[AAR]Sunday Afternoon Assault Frigates - Battleship Blapping

[Breeze One]

I'm not going to write a huge amount about this one, because in general it was a hunt and gank kind of fleet - there was only even one fight where I had to choose from multiple targets. Otherwise, we mostly just tackled and killed!

So, I was bored and called out for Armor Assault Frigates for a Sunday Afternoon. I wasn't sure how many we'd get considering the timing, and the beauty of Assault Frigates is that even with small numbers we can take out pretty hefty targets. Numbers varied through the roam as people dropped in and out, but usual core was around 15 people - most in Assault Frigates, with a couple of T2 Logi, and a Combat Prober

We were without Fast Tackle for a large part of the fleet, but V0X did a great job scouting in his Punisher, and Tiberius in his Combat Probing Hecate. Thanks guys! Thanks to Decklin for bringing his ceptor later on as well.

Timing was just after downtime, and it was super slow to start with, we just got the odd destroyer, and ran away from a gang of fast kiting cruisers after we unfortunately missed the warp in on one of them. We encountered several Recon traps, but they managed to escape our Vanguard each time via Neuts. I could have sent more tackle, but meh, I was worried we'd scare them off. We lost no-one to the traps, but Decklin sadly got blapped by a Cormorant before we landed.

Thrasher +13.59m
Malediction -48.76m
Cormorant +14.45m
Algos +26.36m

Eventually we found a Rupture, Maller and Augoror in a Medium and scouts got a great tackle. We landed and snatched the Maller/Rupture, but Augoror escaped (for now...)

Rupture +55.49m
Maller +30.15m

Then came the Battleships...first a Dominix jumped gate into us

Dominix +287.59m

Then, we started noticing a Pen Is Out Battleship gang moving around. Megathron, Scorpion, Vagabond, and a Curse and very skittish and cloaky Loki (we never even got a lock on him sadly) who MAY have been with them, but not sure as didn't catch corp names. A Wolf (probably their scout) aggressed scouts on a gate and we took him out (including his Snaked pod!). But the rest of the gang tethered up while we did so, and so we moved on thinking we'd missed our shot

Wolf +32.45m
Capsule +1472.94m

Heading home happy with our Battleship kill, we were waiting on a gate for news of a Raven in the next system, when he warped to our gate and jumped straight into us. Whats that? TWO Battleships!?

Raven +214.61m

We turned around at this point (I cant remember why?) and found that the Pen Is Out Battleships were undocked and moving. We missed their Megathron, Vagabond, and what may have been the Loki with them, but we caught their straggling Scorpion. A THIRD BATTLESHIP!?

Scorpion +203.5m

They tethered up on a Citadel in Akidagi, so we sat nearby and waited. When they left D-Scan, we raced them to the Nenn gate, and jumped though and finally caught that Megathron I'd been after. FOUR BATTLESHIPS! FULL HOUSE!

Megathron +252.87m

Heading home AGAIN (honest) we discovered that the Rupture/Maller/Augoror gang had reshipped and were active again. The Augoror jumped stright into us, but was able to warn his friends and they diverted course before joining their unfortunate friend. We got the full gang overall though
Augoror +34.42m

In Ostingele (so...close....to....home) a Orthrus warped to our gate at a ping. Decklin burned at him for tackle...and....he didnt move!? Well, I'm not going to say no to that...so we killed him

Orthrus +535.68m

At this point, I was getting kinda overconfident. A Machariel was in system tethered up. He warped to the outside of a plex, and thinking we had him spooked, I had us follow him. He was at range and kiting away, but we had a "slight" speed advantage, so I gave chase. Unfortunately this was that rare beast - a solo-fit Machariel and he knew what he was doing. He neuted out and blapped our tackle and, as it became obvious we were just feeding him, I (very belatedly) called to disengage and go home. Shame to end like that, but hey! 3bn ISK+ killed, and 4 Battleships on a lazy Sunday afternoon roaming!

Malediction -49.78m
Hecate -134.82m
Griffin -1m
Enyo -40.67m


Stats
ISK Destroyed: 3,299,856,709.05
ISK Lost: 275,031,788.55
ISK Delta: 3,024,824,920.5
Efficiency: 92.307%

Spoiler

Roam members (26) - NOTE: This section is NOT usually included in AARs.
Altar Kabal
Anoop Knight
B'aldrick Aivoras
Beluan
Breeze One
Burak Oz
Calaheim Koraka
Coaxster
D'ameni Holmes
Decklin Quark Reiger
Eddie Dante
Laser Skaron
Lothar Nugola
Maximus Hert
Oh' Leeador
Padme Katana
Ronnie Wellings
Seerah Lindrake
Sone Eto
Space Warfare Development
Tiberius Auduin
Wokum
Xana McBash
Z0X Ambrye
Zana Fehrnah
ashahara

[Laser Skaron]

Hmm, I believe we lost 2 Enyos on that chase. May need a refresh later :).

[B'aldrick Aivoras]

Looks like you guys had fun after I dc'd! Stand out kill for me is the Orthrus - look forward to hearing about it! o7


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[Decklin Quark Reiger]

Looks like you guys had fun after I dc'd! Stand out kill for me is the Orthrus - look forward to hearing about it! o7

The Orthrus was sitting at a gate tactical about 300 km above our in-gate. He wasn't flashy, but was out of range from where gate guns would react, and was also far enough that the fleet could warp to me if I caught him.

I asked permission to see if I could catch him. When Breeze said yes, I burned about half way there with no heat, looking to see if he would react - but not much response in terms of movement.

I then heated my MWD and burned straight at him ( missiles don't care about angular velocity). I had my point and scram pre-heated, got point, called it, and at that moment the Orthrus also locked me. I managed to get into scram range, hit ctrl-space, broadcast for reps as our fleet was warping up, heated my ancillary repairer, and just spammed approach, then I turned off heat on my mid slots, and was very glad to see logi catch me in half structure, while my repper ran out of paste.

He continued firing on me but logi had me no problem, and he couldn't escape.

Sadly, I tried a similar thing shortly afterwards with the Machariel, but he neuted me out, webbed me and started hitting me with polarised 800mm autocannons.

I didn't last long, and the fleet couldn't warp directly to me in dead space.

[Xana McBash]

"I ain't never going home"

I'm glad the roam was so eventful, you postponing the fleet's return gave me the chance to get in a couple of kills with my bomber, even though I logged in late.

Shame about that machariel toward the end. I'm guessing we needed some range damps, or additional tackle to hold it down.

[Altar Kabal]

I was flying EWAR for the second fleet in a row since I actually managed to bring a griffin back from the last fleet. Most of it went well. I got jams on pretty much everything we fought except the Scorpion with enough range not to be targetted.

The final engagement with the Machariel went badly for me. Firstly I was trying to get jams on him to help with keeping our ships trying to tackle him alive. Nothing doing outside of optimals (52km) and closing the gap beyond 54km had him yellow boxing me so I aligned back to the main fleet and tried to pull range again. Poor capacitor management on my part meant I had to turn off the MWD and I was still in range when he finished our tackle and killed me.

Lessons - keep a much better eye on capacitor and don't go chasing. Don't try too hard to stay on the field - aligning out and warping off rather than trying to move away would have saved my ship.

[Tiberius Auduin]

Very Fun fleet, had a blast with photoreconnaisance =P Was my first time combatprobing in a fleet in more than two years, was too slow, missed targets. Nothing practice can't help.
Last engagement: meh, didn't spiral, ate EMP. Too bad for shiney point we looted off the Orthrus.