Damnit

Once again In lowsec I came upon this relatively new pirate corporation who have seem to have taken up residence in my old stomping grounds (I posted about their CEO's Cynabal last week). This time they had a decent gang together, consisting of Tempest, Hurricane x2, Harbinger, Myrmidon, Drake, Vigil, and Thrasher. I decided I could probably do some damage to them If I could get them to aggress me on a gate In my Vagabond, and a few minutes later they did exactly that.

I aligned and burned out with MWD immediately to quickly gain range, I'm sure the tempest had at least 1 heavy neut fit, and I didn't want ANY part of that in my Vagabond. The Vigil quickly burnt out after me and tackled me despite having to GCC for it. It would have been only a matter of time before the gateguns vollied the Vigil but before they had a chance to cycle to him, I nailed him with my medium neut, warrior 2's and managed to hit him with some 220 Autocannon vollies because he foolishly burnt strait at me. He went down quick and I went back in to engage the rest of the gang. I locked up one of the Hurricanes who was moving away from his gang, and had gategun aggro and went to work on his shields. As soon as he realized his situation though the Hurricane began burning back towards his friends, including the Tempest with his potential heavy neut that I was afraid of. I had to let him go and switch targets, I quickly switched to the thrasher who had just GCC'd on me as well, and set my drones on him, but again he immediately burnt towards his gangmembers and began chewing on my drones.

I found myself 50km out with no one in range, when they started all warping off the gate, I overloaded my MWD and burnt strait at the gate now, hoping to catch a straggler left behind with gategun aggro, but I failed to do so. In the excitement of fighting 1v8 I lost track of the situation and the enemy gang did the right thing and left ASAP. If I had remained closer to the gate I would have at least killed 1 Hurricane and the Thrasher but I was too caught up in surviving at the time to realize the damage I could have done. I was kicking myself afterward, that fight could have been so much better, but because of my mistakes all i have to show for it is a Vigil kill...

PS. Please +1 my Fanfest 2011 Tournament fit on Battleclinic. The stats are solid, and I think it'd be great to see an AB Stabber in a tournament setting.- VOTE HERE -

How NOT to use a Cynabal

So I'm tooling around in a thrasher, killing a couple carebears here and there when I notice someone with a GCC in local on my way down the lowsec pipe. After some scanning around I notice a Cynabal on scan in a safespot, so I just move on. An hour or so later on my way back out of the pipe the same guy, and the same Cynabal are still around. The beauty of the T1 frigate is the price, since its so cheap I have no problem engaging things that outclass me, since there's no real risk for me.

I warp to the gate leading to highsec where the Cynabal is sitting, just to see what he's up to. I'm thinking maybe I can tackle him after he GCC's on a badger or something coming through, but to my surprise he turns on his MWD and bumps me and engages me. However to his surprise he's not hitting me, he made the mistake of starting the engagement at about 700m which allowed me to be under his guns before it ever began. The gateguns and my 200ish DPS made short work of his shields, and once he was at 1/2 armor he tried aligning to warp out. While he was gaining distance he managed to actually hit me with a few shots and quickly brought me down to structure but it was too late.

- KILLMAIL -

[ 2011.03.07 01:53:08 ] Night Angelo > how the f*** did u tank me
[ 2011.03.07 01:53:29 ] Joseph Dreadloch > you missed for the first 1/2 of the fight
[ 2011.03.07 01:53:35 ] Joseph Dreadloch > i was up close under your guns
[ 2011.03.07 01:53:46 ] Night Angelo > unf***ing un real

Turns out he had T1 guns fit, and a pretty weak tank. He was using a 250m ISK ship with T1 guns to pop frigates and haulers on a gate. The lure of the 'shiny' ship is strong, and I'll admit when I was relatively new I too flew ships I wasn't properly skilled for. There's no reason to be in a faction ship in lowsec, when you don't even have the skills to fit it out with T2 gear.

Icebelt Thanatos, and returning to Lowsec.

After months in highsec trying (and somewhat failing) to just make ISK, I decided to once again go roaming in lowsec. Its apparent to me now... that lowsec is where I belong.

About 4 minutes into my triumphant return to lowsec I heard a voice. This voice came from every direction, as If the very space around me was speaking to me. It said "Welcome back my son" and then the gods of lowsec gave unto me, a gift of 'LOL' in a grand scale... Thanatos and Retreiver on scan... in an icebelt.

So I leapt into the belt in my Taranis, thinking I could pop the retriever. As soon as I had it locked and scrammed, I activated my guns and the Thanny scooped the retriever up.

