Warfare & Tactics

Chapter 17 Coasting to a Stop

With Aset firmly in Amarr hands and Amarr corporation leaders finally realizing the importance of this forward operating base more and more corporations moved pilots and ships to that location. In my opinion the importance of Aset is four-fold:

1-Undocking from any station in Aset gives you 7 possible systems to offensive plex in.

2-Many a missioner now can keep their mission boats here and just pick up their missions in a small ship and undock from Aset when they are ready to run them.

3-It reduces pressure on the Tandoiras constellation (home of Sahtogas) as far as focused minmatar plexing operations go.

4-It gives pvp’ers great access to new pvp ground with the local pirates as well as the few minmatar corporations that decide to fight for metropolis and control of the pipe leading from Eszur to Aset.

Amarrian Vengeance at the time fully committed to plexing out that area and even moved deeper into that space establishing a forward base in choke point of Ardar.

For a short period the plan was working and a few systems where being flipped to the amarr side deep in metropolis.

In the few months that followed the Eugidi campaign everyone in the Amarr militia was pleased to see the rise of Fweddit from a band of new players barely able to properly fit destroyers due to sp limitations to pilots that is were actually starting to use organized fleet doctrines. They were becoming the Amarrs big brother and the bat light we lit when we needed the hammer dropped.

Isk being Isk it was not uncommon for Fweddit to switch over to the Caldari side for a few weeks to make some much needed isk before returning to the Amarr militia.

The only problem here is that Fweddit was getting to be too much for the Minmatar. We could see how the minmatar; who were initially welcoming fweddit as someone they could ‘fight’ (using their Flabbers against Fweddits initial depry thrashers) were now avoiding proper Fweddit fleets.

Fweddit was growing fast and the minmatars initial welcome to Fweddit for the ‘fights’ dwindled down as fighting Fweddit now was rapidily turning into a proper fight.

Time and again I found myself in Fweddit fleets that had to ‘GASP’ ship down to get a fight from LNA and the likes.
For three months Amarrean Vengeance toyed with the Metropolis systems trading systems with the minmatar here and there trying to poke and push a way up the pipe to Eszur but to no avail.

As far as Agony Unleashed in Kamela; no one could really tell Agony what to do and where to do it to be honest. In nullsec Agony maintains NASI policy (Not Agony Shoot It). So while Agony did work closely with Fweddit leadership (mainly a director named Pinky Feldman) and on occasion with us. They really were just a small elite force that the minmatar soon learned not to mess with and slowly they were being starved from fights as the minmatar wised up and learned that a single Agony taranis can and will solo a flabber.

With the rapidly developing Fweddit needing bigger and better toys than just thrashers they needed isk and more importantly they needed fights. Minmatar were learning to blueball both Agony and Fweddit a lot. This led to Fweddit sometimes moving entire fleets up to Caldari space to fight the braver and definitely better (pvp wise) gallente.
(Notice how proper and strong Fweddit became in that video compared to just a few months earlier)

Blueballing being the name of the game the Minmatar (and what seemed like every Russian in EVE Online) turned to farming with stabs and cloaks. Slowly starving the PvP’ers.

While I am not sure exactly when Agony decided their short stent in lowsec was over and time to go back to Syndicate I am sure it happened somewhere in the first quarter of 2013. Agony going back to Syndicate left the Tower of Kamela wide open as no one stepped in to fill that void. Well at least no one with enough manpower to stem the tide of the gank happy onslaught of Minmatar pilots coming from Kourmonen.

With Fweddit looking for another deployment into Caldari Space and Agony back in syndicate things were getting dark again for the Amarr. A storm was coming and on April 21st, 2013 our worst fears were realized.

take me with you
without you everything just falls apart
it's not as much fun to pick up the pieces
Nine Inch Nails

To Be Continued……..

Chapter 18 Darkness falls

Pride. Pride always comes before the fall.

In the period between January 2013 and March 2013 the Amarr got Proud, that’s never a good thing in my opinion. It seemed watching the combined forces of the entire Amarr militia in Dal gave everyone a false sense of security. No one really had time to deplex they had other more important matters to do (god only knows what). I guess many an amarr corp (including ourselves) were just riding the wave created by Fweddit and got lazy. Thinking worst case scenario we could always just call fweddit in. That was a huge mistake.

