The Lower North (Tribute/Vale of the Silent/Venal/Geminate)

[Phrynobatrachus]

I guess I'll attempt to summarize some happenings over last 24hours.

Yesterday started with a rep&ref cycle in the morning, as we often do with RUS on field. Few tech towers were repped up, while more tech towers were knocked into RF. I think we may have SBUed few systems too, it's hard to keep track tbh.

So hard in fact come 16:00 or so we forgot about IR- and F-D coming out of RF . We kinda noticed after hostiles were seen moving towards them with 120-140 or so duders and lay to work on the station. PL/RDN ping for duders, PL gets about 70-80ish Tengu fleet and raiden forms with 30ish Abaddons and few triage carriers. PL drops on the station perch where NC are, Raiden do same and NC warps off so a safe.

Mad probing starts up and we get results for them... in a Fleet Staging Plex. As our scout lands, last of them warp into the plex and we scratch our heads thinking WTF. We regroup and follow, but hostiles seem to have bounced by now. Mad probing continues until scout calls hostiles landing on the h-1 gate @ 0 and jumping out. Raiden is there with them, but someone bubbles the gate and PL lands 30km off the gate in Tengus. Raiden follow to other side, hostiles do not warp off but regroup.

Phreeze dealing with a massive hangover, as you can imagine from his NOT ONE INCH posts here, has a derp and orders 4 BS to be killed in IR- thus aggroing everyone. NC realize they have 30 RDN BS with no logistics (their triage is on the other side in bubbles) and PL is aggroed. They start tearing down Raiden dudes who expect PL to be behind them, and about 4-5 falls as Phreeze gets dishonourably discharged from all PL services access and PL jumps in. We bubble, pew-pew-pew now the NC fleet. They fall left right and centre before ~20 remain on field who warp off. We catch 4-5 BS more one jump out before peacing out.

Our dudes go to drink whatever shit they drink, and apparently PL/RDN forgets to post an op for 7-K. NC on the otherhand does not forget and noticing lack of ops, they form with a lot of dudes looking to capitalize on holidays/weekend and lack of hostiles. About 600 NC form and start moving, reinforcements also start going in and while NC bridging into 7-K 2h before timer, they have about 700 dudes. PL has 20 bombers, does a run on one fleet and nets a few dozen kills.

RUS/RDN/PL start forming to see what we can scrape together and as the station timer creeps closer, some 400 dudes are ready in support. We decide to roll the dice and logon all supercapitals. Some 500 dudes now stand ready to go and we cyno in at the station as it comes out and prepare for fights. NC notices and warps in, lag kicks in with now about 1200 in local with 100 supercarriers launching drones -- DMG is pathetic, but 30 titan DDs go off thinning the hostiles off FCs and comamndships. PL titan also DDs the Raiden FC Loki .

Titan guns seem to be the only thing working -- but they are working well and BS fall quickly. NC having killed 5-10 dudes with alpha at this stage decide to make this a structure shoot and warp their support to POS while cynoing in ~40-60 caps on h-5 gate SBU. DRF/PL/RDN accept the challenge and swap to FBs and put them on the station.

DPS race is on, and as system becomes more responsive our FBs take the lead with the station falling faster than the SBU. But as the station flips -- NC damage picks up and as we land on the TCU the SBU is now entering structure. SBU dies moments before TCU enters armor. Little "well what now" moment is observed by both sides since PL own the station and Cold Steel own the TCU.

DRF/RDN/PL get warpins on capitals still at gate and decide to get some pew-pew out of this all and quickly 30 caps are falling. NC however has probed out few crashed supers and make a play for a Nyx. Luckily Lenid Kalkin is playing probing warps and we quickly follow finishing off few more dreads and owning some BS while repping Grath Telkin's nyx.

NC caps dead, cat & mouse is played out over 30 minutes while Imperian probes crashed capitals and kills few off and we finish some of their caps and catch unaligned straggle. We bring in Machariels to bump and force NC's hand. Either logoff or warp off, or get bumped out and die. ~10 BS die to Mach bumps while NC weights options and make a beeline for h-u gate.

PL warps after them while Mr Rive says on comms "As we land on gate I want *mumble mumble* to jump in". 300 NC and 80 PL stand on gate. 300 NC jumps, and 8 PL dudes realize the *mumble mumble* was actually supposed to be "HICTORS/DICTORS".

Gloria Khan, 2 other Tengus and a Machariel + some scimmies die to 300 NC on the other side.

