[WHC] LEAVE OUR SITES ALONE! (WHC LA)

[Savannah Tokila]

Roam members (6)

Spoiler

Aren Dar - Exequror
Ariea Thellare - Exequror
Claire Badasaz - Augoror Navy Issue
Macilles - Augoror Navy Issue
Marcus Arilia - Vexor Navy Issue
Savannah Tokila - Stratios

Prelude
So, earlier in the chain we saw an Astero that annoyed me, ran the Relics in Bacon, tze tze! On the Killboard he had losses with asteros that were blingy, so i decided id buy myself a new HunterKiller Stratios from the Contracts in ALI (Thanks for Stocking @everybody who does, in this case Nicolas)
He got away, bc of the slow lock time, and me not being patient enough to be in immediate bump range before actually uncloaking. tze tze!
After this i noticed that i indeed not yet had a SKIN for this ship, so i went out and bought some, and went on a shopping spree for it.
As i came back from this, in my Stratios however, this Story begins, my not even 2 Hours old Stratios spots this, as she jumps into Innuendo
https://adashboard.info/intel/dscan/view/01DG254h

OUR SITES????!
Call it on comms, and start dscanning them down, until i found them on our precious Transponder Farm!

I called for people to come back to home and sent a ping out, because we didnt have the numbers, i Called for Light armour, partly because i was in armour, and partly because light armour does more dps, and tanks better (i would think). I called for two logi, my reasoning was, that they had logi as well, and i didnt know how they would respond, plus sleepers on grid. two exeqs it is, Aren and Aries did us the honour o7
During this i figured out with some form up downtime on which wave they actually were. While Marcus, after i gave him the names of the pilots, found that, according to their killboard, they were just losing ships left and right.
I called for the others to go into dd, we got 2 ani and a single vni out of it, which is enough dps with my stratios definitely.
I asked the VNI pilot, Marcus, to switch to a point, as they were spread out, and i would only get inital tackle on the stratios and i wanted point on the hurricane, i felt that a vni staying in point range of hte hurricane wouldn't have been too much of a blow to our dps output, considering the main dps of the vni is indeed the drones. which is different for the anis.

The Plan
i wanted the Stratios to go down first, then keep tackle on the hurricane then clean up, if it turned out the stratios wouldnt die i wouldve switched for the logi, while i wouldve kept tackling the stratios and marcus tackling the hurricane while id primary the logi.

The Execution
As everone was ready now, or just getting ready, i warped to a convenient wreck at 10, and landed 4 km off of the stratios, but it was burning into me, i barely got out of its way so i didnt get decloaked, (during this moment, my call for the switch to the point of the vni was made, as i realised we couldnt burn realistically into scram range at the other distances) then, i made sure everyone was ready, and then called for an undock, and warp to me at 0, while logi do their own thing, as i saw everyone on d, i waited for a second or two, and then decloaked, grabbing scram on the stratios and starting to hit it with my drones and neuts, with my fleet in warp, i called for logi to prelock me and be ready, and called for said stratios to be primary. it went down relatively quickly.

Kills and Losses

(20:51:05) J211936
Stratios +204.46m

I did not see them switch to me as a primary really. they were most likely thrown into disarray when we turned up. Marcus had point on the Hurricane by now, i started burning for the next Target i would tackle, which was propably one of the logis? Which i called primary, while asking markus to keep point on the hurricane, after which i switched to the hurricane. when the Logi died i realised the thorax was just 9k from me, so one mwd, and tackled him, while we burned down the hurricane, As Logi was far off, i called for the Thorax to be Primary, before we killed him, and i called for overheated prop mod to catch the exequror, which we caught.

(20:52:03) J211936
Exequror +16.38m
Hurricane +91.93m
Thorax +13.76m
Capsule +0.01m
Exequror +26.85m
Capsule +0.01m

The Aftermath

After this i called to loot the field, but not for long, because i realised an mtu would be better for the job, so i called for the fleet to align to ALI, and fleetwarped us out, then i went back solo in my solo myrm and cleared the last 4 rats of the site, while dropping an mtu, while one of our fleetmates went ahead and cleared the now sleepers free data site. The Salvage and Loot was Xed up, which ammounted to 52 mil in the lootsheet.

