Battlegroup III Report # 12

BATTLEGROUP III REPORT #12

January 5, 2024
VA Locke Setzer

Introduction

Happy New Year, Battlegroup III! A new year is upon it, and with it comes new events, new roles, and perhaps one last look back at 2024 before we move on! There's much to cover, so let's get to it!

Battlegroup News and Competitions

All Hands - 2025 Annual Battlegroup III Survey

Attention all pilots of Battlegroup III! Once again, it's time for the annual Battlegroup III survey! This quick survey helps give me some information on how to direct activities this year, as well as how to best advocate for your interests further up the chain of command.

Like last year, it should only take a minute or two of your time, and will likely come with a small reward as a thank you for your time. That being said, just like last year, you're still more than welcome to submit it anonymously if that's your preference.

Link to the annual Battlegroup III survey can be found here.

Survey will be open through January 20th. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to fill this out!

Command Updates - New Squadron Commanders for Typhoon and Tempest

We have a few changes in the chain-of-command this month!

First, GN Triji Boliv has decided to step down from the position of squadron commander for Typhoon Squadron, moving over to a Flight Member role. GN Boliv has completed two years of service as a squadron commander in Battlegroup III, with the last eighteen months spent commanding Typhoon Squadron. He's been an invaluable part of the command structure for the battlegroup during this time, and I don't know where we would be without him.

Replacing those rather big shoes will be Typhoon's executive officer, CPT Jagged Fell III! There's no one I can imagine better suited to this role, and I am very excited to see what he does in it!

Second, MAJ Morgoth has decided to step away as squadron commander for Tempest Squadron from the time being. Fortunately, he'll remain on as Tempest's Executive Officer, so he won't be going far. Very grateful for MAJ Morgoth's past and continued service for Tempest Squadron!

Replacing him will be the notorious COL Mordred! Without doubt a Tempest pilot through-and-through, I can't wait to see what COL Mordred will bring to the role!

My thanks again to GN Triji Boliv and MAJ Morgoth for their service, as well as my thanks to CPT Jagged Fell III and COL Mordred for taking over these squadrons and stepping into the most important job in the fleet!

Competition Announcement - 2025 Trivia for the Challenged - Season 1!

A new season of Trivia for the Challenged has launched! Every Monday, a new set of four trivia questions will be posted on the #bg3-competitions-announcements channel on the Discord server, with topics ranging from anything from Star Wars proper to people and places in the Emperor's Hammer! Questions remain open for one week.

For this season, there's been a few tweaks to the scoring and criteria for medals being awarded. If you're curious to see the updates, please view the competition listing for this season here.

This week's trivia ends today (EH/UTC time), but can be found here. Next week's trivia can be found here, opening tomorrow and running through end of day (EH/UTC time), January 12th, 2025.

Competition Results - 2024 Trivia for the Challenged

Speaking of Trivia for the Challenged, congrats to CPT Anthony Starr on winning last year's Trivia for the Challenged competition! With 8 first place finishes across the competition and a victory for every month except December, it was a solid win for the captain!

Final results for the top four for Season 2024 are as follows:

CPT Anthony Starr | 155 points | IS-GR
CPT Jagged Fell III | 122 points | IS-SR
VA Locke Setzer | 76 points | IS-BR
COL Mordred | 63 points | IS-CR

Battlegroup III Monthly Awards for December 2024

For the Battlegroup III monthly awards in December, congrats to the following:

For Battlegroup III Squadron of the Month for December 2024, congrats to Typhoon Squadron! This was a very competitive month, but I'm going to give it to the squadron that had both the most activity and the most pilots participating. Congrats!
For Battlegroup III Pilot of the Month for December 2024, congrats to Typhoon Squadron's LT JKast! A very competitive month here as well, but LT JKast gets the nod for sheer total activity combined with some solid variety. Congrats!
For Battlegroup III Leader of the Month for December 2024, congrats to Tempest Squadron's MAJ Morgoth! While I'm sad to see him stepping away for the time being, knowing when to do so and having a plan to set your squadron up is no easy feat. Thanks and congrats!

TIE Corps News and Competitions

Competition Announcement - TIE Corps in Battle Season 8 Begins Now!

TIE Corps in Battle is back for a new season! From now until the end of April, each month the Warfare Office will select one battle for TIE, XvT, XWA and TFTC. Each member of the TIE Corps is challenged to fly those battles and earn the best score possible for your squadron!

As a quick overview on the rules - the pilot with the highest score each month in each platform will earn 9 points. The next highest score will earn 8, then 7, and so on. All submissions will earn at least 2 points. Any mission high scores will earn 1 bonus point and any battle high scores will earn 2 bonus points.

