[Editor’s Note: This part two of a four part series about fleet commanders in EVE who have played a part in World War Bee II, or World War Bee as it is known to Imperium members.]
Wallymarts is a fleet commander with Nullsechnaya Sholupen.
What can you tell us about yourself, who you fly with, and why you FC?
I’m a USTZ player that is part of NSH’S FC team. I like to FC because I have played this game for over a decade and have seen [or] been a part of many fleets. I started real PvP when I joined a corp by the name of Appetite 4 Destruction, based out of Curse. It was a crash course in PvP, and they were well known for what they called “punching up.” We would take t1 cruisers and roam around Catch and Scalding [Pass]. We either all died or got a fight, that was our objective.
I later joined Feign Disorder and learned about small gang fights, hence my obsession with the Oracle. We would fight and harass Triumvirate daily back then, I learned a lot of the politics of EVE. I learned an enormous amount of sov mechanics which gave me the reputation I have today for sov warfare and harassment. I later stumbled into leading feign disorder when a lot of the leadership went afk, I deployed them to Querious, all 10 of us, and we shut down the Querious Fight Club in a month.
That process created a recruitment boom, a lot of people saw us taking on fleets of 30 to 40 battle cruisers in our 10 man Cynabal or oracle gang and wanted in on the action. Once the locals stopped undocking I moved us to The Great Wildlands.
In the Great Wildlands we reached out to Nullsechnaya Scholupen to join the pseudo coalition they had in NPC null. This was entirely foreign and very odd for a group like Feign Disorder, we did sov null, we entosised, we use supers but to gank with, not to sit on grid and brawl, so a lot of guys were uneasy.
Months go by and our coalition came up with a great idea to merge all the alliances into one…. that failed almost immediately. Within a month everyone split, Feign Disorder was now a corp, not an alliance. We joined Black Legion for easy frags and to keep playing. I went afk because it just wasn’t my thing. Being one of 200 Muninns shooting one of 200 enemy Ferox. It just wasn’t that fun.
After my break I hit up one of the NSH directors, Anure. I asked to join and he said yes.
Since then I’ve been on this wild ride in NSH. At one point I was even given the keys to NSH, which I immediately de-blued every single group we had, mailed them and let them know tomorrow at downtime you’re a target. (We had a lot of useless allies).
Anure came back, told me I did a great job and asked why we were in Querious. He understood the moment he realized we had taken over a large part of Querious, had goon renters paying us more than they were paying Goons, and all the while we were having the time of our lives.
What do you think motivated this war? Either politically or personally or both.
The motivations for this war I don’t think are very complex. The game has been exceedingly stagnant for most large alliances. Everyone was fighting one another and the only one gaining, both in isk and members, was Goons.
While all the groups hit each other and go nuts, Goons sat there mining spod, making dread caches and emassing the largest super fleet of any single entity in the game.
I think a lot of leaders of alliances did the math and realized that they would never catch up without banding together, much like the Mongols did. They put away their differences and set a common goal, kill the goons. Since then they have made some pretty impressive progress.
What are your favourite battles or recollections from this war?
Some of my favorite battles don’t even involve me being and FC, honestly. The war was a break for me. I no longer had to research every single enemy fit, ranges and ammo for every engagement, no longer had to hexabox, keep tabs on reinforcement fleets, or coordinate with people. It was a good break.
One of our FCs, most known for his non-niche ideas, came up with a way to counter the Jackdaw spam we kept getting while hitting the 1-SMEB jump bridges. Zero tank, max hyper and align Cynabals.
The moment he said that I pm’d Anure and told him we are gonna feed and look like fucking idiots.
I got in my Cynabal, followed slims exceptionally easy instructions along with 10 to 15 other moist NSH pilots and we sat on a ping above the jump bridge while a handful of bombers hit dmg cap.
About halfway thru shields local pops up about 90, the Jackdaws have arrived. They all decloak and fail to catch bombers, slim warps us to a ping 40 from them, broadcasts two Jackdaws and tells people to lock both and shoot, if first dies get second. Both pop and before I know it we are at a new ping. He warps us down again and we pop 2 more jackdaws, this happens again about 10 more times before Goons are forced to retreat. I’m in shock. I can’t believe how well that worked.
The next time we have more Cynabals, about 25 or 30. Goons brought Muninns and we did the same thing. Long story short, the jump bridge died MANY TIMES because Goons just could not find a way to deal with slims doctrine.
Is there anything you would like to have accomplished which you haven’t?
The only thing I wish I could have done but didnt during our involvement in WWB 2 is to get Hedliners feet pics and The Mitannis feet pics, for my collection. Hobestly that’s my only regret.
What were some of the challenges faced by your FC team or leadership during this war?
One thing we never wanted to do was take our group of NSH guys, throw them in Muninns and just be a number for a huge zerg. We did it once and, honestly, the EUTZ FCs of PAPI just white knuckle way too hard. It’s not fun.
The large TiDi fights were out of our element as well, and very soul crushing. No amount of solo battleship kills I got on my Nyx made up for sitting there for 16 hours straight as my gir….boyfriend made fun of me.
How has this war differed from others you’ve participated in before, if at all?
The last war I was involved in was the Triumvirate vs Russian war. We defended their Keepstar with them, dropping LR nags and revs, we obliterated Russian battleships. TiDi wasn’t a real issue. It was pretty fun, then ambushing their super fleet, literally NSH dropped a dread bomb at zero on enemy dreads and supers, we lost maybe 1 or 2 total. We were even able to warp dreads to a more advantageous position to kill more supers at one point. All the while I had an alt watching the Test super fleet nkt even attempt to hell their new russian allies. That was a pretty fun day.
If someone is thinking of becoming an FC, what advice would you give them?
To all those that want to FC, know that every single loss is a learning experience. Not just your personal loss, but that dictor that died on a gate, what could he have done differently to live, what could you as an fc have done to keep him alive to keep bubbling. These are things you have to think about.
Always find a weakness in your enemy. They have as much logi as you have dps ships? Find the basi with the lowest playtime, find who is capping him and either jam or kill that cap buddy, chances are that’s a logi 4 basi and you just destabilized a fleets cap chain. That might be a determining factor in that fight.
For those that are extremely new to fcing, please for the love of God use t1 cruisers. A fleet of vexors and exeqs, given their utility mids, can go isk positive against just about any hac comp out there. Don’t be afraid to take a fight. You fleet will be 200 to 500mil in loses all you have to do is kill 2 hacs, or a recon and a logi, catch a Dumbo links alt on a gate. Demoralize your enemy through embarrassing losses and you will break just about any group you want.
