[AAR] Lowsec Fisticuffs "Cooking with Kontxesi" 19NOV

[Kontxesi Buchanan]

Date: 19 NOV 2017
Form-up time: 01:00
Departure time: 01:29
Return time: 03:39
Duration: 2h10m

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Roam members (20)

Spoiler

Bill Achasse (logi)
Calder Ormand (scout)
GaleBread
Gemma Solett (vanguard)
Harai Rex (scout)
Jax Renalard
Jim Electron (vanguard)
Jyo Cbip (EWAR)
Kontxesi Buchanan (FC)
Mike North (vanguard)
Rider Isleman
Rohan Amadeus
Scratchoz
Sone Eto
Space Warfare Development (cloaky eyes)
Spocknroll (first fleet!)
Trevor Grambling (logi)
Tsuwen Sun (logi)
Wokum
Zako Maken

☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠

Before we were all the way set up, a Rupture was reported in Dastryns. I usually don't like to run out half-dressed after stuff like that, but we gave it a shot. We either botched our point relay or he was stabbed, and he warped off right after our first tackle did. So we shuffled back to Uph to actually assign roles and set up watch lists.

Once we are actually ready, Harai said that the Rupture was back at the medium in Dastryns. I sent this vanguard in this time, to try to avoid what happened earlier. While the rest of us waited in Uphallant, a Machariel landed about 60 off of us. Right before we jumped, he managed to alpha one of us. D:

Punisher -10.42m

Right as Zako found himself in his pod, our vanguard was getting tackle on that Rupture. The scout went down, but we avenged him.

Atron -7.63m
Rupture +46.65m

The Machariel was still in Uphallant, bouncing back and forth between the Dastryns and Iges gates. When Space reported that he was sitting at zero on Dastryns, I decided to pounce and see if we could make him sad about picking off Zako. However, he warped off as we decloaked, so we moved on.

"Check check, I have a sun on D."

"Calder, are you Pea Brain?" "You don't just say that."

"Txesi, do you beat these guys or something on your fleets?" "Please make her stop. Take us away."

"Whose ship is named 'Kontxesi plex hauler'?"

We had a lot of almost-fights with some little stuff, but nothing we could actually fight. Once we got tired of chasing things around Nennamalia, I decided to take a stroll to Tama. In Hikkoken, we tried to get in on a fight involving a bunch of Corms and a Bifrost and stuff, but they were all at range outside of a plex. If we'd had more than one ship with damps, I would have tried burning out to them.

"Is there something fun at the small?" "There will be once we get there."

Svipul, Kestrel, and Osprey Navy Issue at the Nourvikaken gate in Tama. As soon as we spiked system from Kedama, they aligned out and bounced. Grrrr scary Uni Punisher blob! We couldn't just leave the gate uncamped, so we took our turn.

We didn't have to wait long before a Nighthawk jumped in. We started plinking away at him, and then he redboxed Harai. While he was stuck on our side of the gate, we burned him down. Our logi skillfully held us up to gate guns.

Nighthawk +393.26m

There was a Sleipnir hanging out at the gate shortly after. We yellow-boxed and leisurely approached. He yellow-boxed back and we just circled for a bit, eye-balling each other.

Now at this point, I received intel that Spectre Fleet was coming for us. Just a few seconds later, they spiked system and I warped us to a safe. I knew that they had formed at the same time we did, and I was mildly interested in fighting them if it looked engageable. But when I saw that Jack was coming at my 20 people (13 DPS, 3 logi, 1 EWAR, 3 scouts) with a 36+ man fleet that included 10 Confessors.... Hahahaha. No.

"Everyone please warp to the Meth Lab."

Once we were a system or two away from Spectre, we docked up to repair heat damage from our camping adventure.

"Jim is a ballet dancer, confirmed."

Hahaha, okay. When we were sitting on the Fliet gate in Deven, scout said "space is clear" and we jumped in. We landed in a puddle of flashy Caracals and Gilas and Lokis and Thoraxes and all kinda nonsense. FC nearly had a heart attack, but we got everyone out. They hadn't been on that gate when the scout came through, and the outgate was out of Dscan range, so no fault on the scout's part. Woke me up, though.

