As explained at the bottom of this post the Wyvern, piloted by Jaguar Warrior of Northern Coalition. [NC], was part of this event and was killed on Sunday 24th February by a primarily Brave Collective [BRAVE] force.
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I caught up with the Knerf, the pilot of the super and host of the event to determine how it happened and how the event progressed. He did state that the below interview is simply a battle report and that he hopes to provide a full in-perspective back-story in regards to the actual event when he has more time.
Knerf: We dropped the Wyvern on the Sakht station a little after 20:00 were nobody was waiting for it on arrival so the journey started. Where I think 2 jumps towards Gehi we ran into the 20 Cormorants who started off the party.
Knerf: Shortly after a 50 man Ishtar gang was reported entering Aridia at that time and once we got into pout the Ishtar gang was set up on the in gate and successfully managed to destroy my booster. As my support fleet of lokis was not far behind me as I jumped in I began smartbombing drones as hostile’s sat 60km off gate engaging me.
Knerf: The support fleet came in and the brawl began and the Wyvern stayed on field for a few minutes but I didn’t really need to be there so I took the longer route to Fanathor. When I began to align off the gate in fanathor the additional Darkness support fleet reported a 200man eagle fleet on route so I stayed in fanathor while the sub caps duked it out.
Knerf: Honestly the defense fleet was much too strong for what showed up to kill the Wyvern but I don’t know much about that brawl because I was next door. From what I understand the goon Ishtar FC was tackled and held on the field so he ejected and ran home with his fleet. The eagles were also destroyed quickly and with all opposition FC’s killed I decided it would be better for the event to continue the trip solo so the NCDOT and Darkness/Kadeshi support fleets went home while the Wyvern continued to Gehi.
Knerf: On route to Gehi I was followed and harassed by 40 ish bombers but nobody brought a HIC so I sat on the Gehi station for about 10 minutes (which was meant to be my final destination) and then decided to take the long trip to catch were the bombers followed me most of the way with a few falling off after getting bored.
Knerf: Upon entering catch in 4-0 I was tackled and held on the gate by an Of Sound Mind frigate gang of about 50. However, Vince had reformed for the timer of the 3GD6-8 IHUB by complete coincidence and came through clearing tackle for me. As Vince went ahead of the Wyvern only looking for a sub fight with Brave Newbies at the timer.
Knerf: I made it to GE-8JV nearly unhindered but was bubbled badly in GE- itself but thankfully with smartbombs and my nuet I slowboated to the gate and joined the raging fight in 3GD. Once on the in gate of 3GD word spread fast to BNI that a lone Wyvern had entered system and was on the gate causing nearly 500 hostiles to land and go to work. I basically re-approached the gate while BNI ripped into me and PL/NCDOT picked off the brave newbies from perches and at about 50% shields the HICs lost point for unknown reasons.
Knerf: I jumped into YHN and sat off gate in a blob of bubbles smartbombing anything close as my EHP slowly disappeared there was GFs in local as I got final blow on 70 kills. I want to thank BNI for always bringing the fight and Darkness/Kadeshi forming with us, I did hear that Amera Khan who won the 1 billion ISK had no idea why. Thanks also to Pittsburgh2989 for coming to fight from FA and also to the eagle fleet (who unfortunately I don’t know who led it).
The final kill-mail for the Wyvern is here:
Click for killmail
It appears that the event, even though advertised and posted prior to the date, did not acquire the attention hoped. This could be due to an ongoing conflict which attracted more attention on that particular evening, namely the i-hub timer for the 3GD6-8 system. However, it could also be that the particular location that was chosen to host the event, as the majority of large low-sec groups are not focused this area of space.
For the purpose of determining [BRAVE]’s perspective I contacted Tiberius StarGazer for their side of events as explained below.
Tiberius StarGazer : We were all busy fighting in 3DG against PL and their TFI’s when NC T3’s entered system. At the point where we were forced off field by Goon bomber wings Blue warped us to the gate were the Wyvern had jumped in so we started primarying it.
Tiberius StarGazer : We had only one HIC who infinite pointed it and dics began launching defensive bubbles to stop any of the other fleets warping in too close.
Tiberius StarGazer : PL ended up warping in at about 160km with their Triage Archons about 90km behind them which allowed us to keep hitting the super. The main problem was the super and the HIC were within 150km of the TFI’s so despite having all the logi on it the HIC was eventually going to die so the infinite point dropped and the super jumped through.
Tiberius StarGazer : We followed it to the other side while scrambling more reinforcements and thankfully as our HIC had died to the TFI’s we managed to scramble 2 more and one of them kept pointed while being neuted out, and when that one ran dry they switched to the other one as in the mean time, our dictor pilots were busy bubbling the other side of the gate to try and keep other people from jumping through.
Tiberius StarGazer : Eventually due to it being trapped off gate it eventually ended up falling from our damage. We knew the event was taking place but as we were busy with 3DG we didn’t expect it to enter system and be a target we could hope to engage.
Tiberius provided me with a link to the following image which was viewable on this reddit thread along with the final battle report for the fight in 3DG found here.
