PVP FTW

This weekend the Mavs rolled out one of our oldest traditions, dusted it off and fired it up. Sneaky deaky operations aka Black Ops. I'll give you a general sense of what we do, without compromising operational security. After alliance decided to move us to Y-2 we have had issues with lots of different things. Ratting/mission running is difficult due to our close proximity to Delve, we are far from our current AO (Sakht) and our numbers don't necessarily allow us to frontal assualt Delve because we will just get blobbed. So naturally it was time for us to get things done Mav style.

Forming up in Y-2 we gathered our forces, which were some Black Ops ships, a couple recons and quite a few stealth bombers with one t3 frig. We staged out of a system in Delve, recons searching for targets. When they found a target (which was a few BCs and a couple BSs), they would pop a covert cyno and the lot of us would bridge in and pop the target. This is how Black Ops ships are supposed to be used. Sometimes we bring them in, sometimes we leave them safely behind due to a particularly hostile environment. Too many times people buy expensive Black Ops and it sits in a hangar gathering dust. On the opposite side of the spectrum is those who decide to frontline their Black Ops for whatever reason. It is not a battleship nor should it be used like one. Your are risking almost a bill in hull alone, forget how much you are paying for mods. The choice to bring the Black Ops ship into a combat situation should never be made with haste. They are slow and large. Much better to bring in T3 cruisers which can cloak and move around with great speed.

Our operations were quite effective, with the exception of one of our newer pilots trying to loot the wreck of a Drake with hostiles in the system. This Drake popped quite quickly but due to our close proximity to NOL we scattered and cloaked up immediately. I watched as a Sabre warped in, bubbled him and popped him. He failed for 3 reasons. 1. He was not aligned at all. 2. He was not watching scanner and reacted too slow as Sabre warped in. 3. He was at 0 on the wreck, when he should have been at 2000m or more, allowing him to cloak up immediately. I considered warning him before it all went down, but I figured his lesson would be burned into him with the loss should he get gangked, which he did. Baptism by fire. After a few hours of successful gangking we called it and closed up shop. We will be continuing these types of operations as they are very effective for our time zone and our tactics as a corporation.

Our success was offset by the loss of a Drake and Harbinger (Drake was mine) to a nice little gank setup this guy was running near core in Fountain later that night. We were running a small mixed gang with a couple bcs and some smaller tackle. This guy set up a triple plated Domi on gate, which our scout promptly tackled. Unbeknownst to us, he had a Legion in system which then came in while his domi neuted our Harbinger to death. The neuting, intense tank of the Domi and our light ship types combined with the fact that my Drake arrived after the Harbinger popped made it fail. We didn't kill the Domi and had to bail. To get our revenge we killed the Domi later on, this time running heavier. Didn't get the Legion though, guessing this was one guy dual boxing. We were able to check the killmail of the Domi and man, what a tank. Dominix Well we figure we will get the Legion sooner or later (he has been reported in the area still), and maybe if we are lucky he will buy another Dominix for us to kill.