[AAR] Magic Moas: "Capitals are the best kind of flattery"

[Breeze One]

That was fun!

FC Feedback Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... rm?c=0&w=1

FC: Breeze One
2IC: Tylenos Targas
Logi FC's: The Max and Laser show
Scouts: Eddie Dante, Glen Burney, then Decklin and Megoste (Yes he! Presumably gathering intel for his next assault on our glorious campus)
Snowflakes!: Jax's Huginn, and Decklin's Stork(s)

So, we burned up to Vli as usual without really finding much, then I was convo'd by Cookie who were roaming in their T2 frigate public fleet. Knowing they would be coming, I had us chase a target (I think a Hyperion?) into Oicx, then when we lost him I set us up in a Medium plex to await the Cookie Monster.

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Stage 1: We welp with our heads held high

Their fleet wasn't quite what I'd expected, with some T3Ds in the mix this time as well. Either way, we had the advantage of setting up in the plex, with Huginn and Logi at range and DD in a ball on the beacon. Game time!

We lost. Despite this, I'm actually fairly happy with how we performed guys! I started by primarying their Logi frigates, and we did some good target switching to break one of them, and then ALMOST break a second (like 20% hull when they caught him...). We switched onto smaller stuff like their tackle Atron and Merlin just to strain their Logi a bit honestly, then back to their Logi, but we were bleeding DPS constantly, and every second it looked less likely we could break the Logi. Eventually the few survivors scattered.

Logi FCs can weigh in, but I believe we were holding reps fairly nicely on the Moas, but they took out our squishier ships like the Thorax and Ruptures fast, and then snowballed it. They were also target switching very quickly to beat our Logi, which is partly just being more disciplined as a fleet, and party the natural advantage of being Frigates vs Cruiser hulls

So, why am I happy? Well, tactically we didnt get outmaneuvered (that I noticed..), and some of our target switching was excellent to break that first Logi - this is something we've struggled with in the past as a fleet, and I've struggled with as an FC, so nice to see it working here. Cookie will probably be along in a bit to comment, but I believe we strained their Logi hard.

We did split DPS, but that was only after the fight become a bit more spread out - we moved to follow a Logi frigate who was heading slightly away from the pack, and some fleet members didnt follow.

Overall, my impression honestly was that they simply had more DPS (many of our pilots flying T1 guns etc), a natural advantage for target switching in Frigates/Destroyer hulls, a ton more boosts (3 Command Dessies remember vs 1 for us), and we lacked the EWAR options to break their Logi when our DPS couldn't. Even so, it was arguably closer than it seemed. Breaking that second Logi could have been huge had we gotten it.

We basically got out-gunned rather than out-flown, which is painful, but as an FC, I still feel a great performance by our fleet in the face of a more experienced and higher skilled opponent.

As always, good fight Cookie

Thorax -23.51m
Moa -36.81m
Moa -23.3m
Slasher -6.51m
Moa -31.49m
Kirin +66.64m
Moa -35.15m
Rupture -29.63m
Rupture -25.87m
Slasher +10.75m
Moa -35.78m
Moa -18.14m
Moa -22.4m
Moa -16.94m
Moa -23.42m
Atron +1.7m
Moa -32.86m
Slasher -3.42m
Vexor -48.68m
Moa -15.44m
Jackdaw -64.68m
Osprey -20.29m
Stork -106.95m
Osprey -19.69m

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Interlude

With many folks re-shipping in Stacmon, I moved the remains of our fleet to join them. Along the way we encountered what seems to have been a couple of frigates fighting a Maller on a gate. The frigates ran away, but the Maller died.

Maller +44.31m

After re-shipping, and returning to Blackrise, we docked up for a bio-break, and a Harpy aggressed Decklin on the station undock. We immediately undocked the entire fleet on him.

Harpy +36.02m

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Stage 2: The Calmil Chase

In Akidagi, we saw a CalMil fleet of T2 Frigates, slightly smaller than Cookie's fleet (and CalMil tend to be much, much less skilled than Cookie!). I decided to chase them. We chased them up the pipe to Eha, then as scouts followed, I moved us to the Martoh gate hoping that we could cut them off. However at the same moment I did, Glen (who I'd asked earlier to try and catch any stragglers) caught one of their Logi on the gate. While I struggled to reposition us, their fleet returned and killed Glen to save the Logi, then bounced out, docked up and refused to come back out again (we asked nicely)

Sorry Glen - I thought I was being clever by trying to cut them off - but if I'd stuck to the chase we might have gotten a nice Kirin kill instead of losing you.

