The grand wars of Dominion sov have ended, replaced with an infinity of smaller local fights; one might go so far as to say that the coalition-level warfare that once defined nullsec has become a relic of aegis past. That said, there are still countless interesting events taking place around New Eden, if only the investigator can dig up the details. This turned out to be very much the case with the story behind this Rorqual Kill, the end result of a performance by a few skillful pilots that must truly have pleased Bob, god of wormholes.
The Rorqual died loaded to the gills with wormhole loot, and it was joined in death by a moderately expensive Archon. The muppets are a Portuguese and Brazilian corporation with sixty members. TMC reached out to ‘the muppets’ first, and when that proved unsuccessful, to Bashiak Rhanzev, a diplomat of CCLP alliance. He declined to discuss the circumstances surrounding the kill,
TMC: I’m wondering if there is a story worth telling there, would you mind telling me how that rorqual and carrier got lost?
Bashiak Rhanzev: Hello! No story, sorry… just EVE being EVE.
TMC: What gets me is that the tower did not die. Were the miners caught out? were they bumped? I’m trying to make sense of it.
Bashiak: Like I told you! EVE being EVE, sometimes blowing stuff up seems like the thing to do!
TMC: Did you try and use a Battle Rorqual? If so, you have balls of steel, but you kind of did it wrong…
Bashiak: Balls of Steel? Hmmm… Yep. Check.
TMC: Seriously, if you guys came out to fight in that thing, then that is a story all by itself.
Bashiak: I’m sorry mate! But there is no story there. You can write about the balls of steel requirement to join our alliance though.
A glance at the muppets corp killboard showed why they might not want to talk about it. Apparently the past few days had been a bit rough.
Though the muppets were unwilling to talk, DURA LEXX, a Russian-speaking alliance, proved more than willing to discuss events. Please note that the quotes below have been re-ordered and mildly cleaned up for coherence. On Sunday evening, DURA LEXX pilots were rolling holes and looking for fights. They discovered a C5 wormhole: K155040. It was heavily settled with several towers and numerous ship maintenance arrays. Deciding that it would be a great place to get a fight, DURA LEXX pushed everything it could into the hole. Specifically, two Naglfars, two Armageddons, Two Bhaalgorns, a pair of Vindicators, an Onyx, and a handful lighter support. When no fights immediately materialised, the dreadnoughts warped to the first tower in an attempt to communicate with the locals more directly. The DURA LEXX pilots were playing with fire, and they knew it. The muppets had at least a dozen capitals in system, quite possibly more, and reinforcements for DURA LEXX were on the wrong side of a closed hole.
Soon enough, the muppets warped onto the DURA LEXX dreads as they were shooting the second POS. The muppets’ fleet consisted of a Moros, Three Naglfars, and a triage Chimera. Here is where it gets interesting; despite being outnumbering their opponents 2:1 in dreads and having triage support, the muppets’ fleet was massacred.
A glance at the lossmails shows a possible reason why. The Vindicators, which by all rights should have been dealing brutal quantities of damage, barely scratched the paint on anything. Instead they had fit to energy neutralizers; it would appear that DURA LEXX refit every subcap it had to maximum neuting power to include un-bonused hulls.
Unable to repair without capacitor, presumably with the Chimera likewise neuted to helplessness, the muppets dreads fleet died too quickly to take down any of the attacker’s dreads. Unsupported by webbing subcaps of their own, the muppets’ dreads would also have had a very difficult time hitting the subcaps draining them dry, leading to the hugely unequal ratio of losses seen here. In the words of Goldie RUS of DURA LEXX,
Goldie RUS: They have balls, despite that it was 4-2 dread fight they warped to the fight. But they had bad fits, and no experience or support ships.
With the opposition fleet obliterated, the DURA LEXX fleet made itself at home, reinforcing towers long into the night and throwing up a tower for their own for safety. Then they found a Naglfar that had been bumped out of a POS at some point and promptly claimed it for the greater good, an event they filmed and set to appropriately epic music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7iFyOpCuuM
With all towers in the system now reinforced, it appears that the muppets reached out for help, but the ever shifting routes of wormholes prevented any backup from arriving before their towers started to become vulnerable again.
Tafer Tanho: Also it was some small holes to bring big corporation who want to fight but no
Goldie RUS: Frigate hole. He means it closed 20 hours before the first reinforce, so maybe they couldn’t cooperating with forces in time
With no help coming and DURA LEXX waiting to finish the job, the muppets apparently decided to cut their losses and save what they could. Every ship that couldn’t be logged off inside the safety of a POS shield was self-destructed,
Goldie RUS: 10 caps now in logoff, 15 caps self destructed, dozens of ships, 12 rattlesnakes, 20 command ships etc
With every capital ship they could save logged out and the rest destroyed, the last task for the muppets was to try and save as much of the loot, fittings, and other assorted valuables amassed during their tenure in the wormhole as possible. With this end in mind, it would seem that at least one muppets player piled everything he could get into the Rorqual shown above, and then warped to a safespot to attempt a safe logoff. DURA LEXX’s tactics provide a possible motive for this risky gambit,
Goldie RUS: Most of their pilots decided to logoff in caps on poses, but one of them decided to warp out to the safe logoff on his ships with all the valuables. I think he was scared by the variant fight enemy trap-POS on the same moon
TMC: Ah.
Goldie RUS: Our trap-pos has 7 large turrets and 4 neuts. This happens from time to time
TMC: So after you destroy a POS, you put your own up with large guns and neuts to trap ships that logged off at the destroyed POS?
Goldie RUS: Sometimes, when pilots are very impolite. Not in this case – they were very polite and gave a fight, which is a good thing.
Unfortunately for the muppets, it didn’t work. They were probed out and aggressed before they could disappear, and then obliterated. The self-destruction of some of the muppets’ ships, along with the end of the Rorqual and Archon, was captured by the budding cinematographers of DURA LEXX and set to an oddly catchy tune.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=633zeYTXNsE
With the muppets strength broken and everything of value either logged or destroyed, DURA LEXX finished up the assault by smashing absolutely everything left. With no targets remaining to shoot, the DURA LEXX fleet withdrew to their POS and got ready to leave.
Goldie RUS: we just attacking wormholes, they can return when we will exit through the first c5 or c6 hole
With DURA LEXX, gone the muppets had a choice. The muppets could evacuate what assets they could save, or to pick up the pieces and start rebuilding. Hopefully they will learn from their defeat and carry on; after all, only a few days prior to this fight, DURA LEXX had taken a beating as well.
TMC would like to thank Tafer Tanho and Goldie RUS of DURA LEXX for agreeing to be interviewed for this article. The reader should also be aware that information gathered for this story was done across a fairly difficult language barrier; as such some details may be left out. If you have more information about the events described here please leave them in the comments below.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by FearlessLittleToaster.