Neooen419 > i wanted to just peacefully mine

Enraged that this asshole just denied my Retriever kill and astounded that he would risk his Thanatos to save a Retriever, it was time to call for backup. My friend Ospie logged on literally at the moment I had warped into the belt, He used to pirate in the area so maybe he would be nearby and be able to bring something heavy. Alas he was nowhere nearby (and I don't have cyno skills), then I noticed my old friend Fon Revedhort was online. Fon is a double/triple boxing lowsec badass who I first met when I had 5m SP when he helped me kill about 15 people. Well... Fon was just 3j out with a Machariel so I tackled the Thanny and went to work killing its Praetor 1's (Yes Praetor 1's). Fon arrived about the same time my Taranis was reaching low structure, and from there Fon did most of the work. I randomly re-entered the belt killed a few drones, and left, as my Taranis was on fire. Eventually the Thanny pilot recalled his drones and convo'd me, I took this opportunity to lay down a little more DPS on the Thanny's failing armor.

Joseph Dreadloch > ello
Neooen419 > nice hits
Neooen419 > any way i could covice u to stop?
Neooen419 > lol
Joseph Dreadloch > maybe with lost of ISK
Neooen419 > im actuallt suprized i hit you as much as i did
Neooen419 > how much u want i can negotiate
Joseph Dreadloch > make me an offer, if i like it we'll stop, if not we wont
Joseph Dreadloch > you've got one shot
Neooen419 > 500 mill?
Neooen419 > not gloating but i did have u close to deatrh i just cant webify
Joseph Dreadloch > sorry, your offer isnt acceptable
Neooen419 > rgr that

-KILLMAIL-

We decided the kill was worth more to us, so I would have refused any offer really, and neither Fon or I dishonor ransoms. So he re-deployed his Praetor 1's and I went to work killing them again. He died quietly and quickly left system without a word.

B0rg war part 3

After the engagement of the first day there weren't any large battles for a while. When there were more than about 5 online, they would organize on the undock of a station and dare us to attack. Meanwhile we hunted their missioners. There were a handful of kills, such as when they decided to practice fighting each other with us one jump out. We popped a hurricane that still had the aggression timer. The war finished with just two moderate engagements where we had multiple people on each side.

In the first, I lost my tempest to their gang while permajammed by their Falcon and held by a scram/web crow. I still think I can kill them however with JD running his taranis against tacklers, so I move to Dresi where my 94km-optimal pulsepoc and bookmark set are. A manticore lands on station at 110km. I fire once - no shields, a few seconds later the picture disappears. I worry he docked and check visual, there's a wreck! I start locking pod....9 seconds. Lock! Pop! Giggle. I jump around the station for a while. They don't decloak the falcon or chase, so I dock. However, the crow from before is still on scan, so I grab a probing char. Scan scan scan...I get a hit and warp to it. It's the crow, sitting still in a safespot. JD warps in. Scram, web, pop, pod, scoop, salvage, gloat. It's almost like we've done this before. Then the falcon smacks that I won't engage because don't want to lose another ship. I figure the falcon must be ready to fight, so I head back with the pulsepoc. A rifter undocks... and flies straight at me. Volley one: 25% armor, volley two: no rifter. Then the falcon decloaks. I lock and strip the shields in the first hit, and volley two takes it to half armor. It dies with volley four. Maybe the 100mn afterburner had something to do with why it didn't warp off. We hang around a little bit more but it's obvious their fighting spirit is gone.

In the second and final battle, they have some battleships outside station, so we head over in a pair of Tempests to buzz them. Orbiting them at 20km, we wait while they take a minute to weigh the odds. Finally someone flings some drones at JD. We return fire, and their raven drops quickly, followed soon after by the dominix. They had a navy scorp outside station as well, but it docked after receiving the first sliver of shield damage. We were pretty sure the pilot never aggressed. We scoop the loot, including a Centum A-type mod from the domi. Two other characters undock, but they won't aggress. The scorp pilot then undocks in a drake, and decides to warp to different stations in system. I follow him with dscan, then warp back to station when he does. This time, however, he's not smack in the middle of a continent-sized docking zone. I see the opportunity, so I shoot past him, then mwd back out for a solid bump. Off station with no prop mod, he dies quickly to our battleships. So the war ended as it began, with a bump.

B0RG COLLECTIVE War (part2)

Day 1 of the war was probably the most eventful, as it usually is. Luckily my friend Philis had just returned from a long inactive stint and he joined up with us, so there would be 1 pilot our WT weren't counting on.

Eventually the worlds most obvious bait Drake was sitting at a planet in our home system. So we undocked our 3 Tempest, with our falcon sitting on a gate 1j out. The Drake literally melted, even with its Hero tank, it was dead before their gang ever arrived... they must have warped to his pod. Once their gang landed it was 5v3, not including our cloaked falcon who was still waiting, or their already dead drake.

Battleclinic Engagement
+ 1 Raven who ran away.

Once the Rook started jamming, our Falcon decloaked and it was all over. We systematically destroyed them, Rook, Raven, Nighthawk, Drake, and a surprisingly expensive Ishkur. They were dumbfounded and broken, they had Wardec'd us, THEY were the attackers, and THEY just lost 5 ships in a 6v4 and only managed to take 1 tempest down to 1/3 shields. They would spend the rest of the war hiding and on the defense.