During the night from March 3 to March 4, some action took place in Catch region, involving TESCO and friends versus PL and NC. . The brawl was fought in and around the system of 1P-WGB, starting around 1:00 am and ending 2 hours later.
In the name of content
This engagement took place around a Pandemic Legion Astrahus coming out of reinforcement in the system. This citadel was dropped there by PL “for the content”, to try and force an engagement. The timer was thus called by both sides as being important and dragged most of the forces in the region to the battle.
Circle of Test formed just over a hundred Battleships (Nightmares) along with 80 Hurricanes and a force of 85 Dreadnoughts, 26 carriers and some FAXes. This was supported by a Tengu fleet of 100 man from Triumvirate and FCON.
On the other side, 105 Dreadnoughts along with 87 Carriers, 6 FAXes and 1 Rorqual formed the bulk of PL/NC.’s force. The rest being a 150 man T3 cruisers fleet. Another group of Faxes was also ready to jump in in case of need.
The first losses where from TEST losing Nightmares to the fire of the Carriers from PL, swiftly followed by a FCON Moros. The PL/NC force then worked on removing other Moroses, and successfully destroyed three before losing an Apostle and a Moros themselves.
After half an hour of fighting, PL/NC had lost 22 Dreadnoughts and 1 Apostle, while TESCO and friends lost 27 Dreadnoughts. The PL/NC. Carrier fleet had killed half the Nightmares and hurricanes, whereas the T3 fleets looked pretty healthy on both sides.
Objective secured and the late third party
A mere 30 minutes later, the PL/NC had killed 67 Dreadnoughts and 2 FAX machines from the attacking force. The heftier capital logistic wing of their fleet did a fine job protecting the troops, restricting losses to only 47 Dreadnoughts. Then, about 350 Capsuleers fielded up on PL/NC. side, facing 900 on the other side. While numbers were quite important, one must take into account ship types: over 100 were frigates (including 70 interceptors), which reduced their impact in a capital and T3 cruiser engagement.
Just after 2:00, following an hour of battle, the Astrahus finally fell under the fire of the attacker subcaps. TESCO secured their objective, but the cost was already high.
At this point, an Imperium force of over 300 ships arrived in the neighboring system of F4R2-Q. The 200+ T3 cruiser fleet, along with a frigate fleet setup on the 1P-WGB gate (this force had been forming for a TEST Astrahus in Stain).
As the frigate fleet jumped in, TESCO and PL/NC. began extracting their own forces from the field. A handful of Dreadnoughts fell during the process, as well as a few cruisers.
The aftermath
The last remaining forces continued fighting over loot for some time. The Imperium went back home without a fight, and the loss count could begin.
When asked about the fight, PL FC Killah Bee answered:
Basically, everything we do is for content.
In a fight like this, shooting Dreads is the right call… we just did it better.
As PL/NC. brought a massive Carrier wing and almost no subcaps
Carriers project a threat to every subcapital on grid and with the numbers we had even to the caps. Their dps is pretty big. (…) vov caps > subcaps
And Killah Bee to conclude:
Just shoutouts to test / co2 / fcon / tri for brawling, brave too
On the one hand, with an objective secured but over 200B isk lost, TESCO pretty much loses the fight. On the other hand, PL/NC. got the fight they where looking for but still lost a good 140B isk.
The battle report gives a good overview of the forces and losses (Imperium forces are not all on it, and some third party are not sorted well). In the end, there were 1300 pilots involved and 800 ships destroyed (including 120 Capitals).
The fight took place under time dilatation ranging from 10 to 30% and local spikes over 1200 players.
