[LSC] Merlins and Friends fight Megoste and Friends

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Decklin Quark Reiger
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[LSC] Merlins and Friends fight Megoste and Friends

Post by Decklin Quark Reiger »

Fleet Doctrine: Magic Merlins and Friends

Looking at the calendar for this evening, there wasn't anything planned in the calendar, so I decided to offer an easy Magic Merlin roam, to generate some content. We struggled initially to get enough Logi pilots, but got there eventually. Xana 'volunteered' to give the newbro speach, since he hadn't done it before :) There were several Merlins available on contract, as well as a few other fits for Alpha clones, as well as several ewar ships to round out the mix. Overall the formup wasn't tooo bad, given the complete lack of advance preparation. We also had several pilots from the HSC come join us, since their usual Fight Club wasn't in the calendar for this week.

Command:
Decklin Quark Reiger (FC)
Xana McBash (2IC)

Scouts:
Lexara Ellecon
Xana McBash

Logi:
Laser Skaron (LC)
Anus Corpis (First-time logibro)
Zeerse Solaris ... deadspace NOS logi ... just kidding :P

Mainline DPS:
BatFC
Chagrin Case
Dark Lancelot Erkkinen
DustDevil Purrhey
Eddie Dante
Felix Jugo
Jamal Trident (first-ever pvp engagement, aside from getting ganked)
Kyrrant
Ronnie Wellings
Serendipity Wolfson
Trillian Ituin

Ewar:
Orillion Maxwell
Shizuka Shinano
Burak Oz
DustDevil Purrhey

As we headed out, we saw Megoste around in a ratting VNI. He wasn't flashy, and neither were we. We followed him to a gate, to see if we could get a fight with him. He waited on the gate instead of jumping through, to see if he could take advantage of the Uni's well-known Achilles' heel ... gate guns!

On comms, I quickly arranged the plan: I would pre-align out, engage Megoste and bounce. Possibly he would jump through at that point. If he did, then the fleet would follow, and engage him on the other side, broadcasting for reps immediately, so logi could hold the gate gun damage. The first part of the plan was fine - I engaged and warped off. However, Megoste didn't jump through the gate, and additional fleet members also aggressed Megoste. Seeing the message, I quickly called for Burak to warp off. He did manage to escape. I warped back down the the gate, and resumed shooting Megoste. He decided to engage me at that point (much to my relief). If he had jumped through, our fleet would have been split, and probably some logi would have had weapons timers, so we wouldn't be able to grab him. Seeing Megoste's red box, I called for the fleet to shoot him as well. Logi did a great job of holding each other, and myself up. I called for anyone who hadn't yet to warp off, and come back, to make life easier for the logi. In the end, we lost 2 Griffins and 3 Merlins (entirely to gate gun damage).

Griffin -1.04m
Griffin -8.62m
Merlin -5.53m
Merlin -6.79m
Vexor Navy Issue +113.38m
Merlin -7.68m

These pilots went to reship, and we carried on our way to Jufvitte to meet up with the people coming from HSC.

However, Megoste decided he wasn't done - he wanted revenge! (and who can blame him.. he had to deal with the hated ECM) :P
Megoste put together a band of allies, and came after us. They had Megoste in the Osprey Navy Issue, two Stay Frosty pilots in a Caracal and Sentinel, and a Shadow Cartel pilot in a Succubus. Quite a lot to try to take on at once. So, I tried to separate them. First, by trying to draw the Succubus into a novice plex (but he didn't fall for it). Then, by trying to warping at range to a medium plex, hoping they would also warp at range and land on top of us.. That didn't work either. They waited at a large plex.. There was a Hurricane nearby, in the next system... I thought for a minute... and decided to go for the large, relying on sheer numbers, and the Merlin's resist bonuses to survive long enough to get tackle on one of their kitey ships.

