Blitzkrieg is what the Germans call "lightning war" : the use of overwhelming power on a narrow front that moves rapidly to engage, neutralise and over run the enemy.
Even an old IK master like me can be surprised, and I was as I saw first hand on the Tank- account a new type of effective war on IK. When you have a powerful account (BigA... Little) and a smaller weaker account (Tank-... Fearless), and the desire for a fast victory then blitzkrieg is the new tactic that will blow the opposition away.
"Poison Witch" Heather who runs many accounts on the [Slayer] side is a fast learner and has come up with a whole new set of tactics against the Tank- account. It is apparent the master of Blitzkrieg "Little" has shown the mad woman a load of new tactics which she has now employed in BigA against Tank-.
Over the last week or so Heather has sent waves of attacks at small sections or rows of the Tank- account that had been steadily weakening it but which I could overcome with my bag of IK tricks. But then with Little targeting Fearless in a very effective way it has called for some new tactics by Heather which she has employed against Tank. Normally one can fleet dodge an attacking fleet if one has the time and organisation to do it, but Heather for two weeks has sent 2k - 3k fleets at Tank- with a colony ship in: move the fleet I risk its capture and if I keep it in harbour I risk its destruction - the normal reaction of an IK player to this is to surrender or panic - with a narrow focus, organisation and some luck I was able to overcome this approach by Heather. Within the last 48 hours a new strategy was employed by Heather - targeting everything and following that up with a whole new set of tactics that is quite effective. I have a few small tricks but the Tank- account stands little chance against the firepower that BigA and M8KWR is launching at it and it has been in war for six months, so it is byebye this account by the weekend.
Tactically I have been effective making few mistakes, but the one thing that makes me shout "I don't believe it" is the kampf and whilst I have enjoyed many kampfs in my favour in this war, there are some that caused that Victor Meldew reaction. Here are a few recently in my favour...
Attack report
from 27.04.2010 23:23
Offence Units 0600521 (6:5:21)BIGA SUFFERS KAMPF
Total Losses
Large Warship 3000 3000
Colonisation Ship 1 1
Spearfighter 15000 15000
Catapult 34 34
Defence Units Tank 0503117 (5:31:17)TANK
Total Losses
Large Warship 1252 1189
Small Warship 58 55
Colonisation Ship 2 2
Spearfighter 9841 9349
Plundered Resources
Gold 0
Stone 0
Lumber 0
Destruction
Main House Level 1 (Destruction: 19)
+
Attack report
from 27.04.2010 11:21
Offence Units |15|3421 (15:34:21)M8KWR SUFFERS KAMPF
Total Losses
Large Warship 2000 2000
Colonisation Ship 1 1
Spearfighter 10000 10000
Catapult 100 100
Defence Units Tank 0506422 (5:64:22)TANK
Total Losses
Large Warship 1289 1225
Small Warship 10 10
Small Merchant Ship 10 10
Spearfighter 8609 8179
Plundered Resources
Gold 0
Stone 0
Lumber 0
Destruction
Main House Level 1 (Destruction: 19)
Gold Mine Level 18 (Destruction: 2)
Lumber Mill Level 18 (Destruction: 2)
Laboratory Level 18 (Destruction: 2)
Stone Wall Level 18 (Destruction: 2)
Statue Level 1 (Destruction: 1)
Boots25 still had one fleet hanging around ocean 5 that I missed, but I discovered it in a recent offensive to destroy his ocean 5 isles, which resulted in its death and a sweet kampf in my favour:
Attack report
from 27.04.2010 08:37
Offence Units Tank 0506224 (5:62:24)TANK
Total Losses
Large Warship 300 285
Spearfighter 1400 1330
Archer 100 95
Catapult 50 48
Defence Units * 0508904 (5:89:4)BOOTS25
Total Losses
Large Warship 1022 1022
Colonisation Ship 5 5
Spearfighter 5000 5000
Catapult 60 60
Voidedge has also had some lucky results on the kampf front with just two spearmen wiping out an attacking Fishcult [Ravens] fleet in a kampf - Asterix and Obelix comes to mind.
