[WHC] Adding Jam to a Guardian Gridlock

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Ra'zok Zateki
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[WHC] Adding Jam to a Guardian Gridlock

Post by Ra'zok Zateki »

AAR for the fleet engagement that happened in a local connection with Conquering Darkness on 17th - 18th December.

System Names (Available Publicly on the Wiki):
Home system - Innuendo
C3 Static - Bacon
Hisec Static - Eggs

Background for those new to Wormhole PvP
In wormholes intel is everything and like all wormhole corps we use a tool to keep track of wormhole connection to our home system, these connections might be k-space or w-space connections and each usually lasts around 24 hours unless manipulated. Connections may be static which means there will always be a connection to that class of system in that wormhole (for example, Innuendo has a C3 and Hisec static, meaning we always have access to a Class 3 wormhole and a hisec region of k-space, although it can be any C3 and any hisec region). This means that unlike in K-space, our neighbours are unknown, what they might be able to field is unknown and whether they are active or not in a particular timezone is unknown (apart from what we may be able to divine from killboard or similar, provided we get eyes on a target to see their corporation prior to an engagement). As a result, cloaky scouts or even cloaky combat (T3C/Stratios) are very popular in w-space. This often means that engagements may look engageable until the enemy T3C fleet decloaks and spanks your unsuspecting gank. Therefore there is always an enhanced element of risk (and excitement!) whenever potential content opens itself up to us.

The pre-engagement
On this particular evening, we had a fairly extensive chain of connections, for example, the system the main engagement took place in (Bacon) had 7 additional wormhole connections (including our own) so we were hoping to get some people as they were passing through - potentially bait on a hacking site or one of the rogue events sites. We got some intel about a Stratios and probes in Bacon which then escalated to a Proteus, both of which were cloaky and disappeared off dscan pretty much as soon as they were spotted. We tried baiting in a hacking frigate with no success (was the Stratios this bad as scanning? Granted there were 21 sigs, but this was taking an incredibly long amount of time. Suspicions were high and this was the first suggestion of a fleet intel operation). Having no success dangling a helios we upshipped our bait to something shiny and set sights on the T3C, so we sent in a Stratios to hack the null sites while the rest of the fleet waited on the connection to Bacon. After a few minutes with no-one taking the bait a new sig popped into Innuendo and an Anathema appeared on d-scan. Gatt was waiting on the Bacon connection in a tackleceptor for the T3C in Bacon and happened to have probes, he scanned down the new connection in Innu and headed through the hole. A few moments of silence later and then we hear "Orca tackled, 2 skiffs also on grid, do you want to take it?". Why yes Gatt, yes we will.

A Brief Interlude (Whaling for an Orca)
We called back the stratios bait and got everyone in Innu to form on the new connection to the Orca system, the only intel we have is that the system has many citadels, and, considering they rolled into us and knew what we had (we were uncloaked waiting on the Bacon connection for that engagement) and STILL had their Orca just sitting there, mining, I was concerned about what response they would bring. Nonetheless, I ping slack:
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and people start logging in. Gatt is in an inty at this point and calls that a svipul is on grid, concerned that we'll lose tackle I send the fleet we have in to hold the Orca. At this point we are all DD with a little EWAR, no logi at all. As we land on grid a Stratios arrives to try and relieve tackle from the Orca but is swiftly dealt with. 2 Ospreys land on grid to (I assume) rep the orca, but it seems they were multiboxing as they were pretty limp. We clear the ospreys and start laying into the Orca. Just as its shield breaks we start seeing multiple Rattlesnakes undock and start getting a little concerned, we have 10DD, an interdictor and a single exeq at this point. I ping again hoping to get some people bring logi:
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After I pinged, a 4th rattlesnake appears on d-scan and I call to focus DPS on the Orca and get ready to align out. But this is when they concede, we see a "gf" in local and the rattlesnakes dock up again, we melt the Orca which drops a skiff and, due to potential threat from their fleet, we blow that up too, loot the field, and head home.

