Beitrag von: Aura am Juni 12, 2013, 07:00:14 Nachmittag
Test Alliance are going to need pals on their side. They are going up against an entire coalition. And they did have friends this night. The aforementioned Pandemic Legion. Black Legion. Nulli Secunda. Confederation of Pizza. Northern Coalition. And if those friends stick around in the evenings to come, this is going to be a very interesting war.
So who came out ahead tonight? If the measurement is by objective alone, then Test won the night. The goal was to attack the J5A infrastructure hub, destroy it, and to flip the system into CFC hands. Instead, Test & Pals chased the CFC back to B-DBYQ, and were able to repair their hub. The CFC did eventually put it back into reinforced, but J5A lives on another day under the flag of Test Alliance.
If the measurement is on ISK lost, then the CFC won. All preliminary battle reports are showing that Test & Pals lost approximately 120B ISK in assets to a CFC loss of about 70B ISK in assets. That's all fine and good for a bit of crowing, and for keeping the propaganda machine well-oiled, but if the objective is a failure, then it doesn't matter much about the ISK.
Of course, the CFC is in a much better position to absorb losses of that degree. How long can Test & Pals continue to lose amounts greater than 100B ISK? How long will their Pals stick around if they are assuming a substantial portion of that loss?
Fighting in TiDi. I don't mind it that much. It certainly gives you lots of time to react to everything around you. What was probably a 30 minute fight, all told, stretched out to 300 minutes due to 10% TiDi the entire evening.
The evening began in J5A. I was in Tengufleet. I believe there were two other CFC fleets as well, a Techfleet and a Fuckyoufleet. I can't comment on what happened with any of the other fleets. I can only comment on what I experienced.
So Tengu fleet began by bashing the J5A iHub. I think we had it down to about 30% armor remaining when we were told to align to the B-D gate. It was about this time that local exploded. 1900 people in system. There was going to be a fight. And a big one. So, we're aligned. The FC initiates a fleet warp just as a giant cloud of red brackets land on grid. We're in 10% TiDi, so it takes awhile to reach gate, but we're ordered to jump on contact. The other fleets must have done the exact same, because when we land on grid, I see far more than just 250+ Tengus. This is going to be a very painful jump into B-D. Approximately 500 or so people all jumping at the same time.
I was looking at that new system-to-system warp animation for a good 8-10 minutes. The thing I like about the new jump animation is that you get a nice visual cue of when you're about the land on destination. The animation starts stuttering as the client starts to load the new grid.
So, in B-D we prepare for the fight. Test & Pals are in pursuit. We set up on our anchors and wait. It's going to take them forever to jump through too. Too bad for the people who got to the gate first. For the first few minutes, we're just plinking lone ships off the field. They're coming in ones and twos. It takes awhile before the whole crapload of them land on grid at once. And then it's on.
We're actually fairing remarkably well. We're popping Napocs left and right, not taking any significant losses at all. Not until their bombers arrive. Goddamned void bombs land first. Those things are annoying as hell. Capacitor gone. Afterburner shuts down. All hardeners shut down. A tin can sitting on a fence waiting to be shot. We start losing Tengus. Then more bombers, but of the concussive variety. We start losing ships left and right. I'm eventually called primary. Nothing much our logi can do about that. 195 people on my killmail. I'm back in station pretty quick.
The FC is now calling for everyone to align to station, but their bubblers are outrunning our Tengus and laying a constant stream of bubbles in between us and the station. We're basically sitting ducks. I think we end up losing 70 Tengus all told? Something in that neighbourhood. I'm not sure how we didn't lose more, but I'm guessing that people started burning perpendicular to the station, to get out of the bubbles quicker.
I got to hand it to the FCs, though. Even when things were looking pretty grim at that point, they were calm, cool and collected. You wouldn't have thought we were losing anything at all. Straight up professionals.
It's at this point that, I believe, Test made their mistake. From my perspective, Test had routed us, and basically decimated Tengufleet (and can't comment on the other fleets out there.) Rather than continue to chase us down, Test should have pulled back to J5A, regrouped and reshipped. Stood strong in the face of a counter-attack. Instead, they came straight to station, and bubbled us in, which also meant bubbling themselves in. They were on our staging station, where we could reship immediately. This is where the tide turned. Where Test started to take their heaviest losses. Losses they didn't need to take at all.
Where they were decimating us, we ended up decimating them, because they came to our station. Not a particularly smart move. And likely not one they'll make again. Cockiness got the better of them.
All told, though, it was a helluva a fun fight. I hope there are more such fights in the coming days and weeks. I hope to hell that Test & Pals keep their Pals. It evens up the playing field, makes things a lot more interesting, and certainly doesn't guarantee the CFC any easy or quick victories. Test just needs to keep their losses down, since they can't afford to be whelping 120B ISK every major encounter. Test going broke means no more fights, no more fights means no more fun. So three cheers for Test solvency.
Source: The War in Fountain - Battle For J5A-IX (http://)