Faction Warfare - So, This Is Sovereignty(-Lite) Warfare

When Fweddit decided to enter Faction Warfare, they could have chosen any side they wanted. Minmatar was easily the side to be on if you wanted to be a winner. Minmatar have made an art out of steamrolling Amarrians. They've had a long while to perfect it. Morale had been a hard thing to find among the Amarr militia.

I give much credit to Fweddit for choosing Amarr. It was a classy move. They could have chose the easy road, but rather chose the road less travelled.

Now that the Goon exploits have been patched, the true strength of Fweddit -- their numbers -- are being felt. 575 members at last count. And each and every day, with every skill point, Fweddit grows stronger.

Minmatar days of controlling the southern faction battle are numbered. Yesterday, Minmatar felt the effects of their first panic. Kourmonen. A system that is the crossroad to three different pipes was on the verge of falling to the Amarr. A large number of Minnie pilots have made Kourmonen their base of operations, because of its access to every area Amarr and Minmatar space. Kourm has been in Minmatar hands since May 03 2012. A huge push was made to keep it out of Amarr hands, as the Amarr made a huge push to claim the system. The contested state reached 57% at one point. That might not seem like a big deal, but it's barely risen above 15% contested since Inferno released.

That push to retain Kourmonen wasn't without a tonne of losses on the Minmatar side, it wasn't without getting to see first hand what Amarr numbers will mean going into the future. One Plex defended, an Amarr fleet sent to their graves, and before the field could be looted, the next Amarr fleet was arriving. It was wave on wave of Amarr. There were equal number of Minmatar retreats as there were battles, and in very few of the battles could it be said that Minmatar truly dominated. It was a scratching and clawing sort of evening.

Timezones saved Kourmonen in the end. Fweddit is mainly a USTZ group. At around 2AM Mountain TZ (4AM Eastern TZ), the Amarr numbers started tailing off dramatically. EUTZ was beginning to log on, and the process of defensive plexing began. EUTZ saved the day, and actually brought Minmatar up to T4 warzone control briefly today. (60.5%, enough for people to cash out LP cheaply.) An hour later we were back into T3 control.

It's going to be harder and harder for Minmatar to keep control, to even push for T4 control, however briefly. The numbers, which used to be Minmatar's bread and butter, are now Amarr's strength. There's little defense to 200 pilots spread out across Minmatar systems, plexing the contested state upwards, lowering Minmatar warzone control. Once the Amarr start getting a handle on their primary strength, they can maintain multiple fronts of battle. This will push Minmatar strategizing and resources to the edge.

The Minmatar cakewalk is over. The fight is now on. It's going to be fun. It's a good time to be involved with Faction Warfare.