Rifter Drifter

Back in The Tuskers I had a lot of fun running around low sec space in Thrashers. I was flying an autocannon fit and having a lot of fun shredding other destroyers, assault frigates, and Taranises at close range. Yesterday I decided it was time to try something different so, inspired by Isilza of Club Bear and after a chat with Garmon ages ago, I set out in an artillery Thrasher to see what havoc I could wreak. I haven’t flown a ship like this before so I spent a bit of ISK and bought plenty of fittings. The plan was pretty simple. I was just going to fit them up, roam into Providence and Curse, and see what I could kill.

The first couple of times I didn’t manage anything particularly impressive. I killed a Crow before dying to a Harbinger on my first trip out. The next time I was able to pick off a Rifter before dying to a bubble and bomber camp on the 9UYH-4 station. I could probably have survived the bomber camp but I got excited at the idea of taking down the Nemesis and his bomb got me with my MWD on.

During in my roam I bumped into a Genos Occidere gang while trying to get a Taranis to engage me. Needless to say I legged it pretty quickly seeing as they had a whole bunch of Angel Cartel ships and other vicious stuff. Thankfully I was about 90km from that gate at the time and made it to safety. Genos, who are notorious for tearing their way through Providence, have decided to join with Sev3rance and help defend Providence against -A- and Ushra’Khan. So far it looks like they’ve been having a lot of fun and my alliance mates have been caught with their pants down several times. While we’re pretty good at all the big fleet stuff the herd mentality that comes with an alliance means that we could really do with working on our small gang skills. Genos, Br1ck Squad, and Darkside are all regular thorns in our side that operate almost with impunity. We definitely need to get better at dealing with them. Thankfully my own corp seem pretty good at avoiding them. Hi Hercules Strongarm, by the way.

I was able to pull a Crow away from his gang in D-GTMI but on the other side of the gate, in F9E-KX, I tried the same with a Hawk, failed, and got toasted by another Harbinger. The next couple of sorties both ended without anything in the way of a fight. In D87E-A I thought I could cold warp away from a Cynabal only for a Sabre to uncloak and bubble me, the result was predictable. In CBL-XP I decided to try my luck against a Dramiel. I won’t do that again. He got to half shields before he got under my guns and killed me. To add insult to injury the rest of his gang – another Dramiel and two Daredevils – all came and held my pod to make sure they got on the mail. Thanks, guys.

With five losses under my belt now I was starting to get a feel for what I could and couldn’t do. From a standing start I was going to find it hard to get away from anything frigate-sized so the best thing to do is to warp to the next gate at range and then hope they give chase. Then I can burn away and toast them out of the range of their main gang. The Providence residents love to fly anti-frigate Harbingers and I can now say they are very effective.

Armed with this experience I set off in Thrasher number six. This time I had a series of engagements on my own terms and I was able to pull off some nice kills. First of all a lone Taranis died to me. He was able to escape my initial web and scram but when his support arrived on the gate he got too confident and I was able to kill him, loot his wreck, and get away before his backup could do anything. I then proceeded to toy with the two Sentinels and Taranis that came to help him. At one point I had the Taranis in armour but I was feeling twitchy so I decided to leave and move on. In 8P9-BM I had a nice running engagement with a gang that I was able to break off and then pick off a Crow and Hound. On my way back home from 9UYH-4 I found another roaming Paxton gang and once again I was able to pull the Crow away and kill it. The Crow’s pod came with a 26 million ISK bounty so I wasn’t too sad about not being able to loot the wreck.

In conclusion the artillery Thrasher is a lot of fun. If you fly it like a Vagabond and use it to pick off lone tackle ships it can be very, very effective. Despite the fact that I lost five ships I think I managed to collect enough loot to pay for the adventure and I am definitely doing well on the ISK efficiency, even if I no longer have 99.5%. On top of that I have now established a healthy lead in DKOD’s solo kill competition for February and I’ve started to collect footage for another film. Now I just have to actually remember to start the recorder.

I’ve been reading around a bit and thinking about it and I think I’m now able to discuss the Providence-Catch situation in a nice balanced fashion. This is a huge topic and I’m not going to attempt to tackle it in a single post.

On 17th December, 2009, Against ALL Authorities allowed their sovereignty claims on the 9K0E-A, WD-VTV, SV5-8N, and F9E-KX systems to elapse. Under the new Dominion mechanics there is no point in paying for the maintenance of systems that aren’t actively used. These border systems are away from -A-’s heartland in central Catch and their principal purpose was as a defensive buffer for the strategically important high-sec gateway system HED-GP.

At the same time the Providence residents were beginning to eye up a way to expand their Empire. From what I can make out from Aralis’ interview with Hallan Turrek their reasons for this seem to be a little bit confused. Their initial pronouncement said that they deemed Providence to be fully “delivered” and were now looking to bring the godless region of Catch under Amarrian rule. If they are looking to expand their borders Catch makes good sense. It is the only nullsec region that borders Providence and the Holders (especially Sylph Alliance and Sev3rance) have a strong presence from the border all the way down to 2J-WJY. In fact, this region of Catch has plenty of unclaimed systems which would have opened up the way for an expansion into the sparsely populated Immensea region. Instead, CVA and LFA chose to strike into the border systems and directly threaten -A-’s empire logistics. It should be pointed out here that Providence is unusual in that is has not just one but three empire exits, including one to high security space. As soon as -A-’s logistics were threatened then a swift retaliation became inevitable. A move for some of the systems in eastern Catch would have been a far safer way of testing the water and getting experience of the new sovereignty mechanics.

