On the 19th October 2014 a propaganda video was released by Yulai Federation, one of the main members of Provibloc.
HERO Coalition and Provibloc (which includes The Volition Cult, Curatores Veritatis Alliance and Silent Infinity as well as Yulai Federation amongst others) had a deal that, while they would be set as hostile to each other (HERO and PROVI) and shoot each other for content on their respective borders, HERO would not try and encroach on the Proviboc border systems like 7MD-S1 all the way up to the 9UY4-H (the ERVK pipe) and in return Provi would not interfere with the HERO SOV in the Catch Region.
However, very soon a rift started to form between the two entities. According to ProviBloc, HERO did not respect the above deal and started to attack Provis’ outlying systems with the help of Northern Coalition. and several other alliances. However HERO maintain that ProviBloc broke the deal first by attacking a SOV grinding fleet in Catch. Whoever broke the deal, it kicked of a war between ProviBloc and HERO that has raged since August 2014.
At the Beginning of the war the Provibloc CTA fleets were bringing around 80 – 90 pilots per fleet and ProviBloc were quickly pushed back, losing 7MD-S1 on the 14th August 2014, UL-7I8 on the 21st August 2014 and S25C-K on the 28th August 2014 to the larger HERO forces.
Then between September and October a reorganisation in ProviBloc helped bring the fleet numbers back up and CTA’s started going better for Provi. Provi have seen a recent increase in fleet numbers and are now able to field large 100 man Ishtar fleets with 30 Scimitar Logistic cruisers in support and have also switched from their favored Prophecy fleets to a more interesting Tengu based fleet.
With the recent upswing in numbers for ProviBloc the systems captured by HERO started to revert back to Provi hands starting with S25C-K on the 12th October. Provi fielded a large 70 man Tengu fleet with battlecruiser support wing and Scimitar Logistics and with this fleet they managed to hold of a HERO Eagle and Ishtar fleet and recapture the system. Provi then continued retaking their lost border systems with 7MD-S1 being recaptured on the 18th and UL-7I8 on the 19th of October.
Evictus were chosen to take control of both 7MD-S1 and S25C-K making these the first SOV systems that they have owned as part of ProviBloc.
Since the recapture of the border systems and HERO now realising they have awoken a sleeping giant in Provi Bloc, one that seemed to be on a roll of taking systems and winning fights, HERO have tried to go back to the original deal and back to small roaming gangs through the border systems and ignoring the Catch border systems SOV. However it seems that ProviBlock might be resistant to that idea.
Indeed in the video, Corebloodbrothers declared that the war on HERO would never end and that ProviBloc would continue to fight as they have been having some of the best content of their lives. He also promises that if HERO try to take Catch, Provi will fight on month on month with constant roaming fleets into HERO space.
HERO also released a video on the 19th October 2014, and while it was a very well done video with great cinematics it had no actual content.
HERO have yet to officially comment on the video although a number of their members have been on the Reddit and, while some have congratulated Provi and said that they (HERO) relish thee fights with Provi, some are saying that the video was very inaccurate and painted HERO in a very bad light.
With Phoebe round the corner one must ask how these changes are going to effect the HERO and ProviBloc entities. In my opinion I believe that out of all the larger coalitions, ProviBloc and HERO are the ones that Phoebe will effect the least. The reason for this, I personally believe is that both coalition’s favour subcaps over capitals, preferring to roam their own or connecting space for fights.
Also both groups are very single region centric. ProviBloc, as their name suggests are concentrated centrally in the Providence region and also have a couple of systems in Catch for logistical and security reasons. HERO again focus most of their effort in just one area, that of the Catch region, stationing themselves right in the middle of their conquered SOV in GE-8JV. This will make defending their own space easier post Phoebe and protect themselves against ‘jump fatigue’ timers by not having to cross regional space for SOV timers. This is in contrast with a group like CFC or N3 who own space in at least a dozen or so separate regions of space, making defending their whole empires very difficult, unless they can come up with some kind of answer as to how to project their formidable forces post Phoebe.
One idea would be to leave a cache of ships in strategic places across their space along with a jump clone, this will then make them able to respond from one end of space to another at a click of a button, however it will then lock them in the new clone for 24 hours. This would cause difficulty for the large alliances if they have timers in different regions of their space within hours of each other. Getting attacked on multiple fronts will either necessitate strategic division of forces or the acceptance of a lost timer for each defended timer. You will then also have to make sure certain FC’s are available in each region.
Another idea, which CFC may have already chosen, is to shrink their space and let certain systems or even regions be taken by other entities. That way you don’t have to spread your forces to thinly post Phoebe, when defending large amounts of space will become difficult.
The evidence that this may be the route CFC are taking, is that they seemingly abandoned the station system of A2-V27 in the southern region of Querious. If this is the case then CFC have decided that they need to concentrate their efforts in the north where Nulli Secunda and other alliances that are part of N3 along with their allies Black Legion have been hitting targets for around a month now.
ProviBloc have released a great propaganda video and promised to continue the fight. HERO don’t seem to be backing down and look set to continue the hard slog to become a major player in the post Phoebe SOV map.
CFC are thinking long term, planning on concentrating on more important space and cutting out the dead weight that they don’t want to waste time on defending and probably won’t be feasible to defend, post Phoebe.
N3/BL are still attacking CFC in the North with NC. attacking from the south, although NC. are also available to help in the north when the going gets tough. This can be seen with them involved in the fight in F7C-H0 in the northern region of Cloud Ring on the 19th October and taking a the A2-V27 station system in southern Querious region just over 30 hours later.
At the moment the NC. forces can get from F7C to A2- in just 3 jumps at JDC 5 for a total of just over 34 LY travelled and this probably takes them around 20 minutes, assuming all the cyno’s are in place. After Phoebe and the introduction of the 5LY limit and jump cooldown/fatigue that sort of journey is going to be a lot longer and difficult to pull off. It will also make their fleets vulnerable if they decide to move using the star gates, though this will affect everyone, not just NC..
How N3/Bl are preparing for Phoebe is anyones guess as it seems to be business as usual for them at the moment. I’m sure plans and strategies are in the works and we will wait with baited breathe for the landing of Phoebe to see what the new SOV map will look like.
If you have anything that you think should be reported on EN24, please contact me at @mail_lite on Twitter, email at [email protected] or EvE Mail me in game.
