First off, I concede that there may be some inherent bias in this article as I am a member of Black Legion. This also gives me a more in-depth perspective of the alliance and its internal machinations, however.
Recently a Goonswarm Federation alliance update was released stating that Black Legion. are an insignificant alliance but the CFC would deploy their entire force to destroy them in vengeance. Black Legion. is by no means a large alliance. At just over 1500 members they are much smaller than any one of the CFC alliances alone, never mind the full bulk. However, they still seem to have a significant impact on the New Eden map. How can this diminutive alliance be such a threat to the CFC’s sensibilities? Lets take a look at the growth of the BL. alliance over the years and how they have evolved into the fighting force they are today.
This may not be common knowledge, but the current iteration of Black Legion. is only two and a half years old, approximately. In that time the alliance has made huge waves within New Eden, having been involved in many of the biggest events in the cluster. Black Legion. is run by Elo Knight, who is also the head FC of the alliance, along with several other leaders and FCs. The ‘main’ corporation in Black Legion. is Origin. which founded the alliance and is the current executor corporation. All of the other founding corporations of the alliance have since left, like Broski North and Mafia Redux to name a few.
Black Legion. have had many ups and downs: their biggest ‘up’ happened in 2013 when they snagged the first ever Revenant kill in New Eden, along with several other supers belonging to Pandemic Legion. This made not only Eve news, but also bigger ‘real world’ news outlets reported on the sheer value of a single in-game ship. Black Legion.’s biggest ‘down’ came in the same year, when Pandemic Legion baited out the majority of Black Legion.’s super capital fleet and destroyed them. Black Legion. lost thirty or so supers that day. This loss had significant negative effects on morale within the alliance. However Black Legion. did manage to gain a large, long term ally in Solar Fleet. They helped BL. raise the ISK required to help replace all of the super capitals lost that day.
During the Halloween War, Black Legion. was contracted to fight alongside the CFC. During the war Black Legion. operated in primarily an extra numbers capacity using the doctrine of ‘Slippery Petes’ – triple ECCM Tengus. This triple ECCM setup makes them almost impossible to probe and very difficult to tackle thanks to the interdiction nullifier subsystems the doctrine employs. They used these fits to engage at incredible 100km ranges, removing the need for logistics within the doctrine. During B-R, Black Legion. were able to jump their own titans and super capitals into the fight alongside their allies at the time. This joint operation between the CFC and Black Legion. gave each other an in-depth view of how the other operates as well as a glimmering of their internal affairs.
Black Legion. have always operated as mercenaries; they have been contracted by both the CFC as well as N3 over the years. This does not prevent them from shooting either side when not under contract, as Black Legion. attempt to keep their list of blues as short as possible preventing any kind of ‘blue donut.’ This position was proven when BL. reset the entirety of N3 after the Tartoken deployment had completed. This manner of operation allows for the building of friendships, although the idea that having friends equates to bluing half of the map is a joke. When a coalition of 30,000 pilots points fingers at an alliance of 1,500 pilots for having non-blue friends, then you know there is a a problem of delusion.
Black Legion. have gained and lost several large corporations in the last two years. A particularly bad period was when BL. lost Thorn Syndicate, Hoover Inc and Broski North all due to different leadership disagreements. Love Squad also departed, however not on bad terms as they looked to reform PIZZA. This year, Black Legion. have grown exponentially, gaining several large corporations, including Dixon Cox Butte Preservation Society,, a large and influential TEST corporation, as well as Rolled Out from Triumvirate. Prior to that the collapse of Insidious Empire lead to many of their member corporations joining Black Legion. This included Boob Heads and The Suicide Kings. Recently, the fall of The Unthinkables lead to many of their corporations applying to Black Legion. with no less than six INK corps moving to join Black Legion., raising the total number of corporations within the alliance to twenty, which stands in stark contrast to the low of nine total corporations Black Legion. circa 2013.
Black Legion. has always prided themselves in punching above their weight. This mentality drove them to actively campaign against both Pandemic Legion and the CFC in 2014. Black Legion. were contracted by N3 coalition to deploy to Tartoken, alongside Nulli Secunda and other N3 alliances. This deployment was an effort to distract the CFC forces while NC. and the rest of N3 pushed to take Delve and the surrounding regions. This deployment was a success both for N3 as well as Black Legion., both of whom saw a huge amount of ‘content’ created including the killing of two CFC titans, both in their staging systems. Following the announcement of the Phoebe patch and the success of their deployment, Black Legion. made the decision to deploy back to K3JR-J, their historic ‘homeland’ where they would continue to take on the CFC from within their own borders.
The decision is an interesting one, as choosing to deploy into the heart of CFC space at a time when moving around the map to find content was becoming much harder was very brave, considering that the CFC would look to Black Legion. for the own content. However the threat of a coalition with roughly a 30 to 1 ratio differential in membership did not deter Black Legion. and the deployment went off smoothly. The first week or two post-patch saw Black Legion. take several valuable R64 moons off Razor Alliance and Circle Of Two. The local CFC entities attempted to stop this. However, they found themselves unable to hold their assets even with the numerical superiority. It was at this point that the CFC realised that they would need to deploy the majority of their 30,000 members in order to stem the hemorrhaging of assets in the area.
In contrast to statements made by The Mittani, head of the CFC, who stated that Black Legion. were insignificant and that they did not pose a threat to the coalition, the CFC as of Saturday the 15th of November have deployed their entire titan and super capital force to the system of QPO-WI, in order to be in better range of Venal and of Black Legion. Once deployed, the Goonswarm Alliance update was released in which they stated they will attempt to “stomp out” Black Legion. and that they will seek vengeance, though what, precisely, they are seeking to avenge is unclear. It is a safe bet that it is a mixture of their lost assets and several embarrassingly-lost fights over the last few months. As of the 19th of October, the CFC have reinforced a few scattered towers and have lost two dreadnoughts in the process. Their first attempt at a ‘hell camp’ lasted for around two hours before they decided to leave system.
This region of space will be an interesting source of content as the CFC look to claim “vengeance” over Black Legion., while BL., in turn, look to serve the primary purpose of moving to Venal bring the fight to the CFC’s doorstep. Another potential source of content will be in Fountain as the N3 alliances in Delve realise that this would be the perfect opportunity to push on Fountain while the majority of the CFC are deployed defending their homeland. It will be interesting to see how the CFC manage this juggling act of defending their space on two fronts while coping with the constraints of the recent Phoebe patch.
Elo Kinght’s comment when asked for a statement;
Elo Knight: “we comin for that ass Mittani”
