It seams that although some have predicted the supremacy of Death Squadron, things are still quite on dispute. Relic Wars is on a new stage, no rest for Orion’s Belt troops out there. It seams that a major coalition had being formed to attack Death Squadron. A major fight is being held at a relic:

Death Squadron still hold the 12 relics, but how long will it take for them to loose one? One of the major strengths of DS is their ability to organize themselves. I have never seen other alliances with this degree of organization. I believe that the main reason is that managing war takes time, and the majority of players want to play the game at a slower pace. They want to participate, but want others to manage the logistics. I’m one of those.

There may be a lack of management, but I still want to help. I’ve made several attacks on DS on the past, but I’ve been left alone for a while, and that was great for rebuilding my armies. Now I want to help the resistance, and with some degree of success. I may play well on the board, but my latest offensive was futile, and made little damage. New war tactics are forming up each day on Orion’s Belt, and I didn’t adapt. My armies were crushed down by simple fleet combos and devastation.

Well, I won’t make that mistake again. It’s clear that it’s not a good idea to be on the universe with a big fleet. Big fleets can be slowed down, have their light units destroyed and fall down without handing damage at all. They may also be intercepted and target with a devastation. My strategy will now be different: I’ll create several small to average fleets. I’ll be a dangerous opponent with any of these fleets, but I may be crushed against a bigger fleet. Even so, instead of one opportunity I now have the ability to target several opponents.

And while doing that, even playing solo and not following the main war, I’ll give DS just another problem to solve, and more resources to allocate to another front. Time will tell if my brave legions will be successful or not.

From my point of view Relic Wars had several stages by now. First, it started by alliances getting them as fast as they could. Then System Lords betrayed all their allies and fought for the relics, getting to 8 relics at a time. After that, System Lords were attacked by several alliances, the most notorious one being Death Squadron. The DS won the last stage… they became the most powerful alliance. They are big, they have lots of resources and members, and are well organized. And they managed to force System Lords into hiding in the shadows.

A couple of days ago the DS started to attack the last relics that they are missing. The major target are ALPHA, the other alliance with relics. This is a major threat against the free world, and we could face a scenario where DS have all the relics and win the major prize.  This will mean that DS will become the supreme force on the universe, making the game completely unbalanced.

A rebellion against the DS is forming. The best independent players are joining forces against this threat and I’m guessing that this current stage will last for a long time. I hope that this stage will significantly weaken the DS, but it will be a very hard battle.  Even so it’s very interesting to see how things are forming up… New tactics will emerge from this situation, and I’m very curious to see how things will proceed.

Historically speaking, I don’t know of any empire that lasted for ever. There are always the rich times, filled with richness and glory, and down times, with less resources and defeats. On Orion’s Belt this also happens. Those familiarized with Orion’s Belt History already know that. Even on this new version we can see that. At one time or another there were an alliance that ruled the universe. We can remember CUS and Cosa Nostra from the old days. And on this version Prophets of the Revolution, ALPHA and System Lords have been on front and quite powerful, and have fallen to lesser positions.

This weekend, while the System Lords admirals were not at the command of their fleets, two of the System Lords officers turned against them and joined the Death Squadron and attacked the only System Lords relic left. This is specially interesting because these two traitors were an important rebel force against the Death Squadron. I dare to say that at this moment the Death Squadron alliance is the most powerful ever seen on this version of Orion’s Belt. System Lords can’t really complaint about their members, seen that the alliance has a history of betraying its allies. And now, an alliance that once had 8 relics, now fights for the last one…

The balance of power may seam on Death Squadron’s side. They are a lot, very well organized, and with great zone control. But every time that one alliance becomes two strong, it has to deal with several problems:

• Internal problems: many members means a lot of stuff to handle; it’s hard to keep all the members happy, specially when there’s bounty to share
• Being the first means that all the alliances focus on that one alliance

It may be difficult to reach number one. But it’s even more difficult to stay there for a long time.

I’ve been building up a master fleet to attack my enemies on the Relic Wars. I had a Queen and I spent a couple of weeks building the following fleet:

• ~550 Spider; 1550 Worm; 200 Stinger; 105 Heavy Seeker;  350 Seeker; 70 Raptor; 36 Eagle; 35 Vector and of course: the Queen

This is a very powerful fleet, even more powerful at my hands. As you can imagine, I bought at the auction house the Vector, Eagle and Raptor, to balance the fleet (considering Levyr weaknesses). They were supposed to give me the zone control I needed to open ways for all the raw power that I had.

