Effective immediately, Pandemic Horde has deployed to the Delve region under operation “Delve Blitz.”
In Gobbins’s post about the Alliance-wide deployment, he stated that the goal was to hit Goon assets in their homeland. Specifically, Horde is putting pressure by entosising I-Hubs and bashing citadels, as well as increase camping and ganking ratters, to include “whales” (larger ships). The operation is also intent on blocking the ability for inhabitants of Delve to make ISK via AFK cloaking and hunting with the intent of reducing ADMs.
Gobbins states that “by hitting valuable assets in Delve we open a second front and force goon’s hand into constantly jump cloning or downright panic and cut their deployment short in order to run home and prevent beans from setting their carpet on fire.”
This deployment also is seeing another installment of the experimental “Soviet Deployment System,” or having the corp provide the ships and the line members just need to get themselves to staging. This likely will be a very useful tactic as it dramatically lowers the need for large logistical operations such as seen during the Imperium deployment to the north a few weeks ago. Another facet of this deployment will see an organization based on time zone. This will increase the frequency of ops, as well as being easier to access for the beans.
In a clever way to incentivize beans to be down in Delve while needed, there is a schedule set off by significant tax breaks and increases. M-Th: 30% corp tax, F-Su: 3% corp tax. This should significantly encourage people to be in Delve for the first four days of the week and allow in keeping Horde’s strongest days, the weekend, to be especially for home defense.
Something to else to consider is that this deployment has been called near the end of summer. This is significant for Americans, given that school will be starting up again for many players in the next few weeks. Not only should this see more people involved (likely in EVE in general) with people returning from vacation and such, but the split schedule will optimise Horde’s ability to defend their own space. The first day of the deployment has already been under way and so far looks to have been successful.
This deployment seems to be Horde’s response to a perceived pitiful deployment by the Imperium, in an attempt to put pressure on its opponents. Strategically, this will force the Imperium to make the choice of protecting their homes as well as pursuing this “Dirty War.” I expect this to be spun as “Horde can’t handle the heat at home”, but that’s not how it looks on this side. The Art of War is about making your enemy meet you on your terms, and I expect the Imperium leadership to understand this. If this is to be a truly “Dirty War,” such strawmen should be left in the field. Controlling territory is what matters.
Panfam has been able to control the territory that it deemed worth defending, and relinquish the territory that it had not. From the perspective of Horde, this deployment to Delve is merely twisting the knife. Pandemic Horde has already had a presence down in Delve, focused primarily on cloaky camping. The Imperium will still have its Super Fleet and may be able to employ some form of counter control, as well as use the same tactic of jumpcloning back when needed. The Imperium may very well use the same tactic and launch a full on invasion of the north. However, that does not seem to have been the plan, nor does the Imperium appear prepared to take space so far north. This new counteroffensive by Horde will be an experimental time for both sides to be sure. Regardless, with an official deployment down south, the Imperium’s peasantry can expect their farms to smell a little bit more on the burnt side, and with a hint of salt.
Update: While writing this article, the first wave of Imperium capital fleets returned to Delve. The deployment to the north is at an end. The Imperium is actively moving home to Delve to respond to the new situation.
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dragonshardz
The Imperium’s return home was announced about an hour before that pastebin hit Reddit.
We’re not so much responding to PH’s deployment as packing up since the multi-front war in the North collapsed instantly to a single front, and the other large group in the area undeployed leaving us as the sole aggressors against everything PanFam and friends can bring to bear.
Us heading back home was pretty much a foregone conclusion as soon as TEST undeployed.
August 23, 2017 at 4:47 AMVulxanis Viceroy dragonshardz
I personally didn’t know about the Imperium going home until a few minutes after the article was published. I didn’t think the two were related. It came as a surprise to me.
August 23, 2017 at 7:11 AMAlot Vulxanis Viceroy
Makes quite a big difference which happened first.
August 23, 2017 at 7:17 AMRammel Kas Alot
Actually the discussions about moving back started when we realized that goals were already handed to us and that TEST had decided to abandon their efforts in the face of the super blob. Our guys just didn’t bother announcing the plans until all the prep work and key assets were already back in safety.
August 23, 2017 at 10:27 PMAlot Rammel Kas
From here it looks like thats probably what happened.
