Editorial: A Captain’s Log

By: First General, Amarrian FC
Captain’s log YC113-0906 : A response to recent press.

There has been a lot of talk and trash talk alike about 0.0 alliance Supercapitals dropping in the Amarr/Minmatar faction war zone.

There are a couple of references that need to be made in this regard from SovereigntyWars , but more specifically: Susan’s Black’s blog.

I feel it is necessary to comment extracts of this article:

“Today, the Amarr were hot-dropped by Raiden with over 20 super carriers. Who exactly bat-phoned this is unclear […]”

That statement contradicts itself. It states the Amarr were hot-dropped whilst also admitting that there is no evidence to support this. Clearly this is journalistic sensationalism at best, at worst deliberately misleading.

“According to the battle report, the Amarr lost 2 Archons, a Phoenix, a Revelation, a Thanatos, a Nidhogger a Loki, a Legion, 10 Abaddons, many other battleships, several tech 2 ships and a bunch of smaller things. Losses estimated at 18+ billion ISK. Before being pwned by the supercaps, they managed to kill several capitals themselves, including 2 Phoenix, 2 Nags, and a Thanatos.”

What was lost were 3 carriers (2 Archons, 1 Thanatos ) and 2 Dreadnaughts (Phoenix, Revelation) including a number of subcapitals. What was killed was 4 Dreadnaughts (2 Phoenix’s/2 Naglfars) and 3 Carriers (Thanatos, Archon, Nidhoggur) including a number of subcapitals. Out of the capitals listed above Raiden. put the following out of their misery: Thanatos (Amarr) Phoenix (Amarr) Revelation (Amarr), Thanatos (Hostile) Archon (Hostile) Nidhoggur (Hostile).

“The Amarr response? According to one of the Amarrian FCs, the Amarr were “laughing about it.”

At no point were the Amarr FC’s laughing about the engagement; on the contrary despite an initial bad cyno it was a very intense and even fight. Every pilot in the Amarr fleet enjoyed the battle immensely despite being outnumbered, outgunned and in the end destroyed by Raiden.   The Amarr were naturally saddened by the losses of their own capitals.

This is what the article should have read instead:

“Today the Amarr fought a hostile fleet sieging a Amarr Militia POS in Ardar. The Amarr brought in 3 carriers and 2 dreads as well as a 50 man subcap fleet while the hostiles had 3 carriers and 4 dreads in addition to a 80 man subcap fleet. About two-thirds through the fight and roughly 23 minutes of fighting, the Amarr had managed to kill 4 enemy dreadnoughts and had neutralized a large portion of the hostile logistics while the hostiles had managed to kill one of the Amarr Carriers the hostiles were afraid to lose and tipped of Raiden that there was a capital fight going on in the abovementioned system. Raiden who at that time was only one Cyno away from Ardar jumped in and killed all forces on the field, hostiles and Amarr forces alike. – I was there .”

In light of this and this post, let’s try to objectively depict and understand both sides.

The Minmatar Militia has in excess of five Supercapitals; their pilots are well-known to the enemy. This gives them a near unbeatable edge when it comes to capital combat versus the Amarr, since they do not own any Supercapitals of their own.

What are the real and tangible effects (or an attempt at an analysis thereof) of the Minmatar having such assets?

1. The Minmatar have the ability to dominate the field against the Amarr where capital combat (and above) is concerned by the simple deployment of their (in excess of) five Supercapitals.

2. Cause & effect: The Amarr Militia will in response to this “Supercapital threat” try to neutralize it or counter it.

Neutralizing it will comprise tactics that will end up with the Minmatar Militia not using their Supercarriers because they are afraid to lose them when facing a nullsec alliance hotdrop . The above references suggest that this fear is very much real and well founded, evidenced by documentation from past and present events.

Countering them will be through the use of tactics that will result in getting those supercarriers into the aptly named “Supercapital trap” in order to remove them from the equation.

3. Because the Amarr Militia has quite successfully mastered both the tactics of neutralizing and having a ‘counter’ for the Minmatar Militia’s assets, the Minmatar Militia feel they need to “even” the fight in another way.

In recent times this has ended up with the Minmatar teaming up with the Gallente Militia, in particular QCATS. While the Minmatar claim that QCATS is only one corporation it is nonetheless the biggest and most able Gallente FW corporation. Many Amarr will now chuckle because – well – if it was only Gallente Militia they were teaming up with, we would handle it with the same level of success we currently enjoy. It turns out however that Minmatar do not only team up with QCATS but they also team up with non-Militia forces such as SLAPD/SOTF/BANE who live in Amamake (as evidenced by last Fridays fight on their Auga POS.)

4. What is the cause & effect of these unlikely alliances that the Minmatar tend to move into?

The Amarr consistently arrange backup when a big fight presents itself. If it looks like a gank then they will still take the fight. However they will simply light a cyno and bring in 30+ Supercarriers to eliminate any and all hostile ships on the field. The Minmatar will now quite certainly say “Well we had to bring 80 guys because we didn’t want to use our carriers or our Supercapitals”.

Well, fighting 80 battleships with a couple of carriers and a 35 man subcap fleet on a hostile Deathstar POS sounds about a fair fight doesn’t it?

Both sides are naturally claiming that they only want “good fights” and that it is the opposite side that is scared. But is that really true?
I can for one definitely say that anytime I FC a fleet I’m looking to not only get killmails, but I don’t shy away from losses either – in short – I want to put my pilots to the test and have them get better at fleet combat. I myself want to get better at fleet combat – this does not happen if I command a fleet through the pipes looking for nothing but ganks. As far as I’ve seen other Amarr FC’s don’t look for ganks either, they just want proper fights and most of the time they’ll even take fights that they know they will lose simply to get a fight.

As for whether the Amarr are scared or not? Bring the fights and not your friends and you’ll find out.

Captain’s Log – end of entry.