Hoo buddy, what a fleet. We had big numbers and big guns and big losses and one big kill. I learned a *lot* - see notes throughout the AAR!
Roam members (27)
Spoiler
Ambrose Ashley - Gnosis
Ashmod Nar Acami
Ashtagnaert Anzer Rotineque - Gnosis
Caelius West - Curse
ChrisStewart II - Praxis, Merlin
Clarityz
Datchenese en Welle
Eris Roquefort - Praxis
Gurna Smunkle - Gnosis
Harnser Kynes
Iis Foolio - Megathron
JohnPlayerNotSpecial - Typhoon
Lakidi Laduko - Praxis
Laura Karpinski - Praxis
Leo Ming - Scorpion Navy Issue
Leviathan Bererund - Drekavac
Maiena - Deimos, Praxis
Monica Evel Deninard - Nightmare
Moritz Gaterau - Hyperion
Pavel Hlawatsch - Caracal
Rauk Ellecon - Praxis
Shukken Tekitsu - Malediction
Softzombie - Huginn
Tamara Van Deijk - Praxis, Ibis
Vybez Kartel - Typhoon, Gallente Shuttle
Wisekeyboard - Gnosis
Yuri Levnik - Scorpion Navy Issue, Punisher, Praxis
Ashmod Nar Acami
Ashtagnaert Anzer Rotineque - Gnosis
Caelius West - Curse
ChrisStewart II - Praxis, Merlin
Clarityz
Datchenese en Welle
Eris Roquefort - Praxis
Gurna Smunkle - Gnosis
Harnser Kynes
Iis Foolio - Megathron
JohnPlayerNotSpecial - Typhoon
Lakidi Laduko - Praxis
Laura Karpinski - Praxis
Leo Ming - Scorpion Navy Issue
Leviathan Bererund - Drekavac
Maiena - Deimos, Praxis
Monica Evel Deninard - Nightmare
Moritz Gaterau - Hyperion
Pavel Hlawatsch - Caracal
Rauk Ellecon - Praxis
Shukken Tekitsu - Malediction
Softzombie - Huginn
Tamara Van Deijk - Praxis, Ibis
Vybez Kartel - Typhoon, Gallente Shuttle
Wisekeyboard - Gnosis
Yuri Levnik - Scorpion Navy Issue, Punisher, Praxis
We had almost 30 in fleet and we found eight Marauders running an OF. I was eager to test out our strength and brought the fleet in to the OF gate. Here, things went awry - we landed at range off the gate and battleships are *slowwwwww*, so we burned in. As we did, we were shot up by rats, one of which scrammed and killed out dear Gnosis. Then the OF fleet bubbled the gate to the second room in the OF. For some reason, two of us were able to slide the gate, while everyone else got stuck on the other side. Through some spectacularly bad piloting, I lost my flagship (I could have MJD'd or warped off but was too slow to do either) and we lost a Deimos as well. As a small consolation, we did get the interdictor pilots.
Lessons learned: OF fleets are probably all smart enough to cover their backs in a similar way to this one, e.g. by leaving the rats up outside the gate and having cloaked bubblers ready to prevent attackers from using the gate. I'll have to evaluate the feasibility of killing the rats - they should be engageable, but I don't know how they affect standings. Either way, attacking a fleet that's in an OF looks like a logistical challenge. Also, 8x marauders chewed up my battleship quite quickly - would not recommend engaging such a comp with a local rep BS fleet as even if you have the DPS and tank on paper to kill some marauders, you're going to get beat up quite badly in the process. On the plus side, they probably won't tackle you, so if you're smart (not like me) and align out, you could feasibly have your ships warp out as their reps fail and leave the rest of the crew on grid.
(18:55:40) Arvasaras
Gnosis -62.96m
Capsule -0.88m
Flycatcher +104.94m
Capsule +6.45m
Deimos -259.79m
Scorpion Navy Issue -786.44m
Eris +76.4m
Capsule +0.01m
We meandered our way slowwwwly for a few more jumps with me in a humble Punisher. We were aligning on the gate in Sakenta when a pair of interdictors came through and bubbled us. We had unintentionally left someone as -1 eyes and they called out a huge number of marauders warping in on the other side of the gate. Turns out the Kronos fleet had finished the OF and found some friends to come chase us down. As usual, I decided to stand and fight, with painful results, though we did get a 1.2bil kill to slightly offset all of the losses.
Lessons learned: Marauders >>> T1 battleships. I had hoped our huge battleship fleet would stand a chance, but the power difference was massive, particularly given that a T2 fit marauder only runs about 4x the price of a T1 battleship. Our 20+ battleships didn't stand a chance against ~11 marauders, and I should have had us all MJD out of the bubbles and run away rather than standing and fighting. Also, for a battleship fleet, I need a dedicated -1 or -2 pilot, preferably in an interdictor, so we can see what's coming up behind us and throw defensive bubbles accordingly. We moved so slowly that the marauders, presumably making best speed, easily caught up with us.
