War Report: New Trade Republic

New Trade Republic is a highsec mining corp, 30 members, which is active in Nakugard. None of their members possesses a valid New Order mining permit, so on several occasions our people, myself included, have suicide ganked them, then politely instructed them on the Code and on how they can obtain a mining permit. The reactions we got were less than polite and respectful. At this moment in time, Revolutionary Front consists of just me, a few alts, and a few other guys who rarely log in lately. For some time it has been on my to-do list to try my hand at Cannibal Kane style solo wardecs, and this seemed like as good a time as any. So I paid my 50 million isk to CONCORD and declared war.

First Blood
About 15 minutes before the war went live, my top secret intel network located a soon-to-be war target mining in a Retriever, about 4 jumps from his closest corp mate. My legion of spies kept an eye on this target, and when there were about 2 minutes to go, I logged in my PvP character, Kalim Dabo. Then I boarded my trusty Merlin, hopped over quickly from Hek, warped directly to the belt and made the first kill of the war.

Since it was getting late for me, I returned to Hek, played gate aggro games for a few minutes with a gang of vengeful WTs, then docked up and went to bed, satisfied at having a positive war record 7 minutes into the conflict.

NTR Batphones for Help
Shortly after the war went live, I was informed that an ally had joined on behalf of the defender, an alliance called GekkoState., 74 members and a few active PvPers among them, primarily in low and null. I then received a mail from one of their members.

I decided at first that I would basically ignore these guys, in spite of Django's disrespectful attitude. They were not my intended targets, and I had enough people on my watchlist to keep track of. Perhaps I would put them on my list and deal with them later on.

On the second day of the war, my legion of spies informed me of a WT off on his own in Caldari space. It turned out to be a false lead, but on the way there, I ran into a GekkoState. pilot  named Item 8, who jumped into me on a gate in a Tayra. He then immediately abandoned ship and warped off with his pod, perhaps in a misguided effort to avoid a loss mail.

Gee, I wonder what this anti-New Order alliance guy was doing along a trade route in an industrial with a passive targeter and cargo scanner equipped? What kind of people has NTR associated itself with in it's war against the evil gankers?

doel soon and MrBlood
My army of informants soon notified me of another war target off on his own mining. So I made a few quick jumps with my Merlin and blapped a fellow named doel soon in his Retriever, then killed his pod for good measure, then went back to Hek and logged.

Within a half hour or so, I was notified that another one, MrsBlood theBloods, was out mining in a Procurer in NTR's home system of Nakugard, with his alt, MrBlood Tivianne, standing watch in a Vexor. Incidentally, the Mr/Mrs Blood couple are the ones whose big mouths caused this war to happen in the first place. Several others were in system, but docked. A warpin was arranged, so I logged in and went directly to his position, melted the face of the Vexor without taking any damage, and pointed the Procurer. I was taking some hits from the drones, so I eliminated them and continued chewing through his tank.

MrBlood reshipped to an Atron and returned to the fight. I weighed my options but found that the dps from the Atron was so feeble that I could easily tank all of it with an occasional pulse of the ASB, so decided I would overheat my guns, kill the barge, then kill the Atron if it was so foolish as to stay on the field. It was all going swimmingly for me until the Procurer hit about 25% structure, and I realized I had forgotten to turn off the heat and burnt out my guns. I had no choice but to disengage and let the Bloods go.

NTR begins to fight
At some point late in Day 2 of the war, I warped to the Nakugard gate in Hek. A number of WTs both in Hek and Nakugard were online, but everyone except Gancho Ohi, of GekkoState. seemed to be docked. Gancho was parked on the gate in a Drake. I scratched my head a bit, wondering who was really there and who was afk, then figured ,"Fuck it, what I got to lose? A Merlin?", so I went ahead and engaged the Drake.

I got a tight orbit, warp scrambled him and began pounding with my blasters. He unleashed two Valkyrie TP-600s (medium target painting drones), but they only took one volley each to blow away, then I concentrated all my DPS on his shields. He had a formidable buffer tank, but I steadily peeled it back to about 50%. His missiles were hammering on my shields, but not so badly that my ASB couldn't handle it. At that moment, a couple more flashy icons showed up in local chat and an unfriendly Thorax decloaked nearby, so I disengaged and warped away.