The points earned by each pilot will add to their squadron's total and their battlegroup's total. At the end of the season, the participants from top three squadrons and the top battlegroup earn awards. Additionally the top overall pilot will receive the title TIE Corps Battlemaster.

For the month of January, the battles selected are...

I'll be sharing tricks and tips for each battle this season over in #bg3-tcib-season-8 channel on the Discord server. Feel free to jump in and join the discussion!

For more information, please review the competition listing. Good luck!

Competition Announcement - Galactic Holidays Art Submission 2024

Our own COL Mordred is currently running my personal favorite kind of art competition - creating a "fridge-worthy" child-style artwork to help celebrate the holiday season and bring in the new year!

The goal is pretty simple - unlock your inner-youngling and create a child-like work of art, using some kind of physical medium. Anything counts, whether it be crayons, pencils, noodle collage, ketchup... just as long as it's on a piece of paper that you can attach to your fridge!

Artwork should be submitted by taking a picture of it and submitting it using the following form: https://forms.gle/w2KKARd8QMfksNAZ8

Deadline for submissions is January 25h, 2025. Feel free to review the competition listing or reach out to COL Mordred directly if you have any questions. Good luck!

Competition Announcement - Lord of the TIEs

To ring in the new year, the TCCOM has once again launched the Commission for the Preservation Of Shieldless TIEs (COMPOST) annual test of skill: Lord of the TIEs!

Specifically, all pilots are called to complete TIE-TC #244 - Lord of the TIEs, one of the most difficult and absolutely brutal battles in the mission compendium. Iron Stars will be distributed to the top four scores, with ORAs given out to each pilot for any mission they complete with a score above 15,000.

This competition is... definitely not for everyone! But you are welcome to fly it on Easy, or even use cheats, if you're more interested in completing it than placing (although you never know how any year might go. It is very hard!). If you're a fan of TIE Fighter, it's definitely worth experiencing at least once... even if it ends with you rage-quitting...

Competition will run through the month of January. Feel free to review the competition listing or reach out to me if you have any questions. Good luck!

Competition Announcement - New Patch for Battlegroup II

RA fr0zen has launched a competition, open to the entire TIE Corps, to design a new patch for Battlegroup II!

Specifically, this patch needs to incorporate both ships for Battlegroup II: the ISD-II Warrior and the ISD-II Relentless. Patch submissions also need to follow the TIE Corps standards for unit patches (Equal height and width, PNG format, and have a transparent background (alpha channel transparency). Maximum dimensions: 3000 x 3000 pixels.).

Submissions should be sent directly to RA fr0zen via email (adamwietu@gmail.com) or Discord DM (the1fr0Zen).

For more information, please review the competition listing. Good luck!

Competition Reminder - Star Wars Hunters - Season 4 Ranked

We are deep into the fourth season of Star Wars Hunters!

Like before, competition awards will be given out to pilots based on their final season rank. Specifically, the following awards will be granted to pilots who obtain the listed rank in-game:

IS-PW - Kyber I Top ten
IS-GW - Kyber III-I
IS-SW - Beskar III-I
IS-BW - Aurodium III-I
IS-CW - Chromium III-I

To qualify, make sure you submit a screenshot to CM Sid_amos at darth.sidious819@gmail.com showing your end of season placement and leaderboard (if applicable).

I'll send a reminder out about this one as we approach the end of the season (January 28, 2025), but this is a good one to have on your radar if you're playing Hunters.

For more information, please view the competition listing.

Happy Hunting!

Competition Announcement - SWTOR Conquest 2: The Search for More Conquest, Season 6

A new season of SWTOR Conquest 2: The Search for More Conquest has begun!

As a quick reminder, this competition is all about SWTOR players earning conquest points while being a member of one of the Emperor's Hammers guilds! The official guilds are on the Star Forge server ("Emperor's Hammer" for the Sith Empire and "Infiltrator Wing" for the Republic). Each week, the top three pilots in each faction that earn the most conquest points are awarded Iron Stars and "placement points", with placement points being used to determine monthly awards, as well as final standings for season awards and the title of Legacy Conquest Champion! Additionally, an ORA is given (up to two, one for each guild) for every pilot that earns over 100,000 conquest points.

This season runs from now through April 29, 2025. If you're a SWTOR player, I recommend reviewing the competition details for more information! Please reach out if you have any questions!

Competition Announcement - Ace of the TIE Corps 2025: Season 1

This year's Ace of the TIE Corps event has begun!

As a quick reminder, for Ace of the TIE Corps, Iron Stars are awarded to the top fifteen pilots who earn the most points in each category (SP, PvP, and PvE). Points are determined by platform used for completing missions (SP) or winning matches (PvE,PvP).

