AAR: Golden Horde Punishers

[Gergoran Moussou]

Roam members (17)

Spoiler

Kills and Losses

(23:54:47) Ouelletta
Procurer +18.12m

(00:16:58) Vlillirier
Executioner -5.83m

(00:23:37) Eha
Catalyst +8.7m

(00:53:35) Nennamaila
Atron -3.56m
Executioner -5.83m
Caracal +28.68m
Punisher -13.88m
Punisher -12.64m
Punisher -10.98m

(01:11:56) Nisuwa
Punisher -13.8m
Atron -3.22m
Thrasher +15.63m

(01:27:12) Kedama, Onatoh
Inquisitor -9.36m
Punisher -13.86m
Inquisitor -3.67m
Punisher -11.24m
Punisher -12.68m
Punisher -13.35m
Capsule -0.01m
Punisher -11.17m
Punisher -16.14m
Punisher -13.35m
Condor -4.76m
Astero +65.12m
Capsule -0.01m
Capsule -0.01m

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 136,263,204.51
ISK Lost: 179,359,522.29
ISK Delta: -43,096,317.78
Efficiency: 43.173%

Overall evaluation

• ✔ (Positive stuff)
  It was fun.
  I got the opportunity to run Amarr ships.
  ✘ (Negative stuff)
  Station games are not fun.
  For some reason, over the past week or so, Black Rise hasn't had as many people around.

I started off by bringing people based out at HSC over to LSC. Some of the LSC-based members of this fleet joined us at Archavoinet, where we took a brief break to see if anyone wanted to use the market or drop off a clone for LSC activities. On the way there, we engaged and destroyed a Procurer.

After this introduction to LSC (which is recruiting, as people love to say), I took the fleet around some usual hot systems, which seemed to be emptier than usual. We encountered a couple of Catalysts. One took out our primary scout, we took out the other. Aside from that, we didn't find much action besides a battleship guy who decided that it would be funny to play annoying station games with us.

In Nennamaila, we encountered a Caracal pilot who we convinced to engage us. I was a bit nervous about engaging a Caracal in a frigate. While I'd never engage a group of Caracals, I thought that one wouldn't be too much of a problem. We were able to take him down with reasonable ISK efficiency, but when his Kikimora alliance-mate arrived on-grid, things got a bit dangerous, so I called a scatter.

In Nisuwa, we encountered a Worm. I overextended in an attempt to engage it. I was one of the losses in this fight, so Dexyr took over until I could reship and return (to reform in Kedama in the hope that I could lead us to glorious battle in Tama).

At the Tama gate, we encountered the Worm pilot again, this time in a Vexor with some other Hull Penetration people along with one of our usual Tama adversaries, Zhora Zhopkin. I overplayed again because I wanted to get revenge for being killed, trying to get the Vexor. Our numbers were not sufficient advantage. I ordered a scatter again and changed the destination from Tama to home. However, they encountered us on the out-gate and gave our fleet a spectacular and explosive end, including arranging for me to take a quick trip to the clone bay in Archavoinet. Fortunately, one of us got a kill on their Astero.

Also, I need to work on remembering what time I said I'd start. Due to some confusion, I accidentally thought I was a half-hour off. So I ended up putting up the fleet a few minutes late (although we still got together and got the initial checklist and newbro speech dealt with pretty close to the timetable that I originally said).

[O'Hearn]

Thanks for stepping up and making the content happen!

I made some notes.

• FC movement calls were very clear. Always a plus.
• The station games with the battleship in Kinakka seemed counterproductive. We had nothing to gain (because he could dock at any time), and so we basically gave him a free rep check, at the cost of heat damage and ammo. Ammo was in short supply and we had no nanite paste.
• I spent quite a lot of the roam with significant heat damage. With no nanite paste and no opportunity to tether for repair.
• The Worm chase exposed some problems. There was quite a long period of no FC calling. I called the velocity of the Worm and it was clear that we had no ship capable of catching him. We also had significant prop heat damage at that point. If we'd had the means to catch him, anchor calls would have helped keep the approach tight, with logi in range. Instead, we ended up with most of the fleet engaging the latecomer, with a few pilots strung out on approach to the Worm.
• In Kedama, it seemed like indecision paralyzed FC calls during the on-gate shenanigans. After we scattered out of the first on-gate engagement, I was surprised that we took the fight back to them on the Nisuwa gate. Same enemies, same situation, no scatter, kaboom! Here, I think more decisive FC calls were necessary, because some of our pilots engaged a non-flashy on gate. The losses reduced our firepower to the point where the VNI was unbreakable. When there's a lot going on and the FC says nothing, panic level rises. Frequent "Hold", "Anchor on", "Do not engage", "The primary will be X" calls would help settle things down.

So I think the thing to take into the next fleet is the same clarity and decisiveness of the movement calls, into combat:

• Anchor.
• Range to logi.
• Primary.
• Engage / do not engage.
• Repair / reload.

[Budda Sereda]

Let me start with positive things: +1 for creating content, taking the fleet out, and making explosions! That's what matters!

Keep it up Gergoran Moussou!

Now constructive things I've not been with fleet, so can only judge from this AAR.

0. Based on what O'Hearn wrote

In Kedama, it seemed like indecision paralyzed FC calls

I assume you was thinking what to do and could not come up with a good plan. In such situations is good to get fleet into safety and take time to think: it is very demotivating for the fleetif FC is quiet, especially in dangerous situations. It is better to speak fleet into a death ball with glory trying to kill something than let everybody die quietly.
Don't worry, this will come with experience.
Some FCs keep repeating same command a dozen of times. Literally. But if you don't know what to do: get fleet into a safe place.

