For months on end, night after night, my fleets clashed with the Minmatar in the triangle of doom (maybe death is better than doom?) Epic battles from thrasher free for alls in minor plexes to the only capital fight in US TZ for the last eight months.
After Fweddit and MT left for Caldari space I changed how and what we flew. Mostly smaller faster ships. We roamed the war zone looking for little fights, brawls, and ganks. You may be surprised in how little we found.
After a few roams all over the war zone, some nights going as much as sixty jumps without killing more than a rifter I was bored, burnt out, and hating Eve. I got this way a few times. I wanted a fucking fight! But since LNA is lazy and all they do is sit in triangle of death night after night you have to go into them. Below Im going to detail what happens when I take a fleet to kourn area.
Step 1 Form fleet, get 8-12 pilots.
Step 2 Pick ships.
Step 3 Shake your head as half the people can't fly what you need.
Step 4 Roam down to Kourm area and bait the gate camp.
Step 5 Kill a few things.
Step 6 Either hang around waiting for LNA to forum up or leave.
Step 7 Fight LNA (Late Night Alliance) blob and die in a fire.
This is how it goes almost every time. I guess I have a reputation for running away now as Susan Black and Gritz like to point out. But what are my options? I can't get my guys a fight anywhere but around Kourm. When I do chose to fight in Kourm I'm almost always outnumbered and out shipped. The Minmatar base there. They see what we have and ship accordingly.
We can either take a fight we have little chance of winning or leave. Either option is not very appealing to me. Last night I asked for drakes and canes. I got about half the fleet into the right ships. The rest was kitchen sink. When LNA finally came to fight they had almost all BC's and matched my numbers. They also had links and we did not. I ended up welping half of my fleet and we got three kills.
Later on LNA did an amazing thing and came over to Sisiede. We had been playing around with a few neutrals and killed their Vagabond. A war target Vexor landed at the sun and we killed it but not before one of our BC's was pointed and local spiked by around ten war targets. Some pleasant local banter followed where I was told I always run away. I mentioned the numbers and reshipping issues. To that Susan Black told me to get more people.
Believe me we have been trying. We are getting new pilots. Unfortunately many just don't have the Skill Points to fly what I need to effectivly fight the Minmatar head to head. There are just not that many pilots with the skills and wallets needed that want to join Amarr.
Every night I ask how many pilots are online in both Militias. The average is about sixty Amarr and 240 Minmatar. Last night I.law had 9 pilots online. The entire Amarr Militia had 38! We had about a quarter of the entire militia online in our Corp. Add in alts and Afk people and it was probably closer to half.
So why do I bother getting fleets up? I know we won't find much on a two hour roam. I know I can't fight in Kourm area effectively. We get more kills hunting in small packs in the Dal cluster. What is the point of even trying to do an organized fleet?
To answer my own question, because I need to. Because people like fleets. Because when people apply to I.law they want to roam and fight and have fun. Because there is always that off chance we will run into another roaming gang and have a good fight.
I don't give two shits what the Minmatar think. They can tell everyone I run away. They can think we are not trying to grow our corp. They can think we are scared to fight them. They can talk shit all they want. The simple fact is when we had even numbers we dominated the Minmatar fight after fight.
To the best of my knowledge I am the only US TZ Amarr FC left that runs even semi open fleets. There is just no one left. There is no back up I can call. There are no other corps or FC's I can ask for back up. When you see me and my fleet out and about that is it. That's everything I can get. Every single person I can beg, borrow, or steal to toss in a ship.
I may be a shit FC. I may welp my fleets almost every time I try to pick a fight in Kourm these days. I may end up burning out completely and spend all my time mining. I just want to have fun. I just want the pilots who risk their ships with me almost every night to enjoy the game. That is why I bother.
