It was the morning of 1/19, fresh and clear.


The night before, we had rolled into a c5 with a static c6, which usually would bring us pew, but the residents, Band of Magnus (someone I do plan on getting a fight with later) were unfortunately not around to give us some pew.


I ran some sites, and cleared out several of the high end gas sites so there was plenty of isk to be made for all sorts of folks. With it being a Magnetar (bonus to dps, aka everything did 2x the dps it usually does), site running was very quick and very easy.


The next morning, I woke up, ran some more sites, and noticed that the static had rolled (we were no longer connected to the old c6 of Band of Magnus).


After a few hours, and with someone peeking around system with a $ tag on their ship (we figured they were from the c2) we decided to open up the new c6 static, assuming that the c2 residents might have done so themselves.


Upon opening the static, it became readily apparent that the c2 residents had NOT opened the static, as we were greeted by a flurry of probes within minutes of it opening, along with an ominous collection of red letters on vippy - Arctic Light.


For those that don't know, Arctic Light are one of the older and more established of c6 pvp groups, with a strong emphasis on EU/RU(?). VENIO has previously tangled with them (http://failheap-challenge.com/showth...and-counting)&...) in their off TZ, resulting in a clear win for us.


This time round, it was peak TZ for them, and we had relatively low numbers. Despite this, after a quick bit of discussion to see what we could pull on comms, I decided that we could probably take whatever they could bring due to the supremacy of Gilafleet over armor t3s.


Reaching into the same :backroom channel: I was able to get in touch with Arctic Light, asking them if they were willing to form up for some pew - the response was a simple "yes."


Armed with this knowledge, we formed up the following:


6x Basilisk (2x were me multiboxing, 2x were someone else multiboxing)
2x Myrmidon
12x Gila (6x Me multiboxing, 6x someone else multiboxing)
1x Vulture
1x Sabre
1x Tengu
1x Bhaalgorn


Total: 24 Ships


With the knowledge that they were forming up and coming, I parked my 6x gilas, 2x basilisk on the entrance to our hole in the c5 magnetar between us to hopefully convince them to come to us.


Caltesius, being awesome, volunteered to scout in his Prospect, which unbeknownst to us was actually full of high end gas at the time. :P


As we began forming up, I asked for a constantly updated dscan, which remained ominously empty. It is my assumption based on past experiences that they formed up at a deepsafe, which would make sense given their long history of living in the system.


Suddenly, Caltesius spoke up with "HUGE FLEET LANDING ON THE HOLE," and gave me a dscan.


They had formed the following:


1x Ashimmu
3x Neuting Armageddon
1x Eos
1x Falcon
4x Guardian
2x Nestor
3x Neuting Legion
3x Loki
6x Proteus
1x Sabre
1x Stabber Fleet Issue


Total: 26 Ships


I only had the tiniest chance to look at the dscan as I told our fleet to begin warping to our static as they were already landing. Unfortunately, I was unable to get my recording software up in time, so this fight was sadly NOT recorded from our side.


Immediately upon engaging in the magnetar, their heavy neut presence was felt - all of our basilisks were rapidly capped out or under HEAVY neut pressure. This, combined with the magnetar's bonus to dps resulted in us rapidly losing a myrmidon (they are lightly tanked anyways compared to the gila), and 2 of our multiboxed basilisks (I was not aware of this until later, this multiboxer is slightly new to multiboxing pvp, but still did an admirable job with his remaining gilas, which would prove incredibly important in the fight later).


I immediately primaried one of their armageddons, rapidly forcing it through the hole. I called for our Bhaalgorn to jump in, and primaried the second armageddon. It would barely catch reps, but at this point they were focusing fire quite heavily onto my Vulture, and with most of our reps neuted out entirely, I made the call to pull back into our home, out of the magnetar's heavy dps bonus and into the warm, comforting embrace of the Pulsar's blue glow. My vulture barely made it out, jumping in barely 33% hull.


Upon jumping through, we had a few seconds of respite to reorganize the fleet and immediately redrop drones. Unfortunately, one of my gilas somehow double jumped (I think) and ended up polarized on the other side of the hole, being largely useless for the rest of the fight as I was unable to jump it back in before it died while still under polarity on the other side.


