Header art by Major Sniper.
Just after downtime on May 25 the initial battle using PAPI’s Blarpy doctrine as a primary doctrine took place. That battle report has already been written by the incomparable Elthar, my fellow Resilience. [EMO] corp member.
Knowing that this fight was simply a warm-up, things were put in place to ensure that the next time these Blarpies were used, they would be dealt with swiftly.
That opportunity came swiftly, early on the morning of May 26, as multiple pings started being shot out from the PAPI discord.
The Buildup
@everyone team, first fleet of the night is up:
FC: Hedliner
NAME: Delving In
Ships: Blarpies
Comms: PL Comms – link in motd charlie ops channel move yourself in
Hedliner
@everyone could use a few more in this fleet before we send people to others – we’re still in T5ZI so its easy to join up.
FC: Hedliner
NAME: Delving In
Ships: Blarpies
Comms: PL Comms – link in motd charlie ops channel move yourself in
Hedliner
@everyone Two fleets for you to join:
Fleet 1: Blaster Harpies on Hedliner
Comms: motd
Ships: Blarpy > Kirin > Cmd Destroyer Boosts
Fleet 2: Muninns on Shattered Armer
Comms: motd
Ships: Muninns > Scimitars > Claymores > Svipuls
Johnny [Horde]
Constituent alliances rage-pinged their own discords. Multiple FC’s spread the information: Blarpies were the answer to the fights in 3-DMQT, and Blarpies would be the downfall of the Imperium.
What “the best theory crafters in EVE” had not taken into consideration was that a counter to the Blarpy doctrine had been developed prior to both of these fights and had not been deployed until enough blarpies were fielded to make a good example of their deaths, and boy did that happen.
PAPI formed a larger Harpy fleet than they had after downtime. Including reships, they brought 318 harpy pilots, as well as 139 Eagles, 108 Abadons, 77 Munins, and assorted other ships.
The Imperium also formed larger than the previous fight with 115 supercarriers, 116 carriers, 172 Eagles, 134 Munins, 74 Harbingers, and 52 Jackdaws with assorted other ships.
The Fight
With a larger Blarpy fleet in play, the counter was deployed. The Goonswarm supercarriers and carriers deployed space superiority fighters while The Initiative. deployed light and heavy fighters. The Initiative and some Goonswarm fighters were held off the gate while the majority of Goonswarm space superiority fighters swarmed the gate. Once PAPI jumped through, the space superiority fighters set to work. I don’t think anyone realized how successful this would be, with a total of 293 Harpies dying in very short order and the majority of the Jackdaw fleet. Both the Harbinger fleet and space superiority fleet made extremely short work of the much-heralded blarpy fleets while the Imperium HAC fleets engaged the larger ships of the line.
Once a large enough number of blarpies were destroyed, the light and heavy fighters sat some distance off the gate were given the green light to engage. By this point, PAPI knew they had lost, and resoundingly. The much-vaunted and heralded doctrine, the Blarpy, was a failure.
Extraction and Aftermath
PAPI coms were in absolute chaos with the attempt to withdraw, with “Abandons” having to slow boat back to the gate, having been abandoned by their FC ProGodLegend who jumped through the gate before any of his fellow pilots had even made it halfway.
With over 117 billion isk lost by PAPI, to 35 Billion isk lost by Imperium, there is absolutely no doubt that PAPI will be required to go back to the drawing board and make further use of “the best theory crafters in EVE”.
Once the fight was over, the following was written by ProGodLegend attempting to spin a loss for the PAPI coalition.
@everyone Fights over boys and girls. That was bound to happen eventually. Goons won that fight clean for the first time. We’ll adjust. Keep on your toes if they come out of their constellation we’ll return the favor and smash them with caps.
ProGodLegend
Every alliance spins. Every alliance will attempt to show their defeats in a less disastrous light. However, given the recent town hall brags (which can be found here) and the most up to date data by Normann Tivianne (found here) let there be no doubt, these setbacks, drop in numbers and continued bravado from ProGodLegend will not improve the concern from Fraternity, Northern Coalition & Horde leadership.
All in all, a great night for the Imperium. Maybe our second win will come soon?
Good fights PAPI. We look forward to Monday and further pushes.
