Dystopia Alliance vs SOLAR FLEET

Finals - Sunday 20th September - 15:00

Let Them Have It: Dystopia Alliance Administer Beating to SOLAR FLEET

Reported by: Clarity Brown

There will be a lot of charcoal grey suits being pressed tonight for the Dystopia Alliance [SINGE] victory party, as they reach at least the quarter-finals of Alliance Tournament VII after a brutal fight against SOLAR FLEET [SOLAR]. SINGE swapped from their previous shield-centric logistics stratagem to an armour-based one, their Curses once again proving a versatile and effective tool in a highly-mobile battle against SOLAR's shield-focused, twin Tengu fleet.



Both teams set up with most of their ships off the beacon, though SINGE once again set their twin neutron-blaster Brutix, flown by Cividari and Valrandir, right on the beacon. SOLAR FLEET kept their whole fleet together, clustered around their Scimitar. With two Drakes, flown by XAOSS and Uncatchable Joe, and a Nighthawk Command Ship on the field, SOLAR had clearly gone with a very well-defended, resilient fleet, dropping a little damage power in the interest of keeping as much of their their fleet in play for as long as possible.

The match kicked off with streams of missiles freckling the void between the two teams. SINGE threw out hordes of small and medium Minmatar combat drones and a flight of medium armour repair drones while SOLAR put a set of light shield maintenance bots in position to support Megadigger's Rook - a not-unreasonable vessel to expect their foes to make a primary target. Valrandir's and Cividari's Brutix powered straight towards the SOLAR FLEET team, slamming into the thick of them. The SOLAR vessels immediately put fire on them, determined to prevent that fearsome neutron damage melting through to their support, while maintaining fire against one of the SINGE Curses as well. Tyrrax's lone Oneiros was unable to save both and protect the Curses from SOLAR's split fire; the two Brutix fell within the first 3 minutes of the match.

With the two Brutix down, SOLAR had struck a serious blow at SINGE's potential damage output, an insult the Guiding Hand Social Club could not allow to go unpunished. Their drones swarmed over Megadigger's Rook, but could not break through the remote repair provided by a flight of medium shield maintenance bots and BigMaman's Scimitar. SINGE sent more drones... and more, until the Rook was barely visible, the light of its explosion barely a flicker as the drones ate it alive. The the drones went straight for BigMaman's Scimitar, working the well-tried strategy of eradicating all support right off the bat. With BigMaman's death, SINGE had leveled the playing field once again, destroying SOLAR's ability to mitigate their damage in return for SOLAR's blow against them.

The two fleets shifted into a loose tangle as the SOLAR Tengus tried to position themselves to engage SINGE's support and the SINGE fleet reformed to counter-them. XAOSS of SOLAR pursued Napalm SW's Curse with his Drake, but SINGE drones flooded onto the battlecruiser. Xiadown and Zeraph Dregamon's Rooks were crippling SOLAR's ability to focus fire, keeping their missile ships jammed and forcing them to lean on auto-targeting "friend-or-foe" missiles, which can fire without a lock, but tend to be unpredictable in their choice of targets.

Evenguard of SOLAR FLEET pulled his Tengu back to long range as SINGE's combination of missiles and drones broke XAOSS's Drake into lots of little pieces. The Guiding Hand Social Club gang held together in the middle of the arena for a moment, calculatingly taking a moment to repair. Hamish, who had been keeping out of the way for much of the match in his Iteron V, rejoined his team mates, apparently cleaning out a few wrecks while they tidied each other up. Then the SINGE team straightened their collars and went back on the offensive.

SOLAR threw everything they had at the SINGE Curses, trying to take out that deadly cap-draining power before it could cripple their Nighthawk. SINGE set up a network of capacitor exchange between the two Curses and the Oneiros and dropped flights of armor repair drones over the Curses as they chased the Command Ship. There was a burst of focused missile fire and then Colonel Isaev, SOLAR's Nighthawk pilot, was going home in a cosmic ambulance.

Barring a miracle, the match was SINGE's now and everyone on the field seemed to know it, but Lia Ayo (Tengu, SOLAR) kept maneuvering for position and trying to kill off the approaching Curses of Donna Heywood and Napalm SW, who were stripping her cap as they approached. The SINGE dronehost descended first on her, then on Evenguard, devouring the two strategic cruisers one after the other.

Left for last once again, Uncatchable Joe did his best to deny SINGE the points for his wreck, backing off from their fleet, taking every whit of distance he could, but it simply wasn't enough. Donna Heywood's Curse was managing to keep pace with him, the drone swarm descended, and his Drake was sustaining a battering to its shields from heavy EM missiles. Uncatchable Joe managed to put a good 50km between himself and the main SINGE fleet, but then he ran out of arena and Donna Heywood and Napalm SW were closing in on him from either side. Tearing through his shields, the drones started stripping away his armour, and in the final minute of the match, Uncatchable Joe's Drake fragmented into shredded metal.

Dystopia Alliance goes forard to fight Pandemic Legion at 18:00 tonight.