[AAR] Impromptu nano gang fleet

[Clarityz]

Warning: This AAR has a very high text to kills ratio. Proceed at your own risk.

I was inspired by Uryence's class, and since there was nothing running this evening I asked Yuri Levnik if he wanted to come do some PvP he said yes (big shocker) and I sent out a ping.

There was no plan before form-up, but we had 8 people and no objection so we shipped into the recently-made-popular nano gang stuff.

Pilots

TechBug Saas - Brutix - Booster
Clarityz - Osprey Navy Issue - FC
Aiden Green - Thorax
Lee King - Thorax
Ben Lear - Scythe - logi
bazingamogus - Malediction - scout
Uryence - Hyena - 2IC
Yuri Levnik - Keres

With Uryence's help we had a nice efficient form-up. We had a lot of interesting options with a Hyena and a Keres, and quite a bit of damage overall. With the boosts we were also plenty fast. We did our final checks, warped to a safe in Jita and filamented.

We landed in Paragon Soul, and while there was some activity on dotlan, we weren't able to track anything down. Everyone did a great job independently flying, people were doing great and we covered a lot of ground.

A relatively quiet 15 minutes later, we filamented. This time landing is in FD-MLJ, which is notorious for having big gate camps. Indeed, there was a big gatecamp! We decided to go the other way, but not at great speed, and as some stuff was coming in we jumped the gate and started burning hard, pulling range. An interdictor decloaked and bubbled, and a Vedmak (and other stuff) decloaked. We pulled range very well and stayed cohesive.

Once two MJD ships showed up, we decided to move on. We checked a couple more pockets but again, quiet.

After our 15 minutes, we filamented again, this time landing in Fountain. After poking around a bit we found some Dominix's (dominii?) that were ratting, but must've been tipped off and all docked up. We waited around a bit while Bazinga looked at neighbouring systems, giving them a chance to undock as we owned the system next door.

Unfortunately they were smart, and stayed docked. We went down a pipe and through a staging system (where we didn't find an ishtar ratting). As we were going through, a Cerberus landed with us. Yuri Levnik went through and we held, getting ready to have someone point if it looked like they were aligning out. They jumped the gate, we followed and we got point on the other side! The Cerberus looked like it was crashing the gate at first, but with our strong webs it decided to aggress (I think..?). They were not long for this world, and they let us pod them. Sadly no implants.

Cerberus +212m

Since we had timers again, we checked a bunch of dead end systems, but didn't find much. We hung out for the last 5 minutes of our timer and filamented to pochven. Bazinga scanned down a hole leading to high sec, and we made our way back to Jita. Everyone lived!


What went well
- Good efficient form-up
- Stayed on grid against scary stuff for a while, and didn't lose anyone
- Killed a thing!

What could have gone better
-Killed one thing.
-Could've used a bit more communication fighting those gate camp people
-On the Cerberus, perhaps I should have had one person with a point not aggress, to keep the option open of following them back through the gate. I did eventually think ask bazinga to de-aggress for that eventuality, but it wasn't needed.

Thanks everyone for coming. Thanks to Uryence for 2ICing, it was great to have your support! Bazinga did a great job scouting as always, and thanks to everyone else who came! Hope you all had fun.

[Uryence]

Thanks for this roam! Sometimes there's not much in space, and when that happens just keeping the gang chatting, moving, and learning is the main thing--which you did very well. And I think you made good calls when we encountered the Deepwater gang: we were able to go in and tangle with their Vedmak, then we pulled range when the rest of them spiked, and then we left when it became clear that a workable fight was no longer going to develop out of it.

That Cerb fit looks like a fleet setup, so I guess the guy must have been trying to move it or something.

[Yuri Levnik]

While I also wish we'd found a bit more in space, I think this was a very successful roam. We danced with the gatecamp and didn't lose anyone and we managed to snag a kill on a gate. Like you mention, the gang moved well, despite our wide range of align times and warp speeds, and I think a lot of the credit there goes to you as FC. I think you also deserve credit for not getting us killed by the other gang. Great job!!!

I like this nanogang comp. Let's keep flying it while we fiddle around with how to find content in null! I do wonder if we would be better off taking a Thera connection to a known busy part of null, or using Signal filaments instead of Noise filaments. We could also consider setting up our own nullsec gate camp, though I'm not sure nano is the best composition for it.

[Uryence]

I like this nanogang comp. Let's keep flying it while we fiddle around with how to find content in null! I do wonder if we would be better off taking a Thera connection to a known busy part of null, or using Signal filaments instead of Noise filaments. We could also consider setting up our own nullsec gate camp, though I'm not sure nano is the best composition for it.

We've tried using Thera sometimes, and it has pros and cons in my view:

+ predictability
+ can be easier to reship/regroup in Thera

- predictability (most nullblocs worth their salt know about any Thera holes in their territory, but they don't know that you just filamented in five jumps behind their eyes)
- holes are sometimes camped
- if you stick a gang in systems near a Thera hole long enough, PvPers from Thera will come and kill you

None of that's to say it isn't worth using!

If you don't have your own hole with a null static, Drifter holes are best-in-class for surprise hunting in my view, but we can't use them with the nanogang comp because many of our ships are too slow to avoid Drifters.

Signal filaments are def. worth considering, you're right. Possibly a good thing to try at a roam's end.

I like the idea of a surprise mobile nullsec gatecamp. Might have to think about what ships to use for it. AAFs with EAF add-ons wouldn't be bad at it.

[Yuri Levnik]

When we gate camp in Delve we bring along a couple of torpedo stealth bombers with target painters. They aren't much use against small targets, but for larger targets they provide great DPS at low cost and SP requirement and you have the significant advantage of being able to cloak up to avoid danger. We generally don't have any use for bombs, but you can go with polarized torpedo launchers if you really want to push max deeps.

An interdictor is almost a requirement when we camp in Delve, and a ram jag and Huginn/Rapier/Hyena go a long way toward keeping targets from getting back through the gate. Also, cloaky eyes on the other side of the gate!!!

[Clarityz]

Double post

[Clarityz]

I guess gate camp fleets just have a different engagement profile from a nano gang. I suppose you could get an interdictor along, but I'd be worried they won't have much to do if we're trying to fight in deadspace. Since catching them in a bubble in an ESS probably isn't all that useful, for example.

Then again, maybe if we get people to chase us a couple of systems there's some cool stuff you can do with bubbles to try and split their fleet.

[Yuri Levnik]

Agreed, I certainly didn't feel like we needed a interdictor for what we were doing, though they are always handy if you want to catch pods...