Beeitnam: A Retrospective
Gilmar
LoL. Like the guys who drink beer all day, talking about the glory days or when they were young. Always theorizing and bullshtting, but never putting their feet forward enough to succeed. All that’s left for them is to paint the past and present in a pretty shade of rose to compensate for their consumptive retardation! Psychopathy, really, but like many of mankind today, it is difficult to discern fantasy from reality when so few do anything of real material import or merit. Keep watching tv, drinking koolaid, while the drunk leaders keep getting drunk on their own power! They simply cannot, in their state, see past their own noses and so constantly run into walls and wonder why.
May 27, 2021 at 7:20 AMWilliam Doe
Well that was quick. I mentioned how in a past article posted earlier this week if the Imperium can devise a counter for PAPI’s composition, and whaddya know? They did. PAPI got rekt.
May 27, 2021 at 7:38 AMGarreth Vlox William Doe
Can we really even call this devising a counter? They literally just switched drone types.
May 30, 2021 at 7:45 PMGuilford Australis
It’s ironic that PGL characterizes this as The Imperium’s first “clean” win considering he represents a coalition that can only win by using dumb gimmicks like “bubble-wrapping” anchoring structures and “Blarpies” to try to counter carrier fighters with cheap subcaps because PAPI is too cowardly to use capitals after their spectacular failure in M2-.
As PGL constantly reminds us, when PAPI does it, it’s “theorycrafting prowess.” But when The Imperium comes up with something creative, it’s the server’s fault.
May 27, 2021 at 12:16 PMAlaric Faelen Guilford Australis
You forgot the ultimate gimmick…..N+1 blobbing. Without that singular tactic, PAPI can’t win a fight against a girl scout troop.
May 27, 2021 at 1:27 PMJeet_Kundo Alaric Faelen
N+400
May 27, 2021 at 1:38 PMZaand Alaric Faelen
Nx3.
Actually, I petition we just start calling Papi NX3, and constantly remind PGL how bad N3 faceplanted under him.
May 27, 2021 at 7:15 PMGanthrithor Alaric Faelen
In fairness, this has never been done before: nobody has ever assaulted an entire girl scout troop like this in the history of the game. They’ve had years to fortify the walls of their castle with innumerable thin mints. We– the plucky underdog attackers– only have three, full-grown men for each of their girl-scouts– it’s very much a coin-toss whether we would win or lose in such an audacious assault. If we achieve our goal it will be the greatest victory in the history of history and we will have all the thin mints. If we lose, well, at least we tried. Nobody has ever challenged such a troop before.
June 5, 2021 at 3:29 AMJeet_Kundo
Can’t spin, it’s a win
May 27, 2021 at 12:22 PMAlaric Faelen
I guess holding their entire super fleet hostage for two months wasn’t a ‘clean win’ according to piggles.
May 27, 2021 at 1:26 PMshanemacgowansteeth
So it took the grand military strategist Piggles and his top theorycrafters in PAPI about a month to come up with a counter to The Imperium’s strategy, and about three days for The Imperium to counter that counter. Not even remotely surprised
May 27, 2021 at 2:16 PMGuilford Australis shanemacgowansteeth
The best part is that The Imperium countered PAPI’s “theorycrafting prowess” with literally the same thing it was already doing, just in a more effective way. Superiority fighters instead of light fighters, better positioning. That’s it. Same carriers/supers, same pilots as before.
PAPI developed an entirely new doctrine, imported and built thousands of hulls, and asked its line members to train into this new doctrine, which worked on precisely one occasion before the easy and obvious counter was discovered.
May 27, 2021 at 2:35 PMWilliam Doe Guilford Australis
That last paragraph is a doozy. I wonder how many times PAPI is going to ask it’s line members to do that same process again and pray that it works. Then the Imperium counters it in a few days and once again their braintrust of theorycrafters has to pull something else out of their ass just to frustrate their line members further they’re once again no closer to 1DQ than they were literally months ago.
May 28, 2021 at 10:10 AMchimpy William Doe
When the N+1 strategy is denied them, they have nothing else.
May 28, 2021 at 2:29 PMkwnyupstate . William Doe
PAPI can’t withstand flat out losing for long. Each time their leaders promise new tactics which also fail it is like a dagger in their heart.
May 28, 2021 at 4:32 PMkwnyupstate .
They actually thought they can defeat supers with subs.
May 28, 2021 at 2:49 AMkwnyupstate .
The genius theory crafters who think they can defeat supers with sub caps.
May 28, 2021 at 3:12 AMGarreth Vlox kwnyupstate .
