The Game of Batphones Reigns Supreme in Nisuwa
You might think that Black Shark Cult only operates in Southern Placid, where most of our kills and losses can be found, and yes — that is where our roots lie. However, even though we are technically not full members of the CalMil Coalition, when the State calls, we try to answer to the best of our abilities. And so it was that we recently found ourselves taking part in an interesting brawl in Nisuwa (Black Rise).
Early morning this Wednesday, a company of eager Sharkies formed up alongside our CalMil allies to defend two Astrahus Citadels that had been deployed by the Heiian Conglomerate in the enemy system of Nisuwa. The Cultists each contributed in their own way, depending on skill levels and experience. In practice, we added a T3, a Guardian, 3 Augoror Navies and some EWAR to the main fleet. Not at all bad for a single-timezone-fight… But of course, this was not just any old fight over a random star system.
No — we are fighting for Nisuwa, the legendary home system of Roy Henry, or as he is known to the Cult: Toxic King Roy Joffrey of House Black Fox, sworn arch-enemy of Lord Jaws, Troller of Newbies, ruler on the Bittervet Throne. Many are his titles, untold are his crimes against the newbro.
And of course, Toxic King Roy Joffrey was not about to let CalMil anchor a Citadel in the back yard of his fortress, so he pulled on all the strings he could to bring all the Pirate Lords of Lowsec to his defence.
Of course, the dearth of high-end content in the Caldari-Gallente warzone since Escalating Entropy collapsed may have made his batphoning easier than usual. Whatever the cause may be, Caldari Militia found itself badly outnumbered and outgunned as the forces squared up. CalMil fielded their armor T3 fleet with Shadow Cartel/Did He Say Jump, and GalMil entered the brawl supported by a massive Waffles/Snuffbox/Project Mayhem Machariel fleet. Numbers shown on the battle report don’t seem to reflect the actual fleet composition, because first hand reports put the number of Waffles and Snuff pilots much higher.
Yours truly sadly was not able participate in the fight, but Zealot Erik Luckner was happy to share his experience of taking part in this big showdown between the warring factions.
We formed up under CalMil FC Paul Ares in armor T3s — Proteus and Legion, mostly, with some support — and headed to Nisuwa. I flew a Guardian because in large fleet fights, logi is just more fun! When we got to Nisuwa, there was nobody around for a while. We were tethered on our Citadel.
Then around the time the Astrahus anchored a load of Machariels showed up, and Shadow Cartel arrived shortly after. PMWaffleBox and Shadow Cartel engaged first, and a few moments later we engaged too. Sadly they outnumbered and outshipped us quite a bit, but we did manage to shoot a few things.
When they started volleying T3 cruisers, including our FC who was also anchoring, there was some confusion and warp out was called. We then collected ourselves on a neutral Citadel for a while and tried to defend the second Astrahus as it was coming up. A 15-man Aideron Robotics Gnosis fleet was at the second Citadel, but they warped off and back for a while, letting the timer get down to about one minute. Then the Machariel blob came to the second Citadel too, and Waffles cynoed in a sizeable number of carriers. At the point it was basically over, we were completely outnumbered and simply left system.
As things stood, CalMil did not have many losses: Shadow Cartel suffered the brunt of the T3 volleys. In total, CalMil/Shadow Cartel lost 15.3 billion ISK worth of ships and structures, and GalMil/PMWaffleBox lost 1.5 billion ISK.
The structures were lost, the tides of battle went in Gallente Militia’s favour, and King Roy Joffrey’s batphone proved to be mightier than the CMC’s. However, neither Black Shark Cult nor the CMC will give up, and while it is impossible to say our next assault will succeed, or the one after, or even the next, there is only one certainty: in the end, Nisuwa will fall as in the end, even the most exalted ruler must succumb to the grinding teeth of Lord Jaws!
