Week 11 of World War Bee saw a significant uptick from the previous week’s lull, back in line with week nine’s numbers. Battles finally began to kick off in Querious, although some of the late-week confrontations were less than satisfying as TEST leadership stood down fleets in US prime time. The Initiative (INIT) more or less retook just about all of Fountain’s systems in less than a week, resetting the map, despite the losses in citadels in the region. The war’s center of gravity has well and truly shifted to the Southern Theater as fights in Querious dominated the battle reports.
The ISK split in the war zone of the Southwest is steady at 63% to 37% in favor of the attackers. In theater, 20.1 trillion ISK in assets have been lost and 207k ships have been destroyed. Across New Eden, since July 1, the ISK divide is 50.2% to 49.8% in favor of the attackers, with 27.1 trillion ISK lost and 251k ships destroyed. The war populations have stayed steady week to week, with the Imperium fielding 53k pilots versus 147k pilots arrayed against them. The average ship lost so far is worth just under 108 million ISK. A rough estimate of the real world cost of the war so far is no less than 376,000 USD/282,000 GBP/316,000 EUR.
There were six battles in week 11 with more than 20 billion ISK in losses. The Imperium achieved their strategic objectives five times, including Fortizar defenses, Black Ops ambushes, and entosis fights. TEST/Legacy accomplished their strategic objective in one of the major fights early in the week, reinforcing some iHubs in Querious.
The two major theaters are the North (Fountain and the border with Aridia and Cloud Ring as well as Northern Delve) and the South (the rest of Delve, Paragon Soul, Querious, Stain, Period Basis, and Esoteria).
THE NORTHERN THEATER
The war in the North has almost completely come to a close and, moving forward, it’s possible that there might be even less than week 11’s four actions. The war picked up Monday in the North with INIT finishing off nearly all of the remaining PandaFam iHubs in Fountain, resetting the progress that the attackers had made over the first two months of the war. INIT also destroyed a PandaFam Fortizar in Fountain.
Tuesday was quiet, but Wednesday had more structure bashes as INIT continued to clear Fountain of enemy citadels. NC. lost two Fortizars and one Athanor in the region. To close out the week, INIT spotted an additional Raitaru and dismantled it.
THE SOUTHERN THEATER
Week 11 in the South kicked off with PandaFam and the Imperium trading defensive timers as each side formed to defend a reinforced Fortizar, one in Fountain and the other in Querious, which lead to the forces passing one to successfully repair their citadels. Later in the day, PandaFam and TEST/Legacy dropped a Keepstar in 1M4-FK in northern Querious, presumably as a future staging for supercarriers and titans.
Fights for the day got started with a small one in Catch, with the Imperium killing 1.4 billion ISK for 1.1 billion in losses. During Euro prime time, TEST/Legacy formed up to do some entosis hacking in strength. Imperium FC kocicek said, “[TEST] went to reinforce Period Basis iHubs, which they did semi-successfully and then completely failed on their follow up. We dropped caps and they dipped immediately.” During the vulnerability window, the TEST/Legacy fleet was able to reinforce about a dozen iHubs in Period Basis, using a few cover fleets to fight off initial Imperium defense. The Imperium took the worst of the fighting, losing 31.4 billion ISK to the 18.3 billion ISK lost by TEST/Legacy. A bit later, a Legacy Ferox gang reinforced a faction Fortizar into armor but extracted 1.2 billion ISK in kills. To close out the day, PandaFam killed a faction Fortizar in Querious.
Monday was mostly dominated by a few structure bashes and a big fleet action. Goons lost two faction Fortizars and a regular Fortizar in Querious. The Imperium and PandaFam closed out the day with a decent-sized clash over a Goon faction Fortizar in Querious, with Goons losing 19.6 billion ISK for 20.7 billion ISK lost by PandaFam. The fight likely began with PandaFam hacking iHubs before shooting the Fortizar in question, leading Imperium senior FC John Hartley to form Feroxes. As additional enemy forces filled the grid, Hartley called for a reinforcement fleet. Imperium FC Mike Flood said, “John started a fight against three fleets and I formed what was supposed to be more dudes for his fleet, which turned out to be 180 dudes on a rage ping. So then, John and I clubbed them until [they] ran.”
