Recently Circle of Two has been waging war in the Perrigen Falls region of EvE.
On the evening of the 21st February 2015 the Circle of Two alliance formed up in a large 100+ man Ishtar fleet and got ready to attack a station and TCU belonging to the Absolution Alliance in 0-U2M4. Along with their large Ishtar fleet they also formed up a number of logistical and tackle support which meant the fleet on the field hit around 140 pilots for CO2. They also had a couple of capital ships on stand-by.
The Absolution Alliance who own the station are in a well known alliance with Legion of xXDEATHXx and Infinity Space. They formed up their fleet, which again consisted of a large force of Ishtars with both logistical and tackle support. In all their fleet totalled around 150 pilots.
Black Legion. who are currently hanging around in the Venal area, decided to make their way down to the fight as well as a third party and brought their Slippery Pete Tengu fleet, a group of strategic cruisers who rely on ECCM modules to make them incredibly difficult to scan and they then engage from long range with rail guns.
I managed to get hold of Da Winci, Alliance Co-CEO and Head Diplomat for Circle-Of-Two who answered my questions on the behalf of the entire CO2 Leadership team. He had this to say;
Mail Lite > What where the events leading up to this fight? I understand this was a final timer for the station and TCU. Can you give me any info about what happened on the previous timers etc?
Da Winci > As you mentioned, this was indeed the final timer for this system, but not the first time we had driven this system into an armor timer. We have been having some good fights with XIX and other entities over almost every important strategic timer. This time we managed to pull off a win
Mail Lite > What were your thoughts going into the fight? What were your counters and did you expect Legion of XXDXX to form for this timer?
Da Winci > We fully expected XIX to form. All hands on dick CTA’s are dead giveaways of that. As for counters, the current meta that we go up against is Ishtars. Knowing there will be bombers on field, we also decided to bring Ishtars.
Mail Lite > Black Legion. were in the fight, shooting both you and the Russians, what were your thoughts seeing them on the field as ‘3rd parties’
Da Winci > Everyone always expects BL to show up when there are kills to be had, for this fight it was no different. CO2 has a mindset and culture of fighting even when outnumbered, which you can see on battlereports from other timers we have turned up to. What did we think when we saw BL coming with petes? “2 to 1 odds aren’t the worst we’ve faced”. Content is content.
Mail Lite > Can you give me a rundown on the fight? who did what/where/when etc from your point of view.
> We bridged and jumped onto grid with station, dropped drones and started shooting station. Shortly after BL petes landed on a spot ~120km off us and started alphaing some Ishtars and logi. A minute or two later XIX warped to 0 on our dreads, bubbled, and started going to town. At this point, Elo Knight, I assume taking revenge on the Russians for headshotting him on another timer in Perrigan Falls, took out XIX’s FC. From there it was a matter of swapping blows back and forth while our dreads rushed down the station, and then the TCU. The station was flipped, TCU killed, and the surviving dreads docked up. Op success.
Mail Lite > Dropping caps was a ballsy move to secure the objective, who made that call and why?
Da Winci > That is all on our alliance CEO gigX and our Skymarshal Sebastien Saintfrusquin. After making sure everyone insured their dreads, it was worth gaining the strategic objective for the loss the capitals. It was a risk, knowing that XIX and BL together numbered above 300 pilots to our 145 odd before we even entered system, but the gamble paid off.
Mail Lite > Whats next for Circle-of-two? Are you planning to continue the push into Perrigen Falls?
Da Winci > I will pull the standard line of “OPSEC” here. Everyone will find out over the next weeks and months.
Mail Lite > Anything you would like to add?
Da Winci > I would like to thank all our hard working FC’s and all our members who keep showing up to enjoy the content that is being created here. Its not always easy, but it is always fun.
Circle-Of-Two decided that, instead of trying to win the ISK war and kill as many of their opponents as they could, the more important outcome would be the capture of the strategic objective, IE the station belonging to Absolution Alliance and the destruction of the TCU which would put the system into their hands.
Circle-Of-Two brought in around 25 dreads to try and burn down the TCU and Station as quickly as they could, knowing that they would have the full force of both xXDEATHXx, their friends and the Black Legion. forces bearing down on them. The CO2 Ishtar fleet tried to run as much interference as they could by chasing the Black Legion Tengu fleet off the grid once or twice.
The attacking forces lost 6 of their fielded dreadnoughts for a total of 24 billion ISK but managed to flip the station and dock before any further losses could be sustained.