NC heads home, we anchor towers and peace out while US TZ reforms and goes on a ihub/tech binge killing 3-4 techs, losing 1 carrier to a DD and failing to secure anchoring of one tech, thus promptly losing it again. US TZ hubris and ADD are powerful opponents to PL.

As morning dawns, Imperian forms an easter morning egg hunt and forms 100 "suicide BS" fleet. No one notices or pays attention, so with 30 min left on 7-k anchoring brave egg hunters enter system and start work on the TCU. Apparently the POS guns are all bugged, so none of them shoot anyone even when gunned . As such, 6 minutes left on the TCU -- it explodes. PL/RDN/RUS formup a small revenge fleet to test said "suicide" part of the fleet -- but to our disapointment the NC fleet rather withdraws from the field happy they got a TCU kill and RFed the PL tower. Fair play, we had 200 dudes with 50 supers.

We kill TCU and plant our own, while scouting lost Tech moons (we lost 2 in the night + morning) and set back into work. I'm not quite sure why NC made a play for some back water station in the eve of a ZLZ fight, but ok. I'm sure there'll be plenty more BBQs in this system as the TCU ping pong commences for the next 24h or so.


H-1/IR fight PL BR: https://www.pandemic-legion.com/kill...&system=H-1EOH

7-K EVE-KILL BR: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=9500543

gf gf gf

[Liptonez]

NCdot just appeared in H-PA, jumping in 100+ carriers at once. Now they're hugging the station trying to achieve something which I'm not so sure about yet. Looks like they'll stay for a little longer.

[Hunlight]

NCdot just appeared in H-PA, jumping in 100+ carriers at once. Now they're hugging the station trying to achieve something which I'm not so sure about yet. Looks like they'll stay for a little longer.

let the fun and games begin, venal will defiantly be hotting up more over the next few weeks.

be interesting to see the nc's take on it with them loosing space rapidly to the east and internal drama everywhere.

[Helen]

02:28:42 Notify The station ZLZ-1Z IV - Moon 3 - ZLZ Virak's Cheesy Bread Oven has been captured by GK inc. corporation!

NC decided to stream their ts while the station finally came out.

R.A.G.E TCU now down as well.

RAGE capital system down

[drealar]

I've already got my personal tech moon, have you?
On topic, anything newsworthy here lately? Work's taking up more of my time than I'd like

[anheuser]

(Posted this originally in the Venal thread by mistake)

Some of the non-DRF reds to NC have claimed y5j. TCU onlining, but not sure who owns it - either PL, Raiden or NC. Died about halfway through a post-DT battle to try to gank a cap ship or two and thus missed the rest of the action and info. NC were doing quite well until PL got organised and started logging in lots of supers and titans (at least 10 titans and 30 SCs I spotted between Y5J and 2CG). At that point, it was a fight for survival on our side. I think a good chunk got out, but still, with those numbers, hard to compete with a BS-only fleet.

Right now, NC is being supremely out blobbed by our enemies. We didn't bother trying to fight earlier in the day when the DRF logged in 300+ supers in ZLZ. From what I've seen from my non-euro TZ, pretty hard to match those kinds of numbers - I've not seen an NC cap fleet that big since the old delve days where we had full fleets of dreads. That said, we've been in similar positions before, seemingly on the down side of the war, then our enemy at the time makes one mistake and we bounce back hard (eg lastBoB and friends siege of h-w). Will be interesting to see if the same happens again this time. DRF plus a cashed up PL are certainly a force to be reckoned with.

[Helen]

Majesta Empire tried to gank a PL Wyvern right before DT but apparently it survived @ 30% shields as DT hit.
Word is they've not tried to log in the 20 supers since then.

To clarify the poster above me it wasn't just PL supers logging in.

[forteh]

I am pretty sure that the NC could bring a equal supercap fleet, I guess it doesnt help when your FC logs of during the formup and the RAGE only brings around 80 people the defend their homesystem. I honestly thought that we wouldnt be able to take zlz- , now I am wondering when NC will actually put up a defense

[Helen]

Well traditionally its only when Tribute is under threat does the real NC morale blogging start.

[Liptonez]

Lol whoever just deleted this jewel:

Right now, NC is being supremely out blobbed by our enemies. We didn't bother trying to fight earlier in the day when the DRF logged in 300+ supers in ZLZ.

Comedy gold (also note how the 150 supers were doubled).

[indeterminacy]

as Corps moved assets back towards Empire

Confirming this. We got our 'guise run to high sec' orders yesterday. There'll be carrier trains all weekend.