Stiletto -43.04m

Moving back down the pipe, we got word that the CalMil gang HAD undocked (Treachery! Liers and Cheats!) and had gone down the other side of the pipe to Vli, and were engaged in a fight in the gate. I moved us as fast as possible to third party, but we made it JUST as the fight was over, with the CalMil fleet now safely at a ping 300km away.

However they're not the only ones with tacticals! Jax and Decklin had tacticals nearby to them, and we warped up - not fast enough to catch their frigates, BUT as they warped off, an unlucky (and unrelated) Zealot warped to his own tactical....20km off where we were! Blap Blap Pew Pew, get that Zealot, kill that Zealot!

Zealot +161.08m

While I actually had some fun doing this, and chasing the CalMil gang around, I wanted some blingy kills to balance out our Cookie welp. So, I took us right to the home of blingy kills - Revolutions' home system of Heydieles

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Stage 3: Breeze vs Carriers again

My recollection of the early stages of this is a bit hazy, and not born out by the order of killmails, but here's how I remember it...

We found a couple of blingy ships, including a Orthrus, running an event site. Scouts and Vanguard went for tackle, as I warped the fleet in. We killed ourselves the Orthrus as the rest warped out, then, as they always do (and as expected) Revolutions started warping back at range with flashy stuff. I was fairly comfortable at this point, Logi were holding up well, and we anchored on me and tried to catch them as they made mistakes. And they did. Blingy Gila, and blingy Phantasm died to our mighty Moas.

Then they dropped a Carrier.

Nidhogger landed, and with nothing else in range at the time, I went for it. It kind of went as you'd expect. I do maintain that if the rest of the Revs guys hadnt been there, and with a bit of EWAR on field we might have taken this, but as it was we barely had him in 75% shields before we started to fall, and I extracted us with a wistful glance at my always very, very optimistic dream of another Carrier kill on my Cruiser fleets

Fun times though! As Tika said, we are taking the position that dropping Capitals is the highest form of flattery to our deadly skills

Stork -100.67m
Slasher -4.63m
Orthrus +546.44m
Stiletto -43.65m
Phantasm +154.79m
Moa -29.13m
Moa -31.5m
Gila +352.69m
Moa -34.74m
Moa -22.52m
Blackbird -8.64m
Rupture -30.02m
Thorax -23.34m
Moa -41.06m
Moa -31.48m

In Agoze, our favorite MJD friend in the Brutix was around, and Decklin and Megoste tried to bait him for us, but Decklin got a little too close and get blaped, while I was too tired to play our usual games with him, and just moved us home.

Stiletto -44.15m

Stats - ISK Positive! Look at that!

ISK Destroyed: 1,374,416,230.59
ISK Lost: 1,129,526,766.24
ISK Delta: 244,889,464.35
Efficiency: 54.89%

Spoiler

Roam members (33) - NOTE: This section is NOT usually included in AARs.
Ahvei Myrha
Altar Kabal
Barbara Blast
Breeze One
Decklin Quark Reiger
Dgdsgy Foobar
Eddie Dante
Eleeyah Myrha
Gandar Thiesant
Glen Burney
Hideo Date
Jax Renalard
Laser Skaron
Maximus Hert
Megoste
Muzzy Chuck
Oh' Leeador
Questlove
Rebulah Conundrum
Seerah Lindrake
SketchyManDan Williams
Tika On
Tom Endares
Torg Navatin
Trillian Ituin
Tylenos Targas
Union Pivo
Veever Yvormes
William Estemairen
Wokum
Xana McBash
Zana Fehrnah
ashahara

[Breeze One]

I really, really enjoyed this fleet, even if the killboard ended up pretty red

We had fairly constant content (always a worry for Cruiser fleets), even if it was just chasing people, and some really memorable fleet vs fleet fights!

It actually felt a little like Null Sec roams I've been on, trying to outmaneuver the CalMil fleet, clashing with Cookie, and then, obviously getting Capitals dropped on us

Great fun everyone!