"Quote of the day goes to the scout: 'Space is clear'."

Once we got to the Heydieles intersection, I gave the fleet three options: go left and take the short route to Stacmon, go right and take the long way through Nennamaila and Aldranette, or take the LONG long way through Kinakka. They picked Kinakka, so we docked up for a break in Heydieles before moving on. (Jim abandoned us here because apparently he plays "other games".)

We tried to bust up a Moa group sitting on a gate, but they warped off as soon as we jumped. We scared them so bad that they left their drones.* A Malediction scout from Spectre fleet started tailing us at this point, so I figured we were headed right for them.

Scout found a group including a Cynbal, Flycatcher, Malediction, and Omen Navy Issue in Pynekastoh at an asteroid belt. It sounded like a mess, but we gave it a shot. Once we landed, everything was too far off so we scattered.

Our scout tried to get a Tornado to aggress him a little ways off a station. He succeeded.

Atron -5.45m

I was presented with an offer to fight Black Fox, with them bringing a fleet of 10 assault frigates. I figured it would either be them or Spectre that brought us to our end. At first we were going to meet them in Nennamaila, but then a Cormorant fleet camped outside of the small that we were in. We moved to Hikkoken and camped up there, but then apparently they were hesitant to come to us. The numbers apparently ballooned to 15 AF against 18 T1 frigs, so we headed back to Nenn.

"They have assault frigs, and we have T1 frigs. And we're also Uni, so there's that." "And your FC is Kontxesi Buchanan, so so many negatives!"

While we were there trying to engage the Cormorant fleet, BLFOX showed up. I scanned around and saw that the small was empty. I gave the order for the fleet to warp there, and then BLFOX landed there. It was too late to stop the fleet, so we had to go. Rohan got scrammed on the gate and popped.

They had a Pontifex, at least 3 Deacons, and then Retributions and Ishkurs and Enyos and stuff. We primaried the Pontifex, couldn't make a dent. Switched to a Deacon, couldn't make a dent. I called scatter and was then scrammed. They held me till last and then took their sweet time with me. (I'm sure it's because I'd named my ship "Punisher of Jax".)

Punisher -8.78m
Punisher -8.91m
Punisher -23.81m
Punisher -9.81m
Punisher -10.07m
Punisher -6.99m
Punisher -8.89m

Bill had to bail due to an IRL emergency just before that fight, and got caught by Spectre while he was trying to dock up.

Inquisitor -8.28m

At this point, we made a shattered retreat back to Stacmon.

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 439,915,103.56
ISK Lost: 109,050,413.08
ISK Delta: 330,864,690.48
Efficiency: 80.135%


Review

It was a relatively quiet night, but for the most part we had fun. Everyone seemed to enjoy camping Tama, and our little meth lab field trip. We didn't really have any situations where I made crappy calls until we got to the end.

I knew that going up against ten assault frigates would be the end of the fleet, but I am still trying to learn what we can fight and what we can't. I figured it would be a good learning experience, and a fun end to the fleet. For some reason, I assumed that those ten assault frigates would not include logi. Those three Deacons were absolutely unbreakable for what we had on hand. Even if we'd had jams to mess with their logi, we were one logi short by then and they couldn't even begin to hold us up against the damage we were taking. Any Griffins would have just been blapped right off the bat and the rep wall would be back up.

I pulled my little pouting nonsense after that fight, which I need to not do. As Jax pointed out afterwards, that really rubs off on the rest of the fleet and I need to be better about not allowing my frustration to affect the morale of the fleet.

Items to Improve
- don't take fights just because the other side wants it; if I don't like it, I don't have to do it
- make sure you don't accidentally have your Dscan set to 1AU when checking if a plex is clear (didn't notice until watching the recording, oops)
- don't be audibly pouty when fights don't go my way

[Harai Rex]

Great fleet and AAR as usual!

I'm surprised at how many of my inglorious misadventures as primary scout made it in here, and it's fun to read some of them from another perspective. At least none of my mistakes led to deaths (other than my own, of course) This was a really fun fleet, for both the content and comms banter. Thank you, Kontxesi!

[Jim Electron]

This was a fleet.

[Jim Electron]

Just kidding.

This was a very good fleet, unfortunately I had to bail right before the welp, but up till then it was great. Commands were clear and precise. Scout was quick and efficient. Nobody panicked, even when scout said space was clear and we all jumped into a cruiser fleet landing on the gate.

I would rate this a 7 of 10 and recommend this fc to a friend.

[Marn Vermuldir]

... unfortunately I had to bail right before the welp...

Awfully convenient that you had to leave right before the welp there Jim.

[Kontxesi Buchanan]

... unfortunately I had to bail right before the welp...

Awfully convenient that you had to leave right before the welp there Jim.

No kidding. *takes notes*

[Apothne]

What's with the Neutron Punishers?

[Jim Electron]

What's with the Neutron Punishers?

Can you expand on this?

[Apothne]

What's with the Neutron Punishers?

Can you expand on this?

Using Neutron Blasters on an unbonused hull. Is the damage sufficiently improved to account for the loss of projection/tracking?

[Decklin Quark Reiger]

What's with the Neutron Punishers?

This "Golden Horde" doctrine is one that Breeze One introduced, as an armour equivalent to the Magic Merlins.

The Punishers should get a mix of scrams and webs. They have greater tank and dps, but lower speed than the Merlins.

That's about it, really.

[Decklin Quark Reiger]

What's with the Neutron Punishers?

Can you expand on this?

Using Neutron Blasters on an unbonused hull. Is the damage sufficiently improved to account for the loss of projection/tracking?

Fitting-wise, the 4 neutrons give more damage and range than a Merlin's 3 ions

[Breeze One]

What's with the Neutron Punishers?

Can you expand on this?

Using Neutron Blasters on an unbonused hull. Is the damage sufficiently improved to account for the loss of projection/tracking?

Using Neutron Blasters on a hull which also isn’t really bonused for anything. Just a cap bonus for Lasers - but with a passive armor tank it’s cap stable with any weapons system anyway. You can fly it with Pulses, or Autocannons, whatever you have skills for. The only thing you trade off is extra range from Scorch, and yes, you get better DPS with Void ammo in the Blasters. If you can keep them in Scorch range, you can also close range and use Blasters. If you can’t keep them in Scorch range then...

I re-introduced it (and I’m a big fan of it) but it’s not a new doctrine - I think I saw it being flown by RvB or Lumpy originally, and there are blogs extolling it’s virtues from years and years back.

[Apothne]

I hadn't seen it before, i just assumed it had a reasonable hull bonus, forgetting that Amarr ships exist.

[Jax Renalard]

That was a really awesome fleet. Thanks FC for letting me tag along. This is my first fleet under a new FC since I left. Really good to see how far newbros have come.

FC was very communicative and clear on commands. Comms pretty active and everyone was having fun. Fleet moved together at a good pace. Very good call on the nighthawk kill. Good discipline on fighting on gates. Really good choices of engagements avoiding a kitey cruiser fleet, confessors and a huge spectre fleet.

The FC was looking to die in a ball of fire and I suggested to ping my Blfox guys if they were interested. They were interested and formed t2 frigs. Initially they had 10 with logi but along the way other galmil joined and raised their numbers a bit. By the time of the engagement they had 5 more and command dessie which as surprise to me too. FC bit the bullet and took command to fight as hard as they can and called scatter just in time to know that it was not going to be fruitful engagement to any degree, our logi even got out considering they were the slowest align. Those are two very important skill, to have no hesitations on your call as to not confuse the fleet and to know when to disengage.

As to my comments on keeping up morale on the trip home. I was thinking mostly of newbros who go on these fleet and if the fleet lose a big fight they can see it a hugely catastrophic and only take that back with them to campus. Refocusing on the earlier wins and general fleet performance, I think, helps newbro turnouts in fleets.

Bounties I placed went back to my corp so in a way I like to think it went back to my pocket for more bounties. Good fleet and bants, will fly again.

[Jyo Cbip]

Great fleet and fun times. Not much to say but I enjoyed my first combat outing in a Keres, especially since we ended up gatecamping in Tama!