Warfare & Tactics

I admit.

Not all my forum posts are serious and I have been known to toss dirt with the rest of them in any given FW thread.

But I also must admit I have a nasty habit of writing long winded serious stories recounting faction warfare history as seen through my eyes. For those not familiar with my past witness on the histories of FW feel free to catch up here.

While I am by no means an appointed historian on the factions I choose to fight for. I do like to keep a mental journal in my mind of all the million little stories I live when joining a corporation/alliance.

It is also is worth mentioning that not everything I will write in this story or wrote in the past story about Wolfsbrigade should be taken as fact. Rather a story as seen and recounted by me; a human being as fallible as any other.

While I will try to recount the history of the Amarr militia during my time in it, I want to specify that the main characters in this story will be those that have been closest to me. Those that I credit with teaching me what small gang warfare is all about, those that helped this story become a story.

The Story of Amarrian Vengeance.

Chapter 2 Cyno Up! Fleet Jump! Fleet Jump!

“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain" I guess Harvey Dent said it best didn’t he?

Back in Wolfsbrigade corp chat was a welcome sight. Being back with all the familiar faces and voices on coms felt good. But as time progressed and I started to digest the new warzone I was in I realized something was very wrong with my beloved Wolfsbrigade.

Expecting to be cheered and encouraged by showing my new one v one kills and ‘that should’nt have happened’ kills in corp chat was being met with a ‘meh’ attitude. Followed by ‘So when are you going to get into an archon or a dread’,,,,,,,Wait? What?

Wolfsbrigade was NOT the same corporation I wrote about in my first history of its rise to power. It changed. The recent influx of former and current Drunken and Disorderly leaders into Wolfsbrigade changed the goal posts for Wolfsbrigade dramatically from what I remember them being. Wolfsbrigade was no longer the shining light of Militia chat and the beacon of justice and power it once was in the Caldari Militia. It became something else. Something meaner, leaner and punching way above the weight of the local minmatar militia pilots.

In the first month or two back in Wolfsbrigade I was in fleets fighting over rare moons, hot dropping and being hot dropped by Goonswarm, Shadow Cartel, Snuff box and maybe even a joint op with Rooks and Kings. I was warping to a POS with a corp Titan in it, WTF happened here?

This was pre inferno so Battleship engagements were still pretty common. I was introduced to many a new pilot in the Amarrian constellation, people that excelled in serious business spaceships like Predator Elite, Muad Dib, Mystical Might, Gallactica, and so many pilots I hope not to offend by not mentioning their names.

These were the big game hunters of EVE, and I guess the taste for small gang PVP was not on the agenda anymore for my beloved Wolfsbrigade. There were even whispers of killing a titan or two.

Looking at my wallet now I can still see 200 shares of Wolfsbrigade, 200 shares of what was the initial 1000 share made to start up Wolfsbrigade. I can hardly say I am not gleaming with pride with what Wolfsbrigade achieved in its time.

Everything from killing a Pandamic Legion Titan

To being the main catalyst for the infamous battle of Asakai

It just wasn’t the game I was looking for though. I missed the challenge, the fast short burst of adrenalin I got from watching my Ares kill a thrasher and barely make it out in 15% structure. I guess my time in Wolfsbrigade reached a crossroads…..

I guess I grew up as an EVE player and reached the all important milestone many an EVE player reach in their EVE career. (more on this in chapter 3).

I was slowly watching everything I trained for in Agony become useless as the most needed skills now where being a good recon pilot, lighting cynos and watching the hammer drop on another fleet, scouting and probing out potential moons for a hostile take-over, becoming another important link in the logi chain…is this what I really wanted to be?

But who and where would I go without Wolfsbrigade? I don’t know anyone else that plays the game I want to play, so I kept my worries to myself and kept adapting with Wolfsbrigade as the first month or two passed in Amarr militia.The minmatar were not even a factor in Wolfsbrigades plans, who was going to worry about a few thrasher and jaguar pilots when you could easily drop a full triage archon fleet or thirty dreads at a moment’s notice? Or a thirty man T3 gang with logi support?

It turned out being in and around militia wasn’t even for farming killmails on smaller more inexperienced pilots anymore, it was a means to feed your wallet to buy all the big toys needed to be in Wolfsbrigade.

Loyalty was no longer a factor, Minmatar LP going good these days? Make a Minnie alt and farm up the lp and buy another revelation or archon……..be a leader for the chosen militia Wolfsbrigade was in?

Nah who has time to herd those cats when I have carrier killmails coming my way……

I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

My beloved corp was no longer the sweetheart of Militia chat, I couldn't walk around militia intel channels with my Wolfsbrigade badge like a tomcat swaying his huge set of balls to the awe and admiration of everyone.