1. In the last fight I assume you whelped the whole fleet? You should try to call get at least some fleet memebers out.

2. Not sure how did you wrap the fleet up, but you MUST project optimism. Ok, we whelped, who really cares? If somebody does - reimburse him the lost ship, that will get him more motivation to come to your fleet. Why should you reimburse it? You probably should not, but often when FC makes mistakes he should acknowledge it and pay for it at least some price.

3. You've escaped that gang once, why did you take the fight on another gate? Do you know how to escape such gangs? If you don't then you have to learn and practice. It probably won't come without loses, but you will save 80-90% of the fleet and can find other content on the way back home.

Regarding content: time-to-time it happens that Black Rise is quiet, don't worry make a few circles back and forth system which was empty 15-20 minutes ago might be busy next time when you enter it. Or might not, you never know

Regarding experience: from your kill board I see that you are quite new pilot, but already have some solo kills, congrats! Again: Kudos for stepping up to FC while I'd say you experience is really low I'd recommend you few more general things:

1. Fly often: 3-4 times a week
2. Fly with other FCs, if you don't see many E-Uni fleets to join to learn from E-Uni FCs, join NPSI fleets, start with Spectre Fleets; don't be afraid to ask questions, just be mindful on WHEN to ask. Set your life goal to join EVERY fleet from Glen Burney, find him and ask him if he can back seat you in your fleets: Glen is the best small-medium fleet size FC I personally know. Learn from him.
3. Try to get any other FCs into you fleet to backseat you. If you can plan your fleets 3-5 days in advance, ping me in slack I'll try to change my schedule to join you. Though, you should be ready to hold me from stepping over you I have a bad habbit which is sometimes hard to control
4. Do you have bookmarks on each gate in system you are flying? At some point FCC had 300 of those. Ask people if someone can share it. Get habbit of making safe and tactical bookmarks during your roaming.

[Ssenir Shouna]

I had a great time on the fleet!

One bit of constructive criticism I'd like to give would be that as Logi, I had flagged myself to ignore fleet warps (because as Logi I needed to be able to land at range). Since you weren't calling out when you were initiating a fleet warp, I had to warp myself after I saw the rest of the fleet already warping away. This meant I was always landing on grid after the rest of the fleet (at least by a few seconds, sometimes more). This was especially problematic if you warped everyone to a target other than the previous thing you had told everyone to align to, such as a bookmark.

In situations where the main fleet was burning towards a target upon landing, I ended up being out of repair range by the time I arrived on grid, and unable to catch up -- which meant I was having a hard time keeping everyone healed.

You did a good job for the most part of calling movement commands, aligns, etc, but in the future if you could just state when you are initiating a fleet warp command, that would be very helpful for your Logi folks. Likewise, it wouldn't hurt to repeat certain commands (such as "jump on landing") a few more times, just in case some people missed it the first time.

Very much looking forward to flying with you more in the future! o7

[O'Hearn]

One more thing. SRP paid out 0.4m for the 16m Punisher I lost.

It's probably worth mentioning this to Newbros, because that could lead to a very disappointing first fleet experience.

[Budda Sereda]

I had a great time on the fleet!

One bit of constructive criticism I'd like to give would be that as Logi, I had flagged myself to ignore fleet warps (because as Logi I needed to be able to land at range). Since you weren't calling out when you were initiating a fleet warp, I had to warp myself after I saw the rest of the fleet already warping away. This meant I was always landing on grid after the rest of the fleet (at least by a few seconds, sometimes more). This was especially problematic if you warped everyone to a target other than the previous thing you had told everyone to align to, such as a bookmark.

In situations where the main fleet was burning towards a target upon landing, I ended up being out of repair range by the time I arrived on grid, and unable to catch up -- which meant I was having a hard time keeping everyone healed.

You did a good job for the most part of calling movement commands, aligns, etc, but in the future if you could just state when you are initiating a fleet warp command, that would be very helpful for your Logi folks. Likewise, it wouldn't hurt to repeat certain commands (such as "jump on landing") a few more times, just in case some people missed it the first time.

Very much looking forward to flying with you more in the future! o7

Good feedback Ssenir. I'd encourage communicating things like this during the fleet. When there is an opportunity you say "check-check" and once you get comms clear communicate it.
In such situations, FC should appoint a logy commander, make him a lead of a separate squad/wing and let him warp the logy squad. FC himself should differentiate when he needs to warp DPS squad/wing or the whole fleet and drag himself between flees leader or squad/wing leader when needed.
Don't abuse this feature, in 90% FC should warp the whole fleet and only before the actual combat move himself out of the fleet leader role.

One more disclaimer: I rarely see big blocks doing so, traditionally logies warp together with fleet and burn out of blob after landing.

[Edhin Delphiki]

First, thank you for coordinating this event. I enjoyed the event as a whole even though the ending was a bit clouded in confusion.

I learned a few things from the evening:

• I should ensure that I have a stockpile of extra Nanite Paste and Ammunition associated to whichever fleet I am participating in prior to the mustering time. This is not a criticism of the available contracts, but probably a more diligent responsibility of my own.
• When times get hectic, I should sit back until I have a clear course forward in a skirmish/encounter. I made a rookie mistake as I was trying to listen for a audible call-out to engage various targets. I ended up engaging a ship/pilot before they engaged me and sentry guns started to light me up. I was already yellow boxed and trying to burn out of range and warp off to reset sentry guns. However, before I could, I got bumped and then scrammed by the target I engaged to provide the person with a free 0 damage killmail on their part. This occured when FC and 2IC/3IC (forget who was calling during the transition) were regrouping on a gate and a situation was evolving. I consider this a lack of patience or perhaps I did not seek our the correct confirmation.

Again, thank you for the event as I know the FC chair is not easy. Focusing on how I can make the FC's job easier is always my goal. o7


Warm Regards,
Edhin