Usually, I'm trying to be modest, but today I can say with confidence and essentially repeat what many pilots told during the fleet:
It was a blast! Just a few reasons why I believe it was a very successful one:
- we came back to Stackmon in almost the same squad as we left (compare pilots from the 1st and the last kills)
- in just 11 of pilots we killed as many ships as we get in 50 men Spectre Fleet
Separately I want to mention the pilots skills: I rarely needed to explain the plan more than once, and it always worked perfectly. Good job guys, it was pleasure to fly with you!
Today, in order to reduce the amount of time I'm spending writing AAR, and because that was just TOO many events, I'm going to describe the most educational part of the fleet.
To make the report more complete, and also because of the nature of the fleet, I'm asking all participants: please do post what new did you learn during the fleet!.
We formed up with 2 logies, 1 EWar (Crucifier), 3 interceptors (1 pure scout/tackle, 2 DD), and 3 Comets, 2 Enyos, and 1 Catalyst. I started fleet in a Catalyst as my Enyo was sitting in Nennamaila and I was going to reship once we reach it. I lost my Catalyst just 2 jumps before Nen few guys joined/left us as we went through the fleet.
Spoiler
Arashi Shizukana
Arrek Lemmont
Breenie Shi
Budda Sereda
Gerrath Sabrinn
Jyo Cbip
Luca Goh
Lucius Septimus Severus
Redpoint Lu'Varro
Rider Isleman
Tsuwen Sun
Tyler Arnoux
Yuri Levnik
Z0X Ambrye
(02:20:27Z) Ostingele
Procurer +40.96m
(02:47:46Z) Vlillirier
Hurricane +107.35m
Catalyst -10.71m
(03:09:50Z) Nennamaila
Enyo -35.24m
(03:15:42Z) Akidagi
Maller +40.59m
Capsule +0.74m
Vexor +41.56m
(03:33:46Z) Oinasiken
Malediction -43.04m
Hawk +162.3m
(03:39:24Z) Nisuwa
Venture +0.31m
(03:48:56Z) Tama
Vexor +12.28m
Federation Navy Comet -32.14m
Capsule +0.01m
Capsule -0.01m
(04:04:40Z) Tama, Kedama, Uphallant
Federation Navy Comet +26.12m
Punisher +0.63m - this Punisher warped away from Zox, but 5-10 minutes later I got him in the same plex
Incursus +2.96m
Vexor +12.29m
Capsule +0.01m
(04:25:15Z) Rakapas
Federation Navy Comet +26.58m
Capsule +0.01m
(04:31:38Z) Pynekastoh
Cormorant +8.69m
(04:39:11Z) Nennamaila, Hikkoken
Federation Navy Comet -21.3m
Venture +0.39m
(04:47:00Z) Aldranette, Vlillirier
Corax +10.1m
Taranis -41.7m
Coercer +15.58m
(04:59:06Z) Moclinamaud
Malediction -42.95m
(05:06:11Z) Agoze
Nightmare +779.27m
Taranis -35.72m
Enyo -62.05m
Enyo -38.63m
Tristan -11.83m
Brutix Navy Issue +298.04m
Stats
ISK Destroyed: 1,586,745,853.12
ISK Lost: 375,322,518.64
ISK Delta: 1,211,423,334.48
Efficiency: 80.871%
Interesting observations
1. We only lost T2 frigates fighting 2 BNIs (with total OH DPS at 1600), during regular engagements they appeared quite tanky and unkillable together with logies.
2. Deacon and Thalia can easily keep alive an armor fit Enyo under gate guns (+Corax).
Lessons learned
1. If the number of pilots in a "Crazy 8's" format exceeds 8, comms often get messy. The start was especially hard, but I feel as it went through we did figure out how to run it successfully.
2. I believe what made it work well is that only a few pilots were playing a role of scouts/tackles and this reduced amount of comms to a reasonable level.
3. Expectedly, new and not very experienced pilots were lost quite a few times during fleet. Though Kudos to all newcomers and especially Redpoint Lu'Varro - he clearly was lost in the beginning and with very little support was able to figure out what to do and helped all of us to stay alive.
4. Be aware of the amount of your DPS: tackling BS (Hyperion) on the gate has little chance to succeed unless you can push him off the gate. Luckily, we only lost 1 Catalyst. Consider having a CD with MJFG for the fleet.
5. Align-out BEFORE engaging at the station or the gate, especially, if there are no logies nearby.
6. Be persistent and don't afraid to 3rd party: you can get juicy killmails and loot.
I will comment a bit more regarding the last item.
Nightmare and BNI.
We were already coming back home in almost a full squad trying to pick targets on the way back. Arashi was probably the quickest (or the most tired?) and was in Agoze while I was in Vlillirier repairing damage from the recent engagement while he called "Nightmare on D-scan", I was very skeptikal we can take it. In few minutes Arashi called: "let's upship", I thought: why not? and got the fleet together in Vey on Agoze gate... while we were slowly moving ( it was already 3 hours in active fighting ) Arashi reshipped and ... reported:
- 3 BNIs on D-scan as well
- they all are in the Warzone Complex.
I asked to get eyes and see if they are fighting or not, it appeared they were, so I called to jump and warp. My first intention was 3rd party, get on killmail, and run away before we lose something.
Those guys appeared 110 km from the beacon... Somebody asked if they are aligned towards something, and it appeared they were: I called "warp to the station and after - to the Warzone at 100km".
Together with Yuri, we slowboated (2000m/s are very slow if you need to go through the 100km)... and barely scratched that Nightmare to appear on the killmail. Luckily for us he killed 1 BNI, I locked 2 others and 1 of them was 15% in armor.... at this right moment the rest of the fleet landed so I called the wounded BNI as primary, a point on the 2nd one... and losing only Yuri and myself we get that BNI down.
Unfortunately, some guys needed to bounce and we did not have scram so the last one MJD-ed from the grid. Anyway, 2 juicy kills and around 200M loot from just this engagement. Which will provide extended SRP for the next "Crazy 8's" fleet (which will go into nul-sec). Thanks Arashi for being persistent!
Many thanks to all!
P.S. Please do share your feedback: https://goo.gl/forms/W6OTiwPMD2Lu1lmL2