The last two weekends the minmatar recaptured 4 systems that were previously captured by the Amarr. We had three vulnerable systems the weekend before last, and a nice bunker buster fleet came in from Auga to blow up the bunkers, assisted by a few dreads and carriers.

Last weekend we had only one bunker to bust but it took a little longer as we had no capital support. Both weekends no Amarr counter fleet was formed, although they did cut off the pipe down into Minmatar lowsec, so anyone who wasn’t in a stealth bomber had a hard time coming down to help.

All in all it was good fun, though the busting itself is a bit boring. It’s basically like shooting a pos. BTW the domi seen here in the screenshots was lost this weekend unfortunately !

A cloaking Hound was then set on the top belt to see what exactly the activity was. “I have a Bhaalgorn here, it’s a Bhaalgorn !” our scout excitedly shouted. A Bhaalgorn is a very rare sight. Only obtained on the black market for over a billion isk. Usually fitted with very expensive modules, that are usually obtained through the same channels as the ship, they originate from killing high ranked officers of pirate/outlaw nations like the Sansha’s.

“All fast tacklers go in ! All fast tacklers go in! Everybody else hold on the gate !”. The tacklers were able to get a warp scrambler on the Bhaalgorn. The rest of the ragtag minnie fleet came in and warped on top of the Bhaalgorn. The minmatar stealth bomber in the belt uncloacked and unleashed it’s torpedos, pounding on the Bhaalgorn’s shields and armor. Our ecm arrived at range on the battlefield and was able to scramble those that came to the Bhaalgorn’s aid. Slowly but surely the Bhaalgorn went down. It’s a very well tanked ship so it took what felt like ages. My Stabber rotated around the pirate’s battleship at 3000mtrs, pouring rounds and rounds of ammo into it’s armor.

“ECM is down ! Ecm IS down !”. I didn’t want to hear that over the comms ! Any moment now one of the enemy ships could target me, and rip my poor stabber to pieces. If I hadn’t been in my pod, I am sure the sweat would have poured over my face.

“He is down ! The Bhaalgorn went down !!!” some people shouted over the comms. But we held our composure and disposed of his helpers as well with minimal losses on our side. Certainly compared to the net worth of the Bhaalgorn.

Long after the fight when things had quieted down our pilots were still cheering over this great victory. Word spread amongst the other pilots in the militia and it strengthened our hearts and souls.

So goodbye yellow brick road 
Where the dogs of society howl
You can’t plant me in your penthouse
I’m going back to Dal

It was late last year, when I got tired of war. Of killing. Of podpilots around me being killed. Of the life of a minmatar freedom fighter. I enlisted to help my people, and to be honest some part of me also was looking for recognition. Trying to make a name for myself.

After months of fighting though, I felt empty inside. We took over some systems, killed quite a few Amarr religious zealots, but still… It didn’t seem to make a difference.

It was then that I decided this wasn’t the life for me. I contemplated about going back to my old job, a mammoth freighter trucker. Maybe do some missions for the Republic Fleet every now and then and use my combat skills for at least a somewhat good cause.

It wasn’t an easy decision to make, but late in the fall of last year, that’s what I did. One day I silently left Dal, my war homebase and picked up my old trusty Mammoth in Rens and never looked back. Or at least that’s what I thought.

And that’s when it started, the nightmares. Visions even more horrible than what I ever saw in the war. Not sure how my mind came up with those ! It started with only one a week, but it got worse as time went slowly by.

Till it got to the point where I didn’t dare to go to sleep again. And during the day it was like there was a dark cloud over me. I couldn’t find any joy in whatever I did, and kept thinking of the friends I left behind. Roc Wieler, Angry Fist, Stoogie. What happened to them ? And how were they coping ? The thought that I let my people down, and betrayed my heritage kept popping up in my mind.

Then it struck me:

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way

This was not my purpose as a pod pilot ! I had to get back to Dal and back into the war.

And that’s what I did. And weird enough from the moment I signed on again, the nightmares were gone. Some sort of inner peace came over me inside the turmoil of the war. I found my destiny again, and hope I will never loose it.

Disclaimer: My first effort at fanfiction for Godlesswanderer’s contest, please be gentle .

The regular Eve Production life was getting a bit stale again, you can get excited about Hammerhead II sales only so many times. So to spice things up a bit I reactivated my Factional Warfare Character Q.

And I must say things have changed a bit since I left in the fall of last year. FW on the amarr – minmatar side is still pretty active. There certainly arent a lack of targets like when I left last year. The amarr put together a pretty large fleet Sunday night. It was amusing, as there were about three minnie fleets roaming around. But a few times we crossed paths and that’s when we were spotted I think. They must have thought that we were one big blob and decided to all group up.

