In a somewhat pyrrhic victory for Pandemic Legion and Northern Coalition., the aggressors in Providence managed to save an Athanor in D-GTMI late on March 25. This has been hailed by them as a strategic victory, having saved a structure that is occasionally used for staging attacks throughout Providence and into Legacy-held Catch.
More than 1 trillion ISK was lost in the battle and ensuing skirmishes, and the death toll included a TEST Ragnarok. The titan pilot claimed on Reddit that he died mid-refit following the use of a Bosonic Field Generator doomsday weapon.
NCdot Fleet Commander Killah Bee said the Athanor, which was in its first reinforcement timer before the attack, wasn’t really the focus of the fight.
“We saw what they [TEST] formed, so it was time to throw down,” he said.
The combined NC/PL forces knew they wouldn’t outright win a capital engagement because Legacy Coalition had Supercapital forces in jump range. Their primary focus was on dealing as much damage as possible before their Dreadnought group became unable to break their targets.
“Sadly, TEST were able to bring FAXes quicker onto the grid than we anticipated, so we only managed to kill one titan,” he said. “After that, we just killed as many dreads as we could.”
It was a bloodbath, but not in NC/PL’s favor. They lost 245 out of the 288 Dreadnoughts fielded, according to the battle report. Legacy lost only 13 dreads, but also saw the deaths of 44 Force Auxiliaries and a single anti-support Carrier to the NC/PL strategy. More than 200 sub-capitals were also shredded by the opposing fleets and other third partying groups. Overall, more than 1,500 pilots participated in the slaughter.
In another boon for the butcher’s bill, Legacy Coalition’s subcap fleet managed to catch evacuating NC/PL Rokh battleships in T-RPFU for another 19 billion ISK destroyed while losing just 10 billion.
Legacy FC Ironwulf claimed the ultimate victory in the fight.
“We responded with an almost equal force with numbers being on our side,” he said. “Personally, it was a good fight win or lose that the game needs more of, so we can shake some of these cap stocks loose.”
With just a few systems between the hostile coalitions, Ironwulf expects there to be more fights like this, which was the largest engagement between the two so far. What remains unanswered is whether other coalitions will take advantage of that content, including longtime Providence homesteaders Curatores Veritatis Alliance or the nearby Imperium, both of which were able to scramble fleets to the area in time to see the end of the fight.
This was also the second major capital engagement to occur in the week since CCP reduced the total Jump Fatigue cap. Both fights saw the death of titans, with a Goonswarm-led coalition having engaged the Guardians of the Galaxy supercapital fleet in another trillion ISK battle early on March 24. With the action seemingly increasing across the cluster, the team here at INN will keep a close eye out for further developments in these conflicts.
