Goal:
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1. More Explosions
2. More fun
3. Something simple to lead, for a tired FC
We had a few less people now, given that it was getting late in Europe, so when forming up, I chose to use HyperKittens, since as an even smaller fish in the Placid / Black Rise ocean, we needed to be nimbler and more able to disengage. When we first undocked, we had only 7 pilots, so rather than bring any ewar support, everyone flew DPS, except for a couple of fast tackle frigates.
Scouts and Tackle:
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Z0X Ambrye (Scout)
Taqukaq Agayar (Extra fast tackle)
Mainline DPS:
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Agadeen
Arashi Shizukana
Burak Oz
Decklin Quark Reiger (FC)
Gatt2111
Kallen Brack
Rezda Nardieu (2IC)
Xana McBash
Z0x scouted ahead through Dastryns and Ostingele, into Agoze, where he reported a small gang of frigates on the Annancale gate in Agoze. I asked Z0x to tail the frigates into Annancale, and see where they went. Meanwhile Arashi spotted another pair of frigates coming into Agoze from Loes. So, I sent Rezda in to a novice plex in Agoze, to bait the new arrivals. In Annancale, the frigates that Z0x was watching had warped away, so I called him back into Agoze. Meanwhile a flashy Kestrel landed on the Ostingele gate in Agoze. Z0x landed with it, locked it up, and started to engage. The Kestrel red-boxed Z0x back. Knowing that the Kestrel couldn't escape, since Z0x had a point on him and the Kestrel also couldn't jump the gate with a weapons timer, I called for our fleet to jump into Agoze and kill the Kestrel. However, the Kestrel wasn't alone. His friends soon arrived on the gate as well. Three to four more frigates landed on grid with us. I quickly identified the Federation Navy Comet as the greatest threat, called it primary, pointed it... realised that my overview was a bit messed up.. and the Comet wasn't flashy. Oh damn.
I warped off to a ping above the gate, and called for everyone else to warp away as well, to the novice, I believe. Unfortunately, in this confusion, the gate guns got the better of us.
(23:01:47) Agoze
Kestrel +5.88m
Tristan -8.63m
Condor -2.67m
I remained at my ping, keeping an eye on the Comet and Tristan on the gate, while the fleet was waiting at the novice.
Meanwhile, a few frigates had landed with the fleet at the novice. It seems that some of our fleet had slid inside the novice, while others of us were outside of it still. There was a Rifter and a couple other T1 frigates who had landed at 30km range from the gate. Rezda checked to see that we should engage the Rifter, and I called for us to do so, while warping to join the fight. It turns out in the delay, that the Rifter was able to get on top of us, and get tackle. Some of our fleet was split apart, while others of us got tackled and quickly killed:
(23:05:28) Agoze
Atron -1.35m
Tristan -12.92m
Tristan -9.38m
Tristan -7.57m
We went back to get fresh ships, and try again after a short break.
In Ostingele, Z0x spotted a pair of thrashers at a plex, so I joined him to help get tackle on them. We warped to the plex together. The Thrashers were about 40km outside the gate. I got tackle on one of them, and called for the fleet to jump in and join us. Someone called secondary point on the thrasher, and I had to warp off in very low structure, having confirmed that they were using artillery, by means of absorbing their high alpha salvos and checking my combat log. The fleet finished off one Thrasher, losing Z0X in the process, and the other Thrasher escaped.
(23:27:57) Ostingele
Atron -1.02m
Thrasher +7.46m
From here, we roamed up towards Heydieles and back, being shadowed by the Fed Navy Comet pilot from earlier - except now he was flying a Hecate. We played cat and mouse with him quite a bit, trying to get him to make a mistake where we could kill him, while he tried to pick off stragglers from our gang. At one point, he demonstrated to Agadeen the importance of staying with the fleet:
(23:37:47) Agoze
Condor -3.35m
Travelling up through Heydieles to Pynekastoh, we kept spotting potential targets, but the fights tended to be a bit more than we could easily manage, and I didn't want to lose the whole fleet again. So, I kept trying to position us in a way that we could get a fight on our terms. Unfortunately, none of the T3D or Cruiser gangs were silly enough to let themselves get separated. Our Hecate friend continued to travel with us, and we played 'try to bait the Hecate' a few times, but never quite caught him.
In Pynekastoh, a Svipul caught Z0x outside a plex, as Z0x was attempting to join us inside:
(00:25:40) Pynekastoh
Slasher -9.57m
Capsule -0.01m
After that, we spotted a Worm and two Deimos around, and decided we would try to kill the Worm and run away before the Deimos could catch us.
Unfortunately, as repositioned and got a warp-in on them at the sun, the Russians showed up (again!!!) to spoil the fun.. We had to warp off, leaving our drones behind, but at least we didn't lose anyone.
Then... the FC decided we would try to go for a drone rescue operation. Unfortunately, I was about a half-second too slow in warping the fleet away, when it became obvious we couldn't retrieve our drones.. and Arashi paid the price:
(00:42:23) Pynekastoh
Tristan -5.7m
From here, I was getting particularly tired, and realised that I was making mistakes, and getting people killed. Nobody else wanted to take over as FC, so I took the fleet back to Jufvitte, were there was a rumour of a war target in a Marouder - people were interested in helping the HSC defense fleet
On the way back, we managed to catch a flashy Enyo on a gate, as he was a little slow to join his friends warping away:
(01:00:14) Indregulle
Enyo +35.98m
Stats
ISK Destroyed: 49,323,372.3
ISK Lost: 62,187,457.2
ISK Delta: -12,864,084.9
Efficiency: 44.232%
For me, there were a couple lessons to learn here.
I think for one, when I'm tired, I don't think as quickly, react as quickly, and this cost us ships. On the other hand, people still had a lot of fun. So... I dunno... would I do it again? In T1 frigates, sure. But in more expensive ships, I'll save it for when I'm more alert and making better decisions.
Another thing to remember is that I should add anchoring to the pre-flight introduction to fleet, if I expect to use it during a fleet. Given that this was Agadeen's first day doing PvP fleets, it wasn't really his fault that he got separated and caught by the Hecate. I didn't explain clearly about *how* to keep me at 1000m range.
Thanks for the fun roam guys, and great scouting Z0x
Thank you everyone for being patient with all of the cat-and-mouse games, warping back and forth. Good job keeping up with it, especially for Agadeen and Kallen - I know this was one of your first few times in a PvP fleet, so good job keeping up with all of the align and warp commands etc.edit: spelling and grammar.