Anyway I was in a few fights over the weekend, nothing spectacular, and dodged at least one camp in my vexor. I saw some old familiar faces and quite a few new ones. Learned some new terms (I am being yellowboxed was one of ‘em). And found out that battleships are more common in FW now.

Then it sort of struck me what a different game this is, compared to running a few missions and mining a few hours in an Orca. The fights are exciting. The banter on EveSpeak is amusing. Adrenaline rush when you jump into a camp and manage to loose ‘em. I am glad I took this step, it was fun to be back again, and hope it will stay that way .

Some people died several times and came back in new ships ! I was happy to keep my rupture alive. Fitted with artillery cannons so I was able to keep a distance, dealing out some damage that way. Had to warp out several times, one time with 20% armor or so left.

The official forums has a thread, but it’s a bit polluted with the standard Whine, there is a nice report on the Heretic Public board at forum.heretic-nation.com.

What they do now, is have battleship heavy, remote repping fleet, which is supported by ECM. It’s very hard to break for the minmatar fleet, even though we outnumber them, we usually show up in rifters and cruisers with the odd battleship. Last night we assembled a better fleet, but the whole thing was a bit disorganised, and we suffered some losses.

Amarr morale was up after that fight as all of a sudden they were all over their own lowsec. I did some factional warfare missions in a small group and we were being chased around quite a bit, which was an interesting change. Only thing we lost was my kestrel, so it wasn’t too bad .

An interesting turn of events, of course I will keep you all up to date on new developments !

http://ombeve.freeforums.org/fw-map-pack-first-draft-t67.html

But that wasn’t all. I had already parked a few ships in Dal, so I picked up a rifter and proceeded to Huola. I had seen enough of Dal for the moment so I wanted to join another fleet there. A few jumps away I noticed a Trasher that was battling another soldier of the Minmatar, so I tried to help out, but wasn’t the smartest idea. The guy’s T2 artillery (amarr flying a Minnie ship ), dealt a lot of dmg to my lone rifter and there I was in a pod again.

I ended the evening by flying back to Rens and setting up two additional Ruptures to be blown up later . I noticed the Cyclones are only 20mil now in Rens, so I might be keeping one on standby as well, if we ever need something a bit bigger. I can also fly a Typhoon, but not sure I want to throw that out there at the moment .

In the first few days I lost a few ships, three ruptures and a stabber. Only one was actually lost in a gang battle. Got picked off the gate while catching up with a gang by an Abbaddon, and two ships were lost to pirates.

But the last few days the war has gone a bit stale. We have mainly been capturing a lot of complexes and the Amarr seem to have given up. Which is understable as their morale must have hit rock bottom. Minmatar gangs all over their low sec space, we have more numbers and also seem to be a bit better experienced at pvp. Think a lot of alts signed up for the Minnie fleet. While capturing plexes, make sure to have a magazine or books at hand, or catch up on some blogs, as it takes up to 20mins to capture one and it can be very boring. The standing boosts and the titles are nice, so I hope it’s worth it.

I tried a few missions as well, but they’re not worth it, unless you’re in a gang of a few similar ships. They’re very hard to solo, especially in a pvp fit. The rewards are awful at the moment, they might get a bit better over time, as I assume a lot of them fail, raising the reward. It’s just a shame you don’t get any loyalty points for capturing or defending structures, that would make the loyalty store a lot more interesting. At the moment I can’t see the general population grinding 80k lp for a faction frig, with this mission system in place.

Anyway so far I think FW is a moderate succes. There is a lot more going on in Lowsec than usual. Whether things will stay this way over time, we’ll have to see…

Anyway, I have been busy in game, nothing very spectacular. Mainly ratting and a little mining in Wicked Creek. I build a Raven from recycled loot and some mining, which makes live somewhat easier. Jumped back to empire friday when it was a little hostile in WC and got some business done there. Flying around collecting datacores and selling them off.

I saved a few for my own invention stuff, and managed a 3 out of 3 attempt of an Invulnerability II Shield. If only I would have know (well I could have checked) that this thing needs quite a few expensive parts. Still hope to make a profit on them, they sell for around 2.2mil around Sivala. My stack of Ballistic Controls II is almost sold out now, and I am all out of Hammerheads II and HobGobs II. I even sold too many, when I needed a few I couldn’t find any anymore and had to invent a few BPCs for own use .

Met a few suicide camps on my travels around empire for the best deals, as you can see by this screenshot .

!!! DONT FORGET TO SET A LONG SKILL !!!