[AAR] BLAP Merlins (aka Of Russians,Bling and Salt) 30Mar19

[Auric Fulcrum]

Roam members (25)

Spoiler

Atticus Vex - Condor
Auric Fulcrum - Merlin
Breeze One - Merlin
Chrispin - Merlin
Daelmon Aszarkarias - Merlin
Falus Templar - Merlin
Hantu - Merlin
Jessica Farrish - Burst
Kelle Damage - Merlin
MakoWesst - Merlin
Marcel Eriker - Harpy, Thrasher, Burst
Mike Kingswell - Vigil Fleet Issue
Penelore - Bantam, Burst, Merlin
Pink Kondur - Atron
Porsche Amarr - Griffin
Shieva Ann - Burst
Shizuka Shinano - Griffin
Turlough Dominian - Merlin
Vulcann Rin - Merlin
Vybez Kartel - Merlin
William Lyon Mackenzie - Merlin
Wylex Cross - Merlin
Yto Itinen - Burst, Merlin
Z0X Ambrye - Garmur
Zeerse Solaris - Tristan, Atron

Kills and Losses

(13:19:13) Dastryns, Uphallant
Venture +0.27m
Catalyst +1.4m

Z0X killed some stuff while the fleet was forming up (I'm still counting that!).

(13:39:04) Dastryns
Venture +0.28m
Capsule +0.01m

After a surprisingly quick and unproblematic formup, the fleet undocked and got it's first kill on a poor little venture. We originally went to catch a Thanatos that was spotted in Iges, but he was already gone by the time we got there.

(13:42:12) Ostingele
Vigil Fleet Issue -19.14m
Vexor +33.6m

Standard procedure. Scout found target in a plex and established tackle, fleet went in to secure the kill. Sadly, he died the second that logi locked him up.

(13:46:05) Agoze
Atron -6.82m

Again, nothing special here. Scout went for a Thrasher in a small and got blapped while the fleet was still in warp. After this point a vanguard was established to keep scouts from dying and, failing that, at least secure tackle until the fleet arrives.

(13:51:46) Vey
Ishkur +43.77m

Scout found some stuff in a medium plex (VNI, etc.) and warped in just as the plex closed. While sitting on the gate, an Ishkur landed on him, point was established and the fleet got a nice and juicy kill.

(13:57:29) Vey
Griffin -5.28m
Griffin -20.68m

We tried to grab a non-flashy Sabre on a gate. Our Griffins were the first to lock him and applied jams, causing them to be brutally murdered by gateguns. The Sabre managed to crash the gate and get away, sadly. I could've easily avoided these losses, should've called for the Griffins to not apply jam, or at least align our ahead of time.

(14:17:08) Hikkoken
Atron -7.16m
Coercer +14.6m

You know the drill. Scout finds stuff, holds it for the fleet and gives his life for content. He's not the first and won't be the last, as much as I hate it.

(14:30:20) Oinasiken
Burst -3.2m
Bantam -8.75m
Merlin -8.94m
Merlin -4.66m
Merlin -4.72m
Merlin -5.73m
Merlin -10.83m

And here we have our first real fight of the fleet, which ended in somewhat of a whelp due to them completely outclassing us in every aspect, most notably ships. After playing around a bit with a Malediction, a flashy fleet of Harpys, Kirins and a Bifrost landed on our gate. At first there we're only 2 Kirins with them, so I called for everyone to engage them as primary and secondary respectively. Shortly after, two more Kirins landed and it very quickly turned out that we had absolutely no way of breaking them, even with gateguns on our side, so I called for every one to deaggress and scatter, losing about a third of the fleet in the process.

(14:53:37) Immuri
Atron -3.05m
Pontifex +252.06m

After reshipping in Ichoriya we continued on our way to Tama (also known as the fastest way to Valhalla) our scout found a Retribution and a Pontifex at a small. Vanguard was called in and our scout went for the Pontifex, the Retribution having died before he landed. Tackle was established and held while the fleet was burning towards the Pontifex. After everyone got on the kill, we blapped the Pontifex, which took a surprisingly no time. As it turns out, he was blingy! The loot fairy, being as generous as she was today, decided to give us a good amount of the bling.

After the fight someone in local mentioned "eve uni fc...if you want a fair fight with high chance of killing a blingy trig ship, go to heyd". Well, who am I to turn down an invitation like this? Destination was set to Heydieles and we started moving. Before we jumped in I called for everyone that had blingy loot to not engage anyting we find immediately and to drop their loot in LSC Station beforehand.

(15:07:48) Heydieles
Burst -2.75m
Vexor +26.86m
Burst -1.83m
Burst -2.75m
Merlin -4.64m
Harpy -64.69m
Merlin -4.69m
Merlin -4.74m
Merlin -8.8m
Pilgrim +963.52m
Tristan -8.77m
Griffin -1.21m
Drekavac +1701.89m
Merlin -5.09m
Merlin -6.24m
Burst -4.12m

After arriving in Heydieles, our scouts took a look around, finding no Triglavian Bling, but at least a Vexor in a medium plex. Scout and Vanguard engaged, fleet jumped in and got on the Vexor who was breaking slowly. That's when a Drekavac warped in and I immediately knew what was going on. I've seen what blingy Drekavacs can do, from the insane reps to the brutal damage so the first though in my mind was: "No matter what else warps in here, I'm gonna kill the Drekavac last because it's gonna take forever to break, if we can even break it". While we were slowly breaking the buffer tanked Vexor, a Pilgrim warped in 20km off our fleet. I called it as secondary target and told everyone to grab tackle if possible and immeditely burn at it as soon as the Vexor died.Vexor popped and our ball of Merlins pounced on the Pilgrim that tried to burn to the Drekavac for safety. Meanwhile, said Drekavac was just sitting in the backround, slowly killing our fleet. We managed to kill the Pilgrim, which was insanely blingy, and scattered before we could scoop the loot since we lost most of the fleet at this point.

I then called for everyone to just grab anything off the contracts in LSC and immediately warp back to the medium to kill that Drekavac, intenting to fully take advantage of the tons and tons of contract we had up in order to have continuous reships. Reshipping happened quickly and most of us managed to get back on grid just in time to point the Drekavac that was busy looting the Pilgrims wreck. Everyone just piled on that thing as we overheated everything we had trying to break it.

That's when the Russians came in. A Leshak, Zarmazd and Pilgrim landed on grid and I started panicking, fearing that those were his buddys and they would just wipe the floor with us, the Zarmazd denying us any chance we had at breaking the Drekavac. However, that's not what happened. While I was calling scatter and for everyone to get out, Penelore (Thank you so much!) told me that the new gang wasn't shooting at us. In fact, they were shooting the Drekavac! I called for everone to get back in there and get right in the Drekavacs face. The russians were still a few kilometers out and I saw my chance to make this one of our best kills in a long time:

"Everything you have on the Drekavac! Overheat everything and get at 0 on it! As soon as it pops, grab that loot, grab that loot, GRAB THAT LOOT!"

And we got it 823mil worth of loot dropped and were scooped by the fleet. I opted to stick by my usual rules when it comes to loot: "You can keep it for yourself, contract it to me or throw it into donations. I don't care". Whoever grabbed all that stuff, good job! You earned it!

But wait, there's more! After we warped off with our spoils, the Drekavac pilot called in a Titan and proceeded to comment in local (Warning: NSFW).

After this glorious fight, we had a lot of people leave, but those that remained were very eager to continue, so I decided to take a look at Tama with what we had left.

(15:53:08) Tama
Atron -2.76m
Atron +12.93m
Federation Navy Comet +29m

After arriving in the notrious system of Tama, our scout didn't find anything at first, but after looking around for a while, spotted a Comet in a novice. Vanguard was sent in and our Scout went for tackle. Just as the scout was sliding, an Atron landed outside of the plex and was pointed by our Vanguard. I called for most of the fleet to slide and for some people to stay outside to blap the Atron. Atron died, Comet died, we lost a Scout. You know, the usual.

(15:59:50) Onatoh
Burst -4.05m
Capsule -0.01m

Someone lost their Burst to a Smartbomber. Yikes.

(16:27:46) Agoze
Algos +5.58m

And for the last bit of content on this fleet, we grabbed ourself a Algos in a plex. Look at that fit btw.

(16:35:04) Stacmon
Griffin -1.25m

I'm not sure how this came about. Slow align? Maybe criminal for some reason?

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 3,085,753,157.46
ISK Lost: 237,362,481.87
ISK Delta: 2,848,390,675.59
Efficiency: 92.857%

Overall evaluation

• ✔ (Positive stuff)
  -formup went extremely well, fleet undocked on time
  -had a lot more people than I expected
  -got some really nice kills
  -most isk-positive fleet I've FC'd so far
  -had some good fights
  -advanced to Lieutenant rank in the FCC because of this fleet
  ✘ (Negative stuff)
  -panicked a bit when the Russians landed
  -didn't to proper research about the fleets that were roaming around our area, could've saved us from the Assault Frigate fleet

[Yto Itinen]

This was another good roam Auric, my compliments!
The basic fleet stuff like movement, comms and form-up are all good, as always.
The numbers don't lie, this was a very fun and ISK positive roam, and we all agree the time slot
is very good even for future fleets.


I also messaged the guy that gave us the tip on the Drekavac, but he was still...bitter about it:(censorship by me)

Re: o/
From: Cassiopeia Chance
Sent: 2019.03.30 17:01
To: Yto Itinen,

Eve Uni didn't get it...Revo f*** did.

--------------------------------
o/
From: Yto Itinen
Sent: 2019.03.30 15:29
To: Cassiopeia Chance,

Thanks for the tip, we got a Drekavac in HEY
Fly safe!





For the "what can we do better part":(keep in mind hindsight is 20/20)

I think we picked the engagements well, the opponents were all tough (both the AF gang and the Drek went for the logi and
dispatched the bursts in brutal fashion). I think you did well on listening to advice and keeping fire on the Drek, in general when we face
fight or flight situations I think the best answer is to always fight. Especially when we have a single opponent in a big ship, our numbers create
a chaos that few people can manage. Also, we invite mayhem and other gangs are happy to attack our prey, especially as we provide great tackle
and webs. We are in cheap frigs, punching (reasonably) above our weight is going to provide good results most of the time. It's a numbers game

I think that pre-explaining what we do on gatecamps might help with situations like the griffins getting fired by the gate guns. We can create simple protocols: DD is always the first to fire and get gate aggro, logi and Ewar should always be second. This time, for example, I personally followed an advice from the Ares roam and had the FC and other logi pre-locked during gatecamps, making it easier to apply reps in time. It's a good protocol to pass on.

I like that you are a FC that uses vanguards very often, they provide good second tackle when the scouts die/warp off. I think that having a protocol for the vanguard might help them perform better, maybe having them "in reserve" when we camp a gate and not engage until the very last moment, in case our prey manages to crash and jump they can jump and tackle on the other side.

Basically, explaining our tactics and expectations might help create a more autonomous force, that knows what to do and will be prepared to act, even if you are not on the field.


See you on the next roam
o/

[Falus Templar]

This was a nice morning low sec crawl. I was privileged to be a part of it! Best to engage the diplomats though. There definitely was some Russian Collusion!