[AAR] Soli/NSC Longbows (Oct 17 23:00)

[Yuri Levnik]

Howdy all,
This fleet was a heap and a half of fun. We undocked from GW, had an uneventful trip up to PC9-AY and picked up a number of NSC friends. We rambled our way up to PF-346 and traded a Bifrost for a Raven on the way, then chased off a gate camp in PF-346. We came back to 6-CZ49, blapping some small stuff on the way, and caught Project Harvest anchoring their bubbles for a couple of kills. We made our way back to PC9, blapping another fleet's tackled on the way, and called it a night. Overall, the Cormorants were lots of fun and super trolly. We also have some truly excellent tackle to thank for our kills - hats off to our tacklers!

Roam members (21)

Spoiler

Anna Iwaira - DD, 2IC
Crimson Herring - DD, Scout
Derek Jalarr - Tackle
Etchard Yarghol - DD
Garm Zandor - Bait/Tackle
Hillybilly Hinken - DD
Imad Gratia - DD
Kive Dian - DD
Lanik Solette - DD
Mongo the Mechanic - DD
Omnicious Shardani - DD
Rohan Amadeus - DD
Saanguinee - Tackle/Boosts
Space Warfare Development - DD, Scout
Sturym - Interdictor
Thrane Moraius - DD
Tyler Arnoux - EWAR
Wokum - DD
Yuri Levnik - DD. FC
gaheris Anninen - DD
lswjnek Oxkold - DD

We undocked with a great overall comp. We had a good number of Cormorants, an interdictor, a Hyena, a command destroyer and a Maulus. We also had a bonus stealth bomber. We found a very unlucky Raven pilot (who had apparently been caught flying solo before) and bubbled the Raven as it came through the MHC-R3 gate. The pilot managed to MJD off but Saanguinee MJDFGed after and got tackle before the Raven could get out. It ended up being a hero tackle but we landed secondary tackle and got the kill with significant help from our sole bomber.
(23:59:32Z) MHC-R3
Bifrost -105.38m
Raven +260.28m
Capsule +0.01m

We went toward PF- looking for content. Our scout found a gate camp on the Orvolle gate but they had containers scattered around that decloaked him.
(00:10:43Z) PF-346
Manticore -64.16m

We made our way up to avenge him, catching a hapless Kestrel on the way.
(00:19:39Z) FD-MLJ
Kestrel +2.32m
Capsule +0.01m

The campers ran away, so we killed their bubble and their containers and headed back toward PC9-AY.
(00:29:27Z) PF-346
Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I +1.02m

A couple more hapless frigates jumped into us and got deleted. Cormorants are lovely for shooting frigates. Such interdiction!
(00:36:06Z) FD-MLJ, Poitot
Tristan +5.54m
Capsule +0.01m
Condor +19.09m
Capsule +0.01m

We were flying back to our "home" part of Syndicate based on intel that Project Harvest was anchoring their bubbles in 6-C. We waited for them to finish anchoring, and a hapless Uni Venture pilot who was trying to join our fleet jumped into system and got caught in a bubble. We took the opportunity to land our bait/tackle Procurer on the anchoring Hurricane and blapped 'em. Sturym landed a bubble on the Cane and we got a valuable pod kill too. A Jackdaw came in shortly thereafter and assumed his sniper mode was better than our 15+ T1 dessies. He was tragically wrong and got blown up. We killed all of the bubbles too.
(00:50:26Z) 6-CZ49
Hurricane +96.97m
Capsule +209.98m
Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I +1.02m
Jackdaw +86.97m
Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I +1.02m
Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I +1.02m
Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I +1.02m
Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I +1.02m
Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I +1.02m

We fooled around for a while and Project Harvest formed a response fleet. They brought battleships and landed all over the gate we were sitting off. We fought them, but our Cormorants were not going to break a battleship anytime soon and there was enough warping around that we were going to start losing people. Our brave bait/tackle pilot got caught and exploded as I warped us to the wrong gate, and a persistent bombing pilot managed to catch Crimson with his MWD on. Everyone warped off to figure out what was going on. We decided to move on and rage-murdered a couple of their faction drones that got left behind and then left system before we lost anyone else.
(01:26:27Z) 6-CZ49
Procurer -34.37m
Cormorant -13.01m
Capsule -0.01m

There was a small Moa fleet with a Flycatcher and some scouts in JH-. They moved into PC9 on our arrival, probably hoping that we would follow them. We chased around a Cynabal to no avail, but they eventually came back through to us. We snagged a tackle ship before they got away, running back home to wherever they came from. Also, Crimson hero scouted in his pod to confirm the gatecamp was still up (;
(01:40:20Z) PC9-AY, JH-M2W
Capsule -0.01m
Stiletto +44.23m

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 732,560,285.12
ISK Lost: 216,943,384.11
ISK Delta: 515,616,901.01
Efficiency: 77.152%

What went well:

• -We flew very well overall. We kept together and landed in the right spot most of the time (and most of the missed landings were my fault for wing warping to the wrong spot). Longbows are harder to fly than the usual brawling blob and we handled them well. Great work y'all.
  -From Saanguinee's great catch at the start of the fleet to Garm and Sturym's team catch on the Hurricane pilot, we saw some truly excellent tackle on this fleet. Great tackle means great kills. Very nice work y'all - the combination of Hyena, Interdictor, Command Destroyer and Procurer (yes, for realz) worked.
  -Great attendance meant lots of guns and lots of damage to get us shiny kills. I like the combined Soli/NSC crew.
  -I didn't get our interdictor killed.
  -We trolled PjH pretty hard in 6-C (;
  -Lots of kills, solid efficiency.
  -I had fun!

