Recent fighting between Gentlemen’s.Club [GCLUB] and The Initiative. [INIT] in Immensea resulted in a capital escalation Sunday, with losses totaling a combined amount of 66.35 billion ISK. The two sides clashed over the final timer for the XS-K1O station.
As the timer approached, multiple fleets began moving into the area in anticipation of a big fight.
[INIT] formed a fleet of Machariel battleships with significant Celestis support, which included pilots from RAZOR Alliance [-RZR-] and other allies. Early Sunday morning, Test Alliance Please Ignore [TEST] was notified of the timer, and Sapporo Jones, leader of [TEST], pledged his support of the operation. [GCLUB] formed their own Machariel fleet under the command of Mister Toucher, fit (opposed to [INIT]’s autocannons, sensor dampeners, and scrams) with artillery. [TEST] and their allies in Rebel Alliance of New Eden [RANE] formed a fleet of Cerberi under the command of Trafalgar Raw and began moving to the fight, a journey which required the use of two jump bridges to arrive in time. As [TEST] was moving, a combined [CVA] and Stainwagon fleet arrived. After a tense stand off with those already on the field, [CVA] and Stainwagon left just prior to the engagement, as they had heard that [TEST] would be standing down.
The plan for [GCLUB]/[TEST] forces was for [GCLUB] to cyno in near a freindly POS and then initiate the fight at a gate. This would be the signal for [TEST] to jump in and engage. When [GCLUB] cyno’d in, however, [INIT] forces took the fight to them at the cyno, and [TEST] followed. [GCLUB] brought six triage carriers to support their fleet with logistics. To counter this, Initiative lit their own cyno on grid, and jumped in three dreadnoughts.
The escalation then continued and eventually, [GCLUB] fielded three dreadnoughts to Initiative’s 19. [GCLUB] and [TEST] immediately focused on Init’s dreadnoughts, and quickly melted seven of them before switching their focus to subcaps. Losing all six triage carriers in the process and all three of their dreadnoughts. At this point, the call was made to withdraw temporarily, and [GCLUB] retreated to the safety of the nearby POS, as [TEST] warped off grid. A call for more triage reinforcements was made, but the reinforcements were unable to arrive before the entosis process was completed, and the station lost.
In the end, [GCLUB]’s losses totaled 43.37 billion ISK to [INIT]’s 22.47 billion. A complete battle report can be found here.
