Ensnared.

I'm going to preface this one by saying I decided to buy a Vagabond yesterday, because the things are so damn addicting.

I also lost said Vagabond later in the day to a TEST gate camp. She popped 4.5k from the gate on a reapproach. I call bullshit.

With that out of the way, I did manage to cap two test guys running the Delve pipe. It went something like this:

I had just logged on, wiping the sleep out my eyes when I saw a red pop into 5-C local. Inquiries into intel revealed he was in a Vagabond with a friend still in ZXB- in a Curse. This later turned out to be incorrect, as his accomplice was flying a Pilgrim. Similar... but very different ships.

I sat my Abaddon on the KEE- gate in hopes of a fight, and got none. The Vaga was reported entering M-2, so I went to the M-2 gate in time to see the Pilgrim jump through.

Jackpot.

I jumped my Abaddon through, and there they were. Drones out and waiting. M-2 local was also much more empty, always helpful when baiting. I held cloak until it dropped (like a noob), and sat there for a couple seconds before reapproaching. Sure enough, both red boxed me instantly. I started my lock time on the Pilrim as the Vaga was kiting at range... 6 seconds to go and gate fire, Pilgrim cloaks and Vaga burns off.

wtf

I had told the guy in gang (Falcon, taranis, Cane) to hold the gate.

Alliance Viator. Dammit.

Viator decloaks and warps, Pilgrim decloaks and locks me up again. I start the locking...

At that point our Ranis and Falcon decided to come through too.

fml

Sure enough, Pilgrim cloaks again. This time, being combat ships they bugged out.

I emo raged on comms for 20-30 seconds before dropping to a different channel. The reds messed around in M-2 for 5 minutes or so, and I decided to try again. I had played the noob in M-2 local very well, maybe they would fall for it again.

Cat and mouse games all the way to D-W (road to NOL-) and they finally tackled me on the in gate in D-W. My Abaddon's tank held well, so I put ECM drones on the Vaga to aggress myself in a noobish way. It worked. Pilgrim closed to 10km, Vaga was kiting at 20km. As I hit 90% armor :-) with my gang on the other side of the gate, I hit approach on the Pilgrim. He didn't move. Vaga was approaching 0km on the gate in his orbit, the time was now. Overheated scram/web ensnaredthe Pilgrim as I activated my guns. My 24km point grabbed the Vaga, but not for long.

"Everyone in everyone in! Grab points/webs on Vaga, he is primary!"

Low and behold, our Ranis pilot was able to get scram/web on Vaga. He was screwed. Pilgrim was slowly going down (large pulse lasers with 2x tracking disruptors on you don't hit hard) when Vagabond popped. He was finished quickly.

TEST was pretty chill about the losses; they knew they had taken the bait hook line and sinker.

Later that evening (after football), we (Cardking and I) took a roam to Pure Blind and Deklein. We grabbed some decent kills, including this WI Sleipnir who must have not been paying attention to intel when he jumped in and aggressed me scouting. Gang came in and warped to me, Falcon got jams and he died. I was worried about getting caught in any one of the Deklein pipes, as we knew WI was forming a response gang, and TEST as well.

So the earlier engagement made it all the more ironic when I jumped into the TEST camp in Deklein, waiting for our gang to try and leave. I don't know why its so hard to reapproach gate these days, but I died within fingers reach of it. Sad day, happy day.

That is all.