On April 4, ProGodLegend posted on the TEST Alliance forums, announcing a war against Winter Coalition. Legacy and Winter have been trying to negotiate a cease-fire ever since the slightly premature end of a Non-Invasion Pact roughly two and a half weeks ago, with PGL claiming that he and Vily provided Fraternity and WinterCo “every chance to co-exist” along the current borders between them. PGL went so far as to claim that Noraus (WinterCo’s executor and autocrat) took Legacy’s good faith efforts and used the information he gained to plan an attack on Legacy-owned space, taking the time to further grow WinterCo’s supercapital fleets, and also find fresh allies in Pandemic Horde.

This new alliance was demonstrated when Fraternity and Horde took to high-sec space and reinforced the Tranquility Trading Tower, Legacy’s market Keepstar in the Perimeter system. This assault appears to be the proverbial straw that caused diplomatic efforts to fail, with PGL stating that the attacks leave Legacy with “essentially no choice” but to stage a counter-invasion.

Experience Will Out

ProGod claims that this war will not be a particularly ‘hot’ war, with many conflicts in a very short space of time. Instead, Legacy will be fighting in a difficult timezone and facing an uphill battle against WinterCo and their allies, who have a significant number of supercapitals and are willing to use them. However, PGL is sure that Legacy’s experience in multiple different theatres of operation will help provide them with a winning edge when compared to the relative newcomers from the Serenity server.

In fact, this experience seems to have been demonstrated in the first major conflict of this new war, a battle in VD-8QY on April 5, which saw a TEST Alliance dreadbomb kill an Avatar and an Erebus, along with a pair of Nyx’ and numerous Force Auxiliaries. Early indications are that this Dreadnought commitment was a counter-escalation, after WinterCo dropped their supercap contingent on a Legion of xXDeathXx Muninn fleet reinforcing a Fortizar structure in the system. It will be interesting to see if TEST and WinterCo are so free to commit capital assets after the April 9 update to EVE, which will bring a large pass on capital ship balance, including both Dreadnought and Force Auxiliary insurance values.

Strange Bedfellows?

While PGL claims Winter Coalition have formed some sort of alliance with Pandemic Horde, the VD-8QY battle report also suggests that WinterCo have come to some agreement with Skill Urself, an ex-Wormhole group that currently holds sov in Insmother, Oasa and Perrigen Falls. Skill Urself are known for bursting onto the nullsec scene 18 months ago with an assault and occupation of old Drone Region Federation space, and they have never been shy when committing both subcapital and supercapital assets to their campaigns.

On the LegacyCo side, there are some expected players, but also an oddity of their own. Expected players include Legion of xXDeathXx, who are involved in the creation of new Russian Bloc “Final Reunion”, a group comprised of both the old Drone Region Federation and Red Menace Coalition as significant members. Slightly more unexpected participants in the WD-8 fight are Inner Hell, who brought a Loki fleet to the fight. While it has yet to be confirmed, the Inner Hell group appear to have focused exclusively on WinterCo and their allies, suggesting they may be working in tandem with Legacy Coalition.

Here at INN, we will of course be paying close attention to this new conflict in EVE Online, and will bring you new developments as they happen.