Your alliance's space is in PB, I thought only assets in vale & geminate were to be evacced?

Panic has spread like wildfire.
Thank god I jumped all my shit out in time.

Meanwhile:
Formed up lots of dudes for ZLZ last night. Only a select few (70?) brave NC combers dared to jump in. Battlereports are a little messed up still not sure what's up.

For the bomber gang: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=9513410
But I'm also finding another BR here: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=9513694 which is worth posting cuz, lolsupers.

Was fun and relaxing considering the soul crushing alternative.

I was on grid with our ride home when the call was given to wrap things up. Had to warp off and back. I hit the jump to option, said no portal active. Our blops guy keeled a hostile SB and jumped out commenting that he didn't care about my bomber :P. I magically appeared in desti system despite the error message. :ccp:

[Liptonez]

I am pretty sure that the NC could bring a equal supercap fleet, I guess it doesnt help when your FC logs of during the formup and the RAGE only brings around 80 people the defend their homesystem. I honestly thought that we wouldnt be able to take zlz- , now I am wondering when NC will actually put up a defense

Looking at dotlan and how a friend from RAGE approached me yesterday, it's pretty obvious that all the halfway skilled PVPers have long ago left the alliance. Was surprised though that some pretty okayish PVPers stayed in that fail alliance for so long (still wonder why they went to RAGE in the first place ).

I do wonder where the all the people from failcascaded alliances will go though. I'm not too sure how much the people in RAGE are loyal to the NC, same for Majesta, who will hopefully be the next ones. Looks like they're dead already anyway. Considering MAGE have/had a lot of ex-southern PVPers, I'm pretty sure those will leave MM to die. Why would you try to save a sinking ship full of stinking rats. All the other PVP corps that have been in the NC for a long time, are a good 95% utter shit, imo.

So that leaves who to defend H-W? MM comes to mind, but it stops right there. I personally haven't seen a Razor dude in months, even though I lived in Venal for more than a month now. What's left is MH and all the ex-providence trash over in PB, who can't do anything serious. If you ask me, MAGE have been the only serious PVP "powerhouses" in the NC for months now, with them gone, it's over.

Also, pretty sure NC couldn't match RUS/PL's super numbers, even if we were looking at the NC from months ago. PL and Raiden alone double RUS' super numbers, and RUS would easily have 100+ supers if they'd actually commit them.

Good thing about this blob that is attacking the NC is, it's not really a stable blob like the NC was. Some people (especially on kugu) seem to forget that the factors deciding this war are PL and Raiden, not the russians themselves. Without PL they'd be stuck just like they were when they assaulted C-J months ago.

[Kalorn]

There's quite a lot of exaggeration going on here.

NC were doing quite well until PL got organised and started logging in lots of supers and titans (at least 10 titans and 30 SCs I spotted between Y5J and 2CG)

PL had less than 25 Supercaps available for the fight that occurred after this morning's downtime. Most of those weren't even logged in. In comaparison, you had ~16 Motherships and 1(?) Titan in system, engaged when downtime hit.

You were correct regarding the Wyvern though - the PL Wyvern logged in after downtime with ~17% shield.

We didn't bother trying to fight earlier in the day when the DRF logged in 300+ supers in ZLZ

You need to learn to count (or fire whoever is giving you intel). There were roughly 130-140 Supercaps for the final ZLZ timer. At it's peak, DRF+Raiden+PL has mustered at the absolute most 200 Motherships/Titans - and that's a little exaggeration in itself.

[03:21] <Phoenus> 23 Aeons
[03:21] <Phoenus> 71 Nyxes
[03:21] <Phoenus> 1 Wyvern
[03:21] <Phoenus> 13 Avatars
[03:21] <Phoenus> 9 Erebus
[03:21] <Phoenus> 1 Leviathon
[03:21] <Phoenus> 4 Ragnaroks
[03:21] <Phoenus> on scan at zlz station

And this ^ included 99% of the friendly supercap fleet.

[Phrynobatrachus]

[Garst Tyrell]

Venal has been somewhat static. With BAND having reclaimed most of their tech moons they have devolved to guristas mission running, general bearing NC style and sitting still for the time being occasionally shooting our poses in some stupid early eu tz and getting mad when our timers are stronted after they go to bed.

On the plus side ncdot has moved to h-pa which means the region should see more action. RAZOR has taken an interest in the co2/wepra pocket lately, probably trolling them since lee chanka is constantly trying to solo razor poses in his rev.

