Three days ago on Tuesday November 18th, the leader of Goonswarm Federation, and it’s coalition of friendly alliances the CFC, released a widely-published CEO Update-slash-manifesto to his members. Breaking from his character, the usually suave and civil Mittani unleashed a torrent of personal attacks. Triumphant declarations and maniacal rhetoric in what many have described as a ‘career’ low; an emotional, cringe-worthy tirade fueled by, some say, a personal vendetta.
That vendetta is against Elo Knight, primary FC and tyrannical leader of Black Legion, an alliance who had until now been purposely downplayed in previous Goonswarm propaganda releases. Primarily referred to disparagingly as low-sec pubbies, NPC scrubs and Gurista roleplayers, this change of tone has not gone unnoticed in the Eve Community. Many believe that this public statement is an attempt by Goonswarm’s leadership to plug the CFC’s leaking morale as several regions have fallen post-Phoebe despite numerous assertations that the CFC would not lose space.
The content and message of Tuesday’s CEO update were simple: The Mittani declared in no uncertain terms that the time had come to purge Black Legion off the face of the map. Obliterate it entirely and drive it out of Venal. The problem? Venal, being a region with NPC sov, does not fall under the normal rules of player-owned null-sec sovereignty. There are no TCUs, iHubs or stations to reinforce, no assets to “hell zone” and no way to realistically pry inhabitants of NPC regions out of their space.
The only legitimate target to go after in such a scorched earth campaign is POSes — Player-Owned Stations anchored at moons, usually valuable moons such as R32s and R64s. For a sov-less, un-taxable alliance like Black Legion, POSes are one of the only sources of alliance-level income.
But this has already happened in the past. Venal, owing to Black Legion’s nomadic nature and affinity for deploying across the galaxy for weeks at an amount of time, is no stranger to the concept of hot potato moons. It is fairly normal for the moons of Venal to switch hands several times a year as Black Legion leaves Venal. Said moons are retaken by locals or the CFC, only for them to be reconquered by Black Legion when they inevitably return to their “ancestral home” .
Such a cycle began mere weeks ago when Black Legion deployed back to Venal on the eve of the release of the Phoebe expansion. As per what has become something of a tradition, Venal’s R64s started getting reinforced within days of their arrival and despite a handful of successful defenses, most were taken.
And it is these handful of moons — probably not much more than a quarter of the valuable moons in Venal — that has become the target of the CFC’s spontaneous antagonism.
The first “Day of Vengeance” was rather uneventful. During European peak timezone, Black Legion’s weakest, several hundred CFC players spent several hours reinforcing a number of POSes across Venal. But when it came time for US timezone’s appearance (which The Mittani declared would be the timezone responsible for “wiping Elo, his sycophants, and his eyebrows in the mud”) things seemed to sputter out. CFC turnout seemed low, and they failed to deploy against a waiting Black Legion fleet.
The second day however finally saw the two sides come to blows. With the backstory delivered above, this is now a battle report.
The engagement began after an hour-long form up by the CFC finally bridged into K3JR, Black Legion’s staging system, in a Tengu fleet. There they camped the station for the next half hour as BL counter-formed their own Tengu fleet and undocked. With BL’s fleet came capital support in the form of triage Chimeras, who would prove instrumental as the fight started.
As per usual CFC tactics, they targeted BL’s support ships: logistics, huginns and other ” force multipliers” . Black Legion instead went straight for the throat and began to primary CFC Tengus off the field. Triage reps held with only a handful of losses on BL’s side as more than a dozen CFC Tengus got destroyed.
Within minutes, however CFC backup arrived; a cyno went up, and began spewing Titans jumping straight from the CFC’s staging system. They managed to doomsday a Chimera off the field, forcing the BL fleet to disengage. Unfortunately, during this time the CFC Tengus had managed to maneuver around the field and engage BL’s logistics point-blank, leading to many dead Scimitars. Soon after, BL’s fleet docked.
For most, that would’ve been the end of it, but BL decided to give it another go. Unable to fight Tengu versus Tengu with inferior numbers and no capital support, the decision was made to switch into long-range sniping ships. These snipping ships were of course… Tengus, because as everyone knows, this is “Tengu Online” at this point. After a hazardous breakout from the intense camp on the station, the “Slippery Petes” , as they are affectionally called by Black Legion pilots, went about their business.
However; over the past year, Tengus ships have been used numerous times and configurations, and their vulnerabilities are now well-known, as such, they failed to achieve any meaningful results. The decision was made to go elsewhere, to try and draw the CFC out and hope for an opportunity to present itself.
Eventually, it did. After making their way to nearby Tribute, with the enemy fleet hot on their tails, the BL fleet engaged a large swarm of interceptors. Like something out of Space Invaders, fast, nimble little interceptors swarmed the 100-man strong Tengu fleet, managing to take down Elo Knight while losing around two dozens of their own before withdrawing. Pings went out across the CFC that Elo Knight had been killed.
Eventually, the CFC Tengu fleet arrived but with no interceptor fleet to tackle BL’s fleet, neither side could engage. Ultimately, however the CFC rounded up another interceptor swarm and returned. Again, the two clashed after the CFC Tengu fleet was too far to give support; again, Elo Knight was killed, but at the loss of another two dozen or so interceptors. Again, the CFC rejoiced, and again, Elo Knight reshipped into another Tengu.
The third time would prove to be the charm; after again losing the CFC Tengu fleet, Black Legion forces engaged the unsupported interceptors and again an exhilarating twenty seconds of extreme violence ensued.
This time however Elo Knight managed to survive the single-minded onslaught, though barely. Despite this, the interceptors — most of whom were in pods — got ahead of themselves and rejoiced in local at having achieved the “hat trick” of killing Elo three times.
They would reportedly spend the rest of the night dazed and confused as they received contradictory reports of Elo Knight’s untimely demise, even after Elo himself quickly posted a screenshot of his barely-alive Tengu with deep, deep armor damage.
Both sides limped home and docked up, both having suffered roughly equal, and relatively light, losses and both equally prepared to take to the field yet again.
Day 3 of The Mittani’s campaign of Vengeance awaits.
– Zverofaust
