Warfare & Tactics

The Inferno patch brought several changes to how faction war works, and as a consequence there was a mad rush to have the best possible starting position in the faction warfare systems on the day the patch went live on the 22th of May. The initial brazen view was we would roll back the plexing effort of the Rush Horde, then it turned to the majority of the Imperial faction believed all would be lost, but a hard fought defense left us with 11 systems against the Matari's 59. The following is from my own viewpoint as FC for most of the Amarr fleets that week, since there was so much fighting it is a long read, but hopefully you'll enjoy it. It does not include tactical considerations of all the fights and furthermore may not be a neutral point of view :)

It was a mad week of fighting, Wolfsbrigade having already past our most active month by far in kills, with Kourmonen & Kamela being the most dangerous system across all of New Eden. The overall strategic aim of the effort changed over the week of fighting, from thinking we could roll back the Matari to Dal and beyond, later we focused upon holding the core pipe from Sahtogas to Kamela, with branching systems. Until the final days we still believed we had a shot at taking either Kourmonen, Lamaa or Oyonata/Sosan back, but in the end we were relieved to hold the central pipe.


Signs and Portents

The Amarr militia does not operate as a cohesive unit, one can think of us as feudal barons holding control of a few main systems. Wolfsbrigade in Kamela, The Imperial Fedaykin in Auga, Dewa Brotherhood and Ammarian Retribution in Sahtogas to name a few. We help each other out when we can, but often different objectives and focus leads us to not work as a group. Within Wolfsbrigade the plan was to mostly ignore the Rust Horde's plexing fleets until the final weekend before the patch, but fighting on the evenings of the 14th & 15th proved to me that we could not break the Matari fleets as easily as we believed. On the 14th the fighting was over Kourmonen, we fought on roughly equal terms, won most of the initial fighting and made good progress in flipping the system, yet we could not break the will of the Minmatars and they held the system over night.

The 15th saw even more fighting, pilots on both sides had been rejuvenated by the previous days clashes, yet the result stayed the same. We won the early fighting, made good progress while outnumbered, but the during the night the Rust Horde held strong, and the system was still theirs when dawn broke. Several neutral entities started to appear in Kourmonen as a result of the fighting, wanting a piece of the action, but their lack of education in plex mechanics made them easy targets for us.

The signs and portents from these two days of fighting increased the pessimist view within the Imperial faction, and several corporations began to effectuate their evacuation to Egghelende, a system that is right in the middle of the Amarr Minmatar zone, but under Gallente control, and thus not affected by the changes coming in Inferno. We were in dire need of numbers, but they were busy planning the relocation of their assets. It would prove to have major consequences for the following days of the war effort.

On the 16th we had fewer numbers then the two previous days, and we fared worse, again Kourmonen was the central source of action, but with their numerical superiority the Rust Horde began to take other systems. Lamaa, Sosan and Labapi had fallen in these days of fighting, and Oyonata began to show signs of going the same way.

My view was that aggressive plexing in Kourmonen would keep Kamela safe while we were dangerously under staffed, and luckily the Rush Horde did not focus on Kamela, which would have gone the same way as the other systems, if they had done so at this early stage...


(continued)

Into the Fire

Sunday came, I was away from the computer during the afternoon and and First General had taken over the reigns of FC'ing the fleet. The Rust Horde had managed to take Kurniainen during the very early hours, and had finally started their Kamela offensive, but it was two days too late, as we now we had Tri-Gun and -A- on our side for the fight. First General is an excellent FC, who unlike me had not been at the helm for dozens of hours in the past week. Therefore the mistakes that were starting to creep into my fleet calling was minimized greatly and a large portion of the enemy fleet met their end in Kamela. We moved the fighting over to Kourmonen, First General wanted to push the advantage and had some great fights, but we did not manage to take the system, as the Late Night crew swung the numerical advantage strongly in their favor. Kudos to the Matari effort in stopping us from achieving that on the day we held the biggest advantage. As the fighting for Kamela was decided so decisively in our favor, more and more members of the Imperial Faction started to live with us in system, as a fleet member said "When the fields are on fire, everyone runs to the Castle". We had high spirits for the following day of action, though there would be great doubt once the final day came.