What did we do well

As I say, target switching was good this time in the Cookie fight, and Logi did a fantastic job as always

Anchoring was great, both anchoring on Decklin when we tried to boosh, and anchoring on Breeze in the Revolutions fight

Good fast reshipping as well

Jax's Huginn was MVP. Those long webs combined with fast Interceptors with points...that caught us a lot of content! 10/10 would Huginn again

Scouts were fantastic - we had no surprises, no unexpected events, everything we did was planned and were fights we chose to take (or try to take). That's down to good intel guys, so thank you

What could we do better

Comms were great and fun most of the time, but we did get a bit messy at times and I had to call for Combat Comms

We still split DPS quite a lot in fleet fights. I really dont know how to address this except just practice, and repeating my commands. A lot.

I didn't remind us to activate the active shield modules. I do now wonder how many of those who died had their Adaptive Invulns activated at the time. I'd like to think most of us knew to activate them, but I should have specifically reminded everyone before the fight started - I know I only remembered to switch mine on 2 mins into the fight!

We discussed afterwards ways we might have used our Command Dessie and boosh to change the outcome of the Cookie fight. There weren't many options, but we COULD have tried scramming their logi, then booshing off the DD. Tricky maneuver to pull off with a Uni fleet, and against a smart opponent like Cookie, but would have been worth a try, had we thought of it before...

More EWAR. Feels weird to be suggesting that for a Uni fleet! But EWAR options would have helped us break Cookie's Logi, and would have let us jam the Nidhoggers fighters (or at least damp the other ships) which could have changed that fight daramtically as well. Breeze actually has ECM drones on his Moa for the Cookie fight, and one thing I meant to do was request everyone who was able to, to bring ECM drones (as drone DPS on the Moa is rubbish anyway) - but I forgot to request this before we started (I even had a note and everything! Bad Breeze)

Only Scouts and Vanguard (if requested) should be away from the fleet. If you're not a named scout or FC hasn't specifically asked you to enter a system, please dont jump through. Also please leave Intel gathering to the scouts unless FC asks otherwise, its really distracting to be getting (usually irrelevant) intel from other people where I don't know who, or where you are. Its hard enough keeping track of 2-3 scouts as well as everything else.

[Neonen Enderas (Biomassed 2017.06.23)]

MWD Moas.. with blasters.

[Breeze One]

Yeah so Neonen brought it up, so, a note on doctrine

This was an experiment with the Moas. A lot of us have complained about the slow speed of BLAP Vexors, and while I still like the Vexors, I wanted to try flying fast brawly Cruisers with MWDs just to see how they compared.

I stole the Moas basically entirely from Holy Cookie themselves after they used this doctrine against our Vexors a month or so ago. They use them very effectively, so I thought we'd give it a go. I'm aware of the arguments against them, but I also saw some key advantages, and discussion with some more experienced FCs convinced me to give it a go

I really, really enjoyed the mobility. While the Huginn was super useful for slowing targets down for us, there were still a couple of catches where I doubt our tackle would have lasted long enough for us to get secondary tackle if we'd been AB fit. Likewise, there's no way we would have chased down the Gila in the Revs fight with ABs, and we were 1-2km away from catching their Drakes before they MJD'd a couple of times too, which wouldn't have been possible with ABs

The downside is the limited cap life. I was very focused on this both before and during the fleet and kept reminding everyone on cap management, so I'd like to hear people's feedback, but personally while I had to pay attention to it, I didn't actually run into cap issues at any point, so long as we stuck to the plan of using MWDs only for closing to scram range, then deactivating once tackle was applied.

The other downside is just more modules to manage. Besides watching cap and MWD, you also need to manage the active shield modules (plus drones and guns..). Combine that with trying to focus your DPS in a large fleet vs fleet scenario which can be confusing even for experienced pilots, and that's a lot to handle for a new player

It's impossible to know how much that played into the Cookie fight but I suspect it wasn't an insignificant factor, given we had at least 2-3 completely new pilots

So yep, I liked the doctrine, I'd happily fly it again, but its certainly a little more skill intensive for individual pilots than most of our doctrines, which again is a reminder of how well our BLAP doctrines are designed for accessibility

[Laser Skaron]

I didn't get to mention after the fleet, but I think we were pretty slow during our chases. My biggest two concerns there are:
1) We should not be aligning, that's a defensive move, just wait a few seconds after/before a jump for logi to catch up but fleetwarp us much much faster.
2) Call "take this warp" after you fleet warp us

I think we can cut our time on gates to about half if we just fleet warp without coordinating alignment in those scenarios.

Don't have time for a full logi perspective right now - will take a look at footage later today and provide my extended 2 cents :). Just in general, cookies were really good at switching targets and I don't think I've ever been in a situation where micro managing reps throughout the wing was so important. We tried to anticipate which targets were bait and how they'd switch full dps. We sometimes managed to do the right calls but we had to be super on point to actually hold people.