Who do they think they are? The imperium guys who found a way to do exactly that successfully 4 times in a row in NPC delve?
May 29, 2021 at 3:32 AMMoomin Amatin Garreth Vlox
Wow, these Imperium guys sound like they could use some PAPI theory crafting. I bet the Imperium does not even have any good bomber FCs.
May 29, 2021 at 5:31 AMzuz Moomin Amatin
compared to ? any test ph bomb run end up by wipe whole fleet with a bomb ,,last one that worked on goon side wipe entire test ph fleet couple days ago if i rem good
May 30, 2021 at 5:44 AMGarreth Vlox zuz
We’re being sarcastic, test likes to act like the only people in the game who can come up with fleet concepts that work fly in their alliance. And they regularly make fools of themselves trying to prove that theory.
May 30, 2021 at 7:45 PMSeir Luciel
Goons continue to taunt PAPI for taking so long, especially now that they have reached The Imperium’s primary walls. But, strangely enough, they have ignored the element of a well executed defense on their part. Rather, they always emphasize the “incompetency” of PAPI when the more relevant factor in a repelled attack is quite simply the virtues of Goon’s play. Perhaps Goons mean to, by ignoring their own talents, wizard up a relative lack of talent in their enemies.
Well played Goons. You formed strong, you put guys in the right place, in the right ships, and you adapted to an evolving enemy. Be ready to do it again.
May 28, 2021 at 3:15 AMMoomin Amatin Seir Luciel
The Imperium is about to enter the sixth week of the “siege” with 3-D still lacking any PAPI gains. Numbers are down in T5Z every single day for PAPI. You know I spend enough time in stagers to know that as well. You also know that if PAPI had any ideas that they would be using them now. The M2 thing has really upset the apple cart. You now have PAPI really unwilling to accept the cost of the fight that they must have to take 1DQ. PAPI is crashing headlong into reality at this time which is why they prefer to do 100 jumps to shoot an astrahus in Curse than be deployed to 3-D again. Or maybe that never happened? 😉
May 28, 2021 at 5:03 AMMalcanis Moomin Amatin
*Technically it was an Azbel.
May 28, 2021 at 10:15 AMMoomin Amatin Malcanis
Thank you for keeping me honest.
May 28, 2021 at 1:58 PMJeet_Kundo Moomin Amatin
Not to mention we just ref’d two of their gates and they now get to figure out how they want to split their forces and be denied gate access for at least 50 hours from the time it was reffed to time it is destroyed, another anchored, and online
May 28, 2021 at 12:38 PMMalcanis Seir Luciel
Well of course we’re aware that this happy turn of events will only last until PGL languidly deigns to play one – or all – of his “several” headshot plans that goons can’t possibly anticipate.
May 28, 2021 at 10:14 AMAt that point, the keepstars will flip, papi participation will suddenly soar, mittani will become a bhuddist monk in Nepal after handing over all goon assets to Vily and CCP will put a monument to PGL’s ego up where the Imperial Palace used to be.
Garreth Vlox Malcanis
“and CCP will put a monument to PGL’s ego up where the Imperial Palace used to be”
There aren’t enough server blades in Iceland to support a monument that big.
May 29, 2021 at 3:30 AMNovartis Seir Luciel
PAPI is in the condition like Germans at WW2 with operation sealion. They had the plan ready. They have the means to do it. But they’re not ready to pay the butcher bill to get the objective
You can’t win a war by bringing knife to a gunfight every single time.
P.S Next time PAPI try to win a war, try not to corner your enemy too much, that won’t do you any good
May 28, 2021 at 1:15 PMGuilford Australis Novartis
This is a good point. I mentioned a few weeks ago that PAPI might have been more successful in taking 1DQ by attacking it when The Imperium was still somewhat spread out. A headshot might have worked then.
Instead, Gobbins announced his “long march” or whatever he called it, corralled The Imperium into a constellation with only two gates in, and now sits there in bewildered silence every time we repel his subcap fleets with supercapitals because he won’t use big toys anymore after M2-.
May 28, 2021 at 7:57 PMGarreth Vlox Seir Luciel
” Rather, they always emphasize the “incompetency” of PAPI.”
Because we’ve been the attacker often enough with a similar numerical advantage and needed nowhere near a YEAR to finish what we started in the same situation, yet here sits papi still having not finished the job.
