The anticipation feels like fear. The shakes from adrenaline are not as strong was an initial burst for a fight but it's there. Everything is ready, because local spiked and there is going to be a fight. Everything gets a bit bright and a little bit sharper and I'm glad that I had time to go and get the drones that I forgot because there isn't going to be any time anymore for that type of thing once everything starts. Everyone is on edge, but it's a good edge. Tempers are sharper. Tongues are sharper. It's anticipating reaching steep and gasping heights as the waiting becomes hard enough to hurt.
The other night one of 7-2's posses got put into reinforcement. For once, I was going to be around when it came out. Hono was on and it wasn't super late for him since he is Euro. We managed to provide five people to assist which is pretty good for us considering 0200 Eve time is early in our corps day. Ransm had added some people and they were intertwined with 7-2's fleet already.
We got Hono situated earlier in the evening. He is still new enough to big, multi-group ops that it's a bit nerve wracking. I decided I'd have time to make dinner, eat, and be back to fit my ship and head out. I was wrong. For once, there was a significant level of organization very early and instead of people trickling in at the last minute with thirty minutes before go time I was feeling as if I was a procrastinating slacker.
This made me grumpy. I absolutely hate rushing for things which is why I tend to over prepare by some people's standards. So while Ren got me the rigs that I needed (which I didn't have because its a fit I never fly and have never needed) I snarled at Razor who had headed off and was telling people to hurry up. I then got a bit more bitchy when he says, "It's fine no one is out," because I've died to many times to no one being there the moment before. Dying on the way to an op sucks.
We wound up planting ourselves two systems out from the actual fight. 7-2 had found a wormhole in system and shoved most of their fleet into it. They had impeccable timing because a few minutes after they snuck into their hiding hole the scout for the attacking fleet entered the system to only see six of their ships. Of course they were sitting in the wormhole in their low sec snake and slave clones hoping the hole did not collapse and a wormhole gank was not incoming.
Then local in the system we were sitting in spiked with eleven people and we knew that we were going to get a fight. They had a Armageddon, Proteus, Sacrilege, Abaddon, Stiletto, Apocalypse, Guardian x2, Damnation, Ishtar, Scorpion. We had a T1 cruiser fleet of over twenty people with 6 Thorax, 1 Vexor, 10 Ruptures, 1 Arbitrator, an Ashamu and 4 Aurgorors and a Vigilant.
Then they jumped out and their interceptor made its move to provide the fleet a warp in. As they left our system we undocked and warped to the gate. There we hovered as they entered the system where 7-2 POS waited. It was an interesting point. They had scouted, but half of 7-2 was hiding in a wormhole and I do not know if they know enough to suspect us as support for 7-2 or not. It depends on how well they skimmed the killboards.
As they landed on the POS, 7-2 arranged a warp in and undocked their fleet. They got their warpin sent and their fleet headed in. As the poor little covops that was the warp in died, teh rest of the 7-2 fleet popped out of the wormhole and we advanced forward to join in the fray. As we entered system there was some bitching over people drifting into the POS shields, but by the time we landed everything was going smoothly and the fight rapidly flipped sides.
I'm not sure when DP went down in his Aurgoror. It was early and I remember someone telling him there was a reship in the station. We started with the Scorpion and worked through the Guardians. We had things pointed, but staying with the Fleet Commander kept bouncing us out of range. Once we made it through the first Guardian things smoothed out. The Second Guardian went down and we started on the heavy stuff.
At one point something started to shoot me. I never got lower than 45% shields so I never needed to call for reps. As we were down to the Abaddon, Apocalypse and Tempest, the Apocalypse decided to start self destruct. Someone, jettisoned a bunch of crystals from their cargo hold as well. The self destruct didn't work out because we killed him before it completed. The crystal jettison will decrease the ISK loss on the killboard.
As they landed on the POS, 7-2 arranged a warp in and undocked their fleet. They got their warpin sent and their fleet headed in. As the poor little covops that was the warp in died, teh rest of the 7-2 fleet popped out of the wormhole and we advanced forward to join in the fray. As we entered system there was some bitching over people drifting into the POS shields, but by the time we landed everything was going smoothly and the fight rapidly flipped sides.