Never did Fweddit announce themselves as anyone’s batphone, fweddit was now a 500 man powerhouse and 500 man power houses have their own agendas to worry about. It seemed everyone in Amarr were satisified with just sitting back and thinking ‘yah let fweddit deplex, take over space and hold space for us’

Even Amarrian Vengeance got sloppy in the months after the Dalamo. We didn’t have any active campaigns and just the combined burnout of both the Eugidi campaign and the Dalamo meant many of us at Amarrian Vengeance took a break or two from eve in the first quarter of 2013.

In fact let me take this opportunity to set the record straight for EVERYONE in the Amarr militia.
No one and I mean No one in the Amarr has the right to blame Fweddit for the deterioration and subsequent loss of space that happened in the first quarter of 2013.

Agony left Kamela and Kamela fell like a ton of bricks because of the forty Amarrian pilots in the Kamela station at any given time not one thought to himself ‘hey this system is getting pretty contested let me start deplexing it’. Let someone else do it……..

Let someone else do it……..

Let someone else do it……..

That ladies and gentleman is the killer right there. If anyone needs to point the finger at the reason any given militia loses space it’s because of those 5 words:

Let someone else do it……..

Long Story short, the farmers fell upon the Amarr/Minmatar warzone in the late first quarter of 2013 with the fury of a three mile locust swarm. Systems where being lost at a very alarming rate and truth be told ladies and gentleman of the Amarr militia the only reason it happened is because…..

/me brings a mirror in front of everyone

Let someone else do it……..

Before it was all said and done. Less than ten systems remained under Amarr control. Nine of them useless systems. The only home system left in Amarr control was Sahtogas.

Amarrian Vengeance Leadership saw the writing on the wall.

It was time the faith of the amarr to be truly tested. With only the most righteous surviving the cleansing plague that was the descent of million farmers to the minmatars side.

It was time for everyone’s faith to be tested. Time to know who really was an Amarr at heart and who wasn't.

"At the end of days when they descend
Watch for the coming of the Ark
For within it, salvation is carried"
- The Scriptures, Book II, Apocalypse 32:6

To be Continued……

http://i.imgur.com/I4k9dWZ.png?1

sis indeed fell. it was chaos, we were getting many mixed messages from people living in sis saying they are coming to saht. it was more chaotic than we had thought because ilaw never made it to sahtogas they went somewhere else. cant remember.

Chapter 19 This is where we fight! This is where they die!

It was defcon 1 time in Amarrian Vengeance. I personally was on a break from EVE when the swarm landed on Sahtogas due to a very important project at work. Every night after work I would come home to see my steam chat box filled with calls to get the ef on EVE now, (I only was able to play EVE and come help late late in the famed defense of Sahtogas). Amarrian Vengeance needed every single able bodied pilot to defend Sahtogas. Props to the Amarrian Vengeance guys they held the fort down. At one point the minmatar had three POS’s in system (some even without stront) to safe up between plexes.

The minmatar were so close to holding ALL of the warzone they could literally smell the famed CCP medal. Before it was all said and done during the Siege of Sahtogas only two Amarr systems were left. One system in some backwater hole deep in nowheresvill Metropolis, The other? Fortress Sahtogas.

Flyinghotpocket was screaming at any and everyone to come help hold onto Sahtogas. Tempers flared and RAGE flowed from FHP in all intell channels at all the Amarr as being worthless and not able to help. Everyone in Amarrian Vengeance was extremely disappointed in the lack of help from the entire Amarr militia.

This was not an issue of station lockout and losing access to assets because truly worst case scenario was dropping militia for a day or two to relocate asets. This was an issue of Amarrian pride. Sahotgas cannot fall no matter what.

In their darkest moments Amarrian Vengeance showed their true metal. They showed how ten men could hold off a swarm.

This is where we hold them! This is where we fight! This is where they die!
Earn these shields, boys!
Haroo!
Remember this day, men. For it will be yours for all time.
Persian Officer: Spartans! Lay down your weapons
Persians! Come and get them!

At some point during the siege Amarrian Vengeance didn’t even think about killing the minmatar. We had no time for that. All we could do is hold the plex long enough for them to give up. That meant maybe only one or two DPS ships and the rest were pure logi. We needed staying power. Thankfully if there is one thing Amarrian ships are good for, it’s staying power.

Staying Power 1
Staying Power 2

By the way I would like to take a second to thank Dan Carter Murray for the excellent fc’ing throughout the campaign. Everyone stepped up I am very proud of them all. Amarrian Vengeance prides itself on the fact that any one of our pilots can step up and FC if needed. We have to really, we cant be the type of fleet that scatters once the main FC goes down.

