A Band Apart is only a tad over a year old, this time last year we had only recently formed and participation in the Alliance Tournament seemed like a little too much to soon. I've yet to be in an AT even though this will be the 13th running and my 7th year of playing. And that ain't right. So we've decided that this will be our first year of participation in the AT. Or, at least, that is the plan.
Deciding to participate is a huge commitment. For us it is rather monumental. I'd say we are right on the cusp of it being insanely impossible. Let's be realistic here. We're barely over a year old and we are primarily composed of crazy, independent-minded, pirates. We do not have a sturdy infrastructure built on a tax-based, moon-goo, POCO owning, Cap Building, system of Ship Replacement Programs and high-energy returns on investment programs. We don't got that. Our tax base is zero. We also don't have thousands of players that can help support such an effort. We also don't got that neither.
Our experience in such things is rather limited to say the least. We did win one match in the last NEO Tournament. Which, you have to admit, was memorable to say the least:
I still have a hard time watching my Mach explode. If you are curious about what happened, which I believe I've said before, two things led to its loss. The first was that, despite what Fozzie says in the video, it was taking drone damage and cruise missile damage the entire time. And second, I simply ran out of charges. My cargo bay was crammed with as many charges and ammo as possible when we started and I simply ran out. Nothing much more to it than that, constant damage and suddenly running out of cap charges. It was so close, one more cap charge would have saved it. Sigh.
So, do I think we have a shot at winning the AT? lolz. We are incredible long-shots by any measure. Obviously. But you have to start somewhere and while our goal is to win, why else play, more importantly our desire has to simply be to do well and have as good of a showing as we can. To be prepared, have fun and see what happens.
Should be interesting.