For more information on points per platform and awards, please view the following competition listings:

Season 1 will last from now through April 30th, 2025. Best of luck to all our pilots this season!

Battlegroup III 2024 Year in Review

Taking a break from monthly stats for a report... I'd like to do something a little bit different. 2024 was a rather full year, and I think it'd be fun to take a look back on it before we close the book on 2024 and move on to 2025.

So, without further ado... the Battlegroup III 2024 Year in Review...

In 2024, Battlegroup III...

Started with the year with 36 members across four squadrons
Ended the year with 48 members across five squadrons
Played missions and matches for 17 of the 19 supported TIE Corps platforms
- EA Battlefront 2 was the most popular platform by number of unique members (27)
- Only Elite Dangerous and X-Wing Alliance Upgrade were not played by a member of BG3
- Most pilots played on three different platforms or less
- GN Master completed missions and matches on more platforms (10) than any other pilot in BG3
Completed 3661 single player missions by 24 members
- 1861 of those were for TIE Fighter
- X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and X-Wing Alliance were slightly more popular platforms for unique members
- Battle flown by most BG3 members was TFTC-CMP #0
- CPT Jagged Fell III completed the most SP missions of any member of BG3 (1523)
Completed 2203 PvP matches by 40 members
- 1071 of those were for Star Wars Hunters, which only became a supported game in June 2024
- Star Wars Squadrons and EA: Battlefront II were slightly more popular platforms for unique members
- GN Jarek La'an completed the most PvP matches of any pilot in BG3 (248)
Completed 2198 PvE matches by 38 members
- 861 of those were for Star Wars Squadrons. Mostly because...
- MAJ Grendel completed the most PvE matches of any member of BG3 (671) - all Squadrons.
- EA: Battlefront II, however, was by far the most popular platform for unique members
Completed 353 Imperial University courses by 39 members
- TIE Corps CORE was the most popular course (19), followed by Steam Introduction (11)
- CPT Jagged Fell III completed the most courses (36), followed closely by LCM Armon Ferro (33)
Earned 19 Imperial University qualifications by 11 members
Submitted 163 trivia entries by 25 members
Submitted 46 uniform updates by 27 members
Submitted 33 INPR updates by 25 members
Submitted 636 battle reviews by 13 members
Awarded 5521 medals (not including OVs). Including...
- 2199 Legions of Combat
- 2193 Legions of Skirmish
- 366 Medals of Communication
- 177 Operational Readiness Awards
- 169 Iron Star with Wings
- 88 Iron Star with Ribbons
- 71 Imperial Security Medals
- 42 Palpatine Crescents
- 31 Bronze Stars
- 27 Commendations of Loyalty
- 22 Medal of Tactics
- 19 Silver Stars
- 14 Commendations of Bravery
- 2 Gold Stars
112 Flight Certification Rank promotions, most notably...
- LCM IG-87: 1st Echelon -> 8th Echelon
- LCM Mrowaksu: 1st Echelon -> 8th Echelon
- LCM Hector Von Ricmore: 1st Echelon -> 8th Echelon
- LCM Armon Ferro: 1st Echelon -> 10th Echelon
- CPT Anthony Starr: 10th Echelon -> 11th Echelon
- CPT Turel: 11th Echelon -> 12th Echelon
- CM Odin Strongheart: 9th Echelon -> 12th Echelon
- MAJ SirCaleb: 12th Echelon -> 14th Echelon
- COL Miles Prower: 13th Echelon -> 14th Echelon
- CPT Jagged Fell III: 11th Echelon -> 16th Echelon
- GN Stryker: 17th Echelon -> 18th Echelon
- GN Master: 19th Echelon -> 20th Echelon
- GN Jarek La'an: 19th Echelon -> 20th Echelon

And that was a few highlights from the year! Let me know if there's something specific you're curious about the past year or something you'd like to see going forward - there's definitely a lot more to tell!

Conclusion

With 2024 now firmly in the rear-view mirror, I'm excited to see what 2025 will bring for the TIE Corps and Battlegroup III! As always, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions about things going on in Battlegroup III, the TIE Corps, or anything else. My email is locke.f.setzer@gmail.com and my Discord name is LockeSetzer. My door is always open!

In Service,

BGCOM-CAPT-TOA/VA Locke Setzer/Battlegroup III
GS/SSx8/BSx12/PCx8/ISMx6/IAR/MoT-8rh-13gh-16bh/MoI/MoS/MoC-poc-goc-soc-8boc/MUA/IS-2GW-18SW-25BW-30CW-2PR-6GR-10SR-15BR-3CR/ORA-2C/LoC-RS/LoS-RS/DFC/CoS/CoLx4/CoB/LoAx9/OV-24E