Before Raging Tapirs [RTAP] we were House of Nim-Lhach [HN-L].

We offer ratting, mining, exploration, trading, PvP, & manufacturing opportunities, from our nullsec home in Querious. Our alliance, in recognition of our sacrifices and services, has named our alliance HQ station Tapirs Dojo. Right now, we need recruits to flood our ranks, to join us in our journey in Querious, as we fight to secure our space from the Imperium forces (CFC) lead by Goonswarm. WE NEED YOU.

An example of our activity is this old battle report i wrote up about 5 months ago, when we were in NPC Delve, and attempting to secure a few planetary customs offices for ourselves. This is what you'll be a part of, if you choose to join us.

Battle Report 5 January 2015[U]

We formed up with a Fleet of 21 HN-L members, and 2 pilots from Kadeshi (Sootsia/Soothis) to destroy 8 POCOs that were coming out of reinforcement at KFIE, in Delve.

At 8:30pm we took instructions from Soot, who joined us in his Nyx, and who kindly agreed to FC us for a while until he had to leave for work. No hostiles in system but Soot was careful and posted scouts in the systems 2 jumps out. Soot also instructed not to use Dreads, as the POCO owners were known to be active in the TZ.

Dread pilots reshipped to subcaps, and carrier pilots (4) moved to our small staging POS. The Carrier pilots were instructed to assign their fighters to the subcaps, then once the fighters were engaged in attacking the POCOs, the Carrier pilots were to dip back into the POS shields.

A single neut in system in a stealth bomber attempted to warp scram Soot's Nyx but failed. A bomb destroyed Brick1235's noobship.

After the destruction of the 4rd POCO, Soot had to leave for work, but Sarrian and I felt confident we had the procedure under control. Forza showed up to bubble the only gate leading out of KFIE. Sikong joined fleet in his carrier, bringing our carrier numbers to 5.

At the start of staging at the 6th POCO, we got a surprise. The carriers were out of the POS assigning fighters to the subcaps. A second neut entered KFIE, and a cyno was lit at the edge of our POS. Sarrian ordered all subcaps to abort ops and warp to POS, not realizing xstarscreamx was warning that bubbles were going up at our POS - his TeamSpeak was intermittent and no one could hear what he was saying.

By the time we knew of bubbles, our subcap fleet was already in warp. Local was filled with about 35-40 neuts, all of which were at the edge of our POS, where they had Titan bridged in. Statix/Indoz two (2) dominix's were caught in the bubbles at POS and quickly destroyed. Other subcaps were all okay, being able to warp to station from the POS.

Taichou Mack's Archon was unlucky and partially out of the POS shield, he was bumped out and also quickly destroyed.

Of the 4 remaining carriers, 2 managed to warp to station from the POS before bubbles enclosed our POS. Switching the POS password and disallowing corp access, we burst out 1 more carrier (belonging to Concealed weapon) who was able to jump to a rescue cyno lit at a-ele2, before the hostiles were able to warp scram him. The last carrier was unable to be burst out as it belonged to the pilot that set up the POS, and by that time, the POS had been completely rapecaged, so bursting would have still caught the last carrier in bubble. With that, the last carrier, belonging to Sikong's alt, logged off.
The hostiles later destroyed our POS when it came out of reinforcement in 4 hours.

It was an intense extraction, and corp bravery was evident. Comms were well handled, and instructions were clear without interference. No responding to the hostiles in local, no trash talk. We wrapped up the op at that point, with excited chatter and praise all around in our TS.

The next morning, Sikong destroyed the rapecage, and extracted his carrier, and i planted 5 POCOs at KFIE, without any interference.

What could we have done differently?
The initial plan was to survey KFIE for 2 weeks before taking any action , to determine if No Value corp continued to maintain a presence there. This was abandoned as Soot put the POCOs into reinforce without opposition, 2 days after our corp meeting, and i saw targets of opportunity, to take the POCOs. In my opinion, if we waited 2 weeks, we might not have proceeded with a POCO op at KFIE, as it was "too dangerous". But i am glad we did it, and i want to do it again to get at the other remaining 4 POCOs.

We only had time to anchor a small POS with no guns etc. In future our staging POS should be a large with hardeners, small/med guns, webbers, disruptors ECM etc. The strontium bay should have been filled.

We could possibly have spider tanked the carriers and had them in docking range of a station (in the niche part of a station, to reduce bumping), instead of dipping in and out of the POS shields. The carriers could have spider tanked for 30-45 secs until their fighters returned in the event of the hostile hotdrop. Of course, in the event of titan DD an carrier still would have died.

The subcap fleet could have consisted of Stealth bombers, recons and interceptors only.. all cloaky ships which would have been safer. After all the main DPS was coming from assigned fighters from the Carrier fleet.

Conclusions
This is probably the most significant battle in HNL recent history. We showed a lot of discipline on comms at all times, and no panic. We learnt a lot of important lessons. Diplomatically, we gained respect from Skeleton Crew & Kadeshi. We also know now that Darkness will not respond to assist. I also believe that our opponents have a higher regard for us now, that we are not merely carebears, but are willing to take aggressive steps to take POCOs, and that we are able to show initiative in saving our ships, and not just rolling over in surrender.

Post mortem discussion with Soothis will be reported by Sarrian.

Occitane