Entosis hacking got serious on Tuesday. Before all of that, however, a fight kicked off shortly after midnight EVE time in Querious as the Imperium formed to defend an armor timer for a faction Fortizar. Imperium FC Mike Flood explained, “It was the armor timer on a faction Fortizar. We brought Feroxes and melted most of the boosts on the field until the hostiles started to run.” The Imperium lost 13.7 billion ISK for 15.8 billion ISK destroyed and allowed the Fortizar to repair. Later in the day, TEST and Legacy brought Feroxes and Muninns into TCAG-3, the Period Basis border system, where they were met by Imperium Feroxes, Jackdaws, and capitals. The Imperium lost 5 billion ISK for 12.4 billion ISK destroyed. During the Imperium’s sovereignty vulnerability window, GSFOE saved all of the previously created timer fights, which protected all of the Period Basis iHubs. However, TEST/Legacy formed 1500 pilots to reinforce the 49-U6U iHub, a border system into Querious from Legacy space, and two jumps from southern Delve.
Wednesday was mostly about structure bashes as Goons lost two faction Fortizars and a Tatara in Querious. Additionally, Imperium Jackdaws and Harpies caught a TEST Loki and Retribution gang in TCAG-3, killing 6.2 billion ISK for 309.2 million ISK in losses. Thursday began just after midnight EVE time as PandaFam formed capitals to fight a Goon Fortizar in Querious only to get fought off by an Imperium tech 3 cruiser fleet which killed 10.9 billion ISK for 1.8 billion ISK in losses. FC John Hartley uploaded a video of the action.
The Imperium Tengu gang continued roaming through hostile parts of Querious, and eventually added 5.1 billion ISK in kills and 276.1 million ISK in losses to the day’s total. About mid-day EVE time, a PandaFam Cormorant fleet in “Fake Querious” was met on the gate by some lancing titans for 1.5 billion in losses and 71 million ISK killed. A PandaFam fleet member captured the action.
Friday got started when the Imperium formed to defend a Fortizar armor timer. Imperium Feroxes and Tengus cut through the PandaFam Eagle fleet, trading 3.1 billion ISK in losses for 21.1 billion ISK in kills, and saved the timer. A bit later, Goons took a Jackdaw fleet into the hostile staging system P-ZMZV and wiped a hostile Jackdaw gang before it headed home, killing 2.2 billion ISK for 112.6 million ISK in losses. Around mid-day, an Imperium Muninn gang wiped a Siberian Squads Dominix gang in Querious, killing 1.8 billion ISK for 84.2 million ISK in losses. To close out the day, PandaFam killed a Goon Tatara in Querious.
Saturday began when the Imperium successfully defended a Fortizar armor timer in 49-U6U as both sides formed up to fight. Despite out-forming the Imperium by 200-300 pilots, TEST leadership decided to stand down the combined fleet opposing the Imperium. The fight ended with thousands of players forming, and the final battle report showed the Imperium killed 1.9 billion ISK for 7.8 million in losses. A bit later in the day, PandaFam attempted to hack the UHKL-N iHub when the Imperium arrived in Jackdaws to contest. Shortly afterwards, some Imperium titans jumped in to lance the assembled PandaFam Feroxes and possibly create a capital escalation. Both sides formed up to take advantage of the opening, and PandaFam formed nearly two full fleets of dreads in NPC Delve as the Imperium formed two full supercapital fleets, a dread fleet, and Baltecs to counter-drop. Ultimately, it was all a staring contest that allowed the Imperium super capitals to clear the field. The combined Imperium fleets killed 8.1 billion ISK for 3 billion ISK in losses and a screenshot. Towards the end of the day, an Imperium special operations gang caught some heavy TEST hardware in 49-U6U, notably a dreadnought and a Rhea, as they killed 22.3 billion ISK for 7.2 billion ISK in losses.
Shortly after midnight EVE time Sunday, an Imperium Ferox fleet and dreadnought gang ambushed a TEST Ragnarok in 4-07MU, the border system in Catch. They were quickly counter-dropped by an Evictus and Horde capital gang, although the Imperium forces took 20 additional capitals for the 13 they lost. The final butcher’s bill was 44.1 billion ISK lost by the Imperium against 145 billion ISK lost by TEST/Legacy and PandaFam.
ELSEWHERE IN NEW EDEN
While ElitistOps and some specialized Imperium forces took advantage of targets of opportunity on the front line, INIT showed up in Oasa to do some whaling, killing 26.7 billion ISK for 1.2 billion ISK in losses, including three dead Rorquals.
