The Most Dangerous System

Last night was another evening of non stop pvp between the Amarr and the Minmatar. I logged on just in time to help the Euro time zone take down a control bunker in Lamaa. Apparently, the Amarr came out in full force during the day to attempt to take Kourmonen, and the resulting pvp made the system one of the most dangerous in EVE according to the statistical star maps.

However, while day fleet kept the Amarr busy in Kourm, they were also taking over Lamaa one jump away. The little to no resistence that was met in Lamaa made many of the  Euros assume that the Amarr were unaware of the situation--until it was too late. The Amarr now own 13/70 systems.



Once the Euros logged off we had about five people remaining for USTZ. Our numbers have been a little stretched lately during the week, with a lot of our pilots finishing up the the semester at school and other real life priorities.

With nearly a dozen wartargets in Kourm still attempting to take the system, the few active members we had decided to try a small remote-repair battleship gang to counter their numbers. (I jumped into an armor cane, not having a RR BS.)

While a good idea in theory, it went horribly wrong. The FC, forgetting that the battleships could not enter a restricter Major, (and the rest of us being somewhat plex dumb) was planning to engage within a major plex. Only when we warped the fleet to the gate did he realize that it would be impossible, and immediately called for us to get off the acceleration gate to reform a different plan.

While most of us were warping out, the Amarr gang with 10-12 pilots were warping in. They had a mixture of ECM, cruisers, and battlecruisers and one of Tempests was caught. Upon landing, we all immediately tried to warp back to save the Tempest, but he was dead before we arrived. Since the rest of us had warped in from different locations, we were in various locations around the gate--too spread out to make use of the remaing RR. We decided we might as well go down fighting, so primaries were called and we managed to kill a couple of them before dying to the last man.

After some prodding in various channels about what was going on, we managed to get some more numbers. Our next engagement started out a disaster, as much of our fleet was permajammed by 3-4 blackbirds the Amarr had set up on field. Coms were extremely unorganized and for most of the fight we didn't even have a target caller. Most targets were decided but some random pilot saying, "uhh let's kill xyz next..." and etc.

Surprisingly, we still managed to drive the Amarr out of the plex. A few guys managed to chase off some of the blackbirds, and when they came back into the plex we killed them as they landed. We were quite surprised we didn't all die in an epic puddle of fail, due to how unorganized we were and how much ECM the Amarr had in the beginning.

The Amarr then set up in a medium plex with five blackbirds scattered in various angles at range. Since we would be arriving at zero to their fleet and at range to their BB, countering with ECM of our own was out of the question. They'd die before they could even get set up on field. The FC and several others in fleet discussed other ways we could counter in this plex, and it was decided that we would have to conceded the plex and wait for the next one to open.

As soon as the new Major plex was on scan, we were undocking and warping to it in our battlecruisers and cruisers. We also managed to get some Guardian support from SP-DR, a Minmatar corporation a few jumps away that had a few guys online.

The Amarr arrived shortly after we entered the plex and the largest engagement of the evening began, with 25-30 pilots on either side. The Amarr soon realized that they wouldn't be able to punch through our guardians, (they didn't have time to set up ECM this time) and eventually conceded the plex, but not without taking heavy losses.

The Minmatar lost a celestis.


The morale of the story?  Many people theory crafted that fighting for sovereignty would break Faction War. However, as I log on each and every day to hours of non stop* small-gang pvp, I think CSM delegate Hans Jagerblitzen is right in saying "mechanics already working as intended...."

While there is lots that remain to be seen and tested when Inferno is officially implemented (and we're not just fighting in preparation for it) it's safe to say that if you're looking for some fast paced action, where you have the opportunity to kill your enemies in a variety of ships and fleet setups, then Faction War is the place to be....

Even if, at the heart of all the pew, we're fighting over sovereignty.


*I used to take break from EVE when I got bored. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if I had to take a break from EVE for pvp exhaustion...


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