August 24, 2017 at 7:18 AMErick Asmock dragonshardz
I am pretty sure the undeploy was known to leadership days ago. 🙂 Remember it was only planned to be a short deployment.
August 23, 2017 at 10:41 AMArrendis Erick Asmock
It is known: The timing of any coalition repositioning is ultimately up to Mittens’ liver.
August 23, 2017 at 2:58 PMCarvj94 Arrendis
His liver specifically?
August 23, 2017 at 9:34 PMArrendis Carvj94
That’s where the alcohol gets processed, so yeah.
August 24, 2017 at 5:02 AMAlot Arrendis
You sure undeployment isn’t related to the Mittani’s bladder in that case?
August 24, 2017 at 2:00 PMErick Asmock Arrendis
As all good leaders do.
August 23, 2017 at 10:30 PMdavor safranko
makes me laugh they barely fought us at their home with all they had and now they wana fight us at our terms ready the killboard
August 23, 2017 at 5:00 AMNicolas Denis davor safranko
Amen
August 23, 2017 at 11:04 PMhighonpop
Maximum hurfs have been blurfed over the last few weeks. Especially among newbie line members who only know what their FC and CEO tell them and feed heavily off propaganda. It’s been fun and kind of annoying at the same time.
August 23, 2017 at 12:58 PMVulxanis Viceroy
I would like to point out I said “Control of territory” is what matters. Keyword “control”. I was viewing this war through the lense of the Total War games. In a total war game, a viable tactic for defeating your enemy is falling back and allowing them to acquire territory they are not prepared to control in the long run. Just because the Imperium had control over a large amount of territory for now, the Panfam had consolidated strength to effectively deter serious encroachment on territory that actually had infrastructure that was considered worth protecting. For the Invasion of Delve, while it did not mean much for Horde, raiding Imperium’s home territory is a viable tactic as well. It would force the Imperium to choose to pursue the northern war or protect their home territory. Now that the Imperium is abandoning Syndicate, I would say that you would be hard pressed to claim they have control over that territory now. Which was one of the goals of the Panfam in the first place. This was a long term “dirty war” and sometimes you make sacrifices. I also made no claims of impotence.
I would like to again point out I did not claim the two things were related. To the best of my knowledge, Gobbins was not aware that Goons had started to evacuate while Horde had made plans to invade Delve. This is an example of both sides working independently, and it just ended up being during the same 24 hour period, thus why we were surprised. I apologize if I did not make these points clear enough in the article.
August 23, 2017 at 5:33 PMJamie Grainger
It seems to me that part of the view of the northerns was that we deployed north with the intention of holding or controlling space. This was NEVER the case. We have been pretty open about that. INIT had their plan, and we deployed to do our part to make that happen.
August 23, 2017 at 6:01 PMIt did.
Instantly.
We merely moved ships and accomplished the one goal we had. Every day we remained, every fight we fought beyond that, was merely to make the deployment worth it in the first place.
Trying to have a conflict with OMGPANICBATPHONENC. only served to show me that there isn’t a single entity in the north east of Syndicate that deserves any respect.
On the other hand, i’m looking forward to this conflict with Horde, as I have seen that despite being commonly seen as PL’s “pets”, they are an entity that will get shit done for themselves.
It is my hope that Imperium leadership doesn’t deploy them same OMGITSASABRESUPERBLOBDUNKIT tactic that the North used against us.
I know….it’s a lot to hope for, but it would be nice to see some levelheaded escalation.
Horde can be fun to fight.
Daito Endashi
Haven’t they lost every Fortizar they tried to anchor?
August 23, 2017 at 6:07 PMCarvj94 Daito Endashi
Fortizars are actually pretty cheap compared to the cost of a battleship fleet. Cause a forts 10 bil and a fleet typhoon is a bit over 200 mil (I think) so that means only 50 phoons are equal to a Fortizar. So I think the number of Forts lost isn’t really a good metric for who won.