I slowly watched my corp change from the hero of their chosen militia to being the villain everyone loved to hate.

I guess success has a price.


To be continued….

Give me a few I'm working on a warp in

Chapter 4 The Vard Campaign

Landing on the Vard gate I was greeted by a gate flash and local filled up with about 2 friendly Amarr coercers, a hookbill and they rapidly reapproached the Vard gate as I landed. Thinking something was going to jump through the gate I zeroed up on the gate with them. Remember this was BEFORE inferno. This was BEFORE plex fighting was the cool thing to do.

The 3 friendly ships jumped back into Vard and I followed, I watched them align to a plex beacon and warp together. Not big on plex fighting myself I was curious what was going on and I followed them. Noticing local was VERY orange I figured if I’m going to go down might as well go down with these guys any other fight I would pick in here would end up in my hookbill being gangked.

While I do not have the actual fraps of what I saw. It was amazing to say the least. I watched a gang three times the size of the friendly fleet either melt or warp out as the fight progressed. I guess the best way to explain what I saw there would be another fight frapsed by the same pilots.

I was in awe. THIS….HOLY F%@K THIS who the F%@K are these guys?

After holding that plex long enough to count it down with the friendly pilots I typed x in local. Waited……Typed x again…….waited…Finally got a fleet invite and I was invited to their comms.

I asked wtf are you people doing here and they told me they are taking Vard back from the minnies.

I admit I knew plexing flipped systems but this was before inferno. This was before plexing became the isk fountain it did after inferno so who the hell got their kicks from it besides the hardcore plexers like Damar, Sasawong, Val Erian and XGal?

I asked them do you guys really enjoy plexing that much? I was laughed at a little and told they aren’t plexing to flip the systems per say they are doing it because plexing brought them fights.

Confused I decided to hang out with them on comms for a few hours and plex with them. Might as well this was small gang pew and I never found someone to do it with in Amarr FW aside from the random gang.

Being in wolfsbrigade and more importantly living in Kamela turns anyone living there to a ‘Kamela bunny’. I,e, someone that doesn’t know much about the world more than three jumps out of Kamela, the most danger any of the Kamela bunnies would be either in Kourm or Houla I mean why even go anywhere else?

Yah I was brought up to speed real fast by the Amarrian Retribution pilots about what was really going down in warzone control. A few dotlan maps and contestation rate maps later I was introduced into something new.

Something that didn’t involve cyno’s and capital escalations….

Something that involved three or four guys depending entirely on each other for survival in a fight where they are usually outnumbered…..

Amarrian Retribution sucked me into the exciting world of small gang faction warefare pvp.

Not the random pick up fleets where you barely knew the guy doing the tackling. No No No a gang where they kind of just reacted to the fight. Comm Chatter in fights was minimal and to the point, I didn’t have to hear a random militia pilot screaming about how his ishkur was dying, or being told about a hostile fleet 13 jumps away, you know what I’m talking about.

Days went by, weeks, I became more and more detached from Wolfsbrigade and their hot drop o clock mantra to three four or five man gangs holding down a plex or dying in the process. Rapid reshipping and hurling themselves right back into the fight even if it didn’t look like we would win.

Dying was inevitable really; it was about how long we could hold the field. These pilots don’t care about losing ships, in fact they more than likely know they will lose them when they undock and they don’t give a flying F%*K if they do. These guys are after pulling off wins they shouldn’t win. These guys are familiar,,,,these guys are like Agony just scaled towards FW…these guys have the same seed in them that Agony planted in me when I was an Agony pilot.

Many a pilot in EVE is so risk averse that they really never get to this side of the game. This is not about losing or keeping a ship….this is about reaching a grander goal. Controlling Real Estate, coming into a hostile system and planting the Amarr flag smack dab into the IHUB and grinding away the contestion rate no matter how many losses, then leaving it when it is at 98% for the grunts to flip.

By default these are the Marines…..First ones in,, last ones out…..and they paved the way for the rest of the Amarr to flip a system.

It was only a matter of time before the Amarrian Retribution mantra took over,,,,that mantra however involved taking a leap of faith. It involved turning my back on Wolfsbrigade.

This was not going to be an easy decision.

To be continued…..

weve been caldari militia many times. as im sure stalking will cover one of our major campaigns there as we fight the new born justified chaos.

Chapter 5 To Be An Amarr

I sometimes miss my days in Caldari space.

