In No Vacancies’s Home System on November 15 in J151530, Lazerhawks (LZHX) engaged No Vacancies (NVACA) in a challenged fight. Lazerhawk’s lost 33 billion ISK of ships and No Vacancies lost 15 billion ISK.
Background
In wormholes, you don’t have the usual neighbours or strategic borders that need to be defended, so battles start in different ways. One is via rage rolling your static to obtain new connections with the hope of finding a good fight or a good gank. Rage rolling is possible as all wormholes take a set mass before they close. Large wormhole corporations often know each others’ J sigs so, when they rage roll into each other, the two entities often ask for a fight and allow time for the other corporation to form their shiniest and best fleet. The battle is not to obtain strategic assets or advantage but to get a high quality good fight. In these engagments, the advantage often lies with the home team as they benefit from their specific wormhole bonuses and can field greater numbers. The opposition team is limited by what they can fit through the wormhole before it closes. For a corporation to commit completely and close their wormhole connection behind them is called going ‘balls deep’.
In this particular exchange Lazerhawks and No Vacancies were rage-rolling. Both corporations live in a C5 Pulsar, so had equal advantage and specialised tactics. C5 Pulars have a bonus to shield and energy nosferatu/neutralizers (+86% bonus to shield HP, signature and nos/neut drain amount and -43% to armor resists and capacitor recharge). Lazerhawks rolled into the No Vacancies wormhole, with both sides pinging for members and forming their best fleets. The battle happened in No Vacancies’s home system with Lazerhawk’s going balls deep.
The Reports
We spoke to Freak Static from No Vacancies who gave us his side of the fight:
“We were just doing the usual rage-roll set up when Lazerhawks rolled into us. We brought our A game and ended up with one of the largest fleets we’ve ever managed to form, with seven Basilisks, ten Curses and twenty Tengus with some being JaHAMgus. We also had two dreads ready to go and one more in reserve if we needed it.
[Seeing that] we jumped into LZHX the last two times and since we scouted at least three dreads and triage carriers on their side of the hole we decided to set up on our side of the hole with Basi’s and Curses set up at range, and Nags off grid. After some reshuffling our scout reports that they have two Naglfars and a Nidhoggur on their side of the hole, as well as a decent sized subcap force.They jump into us and we started our orbits as they dropped cloak, we aligned our dreads and fit full tank (ish) before warping to the hole. During this time our fleet engages their Huginns to minimise how much damage their dreads can do to our subcaps, although a few of our Curses are blapped off of grid. We then tried to break their Curses but were unsuccessful so the subcaps switched to the first Nag.
At this point we had two Nags on field, both engaging the enemy Nag, and it pops as our first nag drops into structure, and dies shortly afterwards. After this we switch to the triage Nid so that we can makes short work of it and during this time our last Nag came in after switching out from a tengu. The 2nd Nag then drops siege in order to get cap and reps from our Basi’s but unfortunately despite the fact it is out of siege we could not rep it or cap it (Blame brain in a box.). This unfortunately sealed the fate of that dreadnought but it brought down their Nid and a Bhaalghorn with it. At this point they start to bail, burning off their bubbler as we scramble to get points on their subcaps, knowing that their last surviving cap could not escape. We promptly bring it down as the last of their subcaps warp off and gfs are dropped in local.”
We also spoke to Hidden Fremen (CEO of Lazerhawks) who gave his side:
“We rolled into NoVac’s home. Knowing their recent swelling in numbers, we pinged for a fight. They did as well. Their fleet approaching 50 (over 50 in the end with reshipping), we assumed they’d jump into our 30. They did not. In true Lazerhawks fashion, we decided to go get the fight.
Our dread primaries were their Curses (they had ten of them) before their dreads landed, then it was all neuts, all DPS on dreads. With the advantage of them being able to reship, we’d stand no real chance of winning the ISK war. They even reshipped another dread after the first one died. With their focus on our baller Nid pilot (Robby Godfather), our Nags were able to finish off their second Nag before their neuts and DPS turned to our dreads.”
Video
Basilisk Reign from Lazerhawks has kindly provided us with a video of the engagement:
Quick Analysis
Both fleets had comparable setups with shield Naglfars, Curses and Tengus; Hugiins/Lokis providing webs and target paints. Lazerhawks brought carrier triage and No Vacancies fielded a Basilisk logistics fleet. No Vacancies had the greater fleet size, higher dps, and EWAR set up. Notable ships lost in the fight included the shiny 8 billion ISK Naglfar of Chief Spreadeagle and 7 billion ISK Nidhoggur of Robby Godfather. Loss mails also show capitals using current re-fitting tactics to optimise their tank or gank, with most capitals dying mid re-fit.
In Hidden Fremen’s words: “Good fight – prop to NoVac- they owe us one in our home 🙂“. We look forward to seeing the results of the next fight.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Cerussite.
