Campaign Review - Black Jackets on Tour

Everyshore 101

(kill summary)


This is a short review of the Black Rebels' recent campaign that would encompass the mainly Gallente populated regions of Everyshore, Sinq Laison, Essence and Verge Vendor. It would also include a memorable visit to Caldari space too, but more on that later.

The campaign would run for 36 days and was intended as a group bonding session, (I said bonding, Lhorenzho) with all the new recruits and some pilots not accustomed to pvp, it was also something of a training exercise. Looking at the final total kill count of 300 to 257 losses we can look back on the whole and say that the campaign was a success.

Here are the memorable moments (and some not so) from our vacation ....

Red v Blue and the Pool Party Kid Incident.

We would kick off the campaign with a war dec against Blue Republic over in the Everyshore region, Bille solar system would be our base and we had nearly 200 all tech 1 fitted Rifters and Thrashers ready to roll. Unfortunately it wasn't to be an easy ride for the Rebels, after the first day of 'fighting' - I use the term fighting very loosely as we were always blobbed - we stood at something like 6 kills for 56 losses. Not great statistics!
But this wasn't about efficiency and elite combat, we were here in the cheapest, dirtiest looking tricked out Rifters that you could imagine. One of our guys even had a modified autocannon heatshield that he welded onto his meta 1 guns. Always complaining about the rattle during recoil making his teeth chatter he ripped one of the bins out of the ship bay in Bille, stuck it on and it did the trick. The Thrashers that we had purchased were also dodgy to say the least, I got chatting one night to an old scrapyard dealer who had a cargohold full of wrecked Thrashers to deliver for reprocessing, we got him drunk in the bar that night on Thukker Fire Whiskey and he sold us them dirt cheap. Result.

Due to a clerical mix up by one of our recruitment advisers we ended up accepting an application on the eve of the war going live to a member of Blue Republic. Needless to say when the war did go live they knew everything about us. Not to worry. In hindsight we should have kicked the guy but he did seem a nice guy so we gave him the benefit, bizarrely. But just as we were about to roll out in our first tech 1 Rifter gang with our resident spy master in fleet we heard the announcement that he had to leave to go to a pool party. Just after he logged we got blobbed by one well put together fleet with ECM support, good timing? I think not. From that day the guy was named 'The Pool Party Kid', much to the hilarity of the rest of the Rebels. Not long after the wardec ended a note was left in our offices explaining that 'The Pool Party Kid' had to leave the area to take care of some business. Needless to say he was booted from the roster in his absence and nothing has been seen or heard of him since.


Moving on .....

The Xenophab and the Dominix Navy Issue.

We then decided to have a few days to regroup, during this time I did a bit of research on some corporations that I thought might give us a chance to get our autocannons hot on a regular basis. Some random wardecs later and we were causing grief and doing what we do best.

One of the corporations - The Xenophabai - seemed to take the war to heart, the pilots bio's revealing some pretty threatening spiel towards the Rebels. This was great, just what we wanted! They even started rolling out small fleets looking for us, much cat and mouse ensued and we would snag the odd guy undocking in his mining cruiser. Then one day I randomly warped to a top belt and uncloaked an Ashimmu and a Brutix in my Rifter that were sat cloaked at zero. How odd I thought, knowing that these two ships could cause some pain to my Rifter I warped off and sent out the message to the rest of the Rebels that a fleet was needed.

A fleet was assembled and on a stargate in Vay solar system a great light show ensued as Rifters danced towards the enemy Ashimmu, Harbinger and Brutix. The result was that the Rebels had announced their arrival in the area, even though the Brutix managed to escape the field and the fits were somewhat questionable we felt good about our work. We retired to the bar that night to celebrate and not long after we received a ransom payment that ended hostilities.


Another corporation that we declared war against happened to turn out to be some really nice guys who in the end actually joined the Rebel roster. But first we had the Dominix Navy Issue moment to contend with.
Our scout had reported a war-target Dominix that was loitering in the system and the whole story can be found here in an earlier blog post regarding the event.


The next week or so was generally quiet, we had some wardecs that fizzled out and nothing much would be happening other than the usual Rebel behaviour of loot thieving and general skulduggery. One of the alliances that we had decced, Caveo Lupus, had been spotted running their operations over in Caldari space, away from the reach of the Rebels and their rusty killing machines. The Rebels loaded up some gear, some women, drugs and some booze and made their way over for a party. What followed was to become known as the Battle of Poinen, an event that will go down in folklore for the Rebels.

Battle of Poinen



The Infiltration of World Forge Industries.

Our final wardec was against another alliance - Limitless Inc. - which included the corporations World Forge Industries and Dark Fusion Industries, amongst other names I forget now and had little interest in actually. Weeks before this went live we had made use of our infiltration experts who had successfully entered one of the corps and were now filtering back a wealth of knowledge for our impending decalration. Most of it was pure comedy gold.