When I started to move it, I made the error of bragging about it to an admiral of Death Squadron. I said to him that this fleet was unbeatable, no one could win against it, or at least I tought so. Death Squadron are a really organized alliance and they played very well their cards against my super fleet. First, they detected it under their radar when I was a system way from their relic. They started a combat with a dummy fleet to check me out. Then they gave up and fired a Devastation on my Queen. I suffered losses, but I had so many units that my Queen was still very strong.

Then they allocated one of their renegade warriors to battle my fleet face to face. This warrior attacked me with the following units:

• 53 Kamikaze; 300 Toxic; 137  Vector; 84 Doomer; 1100 Anubis; 550 Dark Crusader

This was a remarkable fleet. Many combat units were lost on this epic battle. I won the battle but with heavy losses. The most important one was the loss of my Queen. At the end of the match I had left:

• 378 Stinger; 432 Spider; 1300Worm

All the rest was lost. I tought about going back to my hot zone and rebuild, but I was attacked the next instance by this fleet:

• 1 Queen; 169 HiveProtector; 1201 Worm; 150 Heavy Seeker; 40 Interceptor; 40 Spider; 400 Seeker

Wow… Some heavy power on this Levyr brother. Without light units to use as cannon fodder I had quite the challenge. I didn’t think I’d make it, because my opponent could easilly bring to life many Maggots that would destroy me. I used Worms as cannon fodder and the fight was balanced until my opponent made a mistake, and then run away. Even so I lost againt many units, and at the end of the battle I was left with:

• 681 Worm; 268 Spider;  278 Singer

At this point I was able to retreat to my private zone. I could hunt down his queen, but my fleet was already very fragile, so I choose to go back and rebuild it. This epic journey was very cool and taught me one thing: no matter how strong is your fleet, it can be taken down! No stronger player can win against a well organized alliance.

Some time ago System Lords went on a campaign for relics and turned against their allies ALPHA and Prophets of the Revolution. Because of this sneak attack we won quite a fame and alliances started to dislike us, but the truth is: war is profitable. At this time System Lords have 8 relics under their possession. System Lords spent a lot of time earning income from +6 relics, and that was really profitable.

As expected, we got some enemies. We got some shy attacks from ALPHA and the Prophets, and we also were under attack by Corsários. The only friend we had left was Death Squadron…. until today. Today, on an expected move, Death Squadron declared war on System Lords and attacked one relic. We don’t know much about this attack, but we do know that it was carefully planned and that it is just the beginning… We also don’t know what kind of pacts DS made with our current enemies. But having 8 relics, it’s normal to have DS turn on us.

I sense that there is going to be a lot of blood shead on the times to come. System Lords armies got some time to rest, and now they’re mobilizing again for battle. And they’re anxious for it!

For the first time on the history of the universe an alliance uses the Devastation Attack(not only once, but twice!)! This powerful attack, similar in significance with the atomic bomb, marks the supremacy of the System Lords! The weapon is already on level 6 and it’s being used on the relic wars against Prophets of the Revolution.

All alliances should proceed with extra caution when targeting the mighty System Lords, because they’ll give no mercy to their enemies. All alliances should pay tribute and show proper respect to the great System Lords, and maybe they will be spared.

The System Lords ends this public announcement with a word of hope to all other alliances: Leave your relics to us and you won’t be squashed! Hail the System Lords mercifulness! The empire of the new era is starting now!

The war for relics is becoming very interesting. The big war started when System Lords betrayed ALPHA and attacked 5 ALPHA relics. ALPHA were already in war with Death Squadron and conceived heavy losses. They are now hidden on their private zones, maybe gathering combat units and preparing for revenge.

On another unexpected move, System Lords betray Prophets of the Revolution and target two relics from them. Meanwhile, System Lord’s enemies Death Squadron, offer a cease fire and a treaty is formed between them, on the war for the Prophets relics.

Prophets and ALPHA have been allies for a long time. Are we watching now the start of two major confederations on the fight for relics? Will there be any more betrayals? On thing’s for sure, this war is far from the end!

News flash: unknown underground sources say that Morf, the  finalist for the first tournament, has transferred from YakuzaAIR to Death Squadron, bringing even more fire power and talent to their alliance.