The incident started when a Lazerhawks gang found a wormhole exit in the N8D9-Z system. Roaming around for targets, they noticed an Aeon Mothership near a tower in the 7-K6UE system warping to the UEXO-Z gate and jumping out. An attempt was made to de-cloak the ship, but had no success.
Disheartened, the Lazerhawks fleet made its way back towards their wormhole when a straggler reported sighting three Archon Carriers on the same gate as before. At this point the Lazerhawks fleet suspected a trap, as several Motherships and a Titan were spotted in a tower in [THOR] staging system. Another problem was the low number of pilots Lazerhawks had online at the time, only twenty-six in total.
Thus it was decided to call for reinforcements. A Pandemic Legion Fleet Commander, Apothne, was reached through mutual channels and given the information. After a short discussion within the Pandemic Legion, the decision was made to burn towards the system. An Ishtar Heavy Assault Cruiser fleet was hastily formed, initially thirty pilots large, and burned towards the target system.
Lazerhawks for their part kept the Archons engaged while Pandemic Legion's fleet made its way, unable to break the tank of the Carriers but keeping them tackled. Several times the Archons jumped back and forth between the 7-K6UE and UEXO-Z systems, only to find themselves held down by the Lazerhawks' Interdictors. Finally, one of the Archons lit a Cynosural beacon in the UEXO-Z system on the 7-K6UE gate, and onto the field jumped ten Motherships, accompanied by an escort fleet of assorted ships bridged in alongside them.
By this point though, Pandemic Legion's forces had arrived to the system and warped to grid, quickly joining Lazerhawks in clearing away the [THOR] escort ships before switching damage to the Archons, who were by now sitting alongside the Motherships on the 7-K6UE gate.
With the increased damage, the Archons began to break. As the first Archon was destroyed, the rest of the fleet quickly jumped through the gate with the Motherships in tow in order to escape. However, they were caught once more by the interdiction probes deployed by Lazerhawks, who anticipated this attempt at flight.
Both Pandemic Legion and Lazerhawks forces pursued the fleeing [THOR] fleet into the 7-K6UE system, disposing of what had remained of the initial escort fleet before changing targets and returning once more to the Archons. The two remaining Archons were continuously bumped away from each other, to prevent their usage of Remote Repairers, thus severely reducing their ability to tank the incoming damage. All the while the Motherships were kept under a thick blanket of interdiction probes, in order to prevent any attempt to escape.
With the two Archons dispatched, the fleet turned its full attention to the Motherships, however, [THOR] reinforcements finally arrived to the system in the form of a thirty pilot Tengu Strategic Cruiser fleet. By this point Pandemic Legion's numbers were swelling, as news of the tackled Motherships made way and the Tengu fleet was quickly de-fanged, losing half of its force in the first few minutes. Then, a decision was made to switch damage to the tackled Motherships and their Fighter Bomber wings, who were chewing through the Interdictors and Heavy Interdictors that were brought to the field in order to escape.
The Aeon was targeted first and quickly succumbed to the Pandemic Legion\Lazerhawks volleys. With the destruction of the rescue fleet and the Aeon, it seems that panic spread amongst the [THOR] Mothership pilots, who quickly tried to burn away from the interdiction probes and re-fit their ships to boost their energy in order to jump out of the system. The result though, was reduced tank, which made them extremely easy to destroy, as the Nyx Mothership which followed can attest to.
All the while [THOR] and Pandemic Legion reinforcements continued to pour into the system, increasing the death toll significantly. By now, Northern Coalition(dot) [NC] managed to organize a relief force. As the Pandemic Legion\Lazerhawks fleet put a second Nyx into deep armor, ten [NC] Archons jumped to a perch above the UEXO-Z gate. They then proceeded to warp down and quickly remove the Cynosural Inhibitors deployed by Pandemic Legion and Lazerhawks, which then allowed them to jump in an even larger Archon fleet to the middle of the battlefield.
Faced with these overwhelming odds, both Pandemic Legion and Lazerhawks chose to withdraw from the system, conceding the field to [NC] as they cleared tackle and burnt home. This allowed the remaining eight [THOR] Motherships to extract safely.
Battle report for the UEXO-Z system can be found here.
Battle report for the 7-K6UE system can be found here.
The butcher's bill stands at a hundred and thirteen ships destroyed for ninety-four billion ISK in damages. [THOR] lost seventy-five ships, represented in ninety billion ISK damages. Pandemic Legion and Lazerhawks lost thirty-three ships altogether, mostly Interdictors and Heavy Interdictors, for only four billion ISK in comparison.
All told, this engagement can certainly be viewed as a bait attempt gone horribly wrong, with [THOR] leaving the fight with a noticeable black eye, while Pandemic Legion and Lazerhawks walked home maybe with bruised knuckled, but a lot of satisfaction as well.
Special thanks to Taylor Swiift, of Taylor Swift Inc(dot), Taylor Swift Empire, Michael1995 of Lazerhawks and Apothne, of Sniggerdly, Pandemic Legion
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