Then I decided to warp back to the gate and assess the situation. The Drake was gone, but the Thorax and a Catalyst were on the gate. They both immediately engaged me, so I jumped through. A Thrasher was on the other side. Acting fast to take advantage of the aggro timer, I switched to Null S and burned to the edge of scram range. As the fight began, I took a couple of hard volleys before I found the sweet spot, then burned him down fast. Just as the Thrasher got to about half structure, the Thorax, Catalyst and Drake all jumped through to our side of the gate and began shooting at me. I overheated my guns, aligned to a celestial, and as the Thrasher popped, I spammed the warp button and made a clean getaway.

The Pain of Loss
Sometimes I'm a sucker for a good fight. It is my weakness as a pirate. One the third day, I decided to take on the same Thrasher pilot I had killed the day before, plus his friend MrBlood in a Thorax. The Thorax was at long range, so I figured I could kill the Thrasher, then burn over and kill him. I almost pulled it off, too, but somehow the Thrasher managed to escape in structure, and when I was well along into the Thorax's armor, he warped back into us at his perfect optimal range and opened fire. I attempted to disengage and failed, losing my Nearly Invincible Merlin after only 6 kills.

I redeemed myself the next day, when once again my enormous and secret network of intelligence agents located MrBlood a couple jumps away from help doing things he really shouldn't be doing under a wardec. In this case, he was running a mission in a Vexor.

When I warped in on him in a shiny new Merlin, the fight was over almost before it began. I melted his face, and then melted his pod's face. Then I looted all the mission loot I could carry, and melted the faces of all his wrecks for good measure so he wouldn't be able to come back and profit from them. I felt justly avenged.

Enlisted an Ally: CONCORD Police Captain
Just this evening, my omniscient order of secret agents noticed a WT Skiff and Orca in the ice fields of Nakugard. Seven or eight other WTs were online, but without testing them I had no way to know who was at the keyboard. So once again I popped up where they didn't want me to be, pointed the Orca, killed a few drones, and soon dscanned the whole gang of them, cruisers, frigates and battlecruisers, warping down on top of me. So I disengaged, warped to a safe, considered my options, then made for the Hek gate. Maybe four of them were there, including my old friend Gancho Ohi in his Drake. I let them get aggro and jumped.

As the gate effects start, I see the old familiar notice pop up on the screen, "Gancho Ochi, criminals are not welcome blah blah blah, prepare to be destroyed". I land in Hek and quickly burn back, escaping being blapped by a Tornado on the other side, and jump back to Nakugard, not to miss the spectacle of seeing a WT get CONCORDed in front of my face. I'm still not sure what he did, he wouldn't tell me when I asked. My guess? Smartbombed the gate maybe? zKillboard won't say yet.

In any case, it was a very satisfying thing to watch. I only wish I had acted quickly enough to get it on the war record, even though it probably would have cost me my second Merlin to do so. In any case, I know it was a win for the good guys, and Gancho knows it too.

Time to Offer Terms
I figured at this point that the war record, while lacking anything spectacular so far, could still speak for itself. 9 kills (counting Gancho) to one T1 frigate loss. I'm not claiming to be great at this, but I am obviously winning by any measure, not to mention having a great time.

So I reached out to NTR's CEO and layed down my terms for ending the war. I'm new at this sort of game, so I made a very reasonable offer. I am going back and forth between what can I realistically get them to pay, and whether I want the war to end at all, since it is so much fun for me. In the end I demanded 250 million isk plus any additional war fees that may apply.

Vacation
While the war continues, sometime in the next few days I will be going on vacation (in the real world). I will be heading out to camp in a cave on a lonely mountain in the desert, to fast and meditate on the Code. I could be gone for a few days, a week, a month, 40 days and 40 nights, who can say?

In any case, the war fees are on auto-pay, so when I get back I plan on turning up unexpectedly just at a moment when NTR wishes I hadn't and ruining their day.