So, Greg Scouted a hole three down the chain, in 3 B1 (2 jumps from our beloved Bacon WH) and upon jumping into the Wormhole was met by the following on DSCAN at various times over the course of 2-5 minutes.
1xStiletto
1xMalediction
2xRavens
2xAsteros
1xDrekevac
Upon the delivery of this delightful news to the WHC Standing Fleet we immediately became eager to form something. More intel from Greg (in a Stratios) suggested that they had just rolled a hole, were originally acting erratically and now all seemed to have disappeared off D-SCAN. I asked Greg to check the Fortizar (10 in Forti) and eventually asked him to scan down the two sigs, that were undoubtedly the static connections for this C2 (Null/C5 Static no effect).
Upon waiting what seemed to be an eternity (5 minutes); and weighing our options (roll or pew) we formulated a bait plan to get them out of the Forti and engage us. Unfortunately, the hole preceeding 3B1 (2B1) was a Pulsar, which led us to selecting NANO as the doctrine to be flown. Suffice it to say, that our remaining doctrines are not ideal for pulsars.
So - Here was the plan:
Send in 1x Bait Probe (Minny Explo T1 Frig) to play "noob explorer" on the *side (The enemy's side of the hole). Setup a NANO fleet (think fast/kitey cruisers w/long range guns) on the other side of the Wormhole. When the enemy would notice the probe and would land ship(s)on it; the probe would jump the hole and the NANO fleet would ALPHA whatever came through the hole.
So we proceeded to take the following fleet (below) to the optimals on one side of the hole, while Erywin attempted to act like a complete newbro explorer on the other side of the hole:
1 Harb
1xOracle
2xBrutixes
2xONI
As we sat and … waited at our optimal ranges; the FORTI spiked to 22 people (wwwooooo). We formulated an extraction plan that involved folks in INNU pre-epmtively putting mass on bacon due to the sheer number superiority of the enemy. A new Sig spawned and I asked Erywin to scan it down and eventually run the Relic site (that it turned out to be) ... again in sloooow newbro fashion.
A LOKI undocked - and we all celebrated loudly...as clearly this Loki was meant for our newbro explorer and we could execute our plan. Nope, he dropped probes, scanned down some sigs, and really - never did anything threatening to our explorer. We called it quits after 15ish minutes and went home (lets not talk about the rolling incident here).
Anyways; by now you are probably going … great, you made me read all this and there is really nothing to learn here...
Well as I was replaying the scenario in my head; it became quickly apparent that the plan was flawed from the get-go (my opinion); so lets say that what we wanted to happen … did in fact happen. Erywin plays explorer, they see him, he jumps through the hole, they follow in something like a Loki or two (or 22) and we start shooting at them from...50K w/no tackle (my fault) and no way to keep them off the hole. So, what would have stopped them from jumping back into their hole and leaving us sitting at 50km scratching our heads as to what the next move would be? Yes, sure we could have gotten lucky and alpha'd a ship or two, but while using NANO doctrine on a hole has a certain safety associated with it; it also allows the enemy to escape … by simply jumping w/nothing on the other side to catch them. I'd love to hear from the Urban's, Marcus's, Troven's and other WH FCs as to how you would have handled this situation....
LESSON LEARNED: You need to anticipate your enemy's next, next and following move and "wargame" (in your head) the plan that you have formulated - don't take forever to do so, and get paralyzed (forming anything quickly is better than doing nothing) but do take the time to see if your plan makes sense - then adjust accordingly. ALSO RTDWHCD (Read The Darn WHC Doctrine Thread) - it explains form ups for each doctrine … note the Stiletto being part of the core.
Also, had we paid closer attention to zkill, we would have known why they could have cared less about a newbro explorer in their system at the time: https://zkillboard.com/kill/79908658/ (here is a hint this happened an hour prior to the above). We did gather intel on zkill, we just didn't do it fully and spot checked versus checking the entire history.
Roam members (11)
Spoiler
Cedric Redfist
Che Galtor
Erywin Chelien
Githzy Galtor
Greg Malufeld
Macilles
Oh' Leeador
Tori Moliko
Tyrion Edwardes
Willuw Everquest
gora int
Che Galtor
Erywin Chelien
Githzy Galtor
Greg Malufeld
Macilles
Oh' Leeador
Tori Moliko
Tyrion Edwardes
Willuw Everquest
gora int
Stats
ISK Destroyed: 0
ISK Lost: 0
ISK Delta: 0
Efficiency: NaN%
Overall evaluation
- ✔ (Positive stuff)
- We did something instead of just rolling content away; we took the initiative
- We had a plan for extraction (more on this some other time)
✘ (Negative stuff)
Was our plan sound?