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CTRL-Q - Minmatar FW - Low Sec PvP - EU Timezone
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Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#61 - 2013-11-12 15:50:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Major Trant
Sorry for the gap in reporting. Had the unpleaseant experience of being burgled last week and had to take some time out. First day back last Friday, I really wasn't concentrating, lost 4 Firetails and my Low-Grade Snake set due to meeting decent pilots when I shouldn't have been playing. Never liked those snakes anyway! I won't be replacing them. In the months before, I was running with a LG-Halo set (sig radius) and I have to stay I've come to really appreciate them. They made a much bigger impact than I'd previously given them credit for and are ideal for my preferred style of play which is basically small stuff, usually brawlers.

On Saturday I pulled myself together and got involved in several brawls, it was a little frustration getting people to engage, but I did end the night in an SFI running a medium plex in Huola when a Deimos came in. Unfortunately for him, I was in a large fleet, most of whom were in Khourm. Reinforcements arrived and we took him down, but such was the way it was going that I think it likely I could have solo'd him. Still ended top damage dealer with over 50% of the damage.

Sunday 10th November, was a great day, with my confidence growing again. I took on a 2v1, my Firetail against an Executioner and Punisher. Killed the Executioner and then got the tackle on the Punisher and he was going down hard when S5 arrived and wh*red on. Got the Punisher pod too, which again S5 wh*ored on with no damage, then the cheeky git scoops the Punisher loot.

A neutral Eagle tried to bait us into a fight just off a custom office, then called in a Rupture, Stabber and Slasher to assist. We called in more and took them all down. Shortly after that we ganked down a Sleipnir, then a Thorax off the Huola gate in Kourm.

Hex(.) brought a blingy cruiser gang along with Guardian support, we shipped into heavier stuff with Augorors, but for once I brought a neuting Armaggedon. We took 2 Guards and an Augoror Navy Issue off them and they baled.

Monday 11th November was a superb day, the days we play for.

21 kills. Offically I lost 2 Firetails during the course of the day, but I also lost a T1 fit Executioner belonging to my alt. I was being kited by a Slicer, I was in a Firetail and could tank his damage, but he wouldn't go away. There was only two ways out, either he brings someone else in or I do. I brought my alt in, armed with 3 Salvagers, a prototype cloak and a Warp Scrambler. Tackle on then killed in short order, but in the distraction I get Trant in Scrambler range, dead Slicer and then of course the f*ggot is whinging in local about it (titter).

Hex(.) came looking for revenge and they really brought the bling this time. They had at least 2 Loki, 2 Legion, 3 Absolution, 4 Astarte and 3 Guardians. We were out in an Armor Cruiser gang going after another target at the time when we sighted them and fell back to Huola. They were shouting in Kourm local, "We're coming wait for us if you want a fight." At that point they had the more significant force, but their keeness to engage was suspicious. We warped to a small plex gate in Huola, which if you're not aware, you cannot light a cyno on.

Suddenly they became all coy. They didn't want to fight us on the plex gate, come down to the Kourm gate or meet us on a planet they asked.

We trolled the crap out of them and in the delay more people logged on and joined us. I was running the Augoror team and it grew to 5, we also got some neuting BS on field. The trolling got worse and we clearly broke them. They finally warped in on us and a fabulous punch up was had. We lost a Brutix early, then a Vexor Navy Issue, but the latter never called for reps. That was the sum of our losses. Hex(.) lost at least a Loki, an Absolution, 2 Astartes and 3 Guardians, over 3B isk worth of losses.

We went back to running the plexes in Kourm, Roushzar and Houla, several more good fights and ganks were had. Oh btw, Kourm fell to the Amarr last week, so now they are offensive plexes paying a lot more LP, but the downside is that we can't dock in Kourm anymore, which is bad for loot wh*res like me.
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#62 - 2013-11-13 10:45:37 UTC
Tuesday 12th November 2013

Not a very entertaining night. I raised an ad-hoc fleet to take on some WTs in the Huola plexes. Initially about 3 of us chased 5 WTs around the system, but although they had the numbers they wouldn't engage, although to be fair around 15 blues were in the system.

More people joined fleet, numbers rose to about 8. We set up a gate camp on the Huola/Kourm gate while running 3 plexes in Huola. They closed, bringing the system to stable. Meanwhile the Amarr had been defensive plexing Kourn and that system also became stable at around the same time. A good effort on their part as the system had been at around 20% contested the previous day.

With hindsight I should have moved the gang onto offensive plexing Kourm, but I became blinded by the Amarr effort. We were too small to make a difference and knew it would just be plexed back during their strong TZ period in late US / Aussie. It never occurred to me to plex in order to get the pew, instead we stayed camping the gate. We got some ganks including a very poorly fit Augoror Navy Issue, but no fight. Eventually a WT gang of about 15 Frigates and Dessies landed, but they also had a Ferox with them. We baled and reshipped into Cruisers. Although we had about 10 in fleet by then only about 5 of us were active, we landed, caught a Retribution, but the rest ran away. Again we chased them around Huola, then all the way back to Kamela.

I took the gang back to Huola and we got back into Frigates. 5 minutes later the same WT gang came back to the Huola gate in Kourm. Expecting a trap, I took the gang the other way, out through Roushzar and did a circuit of the warzone. We chased a few things and a couple of kills were made by individuals. Ended the night on 5 kills plus a pod.
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#63 - 2013-11-14 13:57:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Major Trant
Wednesday 13th November 2013

The battle for Huola seems to have started in earnest and to make matters worse LNA screwed up their standings to the Minmatar Republic and were booted from the Militia yesterday, they should be back tomorrow, but it couldn't have occurred at a worse time.

When I logged the previous day, Huola had been stable, when I came on today it was 31% contested. But I knew this already, our forums were crying about it all day along with the fact that LNA had been booted. There are some bloody defeatist wimps in this alliance, crying about how the system will have gone by the end of the weekend, about dropping from the Militia, going pirate and running to some system in the back of beyond where we don't have to plex and can gank down the odd shuttle without being hot dropped by a Condor. Jeez, grow some balls.

Lory had come on early and had pulled a fleet together, Weazls a former Iron Oxide corp that had left militia in April to go pirate in Molden Heath, came back to help us out. Initally Lory was running plexes solely in Huola but as our numbers grew and no opposition came along, he moved most of us down to the Huola/Kourm gate. It was the same tactic that I'd used the previous day and come to believe was in error. I mentioned my feeling to him. He wouldn't be swayed but gave me permission to run plexes solo in Kourm if I wanted, but help would only be incoming if nothing else was going on in Huola.

I got myself in my own squad with my cyno alt. Moved to a small plex in Kourm and cloaked my alt up outside. With 6 minutