The briefing mail was full of quotable gems like this:
They have a shittily defended POS. Like, if you lose a ship to it, you passed out from alcohol. Since we shall all be steadily drinking, there are some risks. Clearly.
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| duunnn dunnn... duuuunnnn duun... duuunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn dunnnn |
There WILL be fucking content.
We'll see about that Doctor Prince Field Marshall Trinkets Friend, we'll see.
Order of Battle
The fleet doctrine was simple, built around sentry drone equipped Ishtar's and/or Vexor Navy Issue's with supporting Drakes and logi in the form of Basilisks.
The VNI fit used makes it a very good utility vessel with some serious punch. My thanks to Bex for fitting me up a ship during the working day and contracting that over to me in our entry system. It was only much later that I realised I could actually fly and could have used the Ishtar but I quite enjoy flying the "Son of Potato" so I may give the Ishtar a pass, at least for the time being.
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| Son of Potato |
The dreadnought would provide not just seriously needed fire power but would almost guarantee "fucking content" as everyone wants to kill capitals.
The Alliance is Assembled
We had a good turn out, about fifteen to twenty pilots from the alliance (time zone was perfect for AU but not EU/US) were assembled by the time I got on comms. Morale was high and it really helped that the group were affiliated with the "inept" idiots who tried to attack us a couple of weeks ago.
We had a good mix of Ishtar/VNI and a lone Drake (flown by long-time blog friend Bex) plus a few logistics and other ships. It's only two days ago but my memory of the fleet composition is actually rather hazy, I put it down to lack of sleep caused by a second POS bash last night (more to come on that).
Most people got into the C5 quite quickly thanks to Siggy showing entrances and exits we could use, we did, alas, lose one VNI who passed through a WH but got caught and podded. Still they joined us later in a different ship so all was good.
Fondling the Cumquat
At the appointed time the fleet warped to the POS and started incapacitating the defenses, this didn't take too long as there weren't many but still took the best part of an hour at which point we started on the tower.
We didn't cluster into one area but, intelligently, we spread around the POS to offer as less an inviting target as possible for bombers and amusingly the dreadnought was located on the far side of the POS to the rest of the fleet. It wasn't obvious to me but in hindsight this was a particularly good bait offer and one that was eventually taken.
It took nearly 50% of the shields down before the enemy logged in to see what was happening, they swapped ships warped back/forth from the pos to safe spots and pretty much watched us watching them watching us.
The "absolutely nothing happened-off" continued til around 30% shields when we started to bombers and a few assorted ships enter and start to land on grid or within the POS.
The first I knew that we were going to be receiving visitors was when a Sabre exited the POS near to the Naglfer and dropped a bubble. My initial reaction was to GTFO as we didn't know what we'd be up against but I'm proud to say I didn't leave, I trusted my fleet mates and I wasn't going to let them die in a fire. Yet.
The Sabre did high speed runs in/out of the POS shield dropping bubbles on the dreadnought as bombers and a couple of battleships appeared on grid. Targets were called and we managed to kill both the Sabre and a Heretic that were dropping bubbles all over the grid.
Being WH space I knew of the inconvenience that being podded, especially as we controlled the incoming WH's, and it was in our best interests to pod every pilot whose ship we killed. So it was with great glee that I locked and killed every pod that I could, one less pilot who could quickly reship in the WH meant less for us to face.
Ships were being killed faster than I could lock, I remember seeing a Curse (major threat to the Naglfer), a Rapier (that the Naglfer blapped) and I heard about a Macherial and many other bombers.
I was only able to fire at one bomber and he was less than 10km from me and such was the power of his torpoedos that I went from full health to 45% armour in just three salvos. Forutnately in that time I locked and was able to kill him and of course, calling for reps showed how bad my battlefield positioning was as I was well out of logi range.
The battle lasted only a minute/minute and a half but we killed plenty and lost only a couple of ships.
With all the ships fighting the one thing that was surprising was how the Nagfler wasn't attacked in any seriousness: in hindsight this makes sense, take out the support first, pin the prize target in place.
At this point I would like to recommend visiting Localectomy for details on notable kills and the better written and funnier, view of the battle so head over and read this.
The first I knew that we were going to be receiving visitors was when a Sabre exited the POS near to the Naglfer and dropped a bubble. My initial reaction was to GTFO as we didn't know what we'd be up against but I'm proud to say I didn't leave, I trusted my fleet mates and I wasn't going to let them die in a fire. Yet.
The Sabre did high speed runs in/out of the POS shield dropping bubbles on the dreadnought as bombers and a couple of battleships appeared on grid. Targets were called and we managed to kill both the Sabre and a Heretic that were dropping bubbles all over the grid.
Being WH space I knew of the inconvenience that being podded, especially as we controlled the incoming WH's, and it was in our best interests to pod every pilot whose ship we killed. So it was with great glee that I locked and killed every pod that I could, one less pilot who could quickly reship in the WH meant less for us to face.
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| Concentrate all fire power on that... |
I was only able to fire at one bomber and he was less than 10km from me and such was the power of his torpoedos that I went from full health to 45% armour in just three salvos. Forutnately in that time I locked and was able to kill him and of course, calling for reps showed how bad my battlefield positioning was as I was well out of logi range.
The battle lasted only a minute/minute and a half but we killed plenty and lost only a couple of ships.
Moonwalking Out of Dodge
With all the ships fighting the one thing that was surprising was how the Nagfler wasn't attacked in any seriousness: in hindsight this makes sense, take out the support first, pin the prize target in place.
After the battle ended we were able to (after some unneeded hilarity with webbing) extract the Nagfler from grid and left our beloved leader to extract from the WH and get safe somewhere.
The surviving sub-capital fleet moved to the exit WH and we held that whilst we awaited for all to arrive at which point a cat/mouse game was played with the, now superior in numbers, enemy fleet who chased us all the way back to high sec before and just after DT.
Fun Times
Well, fucking content was provided and it was very enjoyable. We may not have RF'd or killed the tower but we got a very enjoyable fight and lost little (aside from Bex's first ever Drake from circa 2010/2011).
The force multiplier that is good logistics pilots was shown and I tip my hat to my logi pilots. I may not have needed you as much as others but when I did you were there even if I did try my hardest to kill myself by flying away from them.
I was pleased with my contribution, sure its nice to get kill mails (not to mention get on them) but an otherwise boring Friday night entertaining and well worth ignoring the family for.
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