Spoiler
Calder Ormand - 2IC/Anchor/DD
Crimson Herring - Scout
Dunbartian Wonderwood - DD
Genwhi Thellere - Logi
Hillybilly Hinken - DD
Kirsid Tannaway - EWAR
Mols Halleck - Logi
Raxon Noseworthy - DD
Sturym - FC
Yuri Levnik - Logi FC
They planned this - They knew we'd possibly engage, and I made a bad call. We all got weapon timers, so we couldn't jump, and the Hyperion promptly joined us. Within seconds, we switched primary to the Hyperion. The mistake here was this... Filthy Peasants have a habit of bringing overly powered ships to a fight. So moments after the Hyperion showed up, we had three Cerbs joining the fight. I called scatter, knowing full well we wouldn't last long against them. 2 of our Exequrors bit the dust as they were called primary. Sorry guys...
(01:29:55Z) Elore
Exequror -10.94m
Exequror -20.07m
We regrouped at a safe, and our scout tried to find us an out. Admittedly, we were trapped. They could cover the exits, and we knew this. They were on the Yveve gate, so we jumped into Meunvon. Once there, we attempted to hard press the Yveve gate, but our scout reported they were there, patiently waiting. We were completely trapped on an island, with no outs. For a short bit, we jumped to a planet. Yuri bravely made us a quick Tac outside the Yveve gate. As we warped to him, we saw the Ares again. Crimson, brave scout that he was, reported "They're jumping to you!" I made the best call I could... I told everyone to cross jump.
We (Well, most of us who weren't POCO tackled) were able to cross jump through and start our escape. While we couldn't quite outrun an ares, we could outrun their Cerbs and Hyperion. While on the way out, Dunbartian reported getting locked up in Conomette as he got POCO tackled (best tackle) back in Meunvon and was training behind. Thus... he lost his ship.
(01:43:37Z) Conomette
Vexor -22.07m
We made best speed back to Boystin where our Exequrors were already refitting. Once docked, we took a brief break and Yuri convo'd Cavemen. After discussing it with the fleet, we decided to drop fleet and join up with them in an attempt to bait Filthy Peasants into a fight. This ends this fleet, but I'll report on what happened in the Cavemen fleet as I learned a lot of valuable info.
Stats
ISK Destroyed: 0
ISK Lost: 53,084,026.97
ISK Delta: -53,084,026.97
Efficiency: 0%
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Here's the TL;DR as it was fairly uneventful. We joined fleets with Cavemen and joined their comms. They were actual a great bunch... and we were met with laughs and fun times. We attempted to get back to Vevelonel to draw out some Filthy Peasants. Once outside their gate, Corvidae Crowfoot (FC) took a small vanguard fleet in to try and roust them. We played a few engagement games, but nothing serious. Once back on the gate to Anckee, they sent a forward observer in... who promptly berated us for "upshipping" to try and bait them to a fight. Irony at it's finest...
When this didn't pan out, we flew around over into Null and up to KFR-ZE. Finding absolutely squat to engage, we went back to Faurulle, where we discussed in comms about an brawl at the sun. As it was fairly even teams, we agreed to terms, and they warped off. We dropped fleet, and recreated our new fleet.
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Caveman Crash!
This was it... finally a fight worth our evening. I started getting the PvP shakes a bit... worrying about calling the wrong ships... but boy did the fight turn out great. See below for full report:
Spoiler
Crimson Herring - DD
Dunbartian Wonderwood - DD
Kirsid Tannaway - EWAR
Mols Halleck - Hero Logi
Raxon Noseworthy - DD
Sturym - FC
Tyler Arnoux - EWAR
Yuri Levnik - Logi FC
(03:31:37Z) Faurulle
We started the fight with us holding at the sun. The second their DD wing landed, we waited... We knew the Exequror's would be shortly behind. With drones in space, we saw the Logi wing land. The first to become lockable was BlueFox04, so I called primary. Despite the work being done against him, his tank and reps from the other Exequror held fast. We felt a true stalemate was going on... but they started to slightly out damage our reps. Even overheating guns, we had trouble doing significant damage to break the tank on BlueFox04.
I called an audible and requested switching primaries to Milenny. At this time, Yuri pulled ECM Drones and sent them BlueFox04's way for a hug. Our EWAR team (Kirsid and Tyler as well) focused EWAR against BlueFox04, and it finally connected. This allowed us to get Milenny in hull, and he scattered. This was the tipping point in the battle...
Primary shifted to BlueFox04. At this point, Yuri started reporting he was going down. The sweat started to bead on my brow, and Mols overheated his reps... a lesson every great Logi pilot needs to know to do in situations like this. We got BlueFox04 to pop pretty quickly with Milenny off grid, which allowed us to get our first kill.
Exequror +23.63m
With one Exequror down and one off grid, we primaried the Blackbird for a realatively easy kill as he had no reps.
Blackbird +18.76m
While the Blackbird was in hull, we saw the Exequror coming back onto grid, still in hull with minor armor and slight shield. Not sure if he warped back in thinking the other Exequror was still up, or maybe he warped and we took down the other as he started warping. Either way... it cost him his boat.
Exequror +23.63m
From there - We started picking them off one by one. With nothing to rep, it didn't take long to bring down the remaining DD wing. As we started attacking primaries, I did my best to call secondaries. I mistaken said "next primary" instead of "secondary" from time to time, but my fleet understood nonetheless. I finally remembered to call out points on other ships to ensure they couldn't warp off. We knew they'd fight to the death, but just didn't want anyone to miss out on loving guns and drones.
Omen +37.55m
Moa +24.2m
Vexor +38.43m
We pretty much assumed this was the end, but Chester still had his boat out, and Tyler was going to try and tackle him for us. We tried to burn in the opposite direction to get a warp in, but this failed as he was already in hull when we got to range. He popped shortly afterwards.
Maulus -1.47m
Good Fights were had in local, we chatted it up with them a little bit, and used their pods to scout our way back to Boystin. Everyone had a hell of a good time, and we agreed we'd love to get more fights like this again in the future. A true testiment to a incredible fight?? When your hull and heat damage looks like Yuri's:
Stats
ISK Destroyed: 166,200,832.8
ISK Lost: 1,473,037.37
ISK Delta: 164,727,795.43
Efficiency: 99.121%
What went well:
-We flew well, desipite a few hiccups. We kept pace and had some fun.
-We learned from our mistakes, discussing what should have been done differently in comms.
-We made some new friends on a diplomatic mission into Solitude with Cavemen... we may not be so diplomatic in the future.
-We "ended" the night isk positive, despite the losses from a lopsided fight.
What needed improvement:
-I made a terrible call - engaging in Low on the gate and knowing what was on the other side was a bad decision. It cost a few ships... but we learned a valuable lesson.
-I made a call to jump into Meunvon, which allowed them to blockade us on both gates. Thankfully we skirted by, -1 who got stuck on a structure.
-I plan to start pushing the "form up" and "un-dock" times... often we say "undocking at XX:XX" and yet we undock like 15 - 20 mins later. I like to keep on time. Gives us more time for the pews.
-There were times I felt unsure of my calls... I second guessed myself a lot, but having Yuri there was nice as he provided me good filler while I got my bearings straight.