I really do miss it deeply because as I mentioned in my story about the rise of Wlfsbrigade being in Caldari space meant I was part of the one corp that everyone in the Caldari militia looked to when things got real. The corp they light the bat light for and the calvery that basically made anyone opposed to the Caldari militia run for the hills when local filled up with my corp mates.

Something was lost in that transition from Caldari to Amarr. Wolfsbrigade was not the same. And watching these few Amarrian retribution pilots throw themselves into the fire again and again just to spread Amarrian influence really reminded me of what it should be to fight for your chosen militia.

In a way Amarrian Reribution (for me at least) showed me what it really is like to be an Amarr.

Ask anyone what is the hardest militia to join if you want PVP and the majority will say it’s the amarr. Vastly outnumbered most of the times and the least favorite of the farmers being at tier 1 in the Amarr militia feels comfortable.

Looking deeper into Amarrian Retribution it is not hard with a little bit of research to know that this was no start-up corp that may or may not be here three months from now. They are and were pretty much there to stay through thick and thin. So any worries I had about joining a corp that would fold up and scatter to the winds three months after I joined were put at ease looking into their history.

I was a director of Wolfsbrigade at the time I met the Amarrian Retribution pilots, although my roles in wolfsbrigade were not as many as they were in Caldari space I still enjoyed some ability to push operations in one way or another if I lobbied hard enough with the other directors.

The thing is as mentioned before the clash in what I enjoyed in EVE and the rest of the Wolfsbrigade pilots enjoyed in EVE was becoming more and more apparent the more I flew with Amarrian Retribution.

Arguments were made on comms with Amarrian Retribution pilots explaining by how being so self centered and self serving Wolfsbrigade were actually being detrimental to the Amarr cause. It became harder and harder to argue with the facts and no matter how much I loved Wolfsbrigade I couldn’t sway the Wolfsbrigade pilots of the importance of being loyal to our chosen militia was. I was laughed at as a ‘lol EVE rp’ as the goals of these WBR pilots was no longer serving their chosen Militia but feeding the wallets for more dreads, more archons, more POS fuel, More TITAN, MOAR HOTDROP!!!!

I tried, at first I really tried and had some support from some good friends that flew with WBR and wanted to sway some of their massive war efforts towards this new game of EVE plex fights. I even started sending out WBR corp mails about people that wanted to join these crazy pilots from amarrian retribution for plex fights to fit up frigs, dessies and cruisers in corp hanger x to be jumped into Dal to support the Vard/Lantorn/Dal campaign. But really in the end it was a losing battle, everyone joining WBR as of late was doing it to get capital killmails. For some people that really is the be all and end all of eve is to look at their 4% damage on a capital killmail and think to themselves ‘YAH! I’m on the top of the EVE food chain baby!’.

That wasn’t where I wanted to take my EVE career and was hating watch Wolfsbrigade turn into that.

Things came to head I guess when the new directors of WBR thought ya Stalking no offense but your goals in EVE are not really in line with WBR’s so stop rocking the boat with all this ‘being loyal to Amarr’ crap we are kind of on a different level of EVE now. I guess the final battle I had in WBR directors chat kind of nailed it for me. As the final punches were thrown inside the WBR directors chat I was shocked to see the final word with what WBR does or does not do (FIRST GENERAL) basically telling me it was time to leave WBR mantis. Your sailing against the wind here and rocking a boat that has a different destination than yours. Leave corp now.

I was devastated.

My admiration for FIRST GENERAL and WBR is no secret as clearly shown in almost every post I make about FW history. To be tossed overboard by the person you admired and looked up to the most and from the corp you helped found from the very start was disheartening to say the least. The day I was asked to leave WBR was the day I swore to biomass Stalking Mantis and quit EVE forever.

I took a long break from EVE. I kept up with EVE and read the forums but I never felt like there was a home for me in EVE after WBR...........

CRAP, the secret is out! Guess who are the alltime FW leaders in kills? (Answer: Guys like Damar, Sasawong, and Val Erian....)

Edit: Nice read so far!

Chapter 7 The Caldari Connection the 1st Caldari Campaign

You knew it was coming, I mean you can hardly mention anything historical in faction warfare without mentioning HIM.

As a pleasant surprise after joining Amarrian Retribution I found out they had deep ties with a pilot I always admired and kept in contact with on the Caldari side. Yes you know who it is………..

Damar Rocarion

I guess the bond is one of common interest between Narsanite Watch and Amarrian Retribution. They both existed to plex for their side of faction warfare. And they both were plexing long before CCP made it the cool thing to do with their Inferno patch. So naturally they helped each other all the time when help was needed.

Both our corporations have shared intel channels and when either corporations home is threatened you best believe they will jump freight a butt load of ships and pilots to help and support each other.