I'm not sure when DP went down in his Aurgoror. It was early and I remember someone telling him there was a reship in the station. We started with the Scorpion and worked through the Guardians. We had things pointed, but staying with the Fleet Commander kept bouncing us out of range. Once we made it through the first Guardian things smoothed out. The Second Guardian went down and we started on the heavy stuff.
At one point something started to shoot me. I never got lower than 45% shields so I never needed to call for reps. As we were down to the Abaddon, Apocalypse and Tempest, the Apocalypse decided to start self destruct. Someone, jettisoned a bunch of crystals from their cargo hold as well. The self destruct didn't work out because we killed him before it completed. The crystal jettison will decrease the ISK loss on the killboard.
And then there was one. I lost my drones to a smart bomb at some point during everything.
I lost point on the Ishtar, which got away. Disusing it with Vov he told me no excuses. For me, being told to do X Y and Z is what I was doing, but that is what caused me to lose my point. Learning or knowing or deciding when to break from orders in a more doctrine and directed fleet is a thing. On my own, I know what I want to do but I don't want to be a liability to 7-2 and have them not invite me to fleets because I am unable to do as told. According to Vov I'm smart enough to make decisions.
It was a very decisive win on our side. They left and went back to their home station and to our surprise, reshipped and started to came back. People had to slow down on running off to get drones and all of the other things that they had trotted off to do. We regrouped and waited to see what their new fleet comp would be.
Abaddon, Armageddon x2, Guardian x3, Falcon, Megathron x2, Tempest, Scorpion x2, Typhoon Fleet Issue, Damnation and the Stiletto still buzzing around.
We hovered inside of the shields. Our link ships were having problems and we were told to stop before someone drifted out of the shields and died in a fire. They were 30k off when they landed. I randomly started giving their intel of their fleet comp in local as we got ourselves sorted out. It was going to be a painful 30k to get into range. Neuts and damps were called for to suppresses the heavy fire and keep us alive as we moved. But they were moving as well. Slowly, but surely they crept into range. And then the link problem was resolved as DP announced, "Hes in web range," although I can't remember who it was. The Armageddon maybe?
The Fleet commander ordered us to burn directly at him and started with one of the Scorpion's as primary.
We broke the shields and neuts, damps and jams went everywhere. They went after the Aurgoror's with a business. The falcon landed on grid and the Guardians stayed 30k off of the rest of the fleet. Two of our Aurgoror's were jammed and neuted out as we started to chew into the first Scorpion.
The decision to call the Dreadnoughts was made and the cyno was lit.
Did I mention the capitals? We belived that they would drop a triage carrier so we prepared the same for ourselves. The dreadnought pilots were itchy as anything and suddenly, Moros.
Then it just became a cleanup. The Guardian's bailed and we manged to point everything else. This time I ran in and pointed what I had called and glued myself to it. I did not want to lose a point to anything less than my exploding this time around. The Moros blapped to the left and blapped to the right. The rest of the fleet shot at what we could get before the Moros melted it. And then it was done. Space was empty, they retreated and we were left with a defended POS.
The battle report is here. Both fights are condensed into one report. Such is the nature of these things. It is also why I say that kill boards and kill mails don't tell the entire story.
There was a lot of discussion about dropping the dreds to soon. I think that we could have gone either way. They could have just dropped the Archon and waited for them to drop their carrier and then dropped the dreds after that. We'd have gotten a carrier kill and probably lost some subcaps in the process. What is easy to overlook is that they came back with a very strong e-war and capacitor warfare plan. The second Armageddon was set up like a baby Bhaalgorn. The Scorpion's were set up as pure e-war boats the second time. If they had taken out our Aurgoror's we'd have been left with very little as they didn't know we had caps on standby as well. Our Aurgoror pilots were targeted immediately to knock them out of the fight early.