The casual reader might think I am overinflating the importance of the blood bath Amarrian Vengeance gave the Minmatar on the gates of Sahtogas. Let me drop some numbers for you.

This is the total number of kills in Sahtogas in the month prior to the siege (ten pages)
This is the total number of kills in Sahtogas in the month at the beginning of the siege (late March, 25 pages)
This is the total number of kills in Sahtogas in the month of the Siege. (April, 52 pages worth of kills)

Amarrian Vengeance truly needed a miracle to pull this off.

And a Miracle did happen. Some old Friends decided to give us a hand and come back to the warfront.

“all we ask our allies to do is bleed with us”

This truly was a test of faith. It was time for everyone in Amarrian Vengeance to be bathed in the blood of the minmatar and come out baptized and true.

I never really was a deeply religious man in real life. But I pride myself on having faith. Sometimes all you need to do is read the signs to know a higher force is guiding you……..

I don’t think I made this point clear enough for you the reader. I really want you to pay attention to the below text I want everyone in EVE to witness the miracle that we witnessed


"At the end of days when they descend
Watch for the coming of the Ark
For within it, salvation is carried"
- The Scriptures, Book II, Apocalypse 32:6

It was time the faithful were shown a sign…………and the sign did come………..

What was this Miracle? That Miracle is coming in the next chapter.

To Be Continued……….

It's so good to see you pinky. Hope your doing great and miss you in fleets my man.

I've been instructed to go over our defense strategy against the minmatar and gallente trying to siege sahtogas. We knew our support would be limited to calling maybe 10 extra pilots on all time zones, the rest would be busy helping take a system so the minmatar dont get a medal. that was the goal. Do not let them get the medal. We had several hundreds of ships at our disposal and only need capsuleers to fill them up.


We decided to go for a Terror defense campaign
the 3 plexs Medium/small/novice. we knew we could never match them in the small, the destroyer plex they could easily out man us there and pretty much instantly kill any 15 man fleet we could field. The mediums and the novices is where we could make our stand. With our vast reserves of isk and already hundreds of prefit ships we made call out to any militia pilot able to fly a t2 fit frigate to come to sahtogas and get a free ship for the defense fleet. We stuck our pilots in large amounts of logi and very few dps, the goal was to hold the timers as LONG as possible delaying their attacking fleet as long as possible until our night timezone (black watch guard) could log in, beat back the remaining forces and win some plexs back for a few hours.

The mediums were our true Terror tactics, we employed as many augorors as we could field with only 2-3 dps ships capable of breaking their ships 1 at a time. And we backed that up with a smart bomb maller designed to kill their pods. https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=17475450 After a few pods like this the big name pilots stopped fighting us in the mediums all together.

The novice plexs we hurled wave after wave of frigates in. We didnt want the combined fleets capturing plexs in rapid succession we slowed them down as long as we could for the amarr militia to take away their goal of getting that medal. ILAW/fweddit came through and captured a system. We had stopped them from getting the medal and support for the attack on sahtogas started to subside.

I do not think that the ability to see the ark for what it was is a question of faith. Fweddit's belief in the empress and the glory that is the Amarr empire goes beyond the reading of prophecy. We all have our own roles and while those three organizations might be what could be considered the high priests, I would say that fweddit is the church and mass congregation whose role is to spread the holy word to the slaves and other heathens. There is a reason we strive to carry pax amarria in our cargoholds at all times.

I know your meaning in this post, but I am stlil slightly offended that you would elevate the faith of your own above that of ours.

Patience My Friend Once the story is done and my point is made I will be more than happy to debate it with you.

Mantis,

Thank you for sharing all these great stories.

This is what FW is all about, working together, and fighting/dieing for your faction.

I think that CCP should use your stories to make some chronicles of FW or they should share your stories on an FW page in EVElopedia. This to show noobs what FW is really all about (and to inspire them to do the same as you), and that it's not about mindless boring farming just to earn ISK.

I've been in FW since Inferno, just for the occasional PVP (I never joined for farming/missioning), but you inspired me to find a corp and fight for my faction.

Keep it up dude!

They already have. But that was another story for another faction I fought for.

The Amarr have always been on the short end of the stick. With this thread I am hoping they get the light they so deserve finally shone on them.

While this thread is specifically made for Amarrian Vengeances' story.

It really belongs to All of the Amarr Militia.