Faction warefare update

One of the things that I have really enjoyed about faction warfare so far is the greater context in which the fights take place. Unlike a pirate, who simply fights for fun and profit - both excellent reasons for fighting, by the way - the faction warfare pilot is also fighting for his 'team', whatever that might mean for him.

From reading various forum posts, it seems the Amarr militia has always had a reputation for a strong sense of identity, with a fair amount of mild roleplay. As such, there are a large number of pilots who take the war fairly seriously. 'Amarr Victor', or more humourously, 'Amarr Ahkbar', are common warcries in militia chat, and nobody fusses about divided loyalty points when it comes to forcing plexes in a heavily contested system. Fleets run almost every night.

For those that don't know - and until recently that included me - the Amarr militia essentially dominated the warzone in the first half of 2016. This domination was so complete that apparently a number of our top corps got bored, and decided to move to null sec. Combined with the summer holidays, a number of Minmitar corps were able to roll back the entire warzone with aggressive plexing - the key to capturing systems.

By the end of September, though, Amarr players were back at their keyboards, and new FCs were learning the ropes, filling the void left by the loss of some of our strongest corps. The Amarr now hold a number of systems, and I have been involved in the recapture of Roushzar and Labapi.

The Minmitar have been fighting back, of course, so as we capture more systems we need to devote some time to defensive plexing, but we are still able to start pushing a number of systems in the Bleak Lands. Anka is particularly active for me, as I base out of Gammel, so it is my default plexing system.

Morale in the militia is high, and I'd thoroughly recommend faction warefare to anyone who has been on the fence. To a certain extent, it's much like being -10; I still need neutral alts to haul goods, and rarely leave low sec.

A word of caution - CCP has been very clear that they intend to end the Amarr-Caldari and Minmatar-Gallente alliance in favour of four-way war. So make sure you join the militia you actually want to fly for, rather than the one that you are told is (currently) the most profitable. I suspect that milita hopping is going to become much more difficult over the next six months.