I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the many courageous acts of courage, dedication and derring-do that our pilots exhibited over the past few weeks. I've already expressed this sentiment internally, but I'd like to point it out publicly as well.
As many of you already know, A Band Apart is an Alliance built around a core concept that is rather unique. Each of our member Corporations represents different play-styles and approaches to playing Eve, and not all of those approaches involve combat. In fact, the majority of our members are involved in non-combat actions, industry, construction, missioning, mining, exploration, transportation, trading, and other activities. It is pretty awesome. We are Groot!
Many of our victories won't show up on any Battle Report, because they involved targets not directly at war with our Alliance. One such kill is this Orca kill. This happened just as the enemy was moving into the WH, and as you can see from this 1.2b isk loss the Orca had a lot of supplies to deliver, including another Tower. Quick action on the part of our pilots resulted in this victory and kudos to all of those on the kill, well done.
Another victory that won't appear on a Battle Report is the destruction of this Tower and Modules in our WH. The enemy used another Corporation outside of the war to anchor and build this tower, so it wouldn't show if destroyed. Which is a legit tactic of course, but destroy it we did. This report doesn't show all the modules destroyed but it gives you a good idea.
There are a bunch of other moments like that, especially in the last week during the WH part of the war. Not all of us are used to fighting wars inside WHs and the vast majority of our players got stuck outside once things escalated during the week. And those of us inside had to rely on the supplies we had. No moment represented this better than when Shadow brought 36 Ishtars to hang outside our POS. I freely admit we were totally unprepared for that action. But even so our Bomber Squad did an amazing job of whipping the field of sentries every so often. And our fleet even managed some Ishtar kills by warp baiting the fleet. Ishtar. Ishtar. Ishtar. Ishtar. Ishtar. We certainly came out on the negative side of that engagement, no doubt about it, but I think we managed to give as good as we got considering the enemies advantage.
I'd also like to give some kudos to our spur of the moment allies in the WH. Thanks for showing up and offering your assistance, it was greatly appreciated. While ABA never "hired" any help, we certainly appreciate help when it is available. I was especially encouraged to see my old friend Budrick3 in fleet. We go all the way back to Burn Away days when I was in Lucifer's Hammer and he was in Douchingtons. Always good to see old-friends.
And no shout-outs would be complete without mentioning the master-stroke. Extremely quick thinking and amazing on-the-spot probing led to a huge double kill for us when our guys managed to bring down Nashh's Ishtar and then his 1b iskie pod. Poor guy went into a WH with snakes in his head.
Again, just to be clear. I have nothing at all against any member of their group. I still believe wars between Pirate Corporations are silly and pointless, but granted our Alliance is more than just a Pirate Corporation and we have a lot of non-combat pilots that can be considered targets I suppose. To each his own. Far be it for me to judge.
Our Alliance conducted themselves in heroic fashion. Actions that are not always reflected on kill-boards, the hard work, the moving, the providing, the logistics, the planning, all those things that often seem to be overlooked. I can assure you that they are not overlooked, not in our Alliance. I know all our CEOs, Directors, and leaders appreciate all that you do.
A very special shout out to those brave souls that moved billions and billions in assets out of the hole right under the enemies noses this week. Extremely well done!
And a funny story to end with. One of our pilots was in an Orca during the time Shadow Cartel was camping our POS. Turns out, this Orca was in fleet with us as we warped out to a safe spot. When we realized this we all turned to align back to the tower just as enemy Ishtars began landing on us. Believe it or not, the Orca arrived safely back in our tower with us. I won't name the pilot here, but they know who they are. In my opinion that was an amazing piece of flying under extreme pressure and well done.
So many things turn on the smallest moments.
And in those moments, true heroes are born.