Looks like arty abddons will be the new NC fotm replacing maels

edit: also black legion is back from geminate and doing us tz munin stuff

[Elise Randolph]

So apparently the Geminate war has been covered here by Shadoo reposts and horrible Daco Cutter (whoever that is) BRs. This last week has been pretty busy, and while I didn't go into detail about the insignificant (though fun as they may be) fights I did cover the major ones.

War Update: April 16- April 23 - Vale Ablaze as Geminate Smolders

This week was a one to forget for the NC, a definitive turning point in the conflict from both perspectives. Asset-wise, NC are down 4 Titans, 7 Supercarriers, 7 CSAAs, 24 Technetium moons, and just over 100 conventional Capitals. It's not all bad, the NC did manage to kill 11 carriers, though still not the trade-off they were looking for. The week saw the final nail in the Geminate coffin, with both NC and DRF forces taking the fight to Vale. The NC stood defiant, timing everything for the US timezone in an attempt to recreate the success they had early in the campaign. With Pandemic Legion in the picture, however, this proved to be disastrous.

Saturday the 17th, a careless RAGE-led NC fleet went cavorting with a meager capital and subcapital gang doing logistics and infrastructure repair. Previously these types of gangs went about uncontested, and obviously the FC in charge thought his numerical superiority would make up for a complete lack of tactical awareness. Much to his dismay, a PL dictor managed to bubble the entirety of the Capital gang and they were quickly mowed down. In full panic mode, the NC support gang zerg'd in to help. Too little, too late; the support gang met the same fate. The NC, clearly disparaged, called for a High Command meeting Sunday night. Things were about to change.

At the NC High Command meeting, the powers that be decided to scrap the NC-developed Alpha Fleet doctrine and instead shifted toward a PL-developed Abaddon-heavy makeup. Additionally, they decided it was time for a counter-attack. With -A-wagon being persuaded to open another front - attacking White Noise assets in Feythabolis - an NC counter would shift the advantage firmly in their direction. Monday, NC stalwart Imperian led a hush-hush op of Capitals through low-sec in order to reinforce DRF assets. The operation ended abruptly, with DRF forces pouncing on the support-less NC Supers and Capitals. Fortuitously, with low-sec being terrible, only 4 NC Supers were lost in this debacle.

On Tuesday, a full NC CTA was called - all members, all supers, all A-Team FCs; no expense would be spared. With over 1,300 in fleet, the NC behemoth was ready to steamroll through stations, moons, and reclaim all lost assets in Vale. The plan was not without fault, though, as the NC Logistics team neglected to protect their SBUs. As such, the NC Fleet lumbered over itself, in a 9-hour long CTA they managed to reinforce two moons and one station system. To make matters worse, they clumsily lost three Supercarriers to the tenacious Legion. By all accounts, the day was an abysmal failure on the battlefield. For all their faults, the NC is not totally inept. The evening of this catastrophe served as a springboard for another meeting, this time only between trusted leaders. The topic: making the Geminate and Vale campaign an isolated travesty. NC High Command had the foresight to pin the campaign upon the narrow shoulders of a former BRUCE diplomat Ronan Teisdari. Using RAGE and Majesta, two entities whom many believe to have long since lived out their usefulness, as scapegoats for a failed defense would open up the possibility for a fresher, more active group to take their space: Fidelas Constans. In essence, if Vale were to fall then it would be seen as a form of Spring cleaning and core NC morale would be left undisturbed, possibly even boosted. Furthermore, if the NC were to prop up RAGE long enough to tire DRF Legion forces out, but not give them any major Supercapital victories, perhaps their attack would peter out at the borders of Tribute. A shrewd maneuver, indeed. While the NC members would not simply roll over, as that would set a dangerous precedent, the decision was made that they would refrain from committing Supercapitals to the cause.