Meanwhile, on the other side of the hole, the hostiles jumped in most of their fleet, and promptly neuted out most of logi again (dat Pulsar double neut bonus, making their neuts even MORE effective). Fortunately for us, the pulsar both weakened their tanks, and gave our already heavily tanked ships even MORE buffer. While their dps slowly chewed through our heavily tanked ships, I focused our considerable dps onto their neuting ships. Without their nestors on field, they were unable to hold reps, forcing all of their armageddons and legions to jump back through the hole in short order. We managed to blap a guardian and sabre before they pulled back, trading them for another lightly tanked myrmidon, and a neuted out basi.


No further ships appeared to be coming, as the remaining ships were forced to bail under our withering dps. This respite would prove only momentary, as a few seconds later the wormhole lit up in rapid succession - Arctic Light was going balls deep, bringing ALL of their ships into our home in rapid succession. Unfortunately, the mass from us using the wormhole the previous night, and the bhaalgorn, geddons, and various t3s bouncing around earlier caused the wormhole to collapse, resulting in one of their nestors and a geddon not making it into our home.


I initially primaried an armageddon, which with the combined guardian and nestor reps, was somehow able to survive.


A neut legion? Not so lucky. Proteus? Dead again. Unfortunately, we were still under heavy dps and neuting pressure, and they had managed to kill our bhaalgorn due to us being largely unable to apply reps (the neut legion I killed freed up a bit of capacitor so we were able to jump start one basi chain and apply reps near the end, but it would prove to be too little too late.)


I quickly swapped to a hostile guardian, which ate shit and died to ~3 volleys in a handful of seconds.


------


As an aside and explanation here, most of the fighting that goes on in wspace revolves around armor t3s, most of which use either missiles or the long range variant of their guns.


Guardians are, in fact, on paper extremely low on EHP, struggling to break more than 90k on even the most HIGHLY blinged/slaved/bonused ships (several groups intentionally brick up their guardians as much as possible and REQUIRE HG slaves to fly them since they're so fragile). Most of the perceived "tank" on guardians relies on their sig making it difficult to apply dps. This tends to work effectively against your average BS, rail proteus, beam legions, HAMgus, etc etc.


Not so against the Gila. The gila deals almost all of its dps in the form of 2 superbonused MEDIUM drones. These drones deal in excess of 600 dps per gila, and with our fit can apply this dps from 0-->100km+. Medium drones track extremely well, and have plenty of signature resolution on the drones to apply all of their damage pretty much flawlessly against guardians.


With 11 gilas on the field, this mean that their guardians were taking almost 7k dps perfectly applied - to put this in perspective, most dreadnoughts deal in the range of 12k dps. When dread blapping, especially with turret dreads, you rarely apply anywhere near that amount of dps. You usually get a lucky few shots, and pray that you can volley things with your alpha.


We were applying, PERFECTLY, a little over half a dreads worth of dps, instantly swappable. Their guardians (and pretty much all guardians in general) didn't have a chance, especially in their weakened state in our pulsar.


I continued to primary their guardians, taking down all 4 guardians (the 1 we'd killed earlier had reshipped) in the space of a minute. We lost a hurricane fleet issue, due to it not having enough resists (and we were down to 3 basilisks at this point) to hold despite heated reps through the neuting, and I lost another gila due to broadcasting late/neuted reps.


With their guardians down, only their nestor on field for reps, and with neuting being our main issue, I swapped to their geddon and rapidly began taking it down.


Seeing the writing on the wall, the rest of their fleet aligned and bailed. GFs all around in local, and an INCREDIBLE fight from arctic light, easily the best we've had so far as an alliance.


Mad props to them for going balls deep, mad props to everyone in our alliance for giving it their all, despite being outnumbered and going up against one of the bigger wspace groups, and all around good job to everyone involved.


I do not have fraps, but I do have a screenshot of what my vulture looked like at the end of that fight:



I gave them the sigs to get their fleet out, and learned that they do have a recording from their side - perhaps we'll get a video and/or comms from them.


All around GFs, and I hope everyone enjoyed a VERY intense and fun fight.


BRs: http://rgrol.eve-vippy.com/killboard/related/346/
http://rgrol.eve-vippy.com/killboard/related/329/


This was all done from memory and killboard reports, as I have no recording of the fight. I believe it to be accurate, but a few minor details might be off if/when we get a recording of the fight. :P