[AAR] First Response Fleet NSC 2017.7.7 21:00

[K950]

Beginnings

A small group of folks from Sons of Bane stopped by PC9 at about 20:30 and went poking around looking for an engagement. Having heard of their forces consisting of a Thorax, a Vexor, a Blackbird, Caracal, Malediction, and (later) a Pontifex.

This is something we felt we could engage. Not the usual type of stuff we get where just roll eyes and stay docked or skirmish with a bit and then someone drops a cyno.

Our Formup
To counter this Mongo was the first one to X up with a Vexor, armor tanked. Based on that I felt armor would suffice and so people selected armor ships. Hurricane for me, Dominic in a Prophecy, A Myrmidon, someone else brought a Confessor, a Crow tagged along, and someone else brought something which lapses me.

We initiated our warps to JH- and the race was on.

They seemed interested in fighting outside PC9 and JH- which fascinated me.

The Plan
My plan was to skirmish in JH- where reinforcements were possible and people wouldn't be too far out from their comfort zone. I got reports that once we warped as a whole to JH- they had just gone off to M2-. I don't want to be baited that far so that's why I chose to stay in JH-. In case they were actually looking for a good fight I warped us to Planet IV in JH-, had our Crow pilot burn us a quick perch off the landing spot for Planet IV, then we bounced to his position, and waited. If they wanted to fight us, they could see us, we could see them (Planet IV is within dscan range of M2- gate) and it was their move.

Some minutes passed before I concurred with Mongo's suggestion that we fight them on that gate. What else was going to happen anyways?

The Plan Goes Wrong
There was a neutral Arazu was poking around. The first thing that came to mind with the Arazu was a Covert Cyno Drop. May as well get practice with the alternatives before the T3 adjustments? Perhaps because it's not quite as scarey as the cyno Proteus with the FEP subsystem? Either way I assumed it was a cyno.

We warped to the gate and initiated aggression on the SoB Blackbird. He jumps immediately, followed by his mates. The Arazu shows up immediately thereafter: he's just off the gate, so ... pleh, let's go for it. I call him primary and -- cyno goes up. Ships start showing up on grid. Heat is called as soon as the cyno goes up: he's in half armor before his bomber friends come in. Mongo is tackled of course, so he can't do anything other than try to burn down the Arazu to at least avenge himself. Overheated 425mm Autocannons on my vessel apply some damage along with the Myrmidon's drones stacked with the Prophecy's Heavy Assault Missiles. He dies.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63365667/ +211M

When the cyno went up, I felt I kind of lost understanding of the situation and what to do. Cynos make me want to scatter like ants before a blowtorch. I had my Microwarpdrive overheated to burn away from the bombers, as I was pointed, tried to align out to a distant deep safe, but went POP before I could complete the align.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63365682/ -72M

Mongo, having been tackled throughly, was next.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63365696/ -25M

When the Arazu died, I quickly called for damage on a random Stratios (I'm not used to being dropped on, you see) and turns out...

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63365709/ 0 252M

The Sons of Bane were probably not affiliated with the hot drop group. We'll take partial credit since Mongo did quite a bit of damage on him. Good on him.

We scattered, reformed into something along the lines of an armor fleet once more. QRFs are always tricky because you can't count on anybody having doctrine stuff ready to go immediately: MWD caracals, AB armor brawlers, stuff like that. But we reformed into sorts and wanted to shoo these SoB guys elsewhere. But they had a plan for us.

Phase 2
This time I was sure there was something going on in M2- and I wanted to have no part of it. But I still wanted to blap a few of them before we could walk away.

They sat on the M2- gate. Our scout in the Crow checks out ZVN and EZA, reports nothing. Soooo we just sat there waiting to see what they would do next. Scouting is hard.

Turns out that he was tackled in part by the Malediction that the Sons of Bane had. I wasn't clear on what situation he was actually in -- so I held us on the gate. Then I found that he's tackled and about to die. So I order us to jump in, align to our comrade, and prepare to warp. He goes POP right there. I warp next to the Malediction, get neuts, scram and web on it, and prepare for a brawl.

I wasn't paying attention because #solopilotbehavior engages as I look at beating up the Malediction. Someone shouts out something I thought I heard, but didn't, look on my overview -- Hey that's a Thanatos! I think that's our sign to bail once again. I call scatter, barely make it out myself, but we lost more.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63366209/ - 33M
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63366246/ - 93M

We also lost a blue Harbinger after the scatter, when he was caught outside PC9 on the JH- gate.

The Numbers
Kill: 1.5
Loss: 4.5

Total: -12M Depends how you count the Stratios. I'm not much of a numbers/killboard guy. Mongo reported that the Stratios was in structure when his Vexor popped.

What was Good
Once we formed up, we were fairly responsive and aggressive
We got someone
We didn't loose everybody

What was Not Good
The Thanatos drop wasn't fun, but what can you do
I should have been better at recognizing when the Cyno went up and the Thanatos came on grid: I was too focused on my >SCRAM< on the Malediction
I could have gotten out my Hurricane if I wasn't a klutz and aligned to something first