Since the Cradle of War patch made war declarations five times more expensive, a corner of New Eden has found a new hobby: blowing up the war headquarters of high-sec war-dec corporations. A Brave Collective pilot posted the results on r/Eve on 15 October, and the second attempt turned into a proper fight at Mahtista.
Why war HQs are suddenly a target
Patch 24.01 raised the price of declaring war on a corporation or alliance from 100 million to 500 million ISK. Bills that already existed stay at the old price; new bills and new wars use the new one. We covered the full list in our Cradle of War patch notes breakdown.
The Brave pilot who wrote the post puts the logic plainly: if war decs are now far more expensive, go and see what happens when you attack the structures behind them. Their pitch to other players is to "keep high sec accessible for all" by playing, in their words, whack-a-mole with war HQs, with looting and salvaging training on offer.
This is one player's account and a recruitment message, so treat the motivation as Brave's own framing. The fight itself, however, can be measured.
Two attempts, two very different outcomes
According to the post, the first attempt was "somewhat blobby" and went uncontested. The author links that killmail.
The second attempt drew a response. The pilot links a battle report for Mahtista on 15 October at 21:00 EVE time, which we rebuilt on Capsuleers.app so the numbers come from the same source as the rest of our coverage: open the battle report.
Over the three-hour window we analysed (20:00 to 23:00 UTC), the system recorded:
127 killmails, 249 pilots and about 46.27 billion ISK destroyed in total.
Brave Collective side (Brave Collective, SONS of BANE and Out of the Blue.): 148 pilots, 40 kills, 90 losses, about 34.30 billion ISK destroyed and 12.01 billion ISK lost.
From Hisec with Love Coalition side: 101 pilots, 85 kills, 35 losses, about 11.97 billion ISK destroyed and 33.68 billion ISK lost.
In other words, the Brave side lost more than twice as many ships but destroyed nearly three times the ISK. The post does not say which of the two sides owned the headquarters, so we do not either.
What the community says
The post is flagged as Propaganda on r/Eve, which is exactly what it is: a point of view with a recruitment link at the bottom. Read it that way. The useful signal is that the new war dec price is already changing how people behave around high-sec war structures, and that the first sizeable fight came within a week of the patch.
If you want the wider picture of the same week, the Ansiblex overhaul coverage is the place to start. A thread on r/Eve asking for "stories of conquest in null since the ansiblex changes" collected nearly 100 comments, and the early replies are mostly players saying fleets now take a little longer to reach content rather than reporting any dramatic shift. That is anecdote, not data, but it fits a patch that is only days old.
Sources
r/Eve, "High Sec War HQ Destroyed!": https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/1x70168/high_sec_war_hq_destroyed/
r/Eve, "Share your stories of conquest in null since the ansiblex changes": https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/1x52v9m/share_your_stories_of_conquest_in_null_since_the/
zKillboard, first war HQ kill linked in the post: https://zkillboard.com/kill/139098147/
Capsuleers.app battle report, Mahtista: https://capsuleers.app/tools/battle-report/2ac6a12c-c152-48ef-82a8-e047b93dd9a8
Previous coverage: Cradle of War patch notes