Most of the actual fighting during the war revolved around 1v1 combat situations and ganking miners and haulers and podding everything we could catch, no forgiveness. Actual fleet combat was few and far between, but the Rebels enjoyed this style of guerilla warfare and they excelled at it. Zodiac Black was making a name for himself and becoming quite a pain for the enemy to handle in his Rifter, he was loving the attention too and came away with a plethora of killmails from this part of the campaign.

After a while it was clear that World Forge Industries could not operate with the menace that was the Black Rebels stalking them, their chief exec sent out an urgent mail to all members.

_ _ _ 

WARNING: THIS MESSAGE IS ONLY FOR WORLD FORGE INDUSTRIES; IT IS BEING SHOWN TO LIMITLESS INC, SO THEY KNOW WHAT WE ARE DOING.

Gentlemen of World Forge Industries,


So here's the war plan; it's fairly simple really:


-All pilots are required to join a channel that will be made after 24 hours of this mail.


-All pilots will be asked to leave the corp; this is not a question of if you decide to do it or not, you are being ORDERED to leave the corp. Exception: Pilots who are going to FIGHT.


-All pilots will communicate among each other within the channel, while also being in NPC corporations; NPC corps cannot be war dec'd, which is important because it means the enemy needs to use conventional means.


-All pilots will continue to sell materials to the corp to continue the war effort; I will build, en mass, products to keep the corporate wallet functional.


-All pilots will help the war effort through "safer supply lines," that is you will run courier missions to help us.


-All pilots will then rejoin the corp after the war is over; all pilots who rejoin immediately gain the ensign rank as a sign of their loyalty. Pilots who do not rejoin were never loyal to begin with, and I will not be sad to see them go; I may even be happier.


-BY DOING ALL THIS, YOU ARE DENYING THE ENEMY TARGETS, AND THUS MAKING THIS WAR USELESS TO THEM. THIS IS NOW OUR OFFICIAL RESPONSE TO ALL WAR DECS TO THIS CORP. I WILL NOT ALLOW PILOTS TO STAY DUE TO SOME DESIRE TO PROVE SOMETHING; YOU FIGHT OR YOU LEAVE AND BE SAFE.


Gentlemen, I have the utmost confidence in your ability to be part of a system so strong, not even the guns of our enemies can shatter it. Nothing can break us, nothing will.


Regards,
Vhankar
Chief Executive Officer of the World Forge Industries system and proud to have you as members.

PS: Let the spies see this, for there is nothing the enemy can do to stop us, short of suicide ganking their wallets to oblivion; and even then.


So that was it, the campaign was coming to an end and our target corporation's pilots were all in NPC corps and their own private chat channel..... Which all the Rebels who were online one fine evening gatecrashed and turned into our very own corp channel. We literally took it over with a Jita style fast flowing flicker of Memes, GIF's, Photos and other unsavoury items flashing before their eyes. I remember one of the first responses to our abrupt entry was

****> Oh God who let the spies in again.


The following day all Black Rebel members were flushed from the channel and our campaign was about to end. It was a great experience and one of the most fun times in my eve career to date, getting to know each of my new corp members and building on what I hope will be around for a long time to come I think we all had a blast. Here's to more campaigns of adventure, fun and bloodshed in the future!


Final statistics and prizes.


Top Killer with 52 kills Zodiac Black

The Snarling Dog - Zodiac Black

Zodiac is a ruthless killing machine it seems and for a top place finish he receives x2 Republic Fleet Firetail hulls a Dramiel and 100m ISK. Well done, I'm sure everybody would agree it is refreshing to see a pilot so young show so much disregard for the safety of themselves and their spaceships in combat.

:)

Runner up with 25 kills - Anxiir

Cool Hand Anx

Some great kills during this campaign, really enjoy looking out for your killmails. A Caldari Navy Hookbill and an Imperial Navy Slicer are your reward along with a token 25m ISk.

3rd place with 23 kills - Saftsuze 

The man with the Golden Moustache - Saftsuze

Doing what you do on a consistent basis has enabled you to climb the campaign killboard to 3rd place. Your prize (or punishment - read Saft's Jaguar curse) ;p is x2 Jaguar hulls. Congrats, mate.


Top scorer with 2803 points - Zodiac Black

Well, it had to be really didn't it? Well done again mate. Your prize is a pack of Assault Frigates x2 Jaguar and x2 Wolf hulls. Enjoy.


Best solo kill - Tomba

Popular Black Rebel - Tomba

This was a difficult one to choose as there were so many good solo kills out there. This one has been chosen because of the persistence of Tomba to master the Arty-Rifter hull and then go out and look for some of the games top pilots and test his mettle against them on a regular basis. Well done Tomba, your prize is x3 Taranis hulls and 25m ISK.




Next up .....



Our next campaign will roll out in September. We are now recruiting new pilots for this, join us today!


MB.