49-U6U, Querious- Over 547 ships have been lost in the last 24 hours and 216 of those in the last hour alone as GoonSwarm repels a Systematic-Chaos and Against ALL Authorities invasion of this GoonSwarm held system. SBUs have been deployed and battles are raging around them.
Hratli Smirks of GoonSwarm explains what he believes to be the reason for the attack in 49-U6U: "Are you aware of Liam Fremen? He runs Sys-K. He has a huge [expletive deleted] for us literally...and he decided to invade us. Mostly to help out Molle, on account of he has this [affection for] Molle (he runs IT alliance)... Also, 49-U is the border to AAA space and that's basically as much effort as you can expect from AAA [and] allies"
Although Goons appear to be holding onto the system, Hratli reports that "AAA renter" Ushra'Khan has killed 78 GoonSwarm carriers. What impact those losses will have on the ongoing defense of the system remains to be seen.
A representative from Systematic-Chaos was contacted but leadership declined to comment while the operation was still ongoing.
Details will be reported as more information becomes available.
reported by ISD Calen Orvance | 2009.12.09 20:37:19
CATCH - Celebrated as freedom fighters by capsuleers of the Republic and denounced as terrorists by those supporting the Empire, Ushra'Khan [UNITY] recently achieved five years of service to the Minmatar people since the alliance's inception in November of 106.
Flying under the mantra "we are the Ushra'Khan, we come for our people", UNITY's purpose throughout the years has remained mostly unchanged: eliminate slavery by whatever means necessary - specifically throughout Providence and Catch, regions wholly or partially under the rule of Amarrian loyalist alliances.
"We are a movement founded with one goal; to break the chains of slavery that bind our kin", explains Ugleb of UNITY. Born out of a perceived need to overcome what UNITY saw as a pervasive isolationist mentality amongst the Minmatar people, UNITY choose to take the fight beyond the Republic's borders where they first encountered Curatores Veritatis Alliance [CVA], an alliance that would eventually become UNITY's most powerful enemy.
UNITY's activist mentality has been the subject of much controversy. In particular, UNITY's "free fire" policy in Providence and Catch has been heavily criticized as a form of terrorism with the number of newer, non-Empire loyalist pilots residing in Providence often being cited.
"...if only that dedication could be used for righteousness, holiness, and following God's Will, instead of the murder of innocent pilots in Providence in the name of 'freedom' - perhaps this [uni]verse would truly be a better place," argues Alistair Cononach of CVA. In response, Ugleb cites "the level of Slaver activity and their supporters" in Providence and Catch as the reason for the "free fire warzone" policy.
The effects of UNITY have not just been limited to the conflict between the Republic and Empire. UNITY is perhaps best known among the greater New Eden community for their prolific GalNet commentary driven by notable individuals General Windypops and Butter Dog.
However controversial, UNITY's longevity has no doubt earned them a place in New Eden history along with the respect of many capsuleers. As to the future, Ugleb states, "The work ahead of us remains vast, it is the undertaking of a lifetime, not mere years, but together we move forward."
Alright, this match went a lot better than the first one. We had decided to go for a full gank armor tanked build : Abaddon, piloted by Amith Silvermoon 2x Hurricane running 1 link each, piloted by Carinae and Pylse 2x Harbinger, piloted by Seliah and Mister Rock Brutix, bait fitted, piloted by Butter Dog Guardian, bait fitted (but still doing its job ), piloted by Karazack Vengeance, tackle and tank, piloted by Kazzzi Stiletto, full EWAR, piloted by T Marvin
Everything went fine during the preparation, nobody disconnected and we had the right number of points :p. First moment of hesitation though, we were asked to warp to the arena before we could get our usual scan on the enemy ships. We then decided to warp in at 20km / 30km for safety. It turned out we were facing pretty much the same thing, all gank : Claymore, Astarte, 2x Harbinger, Hurricane, 2x Brutix, 2x Thrasher and Sabre, and they had all warped in at 0.
Before the match started, Butter Dog (FC'ing the fight) designated the primaries : the Brutix's. I quickly gave orders to spread our 11 Tracking Disruptors amongst them. We decided to try to keep some range, orbit at 20km with Barrage and Scorch.
