Roams. Blobs. Caps. Lag.

Last night I hopped on to find a small multi-alliance roam of cloaky/fast. We roamed around UC3H and that dead end constellation in Pure Blind.

First kill was this Rifter. He managed to pop our Crusader pilot, and then held the Crusader pilot's pod for ransom in local.

Bad move.

There were 5 of us in local, all related. He killed our Crusader because he got a scram on him... but we dropped on him and killed his Rifter quickly. Funny enough my painter and first volley of torps is what finished him off.

Next we killed a Maelstrom who jumped into our scout. He aggressed the dictor and we all came in. Down the Maelstrom went.

After the Maelstrom died, we watied for more targets. We didn't wait long. One jump away our dictor bubbled a Blackbird which had him aggressed (jams). Dictor couldn't shoot but kept the Blackbird bubbled, and Blackbird couldn't take him down. The Blackbird pilot was laughing in local and making fun of the fact that this was a pointless fight.

He stopped laughing when local bumped with a few flashes of gate fire.

He started crying when we all broke cloak and blew his Blackbird up. For the record, don't fit your Blackbird like that. I remember awhile back I explained that you need to fit your ships with their bonuses in mind. Trying to tank a Blackbird is a dumb idea. Its a cheap ship and it serves one purpose: to jam. Screw the tank. Your tank is being able to jam people shooting you and to warp off.

We then headed up to X47, UR, 2D area. A gang of about 40 people tried to camp us in/bait us/kill us. We did lose a Dramiel to stupidity. Seems to always happen. That was about it, however, and we ninja'd a few kills of stragglers and the like. I didn't get on any of the mails, being in stealth bomber. Lower scan resolution and not wanting to die. Stealth bombers need to be selective in the engagements they take on or they will die. We hot dropped the NC gang with a Gentlemans Club bs gang, but the bubbles failed epically and almost all of their gang got out.

We moved on towards X-7 to form up for a fight that was brewing... and found a few carriers in X47 repping a pos. One of them was over 9k off the shields. The POS only had small guns.

Juicy.

In we went and tackled the carrier. His buddies moved into the shields, and we bumped him off further. The GC gang which had lemminged into the system while we were getting a warp in landed on grid and started pounding the Thanatos. I launched volley after volley of torps, until I was forced off field by one of the small turrets. The other carriers got smart and tried to move out of the shields to rep their failing comrade, and were promptly bumped back inside the shields. Local spiked, as the NC gang we had been playing around with came charging in to rescue their comrade.

Too late. The Thanatos died as the NC gang was landing on the POS.

Most of our guys got out and safed. The GC gang... well... they safed initially I think. But then they warped to the J-C gate and jumped. Straight into the bubbles of the waiting NC gang that had warped straight to the J-C gate and camped both sides.

They first tried to get back to the gate to jump back into X47. It took them 20-30 seconds to realize it was futile and they were going to die... then they started shooting. Should have engaged immediately. A few of them actually did make it back but many died with very few kills.

I was cloaked in X47, quite content with killing a Thanny that was way outside the shields. After the NC gang moved on I plodded home.

As we arrived in X-7 word of Atlas Capitals tackled came through. I formed up a small skirmish gang consisting of Easley, myself, Altair, Leykk and Thorgore. Cane, Harbinger, Taranis, Falcon and Drake. Not a bad little gang. The first reinforcement gang from IT burned the 21 jumps to the engagement in Vale of the Silent. They were annihilated. Lots of ships jumping into NCGR- never loaded grid, never had a chance.

We burned through Tribute, chasing a Hurricane 4j before we finally caught up with it. He escaped our tackler somehow and warped next gate. We all jumped through to follow. Local had 15-20 reds in it and they were all landing on the gate when I loaded grid.

Damn.

I instructed everyone to hold cloak... as it appeared some of the hostike gang were jumping out. I figured we may actually be able to get out of this one alive. Thorgore didn't listen and started shooting one of them. They all jumped anyways. I was certainly confused but figured we should try and kill that Hurricane. On we went to the out gate and jumped into MC6O. The Cane was already dead and 40 blues greeted us on the in gate. At least I knew why that red came didn't stop to engage us. We had met up with a blue bc gang camping MC6O run by GC. MC6O is next door to NCGR-. We joined their camp and killed a few ships trying to reinforce the fight or escape from it.

My only kill from that camp was a Myrmidon that jumped out of NCGR-. He was in a bubble, and I started buring to point him when... he cloaked!

There were only a 2 other ships with me at this point, the Sabre that had bubbled and a Brutix. We all burned to where he had dissapeared... the Brutix flew by and got nothing. Sabre had already made his attempt and flew off into space. I had my bearing right on (habit to always approach the target straightaways) and my trimarked and plated Harbinger slowboated towards where I thought he was, Warrior IIs out and flying. I had been watching him when he cloaked and had seen no jump in velocity. I assumed he hadn't spanked his MWD before cloaking so he should be ver close to his original position with a max speed of 20-30 m/s.
Just when I thought I had passed by him, BAM he appread right in fron of me, square on. I locked him, webbed him pointed him and lit into his shields. Those dissapeared instantly and into his armor I went. Boom, Myrmidon down. In retrospect, he should have waited session timer and reapproached gate. Cloaking when enemies have eyes on you as you engage the cloak is basically worthless unless you are using a Covert Ops cloak and can warp or move quickly with it on.

Shortly after the Myrmidon died word came down that the last Atlas caps had died. We booked out of the system as local spiked with approximately 100 NC coming down on us. I took our small gang out through low sec into empire rather than risking the trip back through Tribute. I figured the NC gang would use jump bridges to get ahead of us. Whether their FC was smart enough to do that I don't know, but we got out just fine.

We started burning through empire when Easley reported a hostile Phobos, Brutix and Drake on the in gate in Alikara. He toyed with them for a minute before reapproaching and bailing out. We were a few jumps behind and I looped around to come into the system from a different direction with Thorgore.

The Phobos jumped into Easley after his aggro wore off and was promptly tackled by Altair in the Ranis. Easley also shot him, in retrospect he shouldn't have but they both aggressed. The Phobos burned backed to gate and jumped through. Thorgore and I had jumped through into Alikara and were in warp when he popped back into local. I landed and saw the Phobos engaged and the Drake warping off. The Brutix was nowhere to be seen. I looked to see who was hitting the Phobos and there was -A-, doing their thing. The Phobos disengaged the moment Thorgore and I landed on grid with him. Habit turned my ship around and burned straight at the Phobos with my MWD lit from 0 on the gate for the bump. My Scorch was hitting him decently, and as soon as the 20km closed to 10km I loaded Imperial Navy Multis and hit him real hard. I webbed his ship and slammed into his hull, bouncing him off the gate. My multis pounded on him as I settle into a tight orbit making sure the web stayed on him. Warrior IIs were flying around him and pules lasers hummed. Finally his tank started to break. Easley jumped in as he entered low armor and hit him with 425s. Boom! Phobos down.

Local chirped from the Phobos pilot:

"I almost got back"

Pause.

"You can thank your Harbinger pilot"

Indeed. Looking at his fit he had an afterburner II. No scram was keeping him from getting back. The sole web from my Harbinger slowed him down just enough. He was around 1km from jump range when he died.

We left and burned to Torrinos and then to X-7. Despite the Atlas cap losses I had had a good night.

That is all.