Group Effort

Before I recount last night’s events, I want to give mad props to the general EU TZ portion of the Caldari Militia. The fleets that we’ve been running for the past week have had ten or more vulnerable systems to choose from every night. In fact, our biggest problem as FC’s has been deciding which vulnerable system(s) to hit. So despite not being able to take part in our fleets, which happen late US TZ, thank you for your overall participation in the war effort. You’re keeping Gal Mil systems vulnerable. You’re opening up new ones for us every day, like the eleven Gallente systems currently capturable now. Myself and the other US TZ FC’s really do appreciate the effort that you’re putting in. Thank you.

We started off last night at 01:00. Unfortunately pilots were ill prepared to leave at that time, leading to us undocking from the station right around 01:30. That’s one of my pet peeves as an FC. The start time of the fleet should be the time that we undock. It’s the way that I’ve run things for 8+ years. If you aren’t ready at “go time” you get left behind. And while that’s worked in each of the major alliances I’ve been in, I just can’t see that working out in Cal Mil. Things are too unorganized. There is too little enforcement of policy. And so we waited. Hopefully this is something that we can adjust over time, and will be my one major critique on the evening.

At 01:30 our 38 man fleet headed toward the target system. Three jumps out, though, it dropped from a Vulnerable status. One or more Gallente had obviously plexed it down to simply contested, which forced us to redirect to a secondary objective. As a result, we jumped into Agoze and proceeded to bash on the iHub there, with scouts stationed in Vey and Loes. The iHub had just entered armor when our Loes scout reported a hostile Gal Mil fleet entering his system.

Scout 1 > 16 war targets. No eyes yet.

FC > Scoop drones everyone. Keep firing on the iHub, but be ready to align to the Loes gate.

Scout 1 > FC, I have the war targets on scan. Guardian, Guardian, Guardian, Guardian, Ashimmu, Deimos, Deimos, Deimos… [abbreviated for brevity]

FC > Everyone align Loes now. Align Loes now. Hold on the gate when we arrive.

Now, here’s the funny part to me. The following is pure speculation, but substantiated by the hostile’s actions. The Qcats are used to having the run of Vey, Agoze, Loes, and the rest of the surrounding lowsec systems. Over the last several months, they’ve demonstrated superiority over Cal Mil in all areas of FW space, and thus don’t feel the need to run with a scout one or more jumps ahead of them when moving an AHAC fleet through lowsec. Regardless of the why, their fleet of 16 HACs, Logi, and Faction Cruiser jumped into Agoze blind, and into our waiting arms.

FC > Primary is JAF Anders in a Guardian. JAF Anders.

Let me give kudos at this point to the Gal Mil pilots. You could have simply burned back to the gate without aggressing. We might have killed one or two of your pilots if we were fast with points and webs, even with just the AB II’s that we can see on all of the destroyed ships. Instead, you chose to give us a fight, and indeed inflicted a few losses. Quixote2961′s Hurricane, and the Blackbirds belonging to Atrej and Brock Cochshure all melted underneath the ridiculous firepower that Blaster Deimoses are able to unleash. With no Logi of our own, there was absolutely no way to prevent their losses. Instead, we poured everything we had onto JAF Anders.

And he held. I was surprised, despite knowing full well the repping power of a properly established Guardian chain. We spiked him down almost immediately to half armor, but that’s where it stayed. We’d shoot it down, and it would rep back almost immediately.

FC > Pre-lock Heredom in a Guardian. We’re going to do a target swap. Last cycle on JAF Anders. Everything on Heredom now. Spike him down.

With all the reps on JAF Anderson, Heredom dropped in 2-3 volleys. I’m not sure that the enemy had time to switch their rep target before Heredom’s pod floated in space.

FC > Primary is JAF Anders again. Let’s finish him off. Secondary will be MinutemanKirk. Tertiary is Nexus Havoc.

With part of the rep chain broken, JAF Anders dropped just as quickly as Heredom did. MinutemanKirk, Nexus Havoc, and Mor’tah Tanas followed in rapid succession.

At this point it is clear that the Qcats heavy DPS ships, the Deimoses, had disengaged. I knew we only had time for another 1-2 kills before their jump timers cleared, so we primaried the Ashimmu for maximum ISK damage. He dropped in seconds, letting us turn our attention to the Deimos pilots. Unfortunately, their aggression timers had expired, and they escaped back into Loes (one in structure).

Agoze Battle Report

The rest of the evening was mostly uneventful, but highly successful. We returned to the iHub and finished capturing the system. From Agoze we proceeded to Muetralle, stopping in both Melmaniel and Costolle along the way to kill targets of opportunity. A routine iHub bash in Muetralle flipped that star. No WT even entered system from the time we started until the time we left in the direction of Onatoh. After a 10 minute bio break in Deven, the iHub bash in Onatoh was similarly quiet.

Before disbanding, we took the fleet to a couple of strategic systems. There we group donated LP, insuring not only Level 5 status for each, but a full buffer as well. For anyone unfamiliar with why donating LP is so important, you can read that article here. Thanks to all of the fleet members for their generosity, you helped ensure continued T3 through the night.

FW tier percentages at the time of this writing:

Cal Mil – 42.2%

Gal Mil – 10.2%

Keep up the good work everyone. EU pilots, keep plexing systems when you’re able. You’re doing a lot of the leg work to make the US TZ fleet ops a success. Keep those Gal Mil systems vulnerable. Keep our systems stable or contested. For those keeping track, that’s twenty systems in six days, while Gal Mil has taken none.

6-23-13 - Hallanen, Hikkoken, and Immuri

6-25-13 - Mantenault, Arderonne, Reschard, Athounon, Aldranette, Odamia, and Pavanakka

6-26-13 - Murethand, Melmaniel, and Hevrice

6-27-13 - Alamel, Alsavoinon, Evaulon, and Renarelle

6-28-13 – Agoze, Muetralle, and Onatoh

Fly dangerous.