That was fun. No speeding tickets either, which is always a good thing sofar as I am concerned.
In EVE I logged on late afternoon. I was about to go run a couple plexes when we had reports of an incoming neutral from Fountain. Witchking, who is notorious for various shiptypes and popping covert cynos, was on his way. We wanted to kill him. Hes a good pilot, however, and despite the massive amounts of smack I gave him in local (which I do to everyone) I do have respect for him. Earlier that day he soloed a Vagabond, and although I would love to know his Falcon fit all I know is it had blasters.
Anyways, he evaded our bubbler and tacklers all the way to NOL. If we had had a second dictor he would have been toast, but we didn't. Every time he was caught good he reapproached cloaked and jumped through. The times he was able to get out, he moved next system. After NOL we gave up.
But.
Local spiked next door to NOL and upon further investigation (I was in a Crow) it turned out to be our friendly roleplaying failcascading neighbors CVA. Witchking AND myself started trolling local like none other. The CVA gang responded for a little bit but then went silent (I'm assuming they were told to shut up, as CVA doesn't allow talk in local except for the occasional Amarr Victor... which we haven't heard for some time). Anyways, I continued smacking, and following as they moved to NOL. In NOL I mentioned that they should check out the Mavericks shiny new station in 5-C. I guess someone in that gangs decided that would be a good idea and up the pipe they went, towards 5-C. I followed until D-W, giving intel in our intel channel. CVA composition was in the neighborhood of 11 ships. Intel was BC heavy with 2 dictors.
In D-W (which is an Anzac station system/their main staging point) I found one of the CVA Drakes tackled on the in gate. I locked it and opened fire, one Drake down. I assume he was a straggler trying to warp to the outgate and got caught. Looking at the Anzac/Exile Consortium composition on that killmail I should have been worried. But that mail didn't post until later that evening and I was trying to get ahead to take control of my gang, and was not on alliance comms. The rest of the CVA gang was sitting on D-W outgate, I jumped through and burned straight to 5-C.
As I was burning, intel reported the CVA gang continuing on. Upon hitting 5-C I switched out to a Cerberus in station. We had formed up a measly 9 people on the KEE gate in 5-C when the CVA gang jumped KEE. They warped to the 5-C gate and held. At this point I was on gate and we were ready to go. I was a little worried as we had about even numbers, no RR no logistics and some expensive ships on field. Anzac was giving chase but they were trickling in with bombers and other un tanked T2 ships. As we were waiting for the CVA group to jump in, intel channel reported them aligning off, and warping back to 4XO.
Damn.
"Jump jump jump!" I yelled into comms. "Catch stragglers, catch stragglers!". From my snipe position 60km above the gate, I burned down and jumped through. Much to my surprise, and agitation, Meister Goodcat in his Typhoon somehow made it to the 4XO gate first and jumped through.
Into a waiting CVA gang. With drones out and sensor boosters scanning.
"Uhmmm. Guys. They are all here waiting for me. I will hold cloak as long as possible..." said Goodcat.
"MOVE YOUR ASSES!" I was yelling. Why the only BS in our gang made it to the gate first and jumped in, I do not know. But he did. Our gang started jumping through one by one (not good, I know) and Goodcat dropped cloak. Upon later reflection he told me two things.
1. He good have burned back to gate and got out, but he wanted to keep them occupied. I had mixed feelings about this, but what was done was done.
2. He told me as he was watching before decloaking, stealth bombers and recons were warping into the gate and going, and I quote "pop, pop, pop, pop". More on this later.
So Goodcat is going down, we're jumping in, and Anzac and Exile Consortium are trickling in bombers, which do great DPS but require the bomber to warp to off gate and fire until targeted, then warp off and back to the field. Failure to do so means that a bomber will get popped (especially against BC gangs, where turrets tend to track fairly well). Judgin by the lossboard, these general guidelines weren't happening.
Goodcat went down, about the same time the first Harbinger died. Sandwhich died in his Harbinger shortly thereafter, and at this point I broke cloak in my Cerb (as an FC its a good idea to survey the field from safety and give instructions as long as possible. That and, exactly as I predicted, the moment I broak cloak I was primaried. Expensive T2 ship with small tank). I simply reapproached gate, and sat at 0 until my shield hit 10%. Making sure not to agress, I simply soaked up (most of) their DPS (as CVA wasn't completely focusing their fire. FAIL) until such point my tank was going to break, then I jumped back into KEE. Hopefully I saved some of my comrades with that move, but who knows. As I mentioned before, at this point CVA was spreading their DPS all over the place. Given the early focus fire I assume that we took down their FC early on in this engagement, which threw his fleet into disarray. I reapproached and jumped back through to the engagement. At this point we had enough DPS on field (bombers finally getting punches in without dying in droves) and the CVA gang was melting. Drakes were the last to go down (NEVER primary the Drakes), and I punched off a few volleys at them to finish out the engagement.
Final tally was 3x Drake 1x Brutix 1x Cane 4x Harbinger down for the CVA gang. Their Heretics (x2) got out and dissapeared. Mavericks lost 1x Typhoon, 1x Harbinger, 1x Myrmidon and 1x Crusader. With that in mind it was a pretty good fight. That was until I looked at the Alliance boards. In addition too the 4x Mav losses... alliance lost
1x Jaguar
1x Ishkur
1x Nemisis
1x Purifier
1x Manticore
1x Hound
1x Arazu
1x Falcon
In particular the last two alone basically caused IT Alliance to lose the ISK battle. Jita cost on Falcon last time I checked was about 110 million, Arazu around 120 or so. Assuming each of the 9 BCs (fitted) was worth about 50 million, they lost 540 million. Most of that paid back in insurance. Mavericks losses were around 230 million. Most of which was insurable. Anzac/Exile Consortium losses (assuming bombers at 50 mill/ea, which is generous) and the two recons, is in the ballpark of 550-600 mill, with NO INSURANCE.
Ouch.
So props to CVA for making the run into our space and coming out on top. Next time I will have to hop onto Alliance Comms and organize the lemmings. Too bad they didn't make it to 5-C, we really wanted to show them our shiny new station.
This is why I love battlecruiser roams, and found myself wishing I was on the other end of this particular battlecruiser engagement. Speedy ships with decent tanks and good DPS. That combined with good insurance payouts IF lost mean low risk high reward. Never engage a BC heavy gang with T2 heavy unless you have numbers and/or logistics. You have so much more to lose, in every possible way.
That is all.
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