Attack report
from 27.04.2010 21:39
Offence Units FISHCULT [RAVENS]
Total Losses
Large Warship 27 27
Colonisation Ship 1 1
Spearfighter 135 135
Catapult 8 8
Defence Units VOIDEDGE
Total Losses
Spearfighter 2 2
"very strong men i have ;d" said Voidedge - I would say!
Kampfs are sweet when they are on your side but can make you feel like you ate a frog for breakfast if you are the victim of one.
FISHCULT
Fishcult who I think now is another account purchased by Raven [Ravens] has been in contact moaning about Voidedge. All I can say is the guy is having fun, takes the game unseriously and has not quit despite the amount of attacks he is getting. Voidedge like us all has a life outside of IK, and we who are more dedicated to the game time wise would be silly to judge another by our values. Raven, me, Heather and others who most recently has given a lot of time to play IK are not Voidedge who has real life commitments that he quite rightly focuses more on. Fishcult has been very effective mopping up Voidedge in ocean 7, but seems to think if a player keeps their fleets in harbour, that they are not having fun or are not playing IK. Voidedge has sent attacks out and I have many reports from him proving it, he has also been in regular communication with this blog and also fleet stole an [IX] fleet that was attacking an ally to himself and [The Club]. Fishcult/Raven has only to send this blog news to give a better coverage of their war via this blog.
FLEET STEALS
Something worse than a nasty kampf is a fleet steal. Amazingly no fleets have been stolen by [Slayer] in their final blitz on Tank- although I have had to risk a few fleet steals to salvage some fleets and was able to get them back in time with my counter-attacking colony ships. It is a risk at this late stage in the war I am avoiding since it is my desire to make sure (apart from Tamm) that no [Slayer] fleets exist in ocean 5.
Some late news from two weeks ago was that Little [The Club] stole 16k of fleet from Fearless. This was sweet revenge against Fearless by Little after Fearless nicked a few thousand catapults from Little last year when the account entered into war against Little taking him by surprise during a fight with other accounts.
FEARLESS
Even if things are looking terminal for Tank- it was rather a similar situation for Fearless as Little reported 64 fleets left amongst the Fearless ocean 1's and mark69 was making good progress against the main heartlands of Fearless in ocean 21. Fearless isle count has dropped from 896 isles a few days ago to 704 isles. Little is up 200 isles to 3773 isles. mark69 has recovered all his lost ground from last week and has now moved up to a record 1574 isles.
12SUGARs
12sugars [Slayer] is a rather weak account that against the odds managed to retain its isle count and fleets until now, Little and mark69 have been clearing him out and his isle count will fall rapidly. 12sugars was overlooked by the [The Club] big players until now as they concentrated on Fearless and others, although I managed to score 51 his main isle account before Tank- was removed from ocean 11 by [Slayer].
IK WENT DOWN
For the first time in a year IK went offline for a few hours as the servers crashed last week across all the IK game servers... .co.uk, com, de. Some people wondered if this was the end but it all turned out well by afternoon and IK was back to normal business.
[IX] ATTACKS ON OSKARI
One is not sure why tactically [IX] has chosen to battle against Oskari who is mainly in ocean 15 and [IX] is in ocean 1. Evidently Rik account is a shared account between Troian and Stomer who uses it to spy potential prospects. [IX] managed to send a colony fleet at the main isle of Oskari and are sending small attacks at other isles. Oskari being a rather powerful account with 5k fleets seems quite capable of fending off what amounts to an irritant rather than a threat from[IX]. One opinion is that [IX] is trying to encourage Oskari to attack [IX] so that a fleet steal may be possible on Oskari, I have advised Oskari who is a [The Club] ally against this possibility and it will just sit and recapture any lost isles from [IX].
A DOUBLE YOKE
I have never seen this happen before but mark69 [The Club] has had both colony ships in the same fleet successfully colonise an enemy isle. This is a rather rare event as usually just one colony ship in a group of them in a fleet colonises.
Attack report
from 27.04.2010 13:49
Colonisation successful!
Offence Units MARK69 [THE CLUB]
Total Losses
Large Warship 1000 262
Colonisation Ship 2 2
Spearfighter 5000 1309
Catapult 28 7
Defence Units - ANOTHER SLAYER VICTIM OF MARK69
Total Losses
Large Warship 258 258
Spearfighter 1981 1981
Catapult 12 12