May 29, 2021 at 3:15 AMSeir Luciel Garreth Vlox
WWBII is unique. The numbers fighting, the amount of wealth and big ships being used; M2 smashed all other Titan battles. The scale of this war is enormous. Even the oddity of the Goon fort next to the ihub, something the game no longer even allows giving Goons a unique defensive opportunity, makes this war and the stakes entirely novel.
In sum, Goons have never done anything like this before because no one has. EVE has no real comparable situations to what is happening now, only similar ones but massively reduced in scale. But the scale matters: it alters the equation. All analogies Goons use to past EVE events and glory days are inherently flawed as direct comparisons; it is a mistake to use EVE’s past to construct expectations for something new.
May 29, 2021 at 1:57 PMkwnyupstate . Seir Luciel
Not unique in war and in fact an extremely simple situation.
This is a classic example of an enemy with more numbers (whose numbers advantage has markedly diminished recently) attacking a well defended position.
May 29, 2021 at 2:45 PMEconomic situations making the cost of war material skyrocket for the types of items needed to win (titans, supers, caps in general) to the point where the attacker can’t afford using them whereas the defender has to and is willing to in order to survive.
Seir Luciel kwnyupstate .
Not unique in war. Unique in EVE.
May 29, 2021 at 4:21 PMkwnyupstate . Seir Luciel
Those same principles apply here also and all those things are happening now.
May 29, 2021 at 7:29 PMOrihara Izaya kwnyupstate .
Using subcaps against capitals is not altogether unthinkable. The Imperium did it when PAPI was first trying to place Keepstars in Delve (not against the capitals/supers per se, but to bash structures, which is kind of the end goal in 1DQ as well). The tactics used were countered eventually of course, and in any case here we are not talking about attacking someone trying to establish a foothold in the region, but going against the enemy in their homes, with fully fitted structures and stockpiles of ships in place, so the situation is vastly different. But it is not unthinkable in theory that a workaround exists.
That being said, it is almost entirely unthinkable that a tactic exists which doesn’t require enormous investment either way. Not a hundred billion in losses which is just about pocket change for a coalition of this size. Trillions upon trillions of ISK would need to be on the table. Possibly still less than losing hundreds of titans, if headway can be made at all. But the required stream of ships may still be unsustainable nonetheless. Only time will tell, I suppose.
May 29, 2021 at 4:42 PMkwnyupstate . Orihara Izaya
Exactly and we have not seen that commitment from PAPI. Sub caps vs caps as it is right now means subcaps vs cap fighters and fighters can be replaced much more easily than sub caps. So far PAPI just to beat the fighters alone requires much more effort and significantly more than that to actually destroy the carriers.
May 30, 2021 at 3:20 AMGarreth Vlox Orihara Izaya
“so the situation is vastly different. But it is not unthinkable in theory that a workaround exists.”
It’s more different then you mentioned. Those keepstars were UNFIT, and UNGUNNDED. They also didn’t have over 2 dozen other fit and gunned fortizars surrounding them. If papi thinks they can repeat the goon sieges of the NPC delve ungunned, unfit keepstars with the same tatics and ships they are in for a days long lesson in what massive subcap losses really are. We paid close to 1.5 trillion per npc keepstar kill and we only had to do that for ONE timer each, papi will most likely pay more than that for all THREE timers and all FIVE keepstars…. Let’s be honest, given their refusal to take repeated heavy losses previously, they don’t have 15 straight turbo feeds in a row in them.
May 30, 2021 at 3:30 AMOrihara Izaya Garreth Vlox
That is exactly what I said: “in their homes, with fully fitted structures and stockpiles of ships”.
The presence of other structures and ships to defend, the targets themselves being fitted in contrast to those in the mentioned Keepstar sieges, which were not. Even the your price estimate is in line with what I mentioned: I didn’t go into specifics because it is all too uncertain, but by “trillions upon trillions” I really did mean that clearing out 1DQ with subcaps could easily require an investment upwards of 20 trillion in ships.
May 30, 2021 at 4:50 AMGarreth Vlox Orihara Izaya
I missed where you said structures the first time. And I agree, I think 20 trillion might be a light estimate, and I don’t think there’s enough ships in the game right now for PAPI to sacrifice them all to find out. I also don’t think their leaders have the spine required to see 20 trillion in red losses on their killboards.
