Last night was filled with much PVP.
Started out with a roam to Catch, FC'd by Homegrown. Assault frigs, ceptors, and a couple dictors. On our way in, we caught an Apoc who was... PVP fit? I guess, maybe bubble camping or something. Problem is, we caught him on a gate and he couldnt light of his smartbombs. He finally de agressed and jumped through in structure, but he didn't have enough hit points left on the other side to last. We actually had no idea he was smarbomb fit (as he wasn't lighting em off), so had we gotten in close after he jumped it might have been bad, but he died pretty fast. Sad day for the rest of the gang, who didn't get on the mail.
We moved on to GJO-, to visit En Garde. This has become a fun place to check out, as they always have Hulk mining ops and stuff going on. Unfortunately, this trip had no fruit, as the 2x Hulk and Rokh initiated warp to station before I popped my bubbles and landed at 0. I was a sad panda.
On our way out... Apoc on GJO- gate in A8! We tackled, got him into low armor and...
yup. He popped a cyno.
Expecting 3x carriers and support (like last week) I was surprised to see a lone Archon. We kept shooting, and got him to half structure before the Archon finally locked his failing comrade and gave him some armor love. Sad day. Given that we were all in AFs and Interceptors it was actually a little comical. En Garde better be careful pulling that stunt again; one carrier with a lone Apoc and mediocre support next door is easy pickings.
We moved on into Curse, taking a bio in D87E. I cloaked up in my dictor on our out gate, which is a moderately traveled pipe in Curse.
Sure enough, 5 minutes into the bio I got gate fire. I dropped cloak and waited...
Blackbird decloaks and starts aligning, which is the perfect time to pop the bubble. Which I did, and the Blackbird stopped dead in its tracks. I grabbed point on him, and he just stopped moving. The active fleet members were landing on field, and the Blackbird died quickly. He didn't even move, seemingly giving up. His fit was... unorthodox.
Moving on, we went through VOL- and down towards Jamunda. Stopping by the ever elusive Waterboard in YKE4, we found nobody. I thought it was a bit strange.
I jumped into Hemen along with our Crow scout and figured out where Waterboard was. 20 of them were on the RMOC- gate, in various shiptypes. It was a doable gang, as they were lots of light ships... but it would be tricky. I held session change along with our Crow, and then instructed him to break cloak and reapproach, followed quickly by me. The gang shot Crow first, who easily made it, allowing my Flycatcher to get back to gate and jump at half shield.
In an effort to make the fight more winnable, I had gang land on Hemen, jump, then all wait session timer. On Homegrown's mark, the gang all reapproached and jumped back RMOC-. Point was to seperate some of the Waterboard elements with aggression timers. Unfortunately, due to A. all of Waterboard aggressing our pilots or B. intelligence, none of them came through. I'm assuming A, since they lit up our assault frigs, taking some into deep armor.
So, fleet moved back to KQ- to repair in station, and Waterboard jumped into RMOC-. It was kind of a pucker moment, as I was cloaked 2.5k under the gate as their gang, now 25 or so in number decloaked all around me. Then they reapproached... but due to the large size of the constellation gate I stayed safe. After 30 seconds the Waterboard gang moved to KQ- gate and our fleet was stuck.
Homegrown was ready to engage, but examining their composition from my cloaked position I determined that this was not a good fight to take... their gang had added numbers and those numbers were mainly in recons. Falcon, Arazu, Rapier can all ruin a small, fast moving gangs advantage. So I warped YKE4- gate in RMOC-, aligned down to KQ- and burned 70km off. Gang jumped YKE4, burned RMOC- gate and jumped into RMOC-. This move bypassed the Waterboard camp, and the bubble I dropped 70km off the gate caught the few fast movers they sent to try and intercept or gang once they figured out what we were doing. Our fleet was in RMOC- warping Hemen gate when they started to react, but a second bubble in line with KQ- gate 70 off the Hemen gate kept those quick thinkers from getting us. Combined with our small composition we sailed smoothly out of Heaven Constellation and back into Catch. No logoffski's either, for all you emo raging e honor punks. But I did consider it :)
Moving on home, I attempted to find targets all around Catch, scouting for Homegrown, but got nothing. As we approached 49-U, however, a 4 man gang of -A- was camping the 4-07 gate. We engaged, dipping in and out and keeping them busy while screaming in intel for more firepower. Reason? Tengu/Apoc/Sacrilege/Eris. All formidable opponents for our gang composition. We split our forces on either side, keeping the bad guys interested enough but trying not to die. Despite some extremely close calls, nobody died.
The Tengu ended up bailing in 4-07 after awhile (he was smart). Eris kept playing around, was sitting in armor when a few blues showed up in 49-U and warped to an off gate and cloaked. Apoc and Sacrilege, however, deagressed in 49-U and jumped into 4-07 (Sacrilege had actually been bouncing back and forth for awhile). Problem was, Staticviolence (he was the other dictor) was off gate 50km and unable to bubble, and the two assault frigs in 4-07 had warped off field and were on the way back.
So I jumped into 4-07 with my double bubble Flycatcher, loaded grid and immediately dropped a bubble.
Gulp.
Sacrilege and Apoc immediately opened up. I couldn't jump as I was 14km off gate when I hero bubbled (Apoc was trying to warp) and got aggro. Immediately, drones from both ships were on me and neuts snaked across space and sucked my cap dry. My MWD deactivated and my shields started dropping. Disregarding transversal I held my course away from the neuts and drone range of the two ships... and in very low shield my cap started coming back. I kicked the MWD on and got out of range. Local started climbing as blues came in.
Apoc, already in low armor, died quickly. He tried to de agress and jump into 49-U (which would have still gotten him killed) but he just didn't have enough hit points left and boom went the Apocalypse. The Sacrilege had initially tried to burn off the gate it appeared, but as local spiked he tried to reapproach. It was a fatal mistake, as the numerous assault frigs had him scrammed and triple and quadruple webbed. With the combined DPS now on his ship, the Sacrilege didn't last long.
No losses to our side, and two more nice kills. To this point I re affirm what has been said before: playing around for too long will get your face smashed in. To this point, as our gang started heading back into 49-U, local spiked with around 15 -A- in heavier ships (HAC/BC/Recons). This was, no doubt, a fleet to come help their struggling brosefs. They were too late, but had we stuck around to play with the Eris who had broken his cloak and was doing the ping pong between the systems, we would have lost people to that gang. But we took our kills and called it, and were the obvious victors.
Great roam, executed well by Homegrown. Good scouting and smart tactics meant only 4 kills, but no losses. Had we engaged Waterboard (initially before they phoned everyone to come help) we would undoubtedly have taken losses... with the hope that we would have killed more than we lost. Smartly, we chose to evade and escape, which allowed for the -A- kills in 4-07.
I almost called it a night... but Easley Thames and I decided to have some more fun. Check out the next post for the story.
That is all.
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