AAR: BLAP Caracools - There was Hel to pay

[Breeze One]

This was a fun little roam for a Saturday afternoon!

Decided to take out the Caracals for a proper roam this time. Got a good small fleet up of around 11 Caracals, 3 Logi, 1 Scout and one newbro in a Tristan. That's a good breakdown I feel for a fleet that size. Hyenas etc are nice, but in a group this small I felt it was probably wasted versus having more DD

FC: Breeze One
2IC: Donkeypunch
Scout: Altar (and then also Aisar later)
Logi: Brookie Achasse, DonBasuno Ichosira, Sophia Canarius

We had a couple attempts at a kill in Dastryns, with a Proteus, and later a Mymidon, but both fights were on gates, and they were able to play gate games then pull range when we had no scrams/webs, and warp off. We didn't lose anyone, and we did well having the fleet split between the gate, using one Caracal to force the Proteus into the rest of us for instance, but the lack of real tackle worked against us here. It's here that the Hyena's long webs would have been useful, but as I mentioned, it didn't feel like a good use of numbers at the time

Rest of the trip up Blackrise was uneventful, until we found this big gang of Smile & Wave flying Faction Cruisers upwards, including a Vargur, and several fast tackle Ceptors, and one random Coercer in a large in Kinakka. It wasn't a fight we could take outright, but I decided to go in for the skirmish. We played hit and run with them - warping in at range, aligning out, and seeing what we could blap. They were smart though. The Ceptors kept trying their luck but would immediately slide back out of range when we fired on them. The same with the Orthrus and Gila, who backed off as soon as we started landing hits, while they tried to manoeuvre their heavier tackle ships into position

We did blap the Coercer who got too close and wasn't agile enough to pull the same trick as the Interceptors

We tried hit and run tactics several times, warping out and back again from various angles, but weren't able to get them to commit, and they were getting wise to the tactics, and bouncing the Vargur out and in from the same pings, and between the Vargur and the Orthrus they picked a few of us off when I was slow to warp out. Not a successful engagement overall, but a really fun one, and I feel we used the Caracals as they should be used - hit and run skirmishing, trying to hit the smaller fragile targets. We almost had the Ceptors a couple of times, but no luck.

(16:14:19) Kinakka
Caracal -13.4m
Coercer +9.43m
Condor -5.95m
Osprey -9.91m
Osprey -9.31m
Caracal -28.64m
Caracal -33m

We reshipped in Ichoriya which was conveniently nearby, and then set off again. Plenty of stuff in space, but none wanted to engage us, until we caught 2 Vexors fighting a small frigate gang. I sent two vanguard Caracals with the scouts, and we managed to hold tackle until the fleet landed. Logi did a great job saving Vanguard and we landed two nice kills! Great job all round guys!

(16:52:22) Hikkoken
Vexor +30.87m
Vexor +28.9m

In Pynekastoh we chased a bunch of targets around. A small Cruiser gang of Thoraxes with an Exeq and Celestis support, a Hurricane, and, then, out of nowhere, a Hel supercarrier. We were joking about how if the Cruiser gang didn't come back to fight us we would go harrass the Hel's fighters, when...he warped into the Asteroid belt we were at!

He caught out Moroz who was sat away from the main fleet which was anchored on me, then he sent his (T2) fighters after us. We simply kited away, Logi easily tanked the incoming DPS, while we blapped a fighter squadron. Once he saw what we were doing, he then warped out before we could kill the others.

Great job guys! We successfully harrassed a Supercarrier!

(17:08:24) Pynekastoh
Caracal -13.54m
Termite II +28.47m

In Hikkoken we chased a frigate gang around for a bit and caught their Griffin, then chased an annoying MJD Cyclone around until he warped to the sun with his MJD on cooldown and scouts landed a great tackle. We mined that salt hard.

They then undocked a Hyperion and Armageddon, which I was super eager to try my luck with, but they seemed weirdly skittish, and we could never pin them down or draw them into a fight sadly.