Conflicts of Interest

Downtime came and went, and the last day was upon us. Both sides aimed for the best possible outcome and the Matari plexed a lot of systems quite hard. Saikamon, Sahtogas, Anka, Uusanen and Kamela were all in danger of falling, and we had to call in our final favor, our Gallente faction brothers - Shadows of the Federation. Once they came down to Kamela, in their Guardians to provide logi support, the tide turned strongly in our favor and soon Kamela was completely decontested, panic and emo-rage began to fester among the Minmatar. How could they betray them was shouted back and forth. The Rust Horde's offensive in Kamela came to a grinding hault, as diplomats and CEOs tried to work out a deal. In the end it was presented to me as "You stop offensive plexing in Kourmonen, we stop offensive plexing in Kamela", though they believed Wolfsbrigade had agreed to stop all offensive plexing everywhere - something that would always be completely unacceptable to us. The deal was made and First General told us to go and stop the Matari advance in Sahtogas, 30 minutes later the cease fire had broken down, Matari pilots plexing in Kamela and soon thereafter we were all back at it.

First General led the fleet to the Sahtogas area, we were set up in a T3+Guardian fleet, with interceptors to take out any enemy fleet on the gates of the minor and medium plexes, while holding the field on the majors. It was going well, with initial victories in Tannakan, Sahtogas & Saikamon but the Long Night was ahead of us...


Midnight on the Firing Line

During the whole week the Rust Horde had always had a strong Late Night advantage, and with 11 hours to go until the Inferno went live they could possibly take Kamela from us. I loaded up on supplies and got ready to FC for the next 11 hours straight. I dispatched a small fleet to keep counter plexing in the Sahtogas area, I didn't want to lose a single pipe system during the night. The fighting was concentrated on Kamela with me FC'ing, while Capitol One was leading the small plexing contingent in the Sahtogas area. We started out well, with support from most corporations within the Imperial faction, as well as Tri-Gun, CVA and The Fourth District, but soon came under heavier and heavier attack, and after the CVA fleet left us we had a 5 hour stretch where we lost every plex available to us. Our once great logi fleet was outnumbered 2½ to 1, with them fielding 10 guardians at one point, just sitting alone in a major plex while their 60 man strong Rupture/SFI fleet took the medium. We had no means of taking on either fleet, and so my tactic became one of denying them every minute possible, by rushing timers and warping off to other plexes as they came on grid and pushing timers there for as long as possible. This game of cat and mouse was seriously damaging moral within our fleet. Several people began to doubt if we could hold onto Kamela, and I took the fight to them at certain times to increase morale within our ranks. In the middle of this Capitol One reported back to me that they had succeeded in decontesting every other system, and with moral victory we combined the fleet, for the long night of defending Kamela. During this time we had to send in more supplies as our stocks of ships were running dangerously low. One militia member didn't fully understand how to get his freighter out of Kamela again, and warped to an insta undock instead of utilizing the safety of Kamela stations 40km dock ring, which was tragic for him.

(continued)

Amarr Victooooooor!

Good read, glad we were able to help out.
+100000 for B5 references.

Such a great read Zeerover :)

Also so much respect for the endless FC'ing you put in - without you i don't think the line would have been held.

+1 to SoTF : best brosefs
+1 to Star and his troops: new brosefs
+1 to Ladel and his troops: for coming in a time of dire need
+1 to the rest of Amarr Militia.

Edit almost forgot: + 1 to Junior and his troops

Unfortunately, I wasn't around and FCing for anywhere close to every day. Maybe Annah Kitheran (our Matar plex-overlord and master of all things outpost) will grace the forums with his perspective: I'm not entirely sure he slept at all during the entire pre-Inferno week.

Edit: I'd also just like to point out that you ~almost~ lost Kamela and your other systems to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3QEW_a_sKU&feature=youtu.be hahaha :P

:college/university: or stuffs =/= :work:

plex > grades. everyone knows this.

I have to say that was an enjoyable read. Would be interesting to see from a Minmatar perspective that isn't full of rage at SOTF.

Thanks to ALL the fc's and logistics helpers on both sides that made this one of the best weeks in FW for me.

A big congratulations to the Amarr for holding on to their systems, I really thought you guys would fold under the wrath of Annah.

For the first time in a while I am looking forward to the future in FW, I think the Amarr have turned an important corner and unless the Minmatar step up we are going to have problems keeping them contained

See you out in space for fun times!