Last weekend NCDOT, Darkness. and Kadeshi pulled back into defensive positions. The excursions into Fountain have stopped on a large scale, and the CFC can now legitimately claim to have successfully defended their borders both in the North and the South.
The Darkness and Kadeshi forces moved into their new home, 1-SMEB, with jump bridge access to Fountain border if needed. They can also sit on top of NPC Delve space to keep that space well patrolled. NCDOT has moved back to their former post in Querious (F2YO-X) which puts them in easier range to defend the region from the CFC “Reavers”, a fleet style dedicated attacking infrastructure.
In their bid to help HERO Black Legion. left the North, and Triumvirate and allies can only burn the villages outside the walls. The CFC are repairing damage left behind in the south while putting out small fires in the north.
If this was a war, the CFC won. If these “pokes” at CFC sov were just for fun, the CFC won that too. By any definition, the CFC accomplished their goals. Serious N3 pilots aren’t making excuses. They have returned to their barracks and are quietly cleaning and sharpening their weapons.
The Delve Fountain conflict ended for NCDOT, because the oxygen in the room was sucked up by Hero Coalition vs. Pandemic Legion (PL), in Catch. Both Black Legion. and NCDOT are getting involved on opposite sides: Black Legion helping Hero, and NCDOT as repair logistics to PL.
Interestingly enough, The Kadeshi; a close NCDOT ally threw in, attacking Pandemic Legion in retaliation for a previous attack they suffered at the hands of PL. [see article, The Kadeshi Ravaged by PL and Lazerhawks]. NCDOT is forced into repair-only ops when two allies fight each other.
Pandemic Legion has only one ally, NCDOT, and PL would tell you that’s how they like it; lots of targets for them. However, where PL is the spear, NCDOT is the shield. This arrangement has caused grumbling for some FC’s in NCDOT as it forces their pilots to travel far to repair ships at great risk while they travel through gates. Pandemic Legion’s FC Elise Randolph, scuttled by with a “You owe us man, you owe us,” in PL and NCDOT mixed comm channels, to brush aside hard feelings during the titanic battle in HED-GP [see article HED-GP Explodes: Ragnarok Down], where PL had lost a titan and was stuck fighting off hundreds of enemy pilots.
NCDOT’s obligations to PL in Catch, Reaver attacks on Querious, and attacks on high income (R64) moons in Stain and Esoteria, have pulled NCDOT away from the Fountain border. Their interest in targets there is over. Lead FC, Vince Draken denies it was ever intended as an invasion:
“While I was also away doing other things I gave FCs permission to poke at Fountain (mainly the Y-2 area) looking for some content. Somehow – I guess Phoebe is to blame – we ended up with a station in Fountain which if I’m totally honest was a bit of surprise as I expected the CFC to hit y’all with the hammer as soon as it started.
However, as with every major patch, they take a lot longer to get organised with their size and once they done that they pretty much put us in the dumpster! For whatever reason I missed the part where we claimed we were actually “invading” Fountain but whatever. If anyone actually finds any post or TS recording for that it would be great listen or read (you won’t find one). As always, the CFC requires a narrative to get a good response from their people. I guess “we are being invaded” is a pretty good starting point to make sure it was no longer fun for us.”
Eventually, the CFC did hit like a hammer, mounting a convincing defense of Fountain. This meant any commitment to that front, by NCDOT, would have to be nothing less than a full commitment. Additionally, Vince didn’t like what he saw as far as fleet doctrines and probably dwindled participation for routine structure ops. He announced some changes and then offered, “There will be more to follow in the coming months – watch this space.”
The psychological warfare waged by The Mittani on his news site “TMC” had an effect. The Mittani questioned Vince Draken’s commitment to the game when Vince merged his corp Doom, the long-standing lead corp in NCDOT, into the former Atlas corp, Burning Napalm. Vince seemed to respond to The Mittani, in an Alliance update, explaining his absence and then emphatically stating “NC. isn’t going anywhere, I’m not going anywhere… I want everyone to remember this.”
The CFC joke that the Reavers aren’t real, they are ghosts, but the missions in Querious had a real impact on NCDOT’s participation levels. The Reavers are stationed in high-sec space, Badivefi, Khanid region. The Concord protected system cannot be blockaded by NCDOT, thus allowing the CFC to stage a stronghold a mere three jumps from Querious. NCDOT, nor local renters in the area, gate camped the “pipe” to discourage the attacks. With the CFC having a lot of pilots ready in Khanid, that may not have worked anyway.
Instead, NCDOT took a small effort, high yield approach, and secretly sent four unsupported Supercarriers to reverse any gains made by the Reavers. The super-carriers were baited, trapped and destroyed. These loses were overlooked by NCDOT because they happened at the same time as other supercapitals were saving PL’s titans in HED-GP.
The Mittani pushed back on allegations that he spins the war narrative by sarcastically saying,
“People will say we’re spinning or what have you,…just like when we are talking about the NCDOT invasion of Fountain. It’s like, spinning, spinning, spinning, and like, Aw! Well! You lost all your fleets. The invasion didn’t happen. We still have all the sov. You just dragged your ass back from Delve to your previous staging system… And it’s all us spinning?” – The Mittani.
The Northern front that Black Legion opened in Venal is largely closed now. Black Legion. has moved to the Derelik regional border system with Curse: Sendaya. This gives them proximity to the fights in Catch between Hero and PL.
The Mittani offers,
“Ah Black Legion has run away from Venal to Curse… to try to whore easy kills in Catch. They’re going to try to suck up as hard as they possibly can to Brave. Black Legion hates Pandemic Legion because they want to fight for the crown of elite PVP, ‘cause PL is better at it than they are, basically.”
From Black Legion’s perspective, they did what they set out to do in Venal; capturing the lucrative moons for exploitation of resources). The CFC was not showing enough interest in fights so they moved to menace, rival, Pandemic Legion in the south. Black Legion.’s proximity to the Brave Newbies (Brave Collective), of the Hero coalition, has got to trouble Pandemic Legion. Brave numbers have nearly reached 15,000 pilots, and although most are very new to the game, they can be trained to tackle effectively, and sensor dampen large capital fleets. Brave, alone is not able to bring down PL super capitals, but they can hold them while Black Legion. wrecks the trapped ships.
The last problem area for the CFC is in Vale of the Silent. The CFC is effectively handling Triumvirate, overwhelming them with numbers of pilots. Although, even when grossly outnumbered (355 to 172), Triumvirate can make a good showing, taking a 30 billion ISK bite out of the CFC [battle stat, TVN-FM].
Even so, without other obligations, the CFC can bring 300-500, or more, pilots, night after night. Should they need to, they can drop a capital fleet, at will, without much hesitation since no other credible capital fleet is nearby, more than Triumvirate and allies can withstand.
CFC has emerged from the Phoebe changes intact, and on solid footing. Head FC, Laztel takes it further, “The CFC is the strongest group in EVE, period.” The Mittani later adds, “It’s gonna be kind of interesting because… We’re going to get a chance to actually go on the offensive.”
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