Once the retaliation begins the reasons for the initial attack become confused. In his conversation with Hallan, Aralis suggests that this was a strike against -A- not because the Providence residents need more space but because “the core reason is them giving bases to UK in their space.” Okay, so now this is a “war against terror”. If that is the case why was the initial assault limited to just four unclaimed systems? If they really wanted to take the war to -A- while they were occupied in Querious, then surely they would also have set up SBUs in HED-GP and 36N-HZ not to mention claiming the other systems in that pipeline. A few lines later he says “AAA are a big alliance beating up their neighbours as they have always done. AAA were and are our enemies dedicated to our destruction.” So now the reason is self defence. -A- is out to destroy CVA and therefore CVA needs to expand “such that no one has bases within jumprange of your core systems.”

So as you can see, CVA’s reasons for the initial assault seem to be confused. Was it a strike at -A- for harbouring their enemies? Was it because Providence is now under the rule of God and the message must be spread to the next region on the map? Was it because -A- roam in Providence and threaten their very existence? On the last note it should be pointed out that when CVA lost sovereignty due to an account hack, -A- very vocally and forcefully stood forward and declared that they would defend Providence until the reason for the disband had been discovered. This is how Aralis responds to Hallan’s questions on the subject:

Hallan Turrek > Wait, during the dissolution of CVA by hackers, didn’t they help protect Providence?
Aralis > Well they certainly didn’t abuse the situation.
Aralis > An honourable gesture and respect to them for that.
Hallan Turrek > I was to understand they actually camped gates to protect your space.
Hallan Turrek > Is that not true?
Aralis > I don’t actually know it wasn’t in our space. It could have been.

He doesn’t know whether -A- put themselves between a crippled CVA and the slathering hoards! Where was he, under a rock?

Anyway, looking at what happened and some of the leaked responses from other Holders such as Paxton Federation, it seems that LFA and CVA saw some vacant systems on their border and made a grab for them. In support of this the LFA sovereignty claim began at 8:16 am on 10th January but CVA did not announce their official expansion of Operation Deliverance until a week later at 00:50 on 17th January. They do not seem to have wanted to make a direct attack on Against All Authorities and seem to have acted without the consensus of the entire region.

Itarulde has posted an excellent analysis of the tactical flaws in CVA’s assault over at Scrapheap Challenge. It is definitely worth a read.

Coming in Part 2: The Battle for D-GTMI.

Yesterday I logged on and, with no alliance operations planned for a couple of hours, grabbed a Rifter ready to head out and have some fun at the expense of Libertas Fidelitas alliance. It was good fun and I managed to find a couple of fights in their constellation where I was able to take down an enemy interceptor or two before they could mob my Rifter. Taking T1 frigates out and fighting outnumbered is lots of fun and I will be doing plenty more of it.

Those engagements had wet my appetite ready for the day’s main meal, part two of our attack on Providence after they rejected our truce offer. With D-GTMI secured there was a lot of talk about what we would do next. On the forums the Providence residents are expecting us to grind our way slowly through their 50 station systems. That is not how -A- do things, though. We formed up up on a titan and prepared for the order. The cyno went up and the order to jump was given. Our destination? 9UY4-H. The beating heart of Providence.

For those who don’t know it, 9UY4-H is a key strategic system. It is a crossroads at the centre of the region and provides access to three of their key empire entrance systems. It also splits the Holder alliances so that they have to pass through it in order to consolidate their forces. On top of all of this it is a key market system and losing it would be a major blow to the whole region.

The support fleet went to secure the gates as usual and our SBUs were anchored and the onlining process began. While this was happening the battleship fleet warped to they cyno jammer POS and began to take the jammer down. Once this was achieved the capital fleet jumped in and began to do their work. There was no resistance other than the odd ship that didn’t read its intel channels and the usual terribly inept bombers (this one even had a Falcon for support).

While we were waiting for our SBUs to online we got word of a CVA fleet forming up and moving towards D-GTMI. They anchored their own SBUs there and in HED-GP. Once our work was done in 9UY4-H we used our titans and jump bridge network to go back to HED-GP and purge the CVA SBUs from there and D-GTMI. This was done in time to jump back in and reinforce the station and infrastructure hub in 9UY4-H in a matter of minutes.

Now its a waiting game. The timers on both the station and infrastructure hub are very favourable for us and the week ahead should be full of good fights as CVA attempt to defend their key system. For now we will be roaming the area, locking down systems, and disrupting this key area of Providence as much as possible. Our hand is around CVA’s throat, let’s see if they can shake us off.

Edit: I forgot to mention that “Deliverance Reclaimed” station used to be Ushra’Khan’s “Unity Station”. Let’s just say that Ushra’Khan are foaming at the mouth with excitement about liberating their former home.

Footage is taken from The Battle for D-GTMI by Leon Mustapha. Music is “Uprising” by Muse.