Since the recent Eve patch, small conflicts have been peppering Eve’s landscape, but perhaps the largest of these “small” conflicts is the one that both Pandemic Legion and HERO coalition are embroiled in right now.
HERO Coalition, which has held Catch since their deployment to the region last spring, recently came under siege from the Legion which had seeded a large amount of capitals and supers in the vital Curse system of HLW right before the patch had hit. The system which is just five jumps out from Catch, has been the Legion’s main staging point while they perform frequent incursions into Catch, ostensibly for fights against the local residents. However last week saw the Legion’s attempt on HERO sovereignty, after shedding much of it’s former renter holdings under Brothers of Tangra to Shadow of xXDeathXx.
The flashpoint for this conflict has been the vital system of U-QVWD in the heart of Catch, situated right on the border with the Curse entry gate of 0SHT-A.
In the middle of last week, Pandemic Legion supers and subcaps reinforced the system with SBUs, and pinging the IHUB. HERO formed for the timer in their standard fleet of Eagles and Scimitars that have been the principle doctrine for their coalition (or at least for BRAVE), before moving over to the system to engage them.
The fight did not go well for the HERO forces, as Pandemic Legion brought in triage carriers to support their Foxcat doctrine and hold the field even thought their own logistics were quickly damped out by the HERO EWAR fleet. The fight was relatively even until about forty minutes in, at which point HERO started to hemorrhage ships as the PL Foxcats began to alpha through their forces, forcing a retreat from the field for the HERO fleet.
Pandemic Legion came in and ground the IHUB in the system down to it’s second stage and final timer. Battle report (not complete)
For the final IHUB timer, HERO formed up an impressive four hundred pilots to defend the system, filling an entire fleet with their new “Fatcat” doctrine, made up of Armageddons and Dominix with a mixture of kitchen sink Apocalypses and Megathrons. HERO made their initial travel gate by gate to U-Q, and set themselves up on the 0SHT-A gate just as Pandemic Legion entered system this time in a Rokh fleet with close to fifteen blap Dreads and Chimera support.
The fight for HERO was a harsh one, harassed by bombers from the PL feeder alliance WAFFLES. as well as third partied by the CFC bomber wing under Dabigredboat and the Nulli Secunda Ishtar fleet.
Despite the heavy tanks of the Fatcats, the blap dreads that Pandemic Legion had brought onto field shredded the HERO battleships after they MJD’d into the Legion’s Rokhs to try engage them at a range of their choice.
Battleships were traded for battleships between both sides, before the Legion was forced off the field after a CFC bombing run smashed a large section of their remaining Rokhs and clipping the ragged HERO battleship fleet.
The remaining HERO forces attempted to engage the PL capitals trapped on grid, getting clipped by another WAFFLES. bombing run that left HERO with only a few of their original damage dealing ships. HERO repositioned back on grid out of range of the blap dreads, and started to burn down a Moros dreadnaught before calling for a retreat as Pandemic Legion supers and slowcats started to log into HLW and prepared to jump into U-QVWD.
While the fight for was relatively even in U-Q, Pandemic Legion secured the strategic objective by killing the Infrastructure Hub and the Territorial Claim Unit owned by BRAVE before installing their own. They then moved next door to siege the B-3 IHUB, and pushed it into shield reinforce.
Pandemic Legion, claiming that this was for “good fights” then decided to reinforce the GE-8JV station, station services, jump bridge and more on Saturday evening when HERO refused to form for the B-3 timer and instead stood down.
Early Tuesday morning server time, HERO formed up a Fatcat doctrine fleet, supported by a TEST Ishtar fleet and a large contingent of Maulus/Celestis for EWAR.
Pandemic Legion formed up a sizable rail Tengu fleet with Chimera triage support. HERO initially engaged the Tengus upon jump in with Bouncer drones, not managing to break much with their mediocre damage due to the Tengu’s inherent strength against explosive damage and the triage reps on field.
Blue Ice, the HERO FC, chose to spiral the Dominixes and the Armageddons in closer to the enemy carriers to neut them out and gradually it started to work although HERO traded many ships for the opportunity to kill the carriers. The HERO forces managed to take them down successfully just before Pandemic Legion supers aligned to the V-3 gate.
HERO, electing to shoot the SBU to prevent PL from shooting the IHUB once more, sacrificed multiple dictors to bubble the Pandemic Legion supercapital fleet to keep them off the field. As dictors died and the SBU entered into low armor, a group of Heavy Interdiction Cruisers under the command of Naliao Vee from TEST warped in, bubbled up, and prevented the PL supers from contesting the SBU kill. This pushed the system back into a Contested state.
The HERO fleet, freshly victorious, mopped up what was left of the wrecks and went home for the evening.
At this present time, PL has made no further moves into Catch, and are still fighting HERO, but only time will tell if the longstanding Eve alliance will continue to make inroads into Catch or not.