I warped us in at 50km to the large, to see that all 4 of the other ships were spread out in all directions from us. The Caracal pilot was positioned in such a way that by burning the fleet towards him, we would isolate him from the other three. We got within web range, but he managed to warp off. Meanwhile, the Sentinel was doing a very good job of harassing us with neuts from very far away (40-50 km) and was positioning himself very well. The Succubus and then the Osprey Navy started to burn in towards us. I called for the fleet to burn to the succubus, but as soon as he saw us coming, he reversed direction and pulled away. The Osprey Navy did not, however. Hey kept coming at us full speed (probably overheated). He wasn't able to change direction in time, and we caught him. At this point, our Logi were starting to get out of position - the Succubus and Sentinel were able to attack them while staying away from the Merlins. I called for the logi to warp off, if they could, and bounce back. However, we did lose one burst at that point. The other logi escaped and rejoined us. The Caracal landed back on grid, and harassed us from range, but we were able to keep the fleet together, within logi range. They held us up while we killed the Osprey Navy, grabbed loot, and disengaged. Overall, this engagement went very well, considering the ships we were up against. Positioning was really key in this fight.

Burst -5.68m
Osprey Navy Issue +86.3m
Merlin -2.39m

For the next fight, however, positioning was... not so good. The fleet was waiting on the Heydieles gate in Indregulle, when our scout called out that there was a flashy Omen and Gnosis landing on our gate. I saw that there was also an Stiletto shadowing us, and that he was from the Russian alliance 1917 (REVOLUTION). I asked what corp the flashy pilots were - they were also Revolution. We were all flashy from our previous fight. I didn't want the Stiletto to get tackle on one of us, so I called for the fleet to lock him up, hoping to force him through the gate away from us, or else to quickly blap him. However, I forgot about just how short range our Merlins are, and that we were spread out around the gate. So, pulled range and warped off as soon as we had red boxed him. Knowing that we could no longer escape through the gate, I warped the fleet up to a ping, expecting the Omen and Gnosis to jump into us. Meanwhile, our scout called that they had been joined by an Osprey Navy Issue. A couple of our ships were a bit slower to align than the others, probably to do with having their prop mods on, and burning in a different direction than my ping. They unfortunately got caught. However, one of our pilots was non-flashy at this point, because I saw a message saying that the Osprey Navy pilot was taking gate guns. I saw an opportunity to warp the fleet down nearly on top of him, by warping to a gate gun at 30km. Unfortunately, I mis-judged the distance, and we landed too far off of him. The Osprey Navy was able to warp away. From here, I saw that we were closer to the Omen, so tried to burn for him. Unfortunately, we quickly lost two of our logi, and the Osprey Navy was landing back on grid, so I warped the fleet away to our ping again. Unfortunately a few more people got caught, and their stiletto was able to get a warp in on to the fleet, so we lost a couple more before I warped the fleet away fully.

Burst -6.21m
Griffin -7.91m
Burst -6.48m
Griffin -0.82m
Crucifier -7.08m
Merlin -8.42m
Atron -4.05m
Capsule -0.01m

Having only 1 logi left, and knowing that Magic Merlins' effectiveness depends heavily on logi, I decided to call an end to the fleet, and we travelled back home.

ISK Destroyed: 199,681,336.57
ISK Lost: 78,714,656.49
ISK Delta: 120,966,680.08
Efficiency: 71.726%

So... lessons for this one?

1. When there's nothing in the calendar, there are still going to be a load of people looking for something to do.
2. Megoste was a good sport, and gave us a good fight - twice - It's good to have Frenemies we can fight with and learn with.
3. Positioning matters sooooo much. Being able to keep the fleet together within range of logi, and keep our logi out of harm's way is incredibly important. In the fight at the large in Oulletta, we were able to separate their gang because they were very spread out, and so we could effectively fight 1 or 2 of them at a time, because of the deadspace mechanic.
4. I made a mistake by agressing the stiletto at the Heydieles gate in Indregulle. There was no need for me to engage. By doing so, I gave a portion of the fleet a weapons timer, and eliminated one possible direction of movement (jumping the gate) for our fleet. The remaining direction of movement (warping away meant that some of our fleet got caught) I further compounded the problem by mis-judging a warp in, and missed the Osprey Navy Issue. Not only that, but even if I *had* landed us on top of him, there's a very strong chance we would have lost our logi quickly anyway, from the combined damage of the Omen, Osprey Navy, and Gnosis. In this scenario, they were together, and also on comms with each other (unlike the 4 pilots from 3 corporations in the preivous fight), and were able to combine their efforts much more effectively.