As soon as it started, they made their first mistake (actually 2nd mistake, 1st one was to use skirmish links only) : they rushed our Guardian, giving us the opportunity to tackle them on the way and pwn them, which we did . By the time they killed our Guardian, piloted by Karazack, they had lost their 2 Brutix's. It seems they had a few tracking disruptors and also ECM Drones but it had very little effect on our DPS, whereas our own EWAR was really lowering theirs.
After the Guardian was down, they started working on our Brutix, which was baited, and they quickly gave up, and primaried one of the Harbingers, piloted by Mister Rock. At that time their DPS was already too low compared to ours, and they lost pretty much all of their BC's before Mister Rock went down. With almost all of our DPS and EWAR ships still on the field, we finished them off, small ships first then the Claymore.
It could have gone a totally different ways if their setup had been just slightly different : EWAR small ships instead of gank destroyers, A Damnation with Armor (and 1 skirmish for speed) instead of a full Skirmish Claymore ... And not primarying the guardian. With all the DPS they had, the Guardian was quite useless, they would have killed any of us quite fast, and then it would just have depended on who kills an enemy BC first.
But well, despite a few mistakes, they fielded a good setup, put up a good fight, was entertaining. And we're moving to the finals of the tournament !! Just as a reminder, last year, during AT6, we got to the final 16. Let's hope we will do even better this year !!
I thought we were going to fail epicly. As always with me, I asked the team to get ready hours before the match starts so we can make sure everything is fine. After hours of waiting, we finally get teleported into the tournament system, and then ...
GM Nova > You have 2 too many points
WHAT ?! No ... We count again, we had 100 points all round !!!
GM Nova > The tech 3 ships are 16 points each
Oops ... We thought it was 15, as it was when tournament was announced ... PANIC ATTACK !! The GM kindly offered us to switch ships, we had 2m30s to do so. We couldn't spare the Rooks or the Scimitar, the Nighthawk was running a Mindlink, the T3 were too cool to be dropped, so I asked Nova to teleport me back in my Sleipnir ...
MISSION : Fit a Hurricane in less than 2 minutes for a tournament match, with 6 gang mates shouting in your ears and a GM countdowning in fleet.
Well, I'm proud of how I fulfilled the objectives of that mission ! I bought a cane, noticed i had 6 220's in hangar, fitted that, a Y-T8, then fitted an ECCM 2 LSE's and shield rigs, found some gyros, took 1000 barrage (no time to buy more ...), bunch of warriors and I went back in !!
As I was coming back in, Karazack lost connection ... PANIC ATTACK !
CCP Mindstar > Match delayed by a few moments. It will start very soon
Ah, thanks ....
Karazack made it back in time, and we all warped to the arena, the Hurricane, Loki, Tengu and Nighthawk at 20, the 2 Rooks and the Scimitar at 30. On the other side, there was :
Makk was the FC for that fight and he did very well, given all the panic attacks we just had. As soon as the fight started, 4 bombs were launched on us, but did nothing except killing all our drones and scratching our shields (most of us were AB fitted). We primaried the 2 Rooks with our weapons and the bombers with our remaining drones, while our Rooks were making sure the Apoc was perma-jammed.
It took a while to get the Rooks down, because they were trying to keep some range (we can see on killmails that the Loki and the Hurricane did a lot less damage than the missile ships), but we finally did it. The falcons went down next, and at this point we had lost no ships at all, our Supay of Doom doing an awesome job in his Scimitar. The rest was pretty easy, the small ships were easily killed and we worked on the Apoc ...
Glad to see we actually won despite our epic failure at the beginning ! To be honest, we'd have lost against a better build, we were too disorganised, probably because of the panic at the beginning.
Firstly, today has made me very proud to be in U'K, everyone that participated did well and u'k have done a great job today.
I have merged the AAR from the 12:00 and 21:00 musters as the two ops ended up blurring into one.