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 353,395,936.61
ISK Lost: 0
ISK Delta: 353,395,936.61
Efficiency: 100%

Overall evaluation

• ✔ (Positive stuff)
  - We cleaned our Innuendo up
  - Fast Form Up
  - Didn't Lose anything and got everything
  - We propably surprised them
  - Primary Targets were followed as far as i can tell (Barring any Range issues)
  - Was in a new tanked Stratios, not a Helios when i found them, so i could scout and FC, leading to no need to worry about FC dying or finding one who isnt in a fragile Helios
  - My new Stratios saw action with 3 final blows in its first 2 hours after buying
  
  ✘ (Negative stuff)
  - Maybe we couldve done a better job with tackling, by bringing a bubbler? But idek really, would like some thoughts here? they were very spread out, talking 50km at times.

I am curious tho, they never tried warping away, we should not have gotten more than that stratios and hurricane, if even.

I would also suggest to look at the fits, especially the logi ones, was kind of surprised sifting through them after.

edit: the fits comment, as well as some sentence structure modifications as well as formatting, oh and me writing site when I wanted to write wave of said site

[Macilles]

Whaaat? Our sites?!? Must be joking!

Good fun, thanks for the call to arms!

Nice write-up \o/

[Kyle Hargrove]

Hey!

All in all, I'd say this looks like a nice gank, with the added bonus that you had the difficulty of operating from your own system. Usually this is an advantage (you can reship faster etc), but on the other hand an attentive target can quite easily get eyes on you, and you have a longer time in which your own cloaky eyes and fleet appear on DScan after they undock from your citadel.

Apparently, these were very careless targets, which is surely something that works in your favour :'D

A few more misc points:
- Good on calling LA. If you're in armour and you're FCing, for sure it's better to have logi that matches your tank type. HA would have been overkill, maybe SS would have also worked and caught targets quickly, but LA is a good default call.
- Good on your own ship choice. The Strat means you can stay on grid and call shots while also contributing to the fight.
- DD is also fine, maybe a bit on the slow side (unfortunately the "light" in "Light Armour" does not imply "quick and nimble"). VNIs are marginally faster than ANIs, but not substantially. Good call on using points, and of course you can assess whether you need scrams or not just by judging how fast they're moving (check their velocity from the overview). If you see MWDs, bring scrams. If you see ABs, privilege points and webs.

As you said, the main trouble is catching everyone. Using (potentially suicide) fastwarp sabres usually helps, but you can somewhat avoid having one dedicated character to bubbling by playing smart. I didn't really understand how the grid was laid out, but from your description it looks like you took the correct choices in positioning. Usually, you want to put your cloaky surprise as close as possible to their most critical target (in this case Strat > Cane > rest because :isk:).

Who you tackle/primary next depends on your confidence that you're not taking bait, how easily you think you're going to sweep the field, and how likely it is that they want to escalate and give you a proper fight. If targets are clueless (such as in this case), probably just tackle by value and make your killboard look green, if that motivates you. Otherwise, targeting Logi first is likely to win you a big advantage (and make them run), while ignoring Logi and nobly going for DD gives your target a chance for calling for reinforcements and having better fights.

Otherwise, props for stepping up as FC! I think that's probably having more FCs is probably the biggest leap that we need to take in the WHC, and practicing with ganks is an excellent way to build up familiarity, confidence, and becoming a recognized name in your playgroup.

Ciao,
Kyle

[Savannah Tokila]

Thanks for your Feedback very much!

Although i have to say, we i think had just a helios (?) and a proteus out, both cloaky, so they would both just appear for a tick or two when they dock/jump the hole back home. and my strat wasnt even docked, i came through a hole as well, so it was mostly just us undocking where we had the bigger disadvantage, bc ali prbly spit everyone out in an inconvenient direction

yea i wasnt sure if i should go ss either, i went for la mostly for more dps and tank, as that was more in line with my strat tank as well, wasnt sssure if deacons wouldve held the dps of the cruisers onto my big fat cruiser hull

with catching everyone, the issue is that even a sabre wouldn't have gotten them all so that's why I was so confused, they were just so far apart.