Either way, they brought the fight and they did it twice. Good fights in local all around and no smack talk. We hung out to defend the shield repair team.
Once that was settled, 7-2 decided to go out and roam while others did clean up and logistics and THC2 wandered back home.
It was a very decisive win on our side. They left and went back to their home station and to our surprise, reshipped and started to came back. People had to slow down on running off to get drones and all of the other things that they had trotted off to do. We regrouped and waited to see what their new fleet comp would be.
Abaddon, Armageddon x2, Guardian x3, Falcon, Megathron x2, Tempest, Scorpion x2, Typhoon Fleet Issue, Damnation and the Stiletto still buzzing around.
We hovered inside of the shields. Our link ships were having problems and we were told to stop before someone drifted out of the shields and died in a fire. They were 30k off when they landed. I randomly started giving their intel of their fleet comp in local as we got ourselves sorted out. It was going to be a painful 30k to get into range. Neuts and damps were called for to suppresses the heavy fire and keep us alive as we moved. But they were moving as well. Slowly, but surely they crept into range. And then the link problem was resolved as DP announced, "Hes in web range," although I can't remember who it was. The Armageddon maybe?
The Fleet commander ordered us to burn directly at him and started with one of the Scorpion's as primary.
We broke the shields and neuts, damps and jams went everywhere. They went after the Aurgoror's with a business. The falcon landed on grid and the Guardians stayed 30k off of the rest of the fleet. Two of our Aurgoror's were jammed and neuted out as we started to chew into the first Scorpion.
The decision to call the Dreadnoughts was made and the cyno was lit.
Did I mention the capitals? We belived that they would drop a triage carrier so we prepared the same for ourselves. The dreadnought pilots were itchy as anything and suddenly, Moros.
Then it just became a cleanup. The Guardian's bailed and we manged to point everything else. This time I ran in and pointed what I had called and glued myself to it. I did not want to lose a point to anything less than my exploding this time around. The Moros blapped to the left and blapped to the right. The rest of the fleet shot at what we could get before the Moros melted it. And then it was done. Space was empty, they retreated and we were left with a defended POS.
The battle report is here. Both fights are condensed into one report. Such is the nature of these things. It is also why I say that kill boards and kill mails don't tell the entire story.
There was a lot of discussion about dropping the dreds to soon. I think that we could have gone either way. They could have just dropped the Archon and waited for them to drop their carrier and then dropped the dreds after that. We'd have gotten a carrier kill and probably lost some subcaps in the process. What is easy to overlook is that they came back with a very strong e-war and capacitor warfare plan. The second Armageddon was set up like a baby Bhaalgorn. The Scorpion's were set up as pure e-war boats the second time. If they had taken out our Aurgoror's we'd have been left with very little as they didn't know we had caps on standby as well. Our Aurgoror pilots were targeted immediately to knock them out of the fight early.
Either way, they brought the fight and they did it twice. Good fights in local all around and no smack talk. We hung out to defend the shield repair team.
Once that was settled, 7-2 decided to go out and roam while others did clean up and logistics and THC2 wandered back home.
As long as we dropped our triage rather quickly we probably wouldn't have lost any sub-caps. The only reason for capitals in the first place was their ECM and neuts, which weren't going to be a problem. (neuts in the short term anyway)
ReplyDeleteAltaen ran things very well and with or without a dead triage carrier I was happy.
Good post.
Also DP lost his Augoror about 30 seconds into the fight because when we landed on grid the first time we were very close to the POS shields. I think when some of the logistics started orbiting the anchor it took them inside the POS shields which causes them to lose lock.
ReplyDeleteDrunk moros pilot checking in!!! Great wright up Sugar, did I mention that was my first time dropping that dread. The missed chance of a possible carrier kill is slightly sad but then again we had 2 solid fights (well 1 solid fight, the 2nd one was more of a gank ^.^) with about 4.5 - 5 bil in ships dead. That wh thing was perfect, and hats off to whoever found that thing, also what timing for our guys to have jumped into it just before there scout got eyes in system :P..
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