UW-6MW system, Malpais region. On the 20th of April at 3:19 EVE Standard Time, Shadow Cartel [SHDWC] forces destroyed eight Rorqual industrial capital ships in the system.
The incident began with a small Shadow Cartel Cerberus heavy assault cruiser gang numbering 20 pilots looking to roam the drone regions. After locating a suitable wormhole to the Malpais region, the gang entered the area in pursuit of prey. In one system it found a small mining operation in progress but the pilots were alert and warped off before Shadow Cartel scouts could tackle anything. After a couple more failures, one of the scouts decided to check the UW-6MW system where data showed several super carriers were residing.
Upon entering the system ahead of the main force, the scout noticed eight Rorquals in an anomaly mining away. It took very little tinkering with the directional scanner to locate the precise site the ships were in and the interceptor warped in while informing the rest of the fleet. As interdictors hurried towards the system, the interceptor found the industrial capital ships mining the asteroid fields, immobilized by their industrial core cycles.
The next couple of minutes proved nerve wrecking as scout waited anxiously for the interdictors to arrive and secure the field. One of the Rorquals had finished its cycle and was prepared to warp off, forcing the interceptor to tackle it. Finally, the first interdictor arrived in the system and warped to the site. Once in, it started deploying warp disruption probes across the hostile ships. With the rest of the fleet pouring in and aiding in keeping the ships pinned down, call for reinforcements was broadcasted across alliance and allied channels as the fleet could not hope to break the tank of the capital ships on its own.
Titans were logged in to provide jump portals to lessen the travel time of the reinforcements as the route was shared with allies. More and more heavy assault cruisers flocked to the system, joined by an assortment of support ships and tackle. Even Pandemic Legion [-10.0] noticed the event and offered aid though by the time it was ready the ships had already been dispatched. The Rorquals themselves sought aid in their alliance of Shadow of xXDEATHXx [X.W.X] but found none. No relief force organized itself to extricate the tackled ships who were forced to languish for many minutes under the harassment of assault missiles.
Shadow Cartel forces and allies kept flooding the system and with the Rorquals firmly tackled without hope of escaping, the ships’ fate was sealed. Slowly, as more and more ships joined the fleet, the ponderous vessels were brought down with a constant missile barrage. Even so, the attackers made slow progress as each ship took considerable time to destroy due to its natural shield buffer. However the process was greatly sped after several of the Rorqual pilots saw no help in sight and decided to simply log off. With the pilots offline the ships cycled off all their active modules making them far more vulnerable to the missile fire.
After another missile bombardment, the last Rorqual exploded. This left the field at the hands of Shadow Cartel and allies uncontested. Enjoying the massacre committed, Shadow Cartel used its titans one last time to bridge haulers through to loot the wrecks. For a few minutes the fleet stripped the corpses of the Rorquals of everything of value before escorting its haul home, marking a successful and lucrative roam.
The Battle from the Perspective of Shadow Cartel Forces
Battle report for the UW-6MW system can be found here.
All told the battle lasted 35 minutes with Time Dilation not reported and the system hosting less than 100 pilots near the end.
Shadow of xXDEATHXx lost 9 ships, 8 of which were industrial capital ships for a total of 57.93 billion ISK.
Salivan Harddin is a member of Hoover Inc., Pandemic Legion, and covers battles across New Eden
