Tribal Band (TRIBE) recently withdrew from their home region, Period Basis, to Catch. The move came after the abandonment of Delve by TEST Alliance Please Ignore (TEST) which inadvertently cut the lines of transport into Period Basis. TRIBE has been a steadfast ally of TEST, and participated in all noteworthy battles in the Fountain war.
In the early hours of August 25th the station in YHN-3K, TRIBE’s main staging system in Catch, was due to leave its final reinforced mode. The region, and in particular this staging system, has been under relentless attack by Against ALL Authorities (-A-) and Darkness of Despair (-DD-) for some time now. TRIBE recently committed multiple carriers in an attempt to stop the progress of the Southern alliances but ultimately failed, losing their carriers in the process. This failure set the stage for the final battle of this staging system.
It was an all or nothing fight for TRIBE. Many corporations and members of the alliance saw defending the staging system as a turning point for the entire campaign in Catch, and ultimately the viability of the alliance as a whole. The stakes of the battle were undeniably high – losing this fight could very well mean seeing TRIBE ejected from nullsec.
TRIBE initially formed a fleet of Typhoons, supported by a TEST cruiser fleet and a fleet of Pandemic Legion (PL) talwars. In anticipation of the Rokh fleet that the enemy was expected to bring, Confederation of xXPIZZAXx (PIZZA), Bomber’s Bar, and TEST also formed bombers.
The aggressors, comprised mostly of the forces of -A-, -DD- and C0VEN, decided to bring their standard long range Rokh and Maelstrom fleet, despite the substantial threat of bombers.
The battle began with -A- and TRIBE’s allies bridging into the system, spiking local to 600+ and kicking off a relentless and bloody fight for the system.
At around thirty minutes into the fight, several consecutive bombing runs managed to wipe out over 50 battleships of -A- and allies in a matter of minutes, giving the defenders the upper hand. The defenders began diverting their effort to intercepting enemy reinforcements and started to hand out free ships so the fallen could reship and return to the field.
Despite TRIBE’s attempts to delay reinforcements, -A- brought in wave after wave of battleships, and after an hour of fighting it became clear that -A-‘s supplies would outlast TRIBE’s.
Conservative estimates place the cost for -A- and allies at around 40 billion ISK, the cost of approximately 160 battleships and 350 ships in total. TRIBE’s losses amount to around 20 billion ISK, which corresponds to losses of 120 battleships and 310 ships. This is sov war, however, so despite the killboards being in TRIBE’s favour the true measure of victory is whether the strategic objective was achieved. In this case, despite the green killboards, TRIBE lost the strategic objective and consequently their staging system.
With the loss of their staging system, the future of the TRIBE is uncertain. No official statement has been issued, however, losing a staging system never ends well for anyone. The future of TRIBE is unknown, but one thing is clear: the Southern Russians are back.
You can check out the battle reports through the Tribal Band killboard, Eve-Kill, or BRdoc. Keep in mind that the battlereports are messy, still updating, and seem to have some errors.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Sorgenkind.