Any other thoughts, guys?
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Laser Skaron
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Re: [LSC] Merlins and Friends fight Megoste and Friends

Post by Laser Skaron »

Super super sorry I had to drop like that. RL Aggro couldn't really wait :(.

But all in all, this was a very successful roam. Condensed, only good fights. Great fleet situational awareness Decklin. You were generally able to figure out when the fleet was not maintaining position, was about to be split apart, could/could not get on top of a target. Props for that!

Logi Commander perspective ('cause I get to see our beautiful health bars).

1. First fight against Megoste was surprisingly managable. Megoste tried to neut us out and we were mainly tasked with trying to figure out who was taking gate guns. Very few people broadcast for reps during this fight. That, plus I feel super slow and actually noticing the shield broadcast. People on the watchlist got extra special treatment here and it felt like we had enough reps to go around.

Good: Shotcalling practice here, we kept all logi alive, we managed to sustain through neuts with out cap boosters.
Bad: I think we should have tried to tank gate guns longer here, and not bounce off so often. Also I feel like we were giving too much shield boosts to other logi as we were holding eachother up pretty easy. Think we had 1-2 extra modules to go around towards the fleet.

2. Piloting the logi wing into danger. Should have recorded this roam as I probably missed something in space. Turns out it's much harder to position correctly as frigate logi with an MWD than a slow AB cruiser. Most of our targets were above as as we landed, so I pulled down. Then felt I was getting way too far, kept at range 20km from FC for a bit, and somehow ended up in danger following this. Piloting error caused by trying to do a bit too much at that time and ended up killing myself and 1 other logi as a result. GJ cleaning up the ONI here. (Corpis' Burst was lost in this fight, where you guys killed the ONI. He died 2 minutes after myself. You grouped him down with the third fight.)

3. I dropped before the final fight, and you only had 1 logi up there, not 2 :(.

In general, I think we realized early that we needed more logi on grid, and I feel party responsible that you ended the fleet so early.

PS. Damn I'm never gonna make progress in the FCC if I keep handling logi wings, even tho this is fun :)).
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Laser Skaron
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Re: [LSC] Merlins and Friends fight Megoste and Friends

Post by Laser Skaron »

Ow, and I'm trying to figure out if Megoste made the right call of going for logi there. As far as I know, logi doesn't take gate guns, which means he's got less overall DPS to work with. That, plus my current overall perspective on this: I believe logi wings are faster to react to damage focused on themselves, rather than on the rest of the fleet. I find it easier to communicate on comms (I'm taking damage, rep X who's in the logi wing) than: everyone, find X in the history window and rep him.
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Zeerse Solaris
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Re: [LSC] Merlins and Friends fight Megoste and Friends

Post by Zeerse Solaris »

Most people didn't broadcast which is surprising if there is anchor called, what else do they really have to think about?

If I logi again I need to have probably as many people on watchlist as possible to see for myself.

A fair amount of lowsec kitey things encountered again. We didn't chase them around much and probably the best ongoing tactic for them is to not even bother so those pilots get little content. Unless we specifically fit for that kind of engagement.

The stoney silence on calling for logi was amusing. Many more people can fly the ships then want to take the role it seems.
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Chagrin Case
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Re: [LSC] Merlins and Friends fight Megoste and Friends

Post by Chagrin Case »

That was a fun roam. Im just thinking maybe in addition to the newbro speech in the beginning if we should also explain that warping off then back in will stop gate guns from shooting you. Also thanks to Megoste for the fights.
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Re: [LSC] Merlins and Friends fight Megoste and Friends

Post by Kyrrant »

Was a fun fleet. Always love magic merlins.
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