Fighting continued through the week, punctuated with utter domination in ZLZ and 7-K. After a cyno-jamming debacle, the ZLZ's IHUB, along with a 250 man NC support gang, fell in US prime. The next day in 7-K, the NC put on a brave face and formed 800 sub-capitals in Euro-prime to save a station. DRF Legion forces formed up late with 450 support, but unlike the NC they were willing to throw Supercapitals into the mix. With two-hundred Supers and Capitals at the ready, DRF Legion forces jumped into the system. Lag ensured that damage was applied every ten minutes, and after about forty minutes of slide-show fighting, NC forces mustered a 25-man suicide Dread fleet and cyno'd in on the SBU. If they were going to lose the support fight, damned if they weren't going to save the system. NC support made the interesting call to break away from the station grid to apply damage to the SBU, and the race was on: DRF Legion fighter-bombers began grinding through the station while NC Dreads went after the SBU. The SBU dropped slowly while the fighter-bombers loaded the system. As the SBU entered armor, the fighter-bombers were in full swing and DRF Legion DPS had quickly surpassed that of the NC gang. With the SBU at 50% armor the station flipped to Legion control, but the race was not yet over: there was still a TCU to grind through. By this point the node was too far gone, as DPS began applying to the TCU the SBU was destroyed. NC forces, given at least a three-hour reprieve, seemed to hold an advantage. After trying to gank Capitals with limited success, the NC cut their losses and opted to go home. Three hours later a replacement SBU onlined and the TCU was killed without incident.

7-K was a worthless stationed controlled by pets of pets, and still 750 showed up; ZLZ would be the final showdown. Although the jammer was down, the timer was still deep in the US time zone and thus the NC had a bit of an advantage, or so they thought. Cautiously optimistic, NC High Command made a risky gamble: they would publicly declare that saving ZLZ was the number-one priority. Platitudes and cheers echoed through the NC community: "We call upon every member of the NC to assist in crushing our foes once and for all. Come to our defense for it is not just our assets and space that is at risk but everyone's. We must stand strong and united or we must stand weak and defeated" and "What's the hardest rock? Diamond. What's harder than Diamond? The NC! ?ach one of you are heroes, each one of you are legends, you carry the NC's banner now, keep up the reputation for excellence. I say to those faceless Drones: 'COME AND HAVE A GO IF YOU THINK YOU'RE HARD ENOUGH!'" just to cite a few. Understanding the importance that the NC placed upon ZLZ, DRF Legion responded in turn; as time drew nearer, ZLZ local became more and more populated with the DRF Legion forces. After weeks of CTAs and crushing defeats the NC morale speech did nothing for their numbers, instead it served as a springboard for DRF Legion. NC scouts looked in horror as some 80 Titans and 185 Supercarriers loomed ominously in ZLZ. Having already decided not to commit Supercapitals, NC head-FCs realized there was nothing to do and passed the reigns onto their underlings. NC grunts stood anxious, while first-time FCs waffled on what to do. After an embarrassing navigation faux pas, the NC eventually accepted that ZLZ was a lost hope. Eight hours later, without any attempts to down the TCU, ZLZ was in DRF Legion control; RAGE HQ was captured.

With ZLZ down, Vale was on the verge of falling. Junior SVK, a dominant NC FC in RAGE, held a corp-only meeting to discuss leaving RAGE. The NC Inner Circle decided to fully put into motion their contingency plan and named Fidelas Constans full NC members; distance was placed between core NC members and RAGE & Majesta in order to salvage morale. Feeling betrayed by the NC core members, and rightfully so, RAGE decided to strike back. Early Monday morning, sovereignty in Y5J - a pivotal system adjacent to Tribute core - "mysteriously" dropped. A loud, albeit passive-aggressive, message was sent to core NC members. While the the fate of Vale is still a long way from being inked, the events of this last week threw a proverbial money wrench in the status quo of the NC. It will be interesting to see how the events of this devastating week will effect the NC as a whole, and if the relationship between RAGE/ME and the rest of the NC is beyond repair.

[Omeega]

Thank you for that Elise!

[Liptonez]

Venal feels like Syndicate of a few months ago right now. A couple independent corps/alliances, and a big naplist that puts up 50+ man roaming gangs and 100+ man CTA fleets for ~goodfights~.
Then there's CO2 camping PF- all day, and WEPRA who I've never seen undocked.

But yeah, it's a little static. I never found NPC regions to be the core spot of PVP anyway, you just go out to sov space and rape the residents.

[Don Pellegrino]

I removed some worthless posts, please stay on topic.

Thanks Elise, that was a great post.

[depili]

Co2 has few smallish roams each day (in the 5-10 pilot range) and wepra undocks when led by Lee Chanka, which happens almost daily. Wepra (Wild boars alliance) and Co2 are blue to each other but not to anyone else in venal.

Then there is the merciless+agony+ncdot+evoke+black legion nap-train harassing gypsy (and the rest of the nc by proxy).

As we (co2 and wepra) don't have the numbers needed to go toe-to-toe with anyone else we just do the occasional gatecamp or a roam (and Lee Chanka tries to ninja-RF towers with a solo revelation).