DY-F70 system, Cloud Ring. In the early hours of the 4th of July, forces belonging to Pandemic Legion [-10.0] clashed with those of the Imperium, in a fight over a station’s reinforcement timer.
Cloud Ring has recently seen great upheaval, after the Imperium announced its withdrawal from the region as part of its plans to solidify its holdings in anticipation for the new sovereignty mechanic changes. I Whip My Slaves Back and Forth [J4LP] was given the region to hold, but was soon invaded by a coalition of alliances from around the Syndicate and nearby Low Security space, aptly named IronBoard Coalition (From here on referred to as IBC). This forced Imperium member alliances such as SpaceMonkey’s Alliance [SMA] to intervene in the war on [J4LP]’s behalf.
The clashes in the region attracted the attention of WAFFLES. [N0MAD] which deployed to the area. Using the ensuing chaos, [N0MAD] were able to seize a few systems and a station in Cloud Ring, which Imperium forces did not approve of at all. The systems were quickly besieged, including that of B-DBYQ, and the station located there was put into reinforced mode by Imperium forces.
On the 4th of July the first timer was set to expire, and [N0MAD] forces were ready for the Imperium, with a 40 pilot Ishtar Heavy Assault Cruiser fleet. Since [N0MAD] is a feeder alliance for [-10.0], its parent alliance was called in to give support, utilizing the Wormhole highways to bring a 90 pilot Proteus Strategic Cruiser fleet. Pandemic Horde [REKTD], the newbie friendly alliance of [-10.0] brought a support fleet of 60 Frigates, mainly sensor dampening Maulus, to do its part in the defense of the station.
Against them, the Imperium arrayed two fleets of their own, a 90 pilot Ishtar fleet and a 60 pilot Ferox Battlecruiser fleet.
The fighting was split between the B-DBYQ system, where the [-10.0] Proteus and the Imperium Ishtar fleets played tag for a while as the Ferox and [N0MAD] fleets engaged next door in the DY-F70 system. In the end both Proteus and Ishtar fleets moved to DY-F70 where all five fleets clashed on the B-DBYQ gate.
At first the [-10.0] forces suffered some losses due to their Logistics anchor drifting out of range, losing both their Fleet Commander and a few ships before stabilizing and finally landing on the Ferox fleet and annihilating it. At the same time, the [N0MAD] fleet was losing Ishtars at an alarming rate and forced to disengage. They did however, drop Dreadnoughts next door to remove the Sovereignty Blockade Units in B-DBYQ.
With the Ferox fleet broken, attention was given to the Ishtar fleet that kept alluding the [-10.0] forces. E-war was heavy on both sides, with [REKTD] attempting to cancel the effect of the enemy support. However losing their Fleet Commander during the fight, the [REKTD] fleet quickly crumbled, leaving [-10.0] to face the Ishtars head on.
The cat and mouse game continued for a while, [-10.0] losing a few Logistics ships due to the prevalence of sensor dampeners. In the end, the [-10.0] fleet had to extract, as it had another timer to attend to later on. This meant [N0MAD] had to extract its Dreadnoughts before taking down the other Sovereignty Blockade Unit, which kept the system contested and allowed the Imperium to push the station into its second reinforcement timer.
This marked the end of large scale hostilities in the region for the night.
Battle report for the B-DBYQ and DY-F70 systems can be found here.
The battle saw around 400 pilots in the DY-F70 system, with Time Dilation not reported as a major issue in the fighting. From start to end, the entire engagement took nearly an hour.
[-10.0] and its allies lost the majority of ISK, 7.92 Bil in 60 ships including 2 Strategic Cruisers and 15 Ishtars. The Imperium lost only 4.7 Bil ISK in 65 ships including 22 Ferox Battlecruisers.
While Imperium forces won the timer, both [N0MAD] and [-10.0] forces have no real interest in the region beside provoking fights, thus losing the timer is not viewed as a true strategic loss, but rather just a tactical defeat.
As the situation in Cloud Ring continues to deteriorate, more fighting is expected to occur as the region is turn apart between the different groups. [-10.0] are expected to interfere as usual in the fighting, especially considering their feeder alliance is taking part in the mayhem.
The [-10.0] Fleet Commander wished to comment on CCP Games’ recent announcement of upcoming changes to Wormholes, rumored to cripple the ability to move large fleets through them:
This kind of fight was fun for both sides. If PL hadnt arrived, it would have been a massacre for Waffles and Horde, which regardless of what SMA says wouldnt have been half as fun for either side as the fight itself was. Now CCP Is nerfing literally the only way to get fights like this in a severely underpopulated EVE, where you cant turn to your neigbour for content. Most of us play this game for the big multi-alliance fights of 500+ people
Whether he is right or not, there is no denying such fights would not have occurred but for the usage of the Wormhole highways. You can discuss this in the comment section.
Salivan Harddin writes for The EVE Scribe, Providence Bloc’s News Portal. When he isn’t busy writing articles, he flies too close to the sun.
