Training the Troops.

My recent responsibilities in Mavericks have been to train, train train. Train newer FCs, train new troops.


Needless to say, this is a trying task.

Last night I observered a roam from one of our newer FCs, Agro Cathaldus. If you look him up on Battleclinic hes a baby in EVE. In fact, click my picture to the right if you are not on RSS or iPhone.

I'm a baby in EVE.

So I will tell you with certainty that although flying ships and skilling up opens up your playing options... it doesn't mean shit.

The head on your shoulders, your situational awareness, your tactfulness, and the ability to get in the enemies head and plan two moves beyond is what makes a good FC.

So Agro took out a small roam of BCs with a Dictor and two ceptors. I was in a ceptor (Crow) scouting ahead. We roamed up into Fountain. With that I have a confession...

I was lazy and scouting using a chat box with Agro... as I was on the phone with a girl. As I have said before... priorities. Now to be fair I was being rushed by Agro, as he wanted to get going. I should have just said no, go without me. But I didn't. He had a scout for the gang in place, so it wasn't horrendous, but I was way ahead searching for targets.

I found one.

GK Cynabal in KVN-. I jumped through, he followed. I waited session and reapporached.

He blew me up.

ugh.

Maybe the phone call did it, maybe it was unavoidable. I believe that the situation was avoidable, but once in it I was going to die.

So lesson learned, when talking in RL on the phone (which is more important than EVE), don't PVP.

So I laughed away my loss and scouted down towards YZ-LQL with my pod. I had +4s in... but meh. Found a Vengeance camping a drag bubble in 75FA off the I-C gate. No scout in I-C. Reports were of a GK gang battleship gang (5-6 strong) north aways.

Relaying this info over chat to Agro, he set up his gang in I-C on the 75FA gate. Per my recommendations he jumped in a bait Drake, which warped straightaways to the YZ gate. Drake pilot reported Vengeance followed him to YZ...

Seemed like he wanted a fight.

I was worried about warping bait right back to I-C gate, where he would get caught in the bubble. Seemed obvious to me... but he had no eyes on our gang and he seemed desperate for a kill. Why not?

Bait Drake warped back to the gate, got dragged into the bubble. Vengeance followed immediately and aggressed. Gang jumped in, burned out to the bubble.

For some reason our interceptor pilot got in close to the AF. Dumb. AF > Inty everyday, everytime. So he died. I explained to Agro in debrief... never assume your pilots are smart. So next time he will specifically instruct the ceptor to stay way out of scram/web range. No need to die stupidly.

The Vengeance died, and Agro immediately moved back up the pipe. His (and my) concern was that the bs gang would move to intercept our small gang, given that the Vengeance most certainly reported us and GK is not stupid; they know where we live and what route we would take home.

So fleet burned back to 5-C and sure enough, 15 min after the kill the GK BS gang was reported in KVN- on our gate home.

Ninja kill. Get in, get out.

The after comms chatter was a shock to me. This was the second kill for the Cane pilot... ever. For the ceptor pilot (who died) it was his first kill in -MVN-. "How do I post a killmail?".

Some of the recruits are greener than I thought. Not sure how they got in, but thats not my job. Lots of work to do.

That is all.