Last year, we reported on Snuffed Out’s deployment to Lantorn that cost attacking forces more than 1 trillion ISK to end. This year, Snuffed Out came back to Lantorn. Their intention, much like their last deployment, was to ring the dinner bell and hope to feast on a buffet of spaceships. A noble goal to be sure, but one that was met with a significant amount of resistance this time around. The last month has been riddled with battles carrying butcher’s bills totaling in the hundreds of billions of ISK. In an environment where almost the entire rest of the game is embroiled in nonstop structure bashing and narrative posturing, fights like these are a welcome change of pace.
One of the first action events in the campaign happened after reinforcing several Siege Green’s (or their friends’) structures. This included an Azbel reinforced in Gukarla. The battle for the final timer of this Azbel resulted in Snuffed Out and friends Hard Knocks and Lazerhawks losing 9 billion ISK compared to Siege Green and friends losing nearly 60 billion ISK, including the Azbel and several capital ships. Following the Azbel, Snuffed dropped a Fortizar on Siege Green’s Keepstar grid in Siseide. Siege Green and friends would not allow this to stand, opting to go all out to destroy it. Their attempt led to the successful destruction of the Fortizar, but cost them 92 billion ISK vs Snuffed Out’s losses of 46 billion ISK.
However, it wasn’t all sunshine and killmails for Snuffed Out, as a battle over an Athanor went awry and led to the loss of one Yonis Pserad’s Avatar along with dozens of dreads from both sides of the conflict. The resulting escalation left over 412 billion ISK in smoldering wrecks on the battlefield. One would’ve thought this would be a turning point for the campaign and that, in suffering a larger loss that Snuffed Out, one would have thought twice about continuing their offensive actions. But Snuffed Out wasn’t done yet.
Their next move was the reinforce the Siege Green Keepstar in Siseide. This prompted SG, RC, and their friends to form over 1,000 people to defend the armor timer, while Snuffed Out no-showed, opting not to attack. However, both of Snuffed’s Fortizars, one in Lantorn and another in Siseide, were exiting their shield reinforcement timers. A combined force of more than 500 players showed up to attack the structures, resulting in both being reinforced to their final timer. The Lantorn Fortizar yielded quite the fight where both sides duked it out in battleships, heavy assault cruisers, and capital ships. At the end of the day, the Fortizars were put into their final timers but not without costing the attacking parties another 54 billion ISK, compared to Snuffed Out and friends 14 billion.
To make the final timer of the Lantorn Fortizar easier to accomplish (likely by skynetting fighters), the Siege Green party decided to anchor their own in Lantorn. The anchoring happened in USTZ, arguably a weaker timezone for Snuffed Out, and seemed to be an attempt to accomplish the objective without a large amount of resistance from them. Unfortunately, for Siege Green and their friends, a resistance was very present. The resulting battle was another hundreds of billions of ISK worth of battleships, dreads, and carriers smoldering on a battlefield. The Fortizar was destroyed and, because it was anchoring, did not generate a killmail. However, the almost 100 destroyed dreads did. Snuffed Out squeezed SG/RC for another 319 billion ISK while managing to lose around 165 billion ISK themselves.
In the final days of the Lantorn deployment, their Fortizars both exited reinforcement and were destroyed. The Fortizar in Lantorn saw another large brawl between the two combating parties. This time, even the likes of the Initiative showed up to defend their old friends in Snuffed Out. Overall, the defenders lost 34 billion ISK compared to the attacker’s 135 billion ISK. Though the Fortizars were destroyed, another was promptly anchored and fought over in Siseide. The battle resulted in 57 billion ISK being lost for SG/RC and friends compared to a 17 billion ISK loss for Snuffed Out and friends.
After the last Fortizar was destroyed, a plan was hatched for SG/RC and friends to go on the offensive. In this offensive, a Keepstar would be reinforced. The freeport Keepstar in Amamake, a known safe haven for the most dastardly of lowsec pirates, was the target. Famed strategic commander, Seddow, led the charge, placing a small group of Titans onto the Keepstar with a subcapital reinforcement fleet nearby for protection. These Titans would be enough to pause the Keepstar timer and push it into reinforcement. According to Seddow, they just wanted to see the reaction. Unfortunately for those in the fleet, the reaction was swift and deadly.
In the middle of the Titans, a lone Mobile Cyno Inhibitor was all that stood between them and a gruesome death. In order to deal with this, a sacrificial lamb was sent into the fray. A brave Snuffed Out member, rumored to be quitting the game, warped in his Wyvern supercarrier and Leviathan Titan to kill the inhibitor. Once it was dead, NullSechnaya Sholupen was first on field, bringing in a sizeable dreadbomb to begin killing the Titans on field. The combined forces of NSH and Snuffed Out fielded dozens of heavy interdictors, all aimed directly at the Titan ball, as RC and friends brought in their own dreads and a brawl ensued. During the fight, Snuffed Out undocked their supercapitals and warped over to the grid from the Keepstar, ending any further escalation from RC and company. At the end of the day, 7 of the RC/SG and friends Titans died, Seddow’s Titan included, and the wrecks of the capitals littering the grid from their side totaled well over 800 billion ISK, while defending parties lost just over 200 billion ISK themselves. However, with new changes to industry coming to the game soon, it’s estimated that these losses are significantly higher in reality.
It is yet to be seen what the next moves by RC and friends will be. Throughout various weekly talk shows on Twitch, involved parties have been trash talked, interrogated, and otherwise fully relieved of any information they are willing to give out on their plans. It is also yet to be seen what Snuffed Out’s next moves will be. Typically, they come to Lantorn, trade a Fortizar for some good brawls, and head back to roam the lawless lands of low-security space. Perhaps if there are Titans on the menu, they’ll decide to stick around for longer.