May 30, 2021 at 7:43 PMOrihara Izaya
In fairness, it isn’t surprising PAPI’s most recent doctrine was countered, and that has nothing to do with incompetence. For all the numerical superiority of PAPI, the Imperium has a huge home field advantage on their side here. What *would* have been surprising is if an easy and cheap way to neutralize the Imperium’s stockpile of supers (and titans) with no counter was found.
May 28, 2021 at 4:29 AMDeni'z von Meanace
As soon as Imp kicked them from T5Z the war would be over.
May 28, 2021 at 8:36 AMMajestic Deni'z von Meanace
When small and middle Alliances will rise up on the North, and start harrasing Frat and PL renting sov, the war is over.
May 28, 2021 at 12:35 PMYou dont need to be as greedy and stupid as FRT ttrying to grab so much land, for their fake botting accounts farms? but in reality there are only dozen real people behind all those fake ISK-farms.
Deni'z von Meanace Majestic
Not sure if they ready and able to settle anti FRT coalition anytime soon.
May 28, 2021 at 8:24 PMAlaric Faelen Majestic
I agree that if there were any serious attempt at a key PAPI alliance’s space the entire thing would collapse instantly. I just don’t see any up an coming groups looking to grab some space. PAPI blued literally anyone not Init or GSF and have a donut now- so even if someone did have eyes for getting into sov, it’s join the donut or be blobbed out. That would a be threat that PAPI would risk supers on- seal clubbing some new kid on the block. So I don’t even blame groups for not jumping on the chance to steal some space. It’d be great if they did, but we all know they’d either pay their tithe or face N+1 by the people that bring you the botting slices on the RMT pie chart.
May 29, 2021 at 2:38 PMGarreth Vlox Deni'z von Meanace
How bout that AF doctrine now deni?
Dumpstered spectacularly.
May 29, 2021 at 3:16 AMDeni'z von Meanace Garreth Vlox
Yeah, that’s was the perfect answer to all my qeustions )
May 29, 2021 at 3:31 AMGarreth Vlox Deni'z von Meanace
It really is, seeing as how all you did was talk about the almighty AF doctrine right before it got wiped by the very thing it was built to counter by doing nothing more complicated than deploying a different set of drones.
May 29, 2021 at 3:32 AMDeni'z von Meanace Garreth Vlox
I was in question why it wasn’t answered asap, but looks like it was a good planned trap. Haha. Can’t imagine how mad their military command should be.
May 29, 2021 at 5:12 AMGarreth Vlox Deni'z von Meanace
“I was in question why it wasn’t answered asap” Eve is the texas hold’em of video games. You never smash your enemy the first time they make a betting mistake, you always bait with a check first.
May 29, 2021 at 5:38 AMzuz Deni'z von Meanace
why this way is more fun then go 100 jumps to fight i cant undock ph or nc.
May 30, 2021 at 5:45 AMkwnyupstate .
When PGL said “That was bound to happen eventually.” he was correct.
May 28, 2021 at 4:38 PMEventually they have to try to attack the castle and now they are stuck in the moat with arrows and boiling oil raining down on them.
Garreth Vlox kwnyupstate .
“When PGL said “That was bound to happen eventually.” he was correct.”
Should we start taking bets that is exactly what he says when legacy folds under the weight of his and vily’s failures?
May 29, 2021 at 3:33 AMCpt Soban
>2021-05-27
“first official win”
Good to see the ministry of propaganda knows it’s their first actual win after 11 months of combat.
May 30, 2021 at 12:33 AMMoomin Amatin Cpt Soban
It was a long time coming but totally worth it. I am so looking forward to “Phase 4” of the “Anaconda Strategy” which apparently will have the “apex battle”.
May 30, 2021 at 2:39 AMGarreth Vlox Moomin Amatin
I thought gobbins told his guys the “big fight” wasn’t going to happen?
May 30, 2021 at 3:32 AMMoomin Amatin Garreth Vlox
It’s complicated. Can we leave it at that? Otherwise I have to write a lot of words to explain all the different things PAPI leaders are saying. You are right though, there will be a big fight and no big fight as well. This may or may not happen in or near 1DQ. I could go on. 🙂
May 30, 2021 at 7:24 AMzuz Cpt Soban
after how manny wins you mean :))
May 30, 2021 at 5:46 AMMoomin Amatin zuz
Be gentle with Cpt Soban please. They are a refuge from Reddit and have come to a friendlier and less toxic environment. Ty ;-).
May 30, 2021 at 7:26 AM