12:00 u'k fleet rally's in F4R to prepare for the take down of the [RENNT] Faction Research Tower in PAYE that we reinforced on Thursday. U'K fleet forms up BS heavy, 30km range with RR as optimal. Fleet hits 75 and we set off with a numer of fleet already in system and ready to roll. Intel rolls in and it becomes increasingly clear that the tower is not going to be defended. On top of this, -a- FC Seliana Tanis is on the horn to me explaining that -a- are forming to drop the Cyno Jammer in 2j-. I decide to proceed with tower kill then come back and help them later on. This would come back to bite us in the ass later on.
We get to PAYE and everything goes largely to plan. As the tower explodes we begin unanchoring the towers labs, the real prizes from the fight. Due to some neutral haulers attempting to ninja Salvage, we end up destroying some of the labs but at the end of it we are about 1b isk up to the alliance. I am now getting urgent calls from -a- that we are needed back in 2j- as the Provi - Bloc have shown up with 200 in fleet vs 90 in -a- fleet. U'k is now at about 80 with 45 rr bs, 20 gank bs and the rest support. Not optimal but we decide on the way back that u'k will go in close vs the jammer at the 4-1 pos with -a- in sniper bs at range covering us.
By the time we hit HED-GP it becomes clear this isn't going to work as the provi fleet is working as one and still growing. With 2J smack on our route back it is decided to titan bridge u'k back to F4R to reship and we move to a Sniper BS fleet setup. The first big fight happens on entry as u'k warped to the 2J- gate in ZXIC and Provi bloc moved to block us entering system. -a- set up at range on us as we came in to give cover but due to a lack of dictors at their bs we are unable to give serious losses to the CVA fleet and u'k take substantial losses on entry to system. http://ushrakhan.com/alliance/edk/?a=ki ... l_id=69166
Concurrent to this fight happening, Sylph had crawled out of the woodwork in PAYE and were unanchoring towers. U'K pilots and associates were able to steal a Faction Tower as it unanchored and narrowly missed on stealing a second further increasing the damage on [RENNT] corp and Sylph.
After the initial fight getting into 2j- it became clear that prov bloc would no longer engage on gates or anywhere but their towers where the pos guns were doing nasty damage. In the face of a diminishing gang on our side and additional numbers on provi, we stood down for a regroup at 18:00. Regroup happened and we were still hugely outgunned. Whilst we had stood down provi had deployed 7 small and 2 large static bubbles on the ZXIC gate in 2j to cut off our reinforcements. About 15mins after regroup a RZR gang of 70 RR BS with a damnation running gang links was sighted in F4R moving up to 2j-. RZR jumped in and engaged provi bloc on the gate as we attempted to get warp ins to make it a 3 way and in the background sorted out a little party trick.
RZR disengage in 2J- and try to bait provi bloc to jump to them in ZXIC on the gate bubbling themselves in the process. An -a- dictor drops out of warp at the gate, drops bubble and promptly dies as a cyno pops off gate and three titans jump and doomsday the stricken RZR gang. Sadly the synch is off and some of them make it out. 80% of the RZR gang go home in pods.
RZR's jump in has stricken provi support and they also killed all the bubbles on gate so we decide to bail our fleet out and stand down again till 19:00.
We rallied and fleet was nice and solid. After a brief lul for Atlas to burn over with a hac gang, we jumped into 2J- and the propper slaughter began. This time our support had the upper hand and we had dictors a plenty to get the job done. Hostile bs were heavily bubbled and serious casualties were caused on warp in. Enemy retreated to a pos in local while we regrouped and the 6-6 friendly pos then moved to strike the cyno jammer. Provi returned again but their warp in was seen by a couple of them misclicking and warping early. Dictors were able to burn over and be nearly on top as the main hostile sniper group came out of warp. Queue more slaughter. Final tally was: http://ushrakhan.com/alliance/edk/?a=ki ... l_id=69440
After this the jammer was successfully offlined and both towers in reinforced destroyed. PL turned up to cause hassle during the last 90m or so but only really got a couple quick ganks with a nano hac sniper hac gang.
Final tally is still being calculated but we're showing over 18b in losses to provi bloc so far over the day in 2j- alone let alone what Sylph lost in PAYE.
Today has been a bad day to be a slaver and a damn good day to be a freedom fighter. Warrior I salute you. Here are a couple images to finish:
), piloted by Karazack
