THE STAGE
On January 8 at 21:33 EVE time, in the system of BKG-Q2 in Branch, Bankrupt of FCON lost his Ragnarok (worth an estimated 111B ISK) to Pandemic Legion, Northern Coalition, WE FORM V0LTA, and Verge of Collapse. Presumably to help save the tackled titan, a Nyx (worth just under 30B ISK) belonging to Xalib Zondo of FCON jumped in and was also destroyed.
The engagement occurred as FCON was pulling subcapitals and capitals out from the current Imperium staging system of D2-HOS. As the move op was reaching its final stages, mistakes were made, which resulted in the 209B ISK engagement. Pandemic Legion once again came out on top, and continues to live up to its fame for killing titans.
Below is a video of the fight thanks to Dectoris of Pandemic Legion:
PERSONAL ACCOUNT
TMC was given a report of events from the Ragnarok pilot’s perspective.
TMC: How in the world did all of this go down?
Bankrupt: Well, it all started when Rowells wanted to form a move op for subs and caps from D2-HOS to BKG-Q2. I offered to help him out with two cynos along the way and scout as well. I made the decision to move my titan back to BKG after telling the higher-ups that I was the only one moving, and that it was on me if I lost it.
TMC: You kind of jinxed yourself don’t you think? What happened next?
B: Things were completely uneventful until we got to WLF-D3 and noticed the blops gang in 92D-OI. We docked up the capitals in DKUK-G and cloaked the titan in system while we assessed the situation. Rowells and myself decided to cyno into 92D-OI on a MA-VDX perch with the blops gang in local and just move right past them. When we cyno’d in, a Sabre showed up in MA-VDX on the 92D-OI gate and started bubbling. The titan as well as the capitals and subcaps were all bubbled, but we put the Sabre into structure and to RO90-H. The entire fleet warped and jumped RO90-H, and the Sabre was joined by a Heretic bubbling. It jumped back into the previous system before our subcaps could kill it.
TMC: You must have thought you were cleared by that point. When did they catch you?
B: At this point, I wasn’t worried about the bubbles nor the dictors. I had the chance in MA-VDX, RO90-H and LXWN-W to warp my titan off to a safe spot or a safe POS (thought I didn’t have any BM’ed) and cloak or jump to any beacon within range. I personally made the decision not to, and continued on to BKG. Obviously, in hindsight, this was the choice that sealed my death. Looking back it is totally obvious I should have stopped in any of the previous three systems and got my dual boxed Rapier that was one jump ahead, with a cyno and ozone, to either light me a cyno or find a POS I could warp to, if not just make a safe and cloak up and drop fleet.
TMC: Is this when you jumped to the final system instead of safeing up?
B: Yes. I jumped my titan into BKG thinking that the two dictors would die quickly and I could warp off and be done. About 5-10 mins after sitting in bubbles, it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere, so I called for Nour Samy to put up a fleet to come help. I instructed Rowells to form up capitals with an emphasis for shield carriers. He did so, and got on grid ASAP. He turned the fleet over to xPredat0rz once it escalated to the point of no return and we started losing caps.
Aside: Bankrupt later stated that FCON had a few shield repping carriers on field when PL showed up in a substantial Sleipner gang. They started bumping the titan out of range (of carriers), but were paying no attention to the Ragnarok DPS-wise or neut-wise until the end. FCON started losing shield carriers to the PL gang pretty quickly, and the fight went on with the carriers for another 10-15 minutes.
TMC: So, initially you were shield fit, then the Chimeras started to die off. At what point were you able to refit for armor?
B: Punky260 managed to get in range of my titan and let me refit from my travel fit lows (2x istabs and 3x hyperspatials) to an armor tank, which xPredat0rz instructed me to do once the shield carriers were dead. At this point we swapped to Imperium mumble and learned the reinforcement fleets were all less than 10 jumps out. Apparently PL and NC. heard the same thing because all the Sleipners switched their neuts to my titan, capped me out and blew me up. That was when the rest of the carriers died.
TMC: Do you have anyone to thank or have any more comments on the fight?
B: I’d like to give a big shout out to all the allies who burned there and never made it. I appreciate the effort. It really means a lot that our allies didn’t just let me die like the idiot, as it was my fault I was stuck in the situation.
THE COST
During the fight, FCON was supported by fleets from RZR, LAWN, and The Bastion, who defended with Hurricanes and T3 strategic cruiser doctrines, while PL and friends attacked with Sleiplnirs, T3 strategic cruisers, Oracles, and at least fifty interdictors. Imperium forces took the brunt of the losses, to the tune of about 206B ISK, while PL and friends took around 4B ISK in damages.
In the engagement, most of the Imperium Hurricanes were destroyed. FCON lost an additional eleven carriers and one dreadnought on top of the Nyx and Ragnarok. PL and friends took very few losses, mostly in the form of interdictors.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Lemba.