What could have gone better:

• -I got bogged down in tacs and warps in 6-C and put us out of place a couple times. Also, I didn't consistently call fleet location which was tough for the people who were not in the damage wing and weren't catching my wing warps.
  -I'm still learning how to use tackle properly in Nullsec. Today I was helped enormously by folks flying the right ships and flying them well. Hopefully next time I can take some credit for tackle (;
  -There were some points where I wasn't sure what to do. The fleet helped out with strategic advice, thanks y'all!

Overall, this was a very successful fleet! Lots of good kills, lots of trolling. Thanks to everyone who came out!
Yuri

[Kive Dian]

Good times. Good work by tacklers and scouts, as well. Effective FC'ing -- no criticisms there. It was nice small gang roam.

It was fun playing around with longbows -- hadn't ever tried a sniping destroyer before. Assuming we've got 20+ dd and good system hygiene, it'd be tempting to actually split up into two groups and stay 180 degrees off of each other; within sniping range, but also within jump range to each other -- I suspect orbiting would be more useful than aligning, at least until the fight is joined -- we were getting awful far from those gates at times, but we also didn't have any close danger since our scouts were doing very well.

A standing align order might come in handy -- there were a lot of times I ended up aligning to something that was different than what others were doing because we didn't have an order to align anywhere in particular. It didn't seem to be an issue one way or the other in practice, but I wonder if distance tanking fleets like this would benefit from a "in the absence of an align command, align to the place we just came from when we are aggressing at range".

At our number, though -- as long as we were able to isolate down to a very small number of targets, we were able to destroy pretty much anything that we could tackle and hold down. I'd probably try to add another tackle into the mix if possible -- but one dictor seemed pretty perfect. I need to bring more than 50 nanite repair paste next time -- even though there are plenty of places to dock up, we ran into enough big stuff that overheating guns wasn't unusual.

Last -- I might need to bring some long-range ECM next time I do a Longbow fleet. I don't think it's a priority until we get up to our number of Longbows, but I can imagine a lot of cases where that ups our game from dominating single combatants to dominating small gangs.

Anyways -- just brainstorming doctrine ideas a little bit -- none of those are actually criticisms. The fleet itself was solid. I enjoyed the opportunity to shake some of the rust off; it'd been awhile. Thanks for the pew pew!

[Crimson Herring]

Great fleet! Longbows are fun, probably tied with ISKalysts as my favorite DD doctrine.

I realize I probably should have at least fit a point before volunteering as scout; I originally thought that the interdictor would be our tackle.

[Sturym]

Hey hey, now... You mean my brand new crushable dictor? Yea... that thing would have folded faster than a wet paper bag...

Anyway - Fleet was great. The team functioned well, we good great kills, and I flew something I've never flown before, so hurrah for that.

I actually don't have a lot of constructive feedback as Yuri and I talked immediately afterwards and he put it all in his AAR. One thing I do like is it got us talking about options to open up a mixed fleet slightly... Having that Bomber was a HUGE help when it came down to it.

Until next time...

o7

[Yuri Levnik]

Kive, I like your thinking. I think regarding a standing align to, next time I will assign that duty to my second in command. I am a slow decision maker so I need to focus on the "big decisions" and someone else can easily call an align to for me so the fleet has a direction to point. I think that'll work nicely.

I think a big more tackle might be nice. Maybe a brave Keres or something. Will ponder. The Hyena was a huge help and the dictor was essential, despite my not calling it necessary when I set up the fleet...

I ran out of paste too (;

[Budda Sereda]

Wow, great stuff!!!

I'm surprised how did Raven kill a Bifrost? I guess no logies? and Bifrost came too close to not pull range on time?

One thing I do like is it got us talking about options to open up a mixed fleet slightly... Having that Bomber was a HUGE help when it came down to it.

How having a bomber was a huge help? Did you have issues breaking Raven's tank? SB did just 4 times more damage than average cormorant. Was Raven ever tried to primary a Manticore? His overview was clattered by 20 ships and he was busy shooting Bifrost, but I assume a bigger fleet could easily keep the single SB constantly cloaked.

Could you guys share more details? What did you agree in the end?

From one side, that bomber has solid DPS and alpha, can hide and surprise attack. From the other side has MUCH worse application: it will be ok against BSs and maybe BCs (with 2 paints and precision scripts). This is versatility vs specialization. Did SB presence make any crucial change in the game? I feel not in this particular case.

[Anna Iwaira]

having a small amount of bombers available in their own wing opens up opportunities otherwise not available to this particular fleet, as long as the amount of bombers is kept low - slightly hazy on details but i think yuri is gonna give it a shot regardless cause who cares if it doesn't work out well, at least it was tried :p

[Yuri Levnik]

We were not breaking the Raven's active tank until the torpedoes starting landing. As you can see from the killmail, Garm had 24% of the overall damage on the Raven kill. He was using Rage torpedos which probably gave him dps equal to six Longbows shooting iron charges. I'm not sure we would have gotten the kill without the bomber; we probably would have lost tackle before we ran out the Raven's capacitor batteries and drained his cap.

I think Saanguinee's issue was that he only had a scram on his Bifrost so he had to get within stasis grappler range to tackle. Once he was grappled, the Raven's drones and heavy missiles could apply better since his speed tank was severely compromised. He would have also had to burn in with his MWD since the Raven had an AB; the MWD signature bloom would have helped heavy missile application.

[Budda Sereda]

Yeah, that's why I dislike Longbows...

If you asked me I would advise to train into t2 frigates (it will take a few weeks) and roam solitude in brawly frigates (use few logies). I told they are not much better than t1, apparently they are just awesome

[Thrane Moraius]

Fun fleet, and good for learning disciplined flying in an unfamiliar style. Thanks!