BATTLE REPORT FOR ORCA ENGAGEMENT

The Main Event
After getting home I remember the baiting we were doing in Bacon and head out in a CovOps to see if anything was still happening. I jump through and see a Legion and then a Dominix on d-scan. I locate the Dominix at one of the connections in Bacon and warp at range, cloaked. The Domi goes back through the hole and I sit and wait to see what happens. A few minutes later there is an activation and the domi comes back through. I call for light tackle and Gatt comes through into Bacon, and warps to the Domi just as the Domi warps to our connection in Bacon. This seems very strange and is a sure sign of bait - a solo BS warps direct to your home connection and waits on the hole? Either way, Gatt arrives and takes tackle and we wait to see if there will be any response. After nothing happens we send 2 DD ships through the hole to be engageable but not too scary. The Domi MJDs off the hole but Gatt reclaims tackle. One of our DD arranges themselves to get warp in on Gatt in case he goes down to the Domi's drones while the other is on the hole at zero. At this point a Proteus uncloaks and tackles our second DD (Xenopha in a Brutix). I call for Xeno to stay at 0 on the hole and jump back if needed but to hold tackle as long as possible - we still wanted to see what they would bring. Unfortunately, Xeno was blapped and didn't make it back to safety via the hole. At this point I was bouncing between the fight and the connection to their hole in a cloaky anathema. I start seeing T3Cs and Guardians on d-scan and they start to join the fight.

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I call for the rest of the fleet to jump through and start spreading tackle while I reshipped into something useful (Sac). I jumped back into the fight and it was clear the 2 (or was it 3 at this point?) Guardians we had were not holding. We stayed on grid as long as we could but eventually ended up going back through the hole to Innu. I called for a couple of the DD to reship into Guards (I also did) and we took the fight again on the Bacon hole in Innu with a full flight of 5 guardians. At this point we had plenty of tank (4 guards would probably have sufficed) but it was not easy to break any targets with the DPS we had. We managed to pick off an ECMgu who was plated ... but that's not much of a surprise, apart from that it seemed pretty close to a stalemate. The enemy fleet jumped back into Bacon and we followed - pretty even on numbers each side (we had mostly Sacs and Guardians, the enemy fleet had a mix of armor DD, guardians and command ships, roughly 15-20 each side with no clear side having the advantage). As we jumped into bacon noticed the hole was shrink and it was obvious we were not going to get back easily through there.

At this point the grind is well underway, both sides have sufficient tank so it was all about target swapping and early broadcasts. I must have called to swap targets 20 or 30 times in that fight, trying to pressure out lower resist targets such as the VNI. Many times we dropped targets into low armor, but the opposing logi did a great job and always caught them. Credit to both our DD for being really tight on target swapping and to our Logi for always being ahead on reps (and even provided ET to neuted friendlies). Titus in the Damnation with armor links may have also helped. The enemy fleet brought a Rook which was swiftly dealt with by a cloud of drones and didn't even get a single jam off. At this point it becomes clear to me - this fight could, in all likelihood, be decided by who has the most ammo. The enemy fleet start getting a bit sheepish and pull away from the hole in a group - hoping that we won't follow away from the safety of our wormhole connection (guys, it was nearly crit, we weren't going to use it anyway). I call for the sacs to burn forward and hold tackle on what they can. The choice was obvious here - wait until we run out of ammo, bail or get EWAR to break the enemy guards. I call for a couple pilots to swap out of scout/T1 DD to Falcons and they did, as they came back the hole went crit. From here on the story is straightforward, friendly logi comfortably holds our falcons and DD has burned forward to hold tackle on the enemy fleet. We focus DPS on a single guardian while the falcons jam the others. After a few minutes the jams kick in, and the enemy fleet bails, we spread tackle pretty well and hold all the expensive stuff (Command ships, guardians) bar a T3C or two. It was a simple cleanup operation now, enemy fleet was tackled and had no logi. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Luckily bacon had a hisec connection that was only 8 jumps from our static, eggs. After looting the field we all headed home via the hisec connection and celebrated a job well done.

BATTLE REPORT FOR THE MAIN ENGAGEMENT Some enemy ships are missing from the BR as the only kill they had was solo on a Brutix.

In hindsight, bringing a heavy tackle in before the falcons would have ensured we caught everything before they bailed. However I did not have the confidence to drop a bubble on the engagement - My first time FCing a large fleet engagement like this in W-space (I'm not so bothered about welping a fleet of Magic Merlins, but we had a lot of ISK on the field) but I will have more confidence for FCing stuff like this in the future. Also, FCing from logi is not so fun.

ISK SUMMARY
ISK Lost: 70.03m
ISK Destroyed: 6.61b
ISK Delta:+6.54b

TL;DR
  • Bacon has 7 connections, we set up to bait after seeing suspect Stratios and Proteus
  • Whilst baiting in bacon, someone rolls into Innu, we scan down the connection and take tackle, and melt, an Orca and a few cruisers.
  • Thought there would be a rattler response fleet (4 undocked) but they left it
  • Meanwhile, bacon chain people show a Domi, we take tackle and wait to see what escalates, 15+ armor DD and logi show up
  • We didn't have enough logi in the first fight and have to back off, we reship more guards and come back comfortably
  • Despite frequent target swapping, neither side appears to have enough DPS to break the other, it's a stalemate
  • We bring in Falcons to jam the enemy logi and proceeded to eradicate anything we held on to (most of the enemy fleet).
  • Bacon hole collapsed so we travelled back though to eggs via k-space
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Zana Fehrnah
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Re: [WHC] Adding Jam to a Guardian Gridlock

Post by Zana Fehrnah »

Great fight, great FCing, great ping response.

Probably the longest fight I’ve ever had piloting a Guardian, very intense during the first ten minutes too.
I set my flight of whore drones to assist and lost them in the first smartbomb pulse :D
Last edited by Zana Fehrnah on 2017.12.18 16:05, edited 1 time in total.
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Kyle Hargrove
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Re: [WHC] Adding Jam to a Guardian Gridlock

Post by Kyle Hargrove »

Great write-up, Razok, thanks!

I think there is a lot of food for thought in this discussion. A few points of feedback for you as an FC
  • Don't be excessively worried about welping. Yes, this is not a Magic Merlins fleet, but this is also WHC we're talking about. People are more experienced, and if they undock something is because they know there is the possibility of losing it. Don't let yourself be paralized by the thought that you're fielding a force which is more expensive than a fitted super, or you'll get way too risk-averse. Heck, I welped in the 30-40B range a couple of times ;)
  • It's odd that logi had to hold friendly Falcons. For a (now somewhat outdated) opinion/tutorial of mine on how to fly Falcons, see here. In general, Logi shouldn't bother with helping Falcons, because they should be bouncing back and forth all the times. The main risk from having Logi repping Falcons is that you need more (raw) HP/s to hold them since the EHP/s repaired is so bad because of the low resists of the Falcon. Since you need to put all the reps on the Falcon (and maybe even overheat!), this might cause a dangerous delay in repairing your mainline ships at a later point in the fight.
  • Notice how we had a bigger force (at least from the BR ~17 from our side vs ~10 from theirs) but the fight was stalled for around half an hour, according to the ping. This might have to do with our doctrines, and how we pack comparatively low DPS per person. Our emphasis on tank implies that, when we win a fight, we usually don't lose T2 ships, but it also implies that we need more people in order to actually win a fight. This might prompt a discussion on our doctrine, but let's not delve too deep into this in this post.
  • Congratulations for having stepped up for this!
  • Yes, please do not FC from Logi :)
Cheers!
Kyle
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SketchyManDan Williams
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Re: [WHC] Adding Jam to a Guardian Gridlock

Post by SketchyManDan Williams »

When flying the Falcons, we normally do ping off once getting engaged too much, but in this scenario, if we had, they would've managed to repair all the way back up to full armor by the time we made it back on grid.
The plan (At least for me) was to just stay at range and let them waste the drones on me. It's an armor tanked Falcon that I fly very often so I knew that is wasn't going to melt very quick and I wouldn't need much Logi to hold me up against some drones, I'm guessing our logi only needed to land 1 Repper on us to keep us at max armour. The enemy knew that if they don't take care of the Falcons, it's over for them, so I don't think the reps went to waste on us, it lets us comfortably sit on grid and let the jams cycle on the Gaurds rather than have to 20-30+ seconds to do the bounce. :D.

One thing that did surprise me though was the resistance to jams on the Guards, I didn't land a jam for the first 2 cycles of 5 jams (With very close to Max skills), but looking at the fits, they have 2 sebos which I'm guessing they loaded with ECCM when we landed
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Ra'zok Zateki
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Re: [WHC] Adding Jam to a Guardian Gridlock

Post by Ra'zok Zateki »

Thanks for the feedback Kyle, always appreciated :D

I will definitely be happier going forward to make the riskier calls - there's a lot of pressure on a new member FCing when there are some long-term veterans in the fleet! Especially so if my ideas conflict with theirs.

In this fight we had an excess of guards so there wasn't any issue with holding the falcons, but I agree, resist efficiency needs to be a consideration and I guess is the reason why the Sac is our mainline DD currently (despite its drawbacks). They had an additional 5-7 that wasn't on the BR so the numbers were much more even, but even so, it does highlight a weakness of our mainline doctrine.

Looking forward to the next one!
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K950
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Re: [WHC] Adding Jam to a Guardian Gridlock

Post by K950 »

Merely chiming in to point out a nice AAR. Well formatted. My memory doesn't usually hold up that long to write an AAR like that.
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Troven Smalvard
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Re: [WHC] Adding Jam to a Guardian Gridlock

Post by Troven Smalvard »

SketchyManDan Williams wrote: The plan (At least for me) was to just stay at range and let them waste the drones on me.
i even have smart bombs on mine, poss works better than rockets for taking care off, i.e not having to lock each etc
still some serious field testing required TBC but saves a lock :)
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Titus Tallang
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Re: [WHC] Adding Jam to a Guardian Gridlock

Post by Titus Tallang »

Ra'zok Zateki wrote:I will definitely be happier going forward to make the riskier calls - there's a lot of pressure on a new member FCing when there are some long-term veterans in the fleet! Especially so if my ideas conflict with theirs.
We might offer input from time to time, but don't be afraid to overrule us and/or tell us to shut up if we're being a nuisance to you. It's your fleet.

PS: Yes, I'm aware that's a lot easier said than done, especially in the heat of the action.
PPS: Amazing and calm FCing in my opinion. Great job, keep it up.
*creak*
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Budda Sereda
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Re: [WHC] Adding Jam to a Guardian Gridlock

Post by Budda Sereda »

Ra'zok Zateki wrote:Thanks for the feedback Kyle, always appreciated :D

I will definitely be happier going forward to make the riskier calls - there's a lot of pressure on a new member FCing when there are some long-term veterans in the fleet! Especially so if my ideas conflict with theirs.

In this fight we had an excess of guards so there wasn't any issue with holding the falcons, but I agree, resist efficiency needs to be a consideration and I guess is the reason why the Sac is our mainline DD currently (despite its drawbacks). They had an additional 5-7 that wasn't on the BR so the numbers were much more even, but even so, it does highlight a weakness of our mainline doctrine.

Looking forward to the next one!
congrats, great fight and kills!

I remember my early FC time, WHC is very acceptive and friendly, recommend everybody to leave for a few months at least over here.

Do more NNitH guys, and write more AARs so newbros know what they are missing
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