[AAR] AUTZ NoP - Rusty Small Gang FC Slowly Remembers

[Breeze One]

We haven’t had a AUTZ NoP for a while so I thought I’d take one out while I have the time.

It’s worth pointing out that AUTZ actually has a lot of content out there! We just need more fleets (and numbers) to take advantage!

So, we only had four of us in fleet, so this became a small gang roam. I LOVE small gang stuff, its what I started doing, but it requires a mindset shift from FC’ing big fleets, and even though we came out of this ISK negative, I think a lot of that was me being super rusty with small gang tactics. We got much better as the roam went on, and I was super happy with our final kill

I had called for Armor Brawl Frigates to start with, hoping we might get 8-10 people with maybe a single Logi. When we got less I should have switched doctrine, but didn’t…

First fight – lot of Cruisers in Nennamaila. A Rupture was alone outside a Small, so I warped at range to have a look. Ended up landing right on top of him! I called for the others to warp to me, but failed to say “at range” and I got blapped while everyone was 100km away. Turns out the Rupture had friends as well, who landed on the others as they tried to escape. Welp.

Enyo -36.85m
Merlin -14.08m
Merlin -6.34m

I have a ton of Hyperkittens in Ichoriya so I handed them out to those who had died, and we set off again. We found a Scythe Fleet Issue outside a plex, and I decided to go for it (bad decision in retrospect, SFIs are Frigate killers, and I was too rusty to even check his fit first). He had a standard shield booster fit, and we couldn’t break his reps. I tried to hang in to outlast his cap boosters, but after he killed two of us we bailed back to Ichoriya again!

Tristan -6.55m
Enyo -35.02m

With all of us now in Hyperkittens (I don’t like them in a fleet but as a small gang they’re great!) we caught a Comet outside a plex and got our first kill.

Then we slid into a Harpy in a small, who was setting up a cloaked Griffin trap. We killed the Harpy, and I drove off the Griffin with drones, as a Astero slid into join us mid-fight. The Hawk had killed one of us before we took him down, and the Astero caught another in scram range as he landed, and the remaining two of us couldn’t break his dual rep fit before his drones ate us alive (given we had already taken damage from the Hawk). Welp, but, welp with kills!

Federation Navy Comet +27.87m
Capsule +0.01m
Tristan -17.44m
Harpy +46.19m
Tristan -6.55m
Tristan -5.04m
Tristan -6.51m

Now the best kill of the roam. An Omen was hanging around outside a plex. I warped in, slid the gate and bounced, noting that he was sat quite close (10-20km) to the gate. I checked the pilot, noted he wasn't particularly experienced at PvP, so we took a risk. I bounced back, spiralled in and got point while the others joined me. I gambled on him not having a scram (correct) and that our speed would mitigate most of his DPS on a close orbit. Turns out he was beam fit, so I was more right than I knew!

Good kill, and this time we did it through tactics and good piloting which was great. Took us a while to warm up, but this is exactly the kind of action a small gang like ours should be taking

Omen +31.12m
Capsule +0.01m

So lessons:

* If you’re a small gang, go small gang fits, don’t stick with your previous idea
* Small gang depends a lot on individual piloting skill. Giving a briefing on how to fly independently in a certain fit and fight is very helpful to maximise your gang’s effectiveness (and also helps refresh the FC's memory given its been a while since he tested his Solo skills...)
* Treat it like solo PvP, and use Z-Kill to research your opponents in depth beofre you take fights. Dont do like the big fleets and just dive in, pick your fights very, very carefully
* Acting as combined FC, Scout and trying to manual pilot a kiting ship is a fun change of pace from big fleets. It’s going back to what I started doing in PvP and really what I love about PvP in this game, and I’m excited we’re going to be doing more small gang stuff now with Small Gang Tuesdays!

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 105,207,901.74
ISK Lost: 134,393,068.51
ISK Delta: -29,185,166.77
Efficiency: 43.91%

So close to ISK positive...

[Glasi Vookto]

I’m excited we’re going to be doing more small gang stuff now with Small Gang Tuesdays!

What? Hype hype, anything I should know about?

[Xana McBash]

worth pointing out that AUTZ actually has a lot of content out there! We just need more fleets (and numbers) to take advantage!

Yup, I'm always surprised at the amount of fights to be found during that timezone.

I used to fly with Rezda's NoP fleets, as far as I remember, we were always able to find good fights. I even got the chance to fly with INIT guys in fleet, before they moved away from Syndicate.

FC'ing small gang stuff is a biiiiiig challenge, specially with these low numbers, even a single additional merlin on your dscan implies you have to go through the decision making process again, because the fight outcome might be entirely different.
And you are expected to go through all that thought process balancing on a razor's edge, verbally explain it to the fleet, and still be able to individually fly your ship.
This small gang stuff is one of the hardest things to accomplish as an FC (off the top of my head, I can only recall 2 people in the whole uni that truly excel at it), more often than not, people just treat like they would any larger fleet, complete with +1 scout/tackle and a vanguard.

Kudos to you Breeze, for taking out this fleet, I'm sure our AU timezone bros appreciate the attention :p

[Tiberius Auduin]

I’m excited we’re going to be doing more small gang stuff now with Small Gang Tuesdays!

What? Hype hype, anything I should know about?

Well, Tuesdays seemed empty and I'm a suc..a fan of traditions. Took out a SG Kitey fleet out yesterday, didn't went well Xana summarises SG FC'ing well. Glasi, do you wanna guest FC your child someday?

Also, too bad I had to bail due to RL jamming me, missed that nice Tengu.

[Glasi Vookto]

I’m excited we’re going to be doing more small gang stuff now with Small Gang Tuesdays!

What? Hype hype, anything I should know about?

Well, Tuesdays seemed empty and I'm a suc..a fan of traditions. Took out a SG Kitey fleet out yesterday, didn't went well Xana summarises SG FC'ing well. Glasi, do you wanna guest FC your child someday?

Also, too bad I had to bail due to RL jamming me, missed that nice Tengu.

Looking forward to reading the AAR for it
It's great to see that the SGT hasn't been completely forgotten, would be great if you guys would revive it. I've been pretty busy with other projects recently, but it'd be up for FCing a good old SGT gang some day.