Raknor Bile, of Black Legion. gave this statement regarding their involvement in the fight;
We went to the fight in 0-U just because it was a good opportunity to get a fight without facing 500 angry CFC, which has been the norm for us recently. Black Legion. went into the fight with plans to shoot everyone but we definitely shot CO2 a lot more than the Russians of xXDEATHXx and co. CO2 bringing dreads onto the field made it clear who to shoot when it came down to it, free cap kills are free cap kills.
The fight itself was pretty spread out, we warped around a little to try and get in the right positions etc. The only real highlight was killing two of our own guys for not aligning. They were told by our FC, Elo Knight, to align multiple times and didn’t. You really have to be on the ball with your spaceships.
Circle-Of-Two was pretty baller I guess, they dropped about 25 capitals which was probably a little overkill but over half survived and docked so it worked out for them. It was interesting to see that the capitals were tanked against explosive and em expecting the Ishtar’s from xXDEATHXx to be the only damage on the field.
Black Legion. have recently redeployed back to the Venal region of New Eden and have been taking towers which belong to CFC members like Razor and Circle-Of-Two. The CFC have been responding by making sure to use overwhelming numbers when expecting a fight with Black Legion.
All in all Circle-Of-Two came off worst in the ISK efficiency, with just 32% and a total loss of 45 billion ISK, half of this loss comes from their dreadnoughts. However this engagement has to go down as a win for the Circle-Of -Two forces, who managed to secure the strategic objectives and take the SOV away from Absolution Alliance.
The Legion of xXDEATHXx and their allies managed a 70% efficiency in the fight, losing just 20 billion ISK while Black Legion. came off the best with an efficiency of 97% and just 1.7 billion ISK lost which shows the strength of the Slippery Pete set up.
The full battle report can be found here.
The Black Legion. ISK lost figure may have been even better if they had not ‘commissar’d’ two of their own pilots, Naecuss and Pun1sh3r, for being really bad at internet space ship games. In future it might be worth noting that when Elo Knight says to align, it might be a good idea to do so. In related news Elo Knight, CEO of Black Legion and their primary FC, recently declared in an alliance meeting that he had got a grip on his anger management issues and would not be so angry during fleets.
**UPDATED** At the time of posting I had not received any official word from Legion of xXDEATHXx, however late last night I managed to get hold of UAxDEATH, CEO and Founder of The xDEATHx Squadron and he had this to say about the fight;
Mail Lite > Can you run through what led up to the fight, the TCU and Station were in final timers so other timers must of been contested. Can you tell me about that?
UAxDEATH > C02 bitter to take a revange on a loss of they titan. Plus they are using a back up help from BL and CFC when it needs to be. Deployment of FCon right next to Geminate
Mail Lite > Can you tell me about your form up, fleet comp and what your sources were reporting about CO2 and their form up etc?
UAxDEATH > We had 140 Ishtars fleet, +20 bobmers, +6 Capitals in dock.
Mail Lite > Was the appearance of Black Legion. (and the bomber wing from Confederate) a surprise and did it change what you were planning to do? And if so in what way?
UAxDEATH > It wasnt a suprise, but was a suprise that people who claim to be fighting CFC and every possible oportunity – stood up with CFC to fight against us.
Mail Lite > Can you tell me in your own words what happened during the fight? What went well? What Didn’t?
UAxDEATH > We got outblobled, only good thing that we participated in killing CO2 dreads.
Mail Lite > Were you surprised to see CO2 commit capitals to the field while facing similar if not slightly more pilots against them?
UAxDEATH > No were not, since it was obvios that BL is working with CO2
Mail Lite > CO2 managed to capture the objective, taking down the TCU and flipping the tower, do you forsee trying to take the station and system back at some point?
UAxDEATH > We will fight for it. When and how I don’t know.
Mail Lite > Anything else you would like to say?
UAxDEATH > Its not over.
A full and frank expression of views from UAxDEATH.
**END OF UPDATE**
What will Circle-Of-Two do next, will they continue their push into the Perrigen Falls region? Will they continue the attack on the Absolution Alliance SOV. In my opinion they should continue their offensive, Legion of xXDEATHXx have just had to defend Geminate as part of GemCo against SOLAR FLEET and their allies, which puts them at a disadvantage as they haven’t had time to redeploy or rearm since then.
Legion of xXDEATHXx however might be looking to take some early losses at the moment so that they can take a small breather and get their pilots back up to the new front lines against CO2. If this is the case we should see them trying to push back against the CO2 advance in the coming weeks.
As for Black Legion. they have been reasonably quiet the last couple of weeks and the general consesus same to be that they are preparing for a big push of some sort in the coming weeks and that, when it happens, it will happen quickly.
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.