These were the last few weeks before the inferno patch and something was in the air for all four sides, something about gobbling up as many systems as possible before the patch. The Caldari were on the ropes again and they needed help from hardcore plexers.

Damar made the call, Amarrian Retribution answered.

I was about to experience my first full on Amarrian Retribution campaign announced to corp through a corp mail.

Destination?

Placid baby.

We needed to drop behind the Gallente inn Intaki in particular and Placid in general. We were going to be the harassing force nipping at the tail end of that assault on Narsanite's home of Ladiester. Goal? Apply pressure to the Intaki front all the way on the opposite side of Placid. Giving Narsanite watch some much needed breathing room as we forced the Gallente to react to a new real and present danger to Intaki to Ostingele pipe.

Pressure was applied HARD to Placid. and for a time we really gave the gallente a good run for their money as the whole pipe from Intaki to Ostingele was flipped to Caldari's side. But just when things were looking good the Caldari did what the Caldari do best. They became Caldari and started wardeccing each other over some silly thing or another.

YEP, There went the organized two front attack on the gallente. So we had to sadly stop the 1st Caldari campaign assault.

A few of the videos in the previous chapter were made during our caldari campaign. Also joining our fleets at the time was a well known Caldari pilot named Superchair. The Superchair connection served our goals in Amarr space down the line but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Caldari Assualt Video 1

Caldari Assualt Video 2

Caldari Assualt Video 3

For the time being a storm was brewing back home in Amarr space. Inferno was a few days away and the Minmatar have been eating up Amarr systems like crazy without any serious resistance from the hardcore Amarrian plexers.

Time to go back home Sahtogas needs us.

To be continued…………

P.S. Credit needs to be given to Jhaelee de'Auvrie for coming up with that awesome beam coercer fit. In a time where no one flew coercers because it only had one mid that fit proved that you don't need a point to fly a coercer, it's puts out massive dps that pretty much means many a pilot melts before they even realize they need to warp out.

Makes sense.

Chapter 8 Inferno and the Three Towers

Back home the Amarr were reeling from an all out assault on their Home systems. Amarrian power was and still kind of is split into three powerhouses.

Kamela was is and will always be the first tower of power from the Amarrian castle any new Amarr militia pilot see’s in the Amarr minmatar warzone. Pre Inferno that was Wolfsbrigades home. And for once Wolfsbrigade was forced to care about plexing because the majority of the minmatar’s force was thrown into Kourmonen and used to pressure Kamela to be flipped.

Wolfsbrigade now under a real threat of losing docking rights (and therefore access to their precious Capitals) after the inferno patch put up a valiant effort to keep Kamela and try to flip Kourmonen over to the Amarr side before the Inferno patch, late night alliance was the main power projector for the minmatar applying much pressure to Kamela.

The second Tower of Power in the Amarrian Castle is Sahtogas, Blackwatch Guard and Amarrian 7th fleet planted the Amarrian flag high above the Sahtogas station and defended it to the death. Pressure was coming down on Sahtogas from the Iron Oxide base of Arzad and the whole pipe from Arzad up to the gates of Sahtogas was taken by the minmatar.

The third Tower of Power in the Amarrian Castle is Egglehende. Fearing the worst from the pressure applied to the pipe from houla up to auga, dal and Sesiede Muad Dib and the rest of Imperial Fed rushed there assets to Egglehende. So did the Imperial Outlaws led by Shalee Lian and Almity. Egglehende was the new Tower for those not sure they will be able to hold onto their bases in Auga. TRIAD and the Power house that is Sasawong were leading the assault on that front and clearing our Amarr systems in from Siseide, lantorn, vard, dal all the way down to Auga.

High level organization and plans where shared between the leadership of all three towers. Amarr are so much better at sticking with each other than the caldari are. They must really as united they stand divided they fall.

Imagine that. My chosen path in EVE (plex fighting) was now to become the deciding factor in ALL of faction warfare. Thankfully I was already in a corporation that had loads of experience fighting in plexes. Thankfully Amarraian Retribution was way ahead of the curve this time.

Kamella barely survived the Inferno patch, Sahtogas did as well, Auga the long time home of TEMFED fell as they knew they couldn’t beat the double pressure of TRIAD from the north and Late Night from the south.

Egglehende was the new home for pilots not yet familiar with the new mechanics of plex fighting. It could never fall as it was not part of the Amarrian Minmatar warzone BUT it was conveniently one jump from that warzone and two jumps from the old Amarrian Tower of Agua.

The lines were drawn in the sand and Inferno hit us.

Faction Warfare was forever changed.

To be continued…..