August 23, 2017 at 9:34 PMDaito Endashi Carvj94
You’d be correct if we were talking about the ISK-war, but what I meant was the strategic objective. The objective in every big fight was to anchor a Fort as far as I know, and they’ve lost every single one of these Forts in the engagements
August 24, 2017 at 8:18 AMJamie Grainger Daito Endashi
No, the strategic objective was to collapse the war in the north to a single front, rather than 2, and allow our allies to take what they wanted. That was completed before we even anchored the first Fortizar. The Fortizar had a strategic purpose, as well, but onlining wasn’t the purpose; it would have been more of a bonus.
August 24, 2017 at 11:35 AMDaito Endashi Jamie Grainger
The comment I initially responded to said that goons won every big fight. I answered that they lost the strategic objective in every big fight. You are confusing the strategic objective of the war and the strategic objectives for the ‘big fights’. Noone was talking about the former.
August 24, 2017 at 7:40 PMCarvj94 Daito Endashi
I personally think their objective was to generate fights with those forts though. If that’s true they accomplished that every time. Course PANFAM accomplished their objective of stopping the forts every time. So It’s either a tie or a loss for the imperium depending on the true purpose of anchoring those forts.
August 24, 2017 at 8:40 PMDan Chute Daito Endashi
you really think if we wanted to put fortizars up we couldn’t have gotten one up? Fortizars were simply to generate tidi content. He thinks losing a few fortizars = a loss for goons… you haven’t seen the delve economic report have you?
August 25, 2017 at 5:48 PMDaito Endashi Dan Chute
And you haven’t read the comment I was replying to, have you?
August 25, 2017 at 6:34 PMNoone’s talking about the war as a whole but about ‘big fights’. Please don’t shift the topic to what is more convenient to you, thanks
Get your hand off it Dan Chute
Its a game no one wants to read a economic report stop pulling it.
September 9, 2017 at 1:19 PMDaito Endashi
Syndicate was deliberately given up without a fight, as far as I know. Make of that what you want
August 23, 2017 at 6:09 PMJamie Grainger Daito Endashi
And that was our entire goal, to collapse the conflict into a single front, allowing either INIT to take Syndicate(prefered), or TEST to whatever they do (apparently that is “not capitalize on the situation”).
August 24, 2017 at 11:20 AMYou cannot downplay that in any way without sounding like a complete fool.
Carvj94
I’m just a third party but I’m at least 95% sure PL had spies who told them that the goon fleets were moving home and that Intel reached Gobbins before he made the announcement. Otherwise PL spies don’t know what they’re doing. It’s kind of a major development and should only take an hour or so to reach his ear.
August 23, 2017 at 9:41 PMJamie Grainger Carvj94
Line members didn’t even know until 20m before the first public move op moved out.
August 24, 2017 at 11:16 AMOur logistics big boys are tight knit and tight lipped.
dan Journeaux
How I see it and the reality of the situation, the Action is in the south, not in delve, Pandemic horde is being used to divert Imperium resources to fleets at home to prevent our attendance in the conflict with people in the south east.
Now saying we needed to go home as a whole to prevent them from taking our space is ridiculous, as everyone is well aware the Super cap fleet stayed home in Delve for Defense, it is more than capable of repelling any and all aggression from Pandemic Horde. As seen by the super capital fleet that dunked Pandemic Hordes Riaitru that was attempting to anchor in Delve last night.
Now yes an undefended riaitru is not a fortizar with a large fight but Horde didn’t show to the timer at all, not even a scout as a maxed 250 man Super capital Blob dunked the structure with more waiting for the drop that never came. This is likely the heavy handed response that will continue in the region as Horde tries to disrupt the heaviest populated region in eve.
August 24, 2017 at 2:27 PMGus Machado
with their suppers, however we are on our home turf now. Like my man davor safranko said ready the killboard.
August 24, 2017 at 5:20 PMParv
Personally my highlights of the war are DBRB trolling Grath and making him ragequit the Open Comms show and the total steamrolling of Syndicate by Initiative.
August 25, 2017 at 9:28 AMDan Chute
they won’t even undock vs jackdaws…
August 25, 2017 at 5:44 PMMr.Binks
What 4 days that’s it? PL decide to stay home? Oh that’s right they’re fucking busy worrying about thier precious elite PVP KB stats to bother. Hint KBs don’t win wars making your enemy/mark pay for the kills does.
August 25, 2017 at 7:41 PM