[Captain Cean]

First thank you Guys for the great Fight.
Actualy you Performed realy well compared to other times.

i will give later my feedback, but my first impression is that your Guys Broadcastet to late for Reps cause we couldn't break that massiv Logi Wing you had on field, we just outplayed them.

And like i have Promissed
Footage Link

[Eddie Dante]

Some mixed feelings here: fleet was fun (as always), but i coulve done soo much better. During the harpy chase i actually had one locked up at a gate but didnt dare scramming it (and getting weapons timer), being all alone and surrounded by them. When they started warping off, my target was the last one to warp away and i couldve easily disrupted him. Doh.

Cookie fight: still not sure what to do there as a scout. My new batch of ships actually has weapons fitted (contrary to the ones on contract from the uni) so gonna try to harass some lone frigates next fleetfight. Did get to practice a bit on the cone-flying maneuver though.

Heydieles fight: arrived there 2nd after decklin. Orthrus killed me in a few secs. Nowhere close to reship. The good thing about going to NEN every time is having Ichoriya close and prestocked.

Generally: I usually try to predict a bit where scouts will be needed, sometimes you predict wrong, some days you just cant get it right :p Spend so much time unnescessarily warping around.

[Tylenos Targas]

Roa's and Boa's are a thing Neonen, just a way old thing that doesn't work as well as it used to do

The big problem with the Boa's for me last night was cap management. I allowed myself to get capped out on the first fight (big mistake on my part) which turned off my shield hardeners, on the second fight I had to burn a good 50km twice to catch the Orthrus and catch up with the Phantasm. This left my nearly cap dry for the Gila (enough to no longer be able to activate MWD or continuously run guns), and forced me off field as soon as I got primaried.

Fielding a caretaker Osprey (one not fit for repairs but for sending out capacitor / energy transfers to cap broadcasts) could be an option to deal with the low cap life on these boats. Haven't Pyfa-warriored one up, but it could be worth looking in to.

[Captain Cean]

Fielding a caretaker Osprey (one not fit for repairs but for sending out capacitor / energy transfers to cap broadcasts) could be an option to deal with the low cap life on these boats. Haven't Pyfa-warriored one up, but it could be worth looking in to.

There actualy no need for that your normal dual cap transfer Osprey can Give a few cycles Cap to dps without a problem.

[Vorphalak]

Howdy, another Cookie Monster chiming in.

To be honest, when we slid into the plex and I saw my overview filling up and all those Moas sitting right on top of us I thought we were in a lot of trouble.
I guess I underestimated the effect our low signature radii a bit (which we further shrank with boosts), but I still think you could have been able to kill more of us.
A lot of your Moas weren't T2 fit, true, but still, with ion blasters and at least two Mag Stabs per ship you had a boatload of dps at your disposal, albeit only at very close range.

A few tips from my perspective:
- I would have gone straight to DPS ships instead of chasing after logi. Start with the nearest, scram and web him down and blast away. When he's dead, choose the next nearest.
- When switching targets, let everyone approach the next designated target first, only start shooting when most of your DPS is close enough to apply damage properly. That way, logi don't stand a chance to lock and rep quickly enough.
- Switch targets sooner when the primary doesn't break. While your report says that you did, our own Logis reported after the fight that they didn't have to switch often and that it wasn't hard for them to keep up (except for that one Kirin and the squishy stuff).

Btw, an mwd is a must for any blasterboat imho. As I said above your effective range is extremely short, you have to be able to get in range. Still doesn't mean you can zip around like crazy though, it's still slow ass cruisers you're sitting in.

Anyway, thanks for the exciting fight. We'll be meeting again.

[Breeze One]

Hey guys!

Vorphalak, thanks that's good feedback. I did think we were better at switching targets than we have been, but we definitely aren't as good as you guys are (having watched your videos). We will get faster

Also good point on having fleet approach the secondary - THEN applying DPS rather than the other way around. That's smart, and something I hadnt thought about at all. Consider that a lesson learnt.

