Saturday, May 19, 2012

Kourmonen: Faction War, Reborn


I logged into EVE this afternoon to find the system of Kourmonen burning in a fire. The Amarr, who for some reason have been pushing at the system for over a week now, came out in full force to attempt a full take over. When I joined fleet, we were only a few plexes away from losing the system, and leadership was asking everyone to prod corpmates in order to provide additional numbers to help defend the system. 


The Amarr brought considerable force to the table. At one point, I caught a massive fleet of Harbingers, Hurricanes and Guardians on scan with Amarrian numbers in local reaching 50-60+. At one point, the activity and movement of the Faction War fleets caused the low-sec system to go into Time Dilation for a brief period. 

With the Minmatar facing heavy losses, (and many from dayfleet not basing in the area) the need for fit ships became an increasing concern. At one point, the Minmatar were forced to carrier drop supplies onto the front lines.

Also, in an unparalleled call for numbers, Annah Kitheran opened fleet to general militia, openly accepting new and old pilots --experienced and inexperienced--for the defense of the warzone. Many only had to pod to the warzone, and accept a cheaply fit destroyer that was offered to them at sub-market prices. At several points between fighting, more experienced militia members explained plexes, and other Faction War mechanics to some of the newer pilots.

As the Minmatar numbers increased, (putting massive amount of DPS on the field) and FC Annah Kitheran began to reach a higher level of exhaustion, the decision was made to stop calling primaries. Instead, we were ordered to sort our overviews by distance, and shoot anything close to us after taking out any nearby ECM. 

During the first battle where we experimented with this strategy, voice coms were eerily quiet. However, the strategy had huge results as the hostiles began to vaporize under the dps of 50+ guns-free destroyers. Several Minor plexes were taken using this method, and the Minmatar began to take back a strong foothold in the system.

Conceding most of the Major plexes, where the Amarr were setting up massive BC and logistics fleets with significant ECM support, the Minmatar focused on Standard and Minor plexes --quickly reshipping between cruisers and destroyers as necessary.

Meanwhile, during the course of the hot fighting in Kourmonen, a single Minmatar pilot (Machiavelli's Nemesis) was slowly plexing down the system of Labapi 3 jumps away. The pilot, once reaching the point where one more plex would set the system vulnerable, held off until our position in Kourmonen was secured.

After solidifying our position in Kourmonen, the pilot was ordered to plex Labapi to vulnerable, and Annah Kitheran, who at this point had been FCing for 11+ hours straight, leroyed the 60-70 man destroyer fleet to the Control Bunker, melting it in a relatively short period of time. (And, leaving the Amarr with a mere 12 systems in their control.)


The system of Kourmonen, at one point, reached the status of the most dangerous system in EVE - with four times as many ships destroyed than any other system in EVE during one three-hour period. Kills for the day within Kourmonen  easily reached well over 800, according to Dotlan Maps.





Battlereport One (Late Night Alliance)
Battlereport Two (Amarr Board)
Battlereport Three (Iron Oxide.)
Battlereport Four (Iron Oxide.)

18 comments:

  1. This may well get me back into Eve. Ok, in fairness, I'd be back already if I could just find some RL friends to fleet up with, but THIS may get THEM into it, and then... oooh yah, this is going to be fun.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Could the Amarr push on Kourmonen have to do with Hans' challenge to the Amarr, after their complaints about his CSM tenure, saying:

    "As I said before, the bulk of my personal fleet is currently in Kourmonen. My corporation’s home is the Huvilma constellation – Bosboger, Gulmorogod, and Lulm. My alliance keeps its assets in Huola. If you’re outraged, than come at me bro."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. lol, I doubt that they are going after Hans. It's possible, but either way they aren't having much success in taking the system.

      Delete
  3. This...this almost made me want to join FW, instead of just yarring around losec, leroying into your inevitably-ewar fleets.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. what will be super fun is when kills give LP payouts. 800 ships lost in one system in one day....that's a huge amount of LP flow!

      Delete
    2. Your assuming you will get fights. When only small pockets remain, your either heading into a huge fleet or, blue balls cause they have seen you coming. Remember there groups that have moved out of the zone, so can't be made to undock to stop plexing efforts.

      Your Rich space of LP grinding, is a dream. The fights happening now, will not happy post inferno. Your plexing LP gains will be limited to a few systems which you're already flipping, Missions are rumoured to only be in hostal space. That again, limited for minnies. So you're only LP gains are from fights, and alot of the Amarr and in space you can't force fights out of them.

      LP payouts? Hope spings I guess, hope springs.

      Delete
  4. That is flat out awesome, Susan. :-) Anyone who can FC for 11hrs straight is pretty bad-ass in my book. :-)
    Sounds like a lot of fun was had, though it also sounds like FW just became.... "super srs bizness" too. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually Hong, it was not as 'srs bizness' as I thought it would be. Yeah, it was a big fleet at that time and in my time zone we usually do much smaller fleets, but the fact that we were all in cheap throw away ships made it just fun times.

      Delete
  5. Nice write up!

    Ah the last push before Inferno. It's making from some great fights, and some not so great like the Thrasher that engaged my Vagabond yesterday.

    Hoping for some more action vs the Caldari later today :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. HOW. THE FUCK. DO I MISS THIS. WHY DID NO ONE CALL ME. WTF. FML.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This looks like it was truly epic! I can't wait to join FW - right after I learn how to PvP with RVB ;)

    ReplyDelete
  8. I may have to look into this...after living in a wormhole the past 3 years, I never tried faction warfare as it seemed dull. It's become extremely interesting lately. Thanks for the writeups.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Replies
    1. don't bite the hand that feeds you. once Inferno hits we will be upgrading systems and you'll have extra research slots in stations to play with.

      Delete
  10. This is sort of tangential to main point of your post, but I have to be honest, I actually think that all the fighting in Kourmonen is an indication of poor strategy on the part of the various 24IC corps. With the amount of effort they have poured into trying to take Kourmonen, they could have seized numerous other systems that would have been far less fiercely defended. After Inferno drops, they're going to be reduced to a few tiny pockets of resistance in FW space.

    The Battle of Kourmonen was epic, but I'm not sure it was wise.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Today was EPIC fight in Kourmonen
    Mad props to all Amarrs and Minmatars who got balls and fight today

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I lost 5 ships. It was great :)

      So many things exploding.

      Delete