War is on in null sec… two wars actually. There is the Imperium, which has mobilized and moved into Catch in a war declared against null sec rental empires, which is currently focused on attacking FI.RE in Tenerifis and Immensea. And then there is Fraternity, which has decided to stomp on V0LTA and Brave in Pure Blind, which seems like it should be a route, but the defenders get to defend in their own time zone, which is not Frat’s core time zone, so the underdogs have been hanging on for now.
Unfortunately, I haven’t had a lot of time for war. Things at home are such that carving out a few hours to go on a strat op to take sovereignty… that takes a while… just hasn’t been in the cards. I see strat ops get announced and go off knowing I just don’t have that much time.
Every so often though, there is an op that comes up that I can join in on.
Pandemic Horde has been making regular runs at the Ansiblex in GE-8JV, the staging system we are currently using. They pull together a fleet of Stabbers, inexpensive but fast and reasonably hard hitting cruisers, and zip into the system to take a shot at the jump bridge network. They usually show up in significant numbers, which means we have to form a counter fleet in order to chase them off, lest they succeed in burning down our travel network.
Stabbers hanging around the acceleration gate to the ESS
Those fleets are short and sharp and can be a lot of fun. There is room for us to get screw up, and the Stabbers have gotten the best of us a few times, inflicted some damage and gotten away without paying much of a price. But sometimes we land on them, bubble them up, and then there isn’t much guesswork in the outcome if we’ve brought the right ships.
Eagles, a heavy assault cruiser, is overkill for the job, but offsets the numbers if we come up short. If we undock Eagles their job becomes getting away and some skill or luck… or both… is involved in pinning them down. But when we manage it, it tend to be a slaughter. The go after our logi when cornered, which are much more expensive hulls.
I have been in a few of those fleets now, not all of them successful. Sometimes you log in and they get away. Sometimes you land on top of them, bubble them up, and start burning down targets.
Chasing them through a bubble and a gate
One of those fleets was a bit of an old time revival, as Dabigredboat (DBRB) showed up as FC. He was a regular FC in many of my early ops in the coalition, but has had a career and marriage and all the usual complications of life take him away from the game. But there he was, as boisterous as ever, flying us around in Eagles chasing Stabbers.
Who is leading the fleet? DBRB!
So I haven’t been doing a lot in the war and I don’t have much to report that you can’t just figure out by going over to DOTLAN and looking at who owns the ihubs in the northwest of Tenerifis. But I have managed to pad my killboard with some Stabbers this month, so I have that going for me.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 