F-NMX6, Pure Blind – A capital brawl broke out in the system of F-NMX6 between the Imperium and PanFam over an Initiative Ansiblex jump gate. Objective-wise, the jump gate was successfully defended but reinforced again during the battle.
Before the engagement began, the Imperium was defending the jump gate with approximately 30-40 carriers and a Sacrelige fleet. Pandemic Horde entered the system first and began fighting, taking a heavy amount of fire but managing to pin down the carriers. Northern Coalition followed in and the fleets quickly combined before warping over to the grid and beginning the bulk of the fight.
As soon as the combined PanFam forces were engaged, a cynosural field was lit and approximately 120 Dreadnaughts jumped in. The Imperium followed suit, lighting their own cyno and bringing in a much smaller dreadnaught fleet, consisting of about 80. Reports from some Initiative members state that they were ready to jump in to reinforce the grid but did not have a ship available in either their or the Goonswarm fleet to bring them in (as previously stated, the jumpgate was reinforced and rendered unusable during the fighting). These reports are unconfirmed but likely true given that most groups would not jump in dreads to counter when they only had half the number of ships.
This fight seems… quite lopsided.
Vily, Test Alliance Please Ignore
On the subcapital front, Sacreliges and Muninns traded evenly among the explosions of dreadnaughts as the PanFam fleets tried to take out the damage ships of the Imperium fleet. However, the Imperium opted to go for headshots, shooting anyone that could be found on a list of fleet commanders from PanFam. It happened that these ships were primarily command ships, providing helpful boosts to the fleet, so their strategy was sound.
After the subcapital fleets had traded their losses, the Imperium fleet warped off and tried to extract their capitals any way they could. However, at the end of the battle, they had lost 73 dreadnaughts and 42 carriers compared to PanFam’s 15 dreadnaughts and 1 carrier losses. All tolled, more than 400 billion ISK was destroyed on the battlefield with 334 billion ISK of it belonging to the defenders. A steep trade for an Ansiblex gate to be sure.
We’ll keep you posted as more develops in this hotly contested conflict.