This fleet started out as a leisurely Solitude roam with almost no content, then escalated suddenly and dramatically to a tri-campus collaboration to bust up a battleship gate camp in Ostingele. Thanks to Budda Sereda for the intel and to the many NSC and LSC pilots who joined us for great kills (;
Initial Fleet:
Spoiler
Calder Ormand - 1 Scout
Kirsid Tannaway - DRAEK ZOMG (and also Logi)
Mal Kard - Logi
Razer Thukkerkin - DD
Space Warfare Development - Keres
Syricco - DD
Wokum - DD/3IC
Yuri Levnik - FC
Spoiler
Jim Electron - DD
Jyo Cbip - Tackle
Lady Hestia - Moral Support
Marn Vermuldir - DD
Mongo the Mechanic - DD
Rheaha Preynar (aka Jaha Preynar) - DD
Rohan Amadeus - DD
(04:40:01Z) Anckee
Malediction -51.52m
Ishtar +412.03m
Right around this time Budda Sereda dropped into comms and informed us that there was a flashy gate camp in Ostingele consisting of Machariel/Ashimmu/Ashimmu/Falcon (probably). I took a poll of who wanted to fight and the result was a unanimous "LET'S GO GET 'EM ".
We joined comms with LSC and I left Arashi and Calder to move the fleet toward OST while I dropped into NSC comms to see who else wanted a piece of the action. We upshipped to a mixture of Caracals, Feroxes, a Nightmare, a bricked BNI, some inties, a bomber, a couple T3Ds and a three pilot logi wing. The reshipping was a little chaotic but we got sorted and got up to OST. Most of the fleet held in Harroule while we sent in the Nightmare, BNI and inties to get tackle. We lost a hero interceptor off the bat and found that the gate camp had rearranged to Celestis, Ashimmu, Hyperion, Hyperion, Falcon, Vexor and maybe one or two other ships. I managed to land the fleet promptly and called the Celestis primary with requests for the fleet to spread tackle. We popped the Celestis while the Vexor, Ashimmu, Falcon and one of the Hyperions bailed. We caught the other Hyperion! He tanked heroically but our logi wing kept us up and we eventually ran out his large AAR. As he was breaking his fellow Hyperion warped back in on us. Our tackle guys caught him well off the gate and webbed him dead still. We broke the first Hyperion and took the second Hyperion down in less than half the time. Any idea why the second was so much easier to break? The first Hyperion did have a 126MN large repper but I wonder if the second forgot to reload his AAR before engaging... In any case, a pair of big kills!
(05:22:48Z) Ostingele
Malediction -56.55m
Celestis +40.75m
Hyperion +886.11m
Hyperion +876.59m
The second Hyperion was in low armor when someone called "Thanatos on DScan". Sure enough, a Thanatos landed on us as we pushed the Hyperion into hull. I made a hard decision - I called for the fleet to finish the Hyperion and scatter. I would like to hear y'all's thoughts on this call. Given that we all extracted successfully and we were very, very ISK positive, I think it definitely wasn't a bad call. However, we had an opportunity to double our kills with a carrier fight and I chose to bail. What do y'all think? What would you have done? No offense taken if you call me chicken, I've been called worse (;
Regardless, the numbers speak for themselves:
ISK Destroyed: 2,215,473,978.21
ISK Lost: 108,064,356.88
ISK Delta: 2,107,409,621.33
Efficiency: 95.349%
What went well:
- -We flew well. Gate discipline was excellent and we did not tip our hand to the gate camp. They were all still on grid when we landed,
obviously surprised at our arrival (you can see gate guns on the first kill - they thought they were going to win).
-Space Warfare Development took one for the team and left his bomber in Gravity Well to fly the Solitude Campus Keres, which provided essential tackle on the Ishtar (secondary tackle by Kirsid's Draek!)
-We only had a modest logi complement but they delivered: we only had two losses, both of which were hero tackle (I think we were helped by the first Hyperion shooting either the BNI or the Nightmare which were both heavily tanked, interested to hear what happened).
-We upshipped to a very powerful mix and match comp to take on the gate camp. Worked out great.
-Fire discipline was excellent as we got guns on the Celestis and popped him rapidly.
-Tackle pilots got the Hyperion before he got out, excellent work spreading tackle y'all!
-I think my target calling was better for this fight. I was clearer and I broadcast primaries and secondaries. I called Celestis/Ashimmu (warped)/Vexor (warped)/Hyperion which I think was a decent set of calls (the Falcon was off grid). Interested to hear thoughts from others.
-There was a lot of excellent piloting involved in the fight with the gate camp. I mentioned specifics above, but I know I missed some excellent tricks by folks because I was in FC focus mode. If you did something cool and I missed it, great work anyway (;
-A couple of pilots who were relatively new to fleets were treated to an absolutely wild ride.
-I had fun!
- -We could have killed a carrier! I mean, we might also have lost a lot of folks in the process, but still, cap kill!
-We got off to a slow start.
Yuri
PS: Congrats to Razer who got *all four killing blows* on the fleet. Hang on to that Caracal (;