month began, the siege of Giddings and Morrish ended.

Conclusion

In the end, the Second Big Bash, which had cut a bloody swath through southern Malton relatively unhindered in the previous months, was stalled for several weeks by an impressive and stubborn survivor defensive effort. The end of the battle was likely the direct cause of the update of zombie abilities. The numbers involved in both sides of the siege were massive, and both survivors and zombies acquitted themselves well. In the end, the siege was considered a success for the Bash, which added the suburb to their tally, and the survivors who rallied to the cause of defense were pushed from their fortifications.

The siege was a rather unique event, being both before and after the updates. Its aftermath led to a number of debates on the subject of survivor tactics.