(17:23:04) Hikkoken
Griffin +0.95m
Cyclone +64.72m

Moving home, we were hanging out in a large in Vli waiting for intel when a large Jackdaw fleet entered system. I had us aligned out, and was trying to kill their Interceptor, but just like before with Smile & Wave, the ceptor was able to just ghost out of range before the killing blow. I made the mistake of sticking around 1 second too long trying to nail the last hit on the Stiletto, as their fleet landed, and they managed to catch one Osprey as we warped out.

(17:58:09) Vlillirier
Osprey -16.27m

Overall, I thought that was really fun! We had some fun engagements using the Caracals hit and run tactics, and I think overall we pulled it off quite nicely. Good fun roam guys! Thank you for coming out!

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 163,341,366.44
ISK Lost: 130,003,876.12
ISK Delta: 33,337,490.32
Efficiency: 55.682%

Spoiler

Roam members (18) - NOTE: This section is NOT usually included in AARs.
Aisair
Altar Kabal
Arashi Shizukana
Breeze One
Brookie Achasse
DonBasuno Ichosira
DonkeyPunch Udan
Eddie Dante
Kirsi Isrik
Kontxesi Buchanan
Moroz Enderas
Questlove
Trillian Ituin
Vors Voorhorian
Wokum
Zivoca Prometheus

[Aisair]

That was an awesome fleet. It certainly was a big learning experience for me who's not used to flying cruisers (thus my aptly named Caraclueless). I think I'll stick to more scouting roles in the future as I had way more fun in that Condor.

We tried hit and run tactics several times, warping out and back again from various angles, but weren't able to get them to commit, and they were getting wise to the tactics, and bouncing the Vargur out and in from the same pings, and between the Vargur and the Orthrus they picked a few of us off when I was slow to warp out.

I lost my Caraclueless in this engagement because I didn't see that the fleet had left me behind. I heard the order to pulse prop mods but didnt notice that the fleet was way ahead of me by that time. Obviously the Orthrus pointed me and I got blapped. However I was able to Pod Saver out of there (and good thing too -- forgot that my clone had a full set of Genos installed) and reship with the fleet at Ichoriya.

Once reshipped into a Condor, I was somewhat back in my element and had way more fun scouting out the space lanes for the fleet.

chased an annoying MJD Cyclone around until he warped to the sun with his MJD on cooldown and scouts landed a great tackle. We mined that salt hard.

That was a superbly executed kill. We warped to sun as ordered and landed right on top of the guy. Once we got point I noticed he was redboxing me and I was committed to going home in a pod, but then I got repped. Awesome timing, cavalry. And yes... that guy was salty. Sea salt levels of salty.

Scouting the fleet home was also very interesting. We were lucky to have evaded that battleship group on the way (jumped into a system with 12-14 big battleships all flashy and angry). Extremely lucky as they cross jumped with the rest of the fleet. Then I heard mention of an Erebus... which definitely led to my Pod fluid being a bit more saline than usual ;P.

So coming home was fun... and I will always remember this fleet as the one where "I left in a Caracal, came back in a Condor"

:LOL:

[Sophia Canarius]

That roam was so fun and a good learning experience for me.

The brief lecture before we undock was helpful, learnt to set fleet broadcast properly and how to make use of broadcast history window.

We tried hit and run tactics several times, warping out and back again from various angles, but weren't able to get them to commit, and they were getting wise to the tactics, and bouncing the Vargur out and in from the same pings, and between the Vargur and the Orthrus they picked a few of us off when I was slow to warp out.

That battle was exciting, I practiced overheating and how to keep a safe range from the enemy so not to get caught. The first few engagements were successful in my opinion. But later I made a mistake that I forgot to put my heat burnt out MWD online when we get repaired in that citadel. So in the following fight I was unable to get away from enemy tackle and neut. Which lead to logi cap chain and repair chain fail.

I made the mistake of sticking around 1 second too long trying to nail the last hit on the Stiletto, as their fleet landed, and they managed to catch one Osprey as we warped out.

It was not your bad Breeze. I didn't anchored closely enough with the main fleet and must appeared as easy prey to their interceptor. You launched fleet warp in time, but my navigation skills were low so my Osprey takes a longer time to initial warp.

I really like it that you gave us time to align to new destination and fleet warp every time. Every one in the fleet can land on grid together.

Enjoyed the roam very much!