The reason for going for Logi first was actually cos the first Kirin was one of the closest ships to us (or to me anyway) so I started there. I agree that after the first Kirin death though I should maybe have gone for a nearby DPS ship rather than the next Kirin (which was I think 9km away or so)

You're probably right we should have killed more, but don't overestimate Alpha Clone skills in addition to T1 fittings. I think we put out a lot less raw DPS than you expect (I dont even have Caldari Cruiser 5 for instance)

Tylenos: Good to know you struggled on cap. Be interested to hear others feedback

Laser: At the time I was thinking that we wouldn't outpace them anyway (5.5 AU vs 3 AU Warp speed) so was more focused on keeping us together until they stopped somewhere. You're probably right that I should just have had us make best speed gate to gate instead though

Caen! Your video doesn't work for me...I want to see!

[Vorphalak]

but don't overestimate Alpha Clone skills in addition to T1 fittings. I think we put out a lot less raw DPS than you expect

You're right, I didn't think about this. I hope your newbros still had fun and aren't discouraged by losing a fight like this. Keep at it folks, you'll beat us next time (maybe ).

[Breeze One]

Next time

Next time we'll bring EWAR and kill that Nidhogger too

[Barbara Blast]

So my takeaway from this is we need to get better at target switching. Both calling for it more frequently and executing it more sharply. Also remind people to get into their optimals. I know I spent quit some time in the Cookie fight shooting at a Kirin 10 km away without realizing.

[Budda Sereda]

I am asking really tough questions below, so first thing I would like to say: It was great to take a fight, practice and learn from that! It is much more harder than ganking and much more fun!

Good job Breeze and the rest of the fleet. The only thing I do believe you needed to do is to extract earlier: when you learned you are not breaking them... just extract. IMHO.

Kudos to all for having Jax's Huginn alive till the very end. Not sure how did you guys managed to do that

Reminding to enable Invulnerability Fields is wise, but it is not FCs fault when fleet does not do that.

Idea to bring ECM drones also looks nice But 3 Hobgoblins bring 50 DPS, which is 15%, not bad. And managing drone is not hard: just press 'F' key on primary.

Targets switching in a blaster fit... unless you really prepare well for this by asking people first to get in range and visually control this on the grid...

Ok, now I would like to bring few things that look very confusing to me:

1. Killing 1st logy (https://zkillboard.com/kill/62934869/).

From Pyfa, with all L5 skills, that Kirin has 15600EHP, around 70% resist profile. Kirin died from taking 5058 damage. With around 70% resist profile FULL damage taken was around 15k. Sounds like this Kirin got 0 reps?
Did not he broadcast for reps? Not sure how did he die from only 5k applied damage.

2. Killing other logies.

Again from Pyfa, Kirin can get 500EHP per seconds from another one. How many Logies did opponent have?

Fully trained Caldari Alpha pilot can project 327 DPS. Applied to a Kiring at 3km orbiting with 300m/s applied DPS is 220. After killing 1st Kirin fleet had yet around 10 cruisers - this gives 2200 DPS. if they had 5 logies in total you would not be able to break them, you should still be able to break logies (I assume not everybody was alpha pilots, and some people had T2 guns).
If they had 4 logies, your applied DPS would be around at least 1000 and Kirin should pop in 15 seconds, assuming all shoot him.

Is this really about focusing on primary? Was it travel time to come in range? Blaster fit ships need to do that...

This math does not count on boosters, is that such a big difference?

3. Catching reps.

Fully trained Alpha pilot moa, has around 70% resist and 35k EHP, needs around 11k of taken damage to die.

I see VERY FEW cruisers (https://zkillboard.com/kill/62934964/, https://zkillboard.com/kill/62934975/) who took more than 12k damage taken, many were essentially insta-poped (https://zkillboard.com/kill/62935010/, https://zkillboard.com/kill/62934860/, https://zkillboard.com/kill/62934811/, https://zkillboard.com/kill/62934951/, https://zkillboard.com/kill/62934960/, many many others).

Opponents did have around 10 T3Ds, + some small things. Thier total DPS was around 2500-3000 (assuming L5 skills and solid application). Killing 1 Moa takes... what, 10 seconds? Logies lock time should be less than that. Also assuming shield reps land in the beginning of the cycle, logies should be able to land reps on time.

Maybe this is combined with time delay broadcasting for reps? If pilot waits 3-5 seconds to broadcast, and logies need 5 seconds to land reps... pilot just dies...

Watching video from Captain Cean: with small exceptions they just pop many of us everybody... :(:(
Also from video I assume that Declin's Stork with prelocked by logies: he was holding reps really well.

I guess E-Uni should develop a strategy which considers this experience. Maybe really split logies into 2 groups and have each group to have a separate squad of DDs in a watch list?