Click for image
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The battle which Knerf provided specific mention of above took place in the system of Pout and was the only system along the route where different parties involved engaged with one another head on.
The engagement in Pout had 4 main parties involved. The support fleet for the Wyvern itself with [NC] alongside that of allies in DARKNESS [DARK.] / The Kadeshi [THOR] against a Fatal Ascension [-FA-] gang and a 3rd party led by Spectre Fleet. The fleet compositions brought were; a T3 Loki and Legion gang by [NC] and allies with [-FA-] bringing Ishtars and Spectre fleet in Eagles.
It began when the Wyvern entered the system of Rafeme and aligned to the Pout gate, as the entered warped the Ishtars entered system so the support fleet from [NC] moved to assist. As the Wyvern landed at 10 off the gate and the Ishtars landed at 0 the Wyvern prepared to be engaged but shortly after they jumped through into Pout. At this point the Wyvern called his booster into system prior to jumping through which caused in it’s demise on jump in thanks to TIDI.
Click for Killmail
Shortly after the Wyvern entered the system with the Ishtars at range and drones deployed on gate so began smart bombing to clear them off field as the [NC] Loki gang arrived. At this point a game of positioning began, as the Ishtars attempted to stay out of range of the Lokis’ whilst the Lokis’ used pings and combat probes to land at 0.
Once this occurred and they were able to land at close range the call was made to hold and point, but not kill the Ishtar fleets FC FC Pittsburgh2989. Due to the close proximity of the Lokis’ on the Ishtar fleet they started to warp off leaving Pittsburgh2989 to be tackled. The Lokis’ held point for a while hoping that the Ishtars would return to save him. Unfortunately as they had no one able to rally the fleet in his stead he ejected from the vessel and left the field returning with his fleet back home.
However, it has been the case for a long time that even if you eject from your ship the kill-mail is still generated, provided that the ship is destroyed and not stolen.
Click for Killmail
Meanwhile, as this was taking place a local spike occurred with approximately 100 unknown pilots entering system. These shortly arrived on grid in a fleet consisting of Eagles and Moas’ and even though the majority were unsure who they were they still readily joined the fight. Unfortunately for them, not long after they arrived the [DARK.] and [THOR] gang also entered system, causing the Eagle and Moa fleet to have to deal with over 300 pilots alone. However thanks to time dilation they were still able to acquire some kills from the [DARK.] and [THOR] fleet.
With an example shown here:
Click for Killmail
Douglas Aurelius, the FC for the spectre fleet, was contacted and had the following to say about his version of events:
I heard about the event the night before and figured we’d give it a serious go. With it being in lowsec we decided to bring the most viable fleet which gave us the best chance of surviving and engaging. Due to the draw of the Wyvern kill we had alot larger fleet than expected with 200 in total. As I was the only spectre fleet FC on with any experience in leading such large fleets I took the lead but unfortunately had no back up anchors or FCs I could ultimately rely on.
I hoped to setup the fleet in front of the Wyvern so we could be ready to engage it but once we heard that FA was already fighting the [NC] fleet I decided it was likely that they would focus fire on them so we could make something happen between us. We warped in to a scout in system thinking that we would be correctly positioned but for whatever reason we landed with the Loki fleet on top of us.
We began engaging but I got hard tackled by a multitude of proteus, lokis and even White Aero’s Impel! which rendered me useless as an anchor so I told the fleet to align sun whilst we tried to setup someone to take my place who unfortunately was killed shortly after. After failing to break the [NC] fleet we focussed on the [DARK.] fleet as due to their amarr ships we could apply more damage. However, we only managed to down a few ships before our fleet was basically lost and I decided to warp off and extract those we could.
When we arrived home we discovered that the Wyvern was headed to the system in Cache for the [BRAVE] timer so decided to follow with stealth bombers to inflict what damage we could which ultimately allowed us to at least whore on the mail.
I think ultimately the reason we died so quickly is shortly after we landed the Ishtar fleet bailed so we ended up being their primary targets. I would like to thank all of those who attended and hope to improve things for the next event by developing more FCs who could take on the role for anchor and such if required.
Once this brawl finished the call was made for the [NC] and [DARK.]/[THOR] fleets to head home and prepare for the 3DG final i-hub timer as mentioned by Tiberius above.
The kill-board battle report can be found here with the evf modified report found here.
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This fight clearly did not create such a large scale engagement with multiple entities turning up as expected. The reasons behind this are likely hard to clarify but one could presume that the 3DG timer certainly was a large event which could have altered possible fleet plans for the engagement. Alongside that if you take into account the simple location of the event, which wasn’t in a largely populated area of low-sec you can maybe see why the event didn’t go quite as expected.. One final thing to note is due to the original system plan being based in lowsec it did prevent the use of constant bubbles to slow down and trap the Wyvern as it progressed.
The question is. Would you want to see something similar in the future? Or do you think that it is all a trap and a method to farm kills by the larger entities? Let us know in the comments below.
[If you have any comments or intel you would like to provide please contact me at [email protected] or via an in-game mail]