(19:09:17) Sakenta
Stork +106.21m
Megathron -497.97m
Praxis -221.58m
Praxis -240.07m
Praxis -239.79m
Praxis -217.45m
Astarte +1254.94m
Gnosis -63.37m
Nightmare -1784.9m
Typhoon -645.89m
Praxis -226.31m
Capsule -2.25m
Capsule -0.01m
Capsule -0.01m
(19:29:07) Tannolen
Gallente Shuttle -0.01m
Capsule -0.01m
(19:42:38) Tannolen
Ibis -0m
Capsule -0.01m
Following the loss of a large chunk of our fleet, the marauder fleet camped us in system. I had us out in space but aligned to the station. I struggled to come up with a viable plan for continuing the fleet. Eventually, two erises warped in on us, having easily combat probed us in one pass, and I was just able to fleet warp us off the grid in the nick of time before the bubbles went up and the marauders landed. Far too close for comfort! We docked up in station, as did the marauder fleet.
Lessons learned: being aligned was a good call, but I probably should just have had everyone fire up their glorification 1 filaments and head back to k-space, then reformed us and filamented back into a different part of Pochven. This is what we ended up doing, but due to my fiddling around, we had some battleships get camped into station when they could have filamented out prior to us getting combat scanned. On a positive note, I managed to avoid additional losses.
As mentioned, we filamented back to k-space and reformed in Jita, which took a while. Our new comp ended up being two heavy tackle gnoses and a bunch of battleships #foreshadowing.
We ran into some bombing bombers who launched a reasonably well coordinated bombing run that took some of us almost all the way down to hull. We didn't catch them but we killed their bubble.
Lessons learned: Have a nullified scout. I cold warped us into the bubble. We didn't lose anyone, but it would have been nice to know what we were getting into.
(20:41:23) Otanuomi
Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I +1.85m
We saw some additional targets, but my Praxis scout didn't really get close to catching any of them except a Raven who I MJD'd onto in a drone swarm. If I had SEBOs and a point I probably would have caught the Raven. Unlikely that we would have caught it with a ceptor given that it was 85km off the deadspace entry point.
Lesson learned: Not sure. See overall lessons learned RE tackle though.
A smolgang decided to fight us in Kaunokka. They successfully split us up via a well timed boosh and a lot of warping around, but our battleships were too tough for their lil baby guns, and our overwhelming amount of tackle on our Praxises allowed us to catch them and blow most of them up. Note, however, that Ash's Gnosis had 40% damage on two of the kills as he was their primary and the rest of us struggled to get to him in time to join the fight.
Lessons learned: Battleships are tough nuts to crack, provided you don't fight marauders. However, it's very easy to get out of position and very hard to get back to where you need to be. My MJD was invaluable in putting me back in the fight, but a number of our other pilots got thrown off to various parts of the grid and struggled to get back in the fight. I think this, for us, is partly a matter of practice in big slow ships with MJDs - how do we warp off, warp back, how do we use MJDs to get back in the fight, etc. However, I think a boosher with skirm links would have made a huge difference in helping us stick together and stay on target.
(21:36:49) Kaunokka
Sabre +77.18m
Bifrost +108.97m
Gnosis -62.26m
Kikimora +83.69m
We crushed a couple of cormorants and a raptor. Not much to say here - they should have run away, but they didn't for whatever reason. Kaboom.
(21:48:58) Arvasaras
Raptor +60.98m
Cormorant +9.2m
Cormorant +9.17m
Capsule +0.68m
Capsule +0.01m
Stats
ISK Destroyed: 1,900,676,893.61
ISK Lost: 5,311,970,309.94
ISK Delta: -3,411,293,416.33
Efficiency: 26.352%
What went well
- This was an extremely educational fleet for me for a variety of reasons. Principally, flying slow but tough ships is far different from my usual fast and fragile compositions. The challenge here (marauders aside) was not staying alive, but rather, getting on target. With that in mind, next time I need to prioritize tools that will helps us tackle targets and get the fleet on top of them. I need at least one and preferably two interceptors to catch targets, heavy tackle (HACs/Gnoses) to hold the targets as we are hunting big game that should easily be able to force ceptors off, and a boosher with skirm links to help the rest of the fleet move nimbly and give us the opportunity to "double MJD" to get on target.
- I think most (all?) of my pilots will agree that their flying experience in battleships was also very different from the usual smol ship stuff. I'd be interested to hear y'all's reflections in response to this AAR.
- We crushed some smol stuff.
- I didn't lose *everyone*, though this is my second highest loss fleet to date after Devinnis Pollard's Viking funeral.
- We got to fly big stuff.
- As mentioned above, our comp needed more support to help the battleships get on target.
- Marauders are ridiculously strong and I need to stop fighting them.
- A Praxis is not a good scout ship
- I spent a long time trying to figure out how to get us uncamped. Hindsight is 20/20 and I should have just yeeted everyone back to k-space when we didn't find a good wormhole. Thanks to the fleet for your patience.
- T1 Battleships are definitely off-meta for a roam; super slow, and still vulnerable to marauders. HACs/Gnoses next fleet?
Yuri
