February 14, 2010 2331

Today my alliance came under attack. This is not an uncommon occurrence but I thought it might be interesting to share with those who are not familiar with EVE or null-sec.

I was sitting on the border to Tenal from Cobalt Edge when one of our scouts reported a large hostile fleet heading our way. We quickly withdrew our fleet of about 5 ships into our own territory were we proceeded to form a homedefence fleet. Within minutes we had 50 ships to combat the hostile fleet enclosing. Our fleet then proceeded to monitor theirs and set up a gate-camp for them in one of our southern-most systems. Unfortunately, their intelligence warned them of this and they turned back toward their home. We then used a titan to jump our fleet right in front of the hostile fleet.

Shortly thereafter, the hostile fleet was forced to engage us. As soon as our FC began calling targets however, I was primaried by the hostile fleet. Despite my Megathron (battleship) tank of having 150,000 effective HP, I went down relatively quickly. Here is a link to the killmail. Then I lost my pod too. Thankfully, my death clone was in the same system so I bought a new one and jumped right back into the action. I returned in a Harpy (assault ship). Knowing I did not have enough DPS to take out the primary, secondary, or tertiary target, I began targeting the stealth bombers and interceptors of the hostile fleet. After an interesting few minutes, the hostile fleet grew tired of my harassing their frigates and I was targeted by many of them again. I lost that ship too, but this time, my pod got away. I warped to the nearby station to get another ship and then returned to the fight yet again, this time in a Thorax (cruiser). Again, I began targeting their smaller ships, however I was too slow to be a threat to them, but by this time the battle was nearly over.

Even though I lost 2 ships and a pod, it was still fun. A semi-complete list of ships involved in the battle can be viewed here. We destroyed 67 ships and lost 59. I am referring to this battle as the Valentin's Day Massacre.

By the way, if any of this sounds fun to you and you would like to join, send Anargirou an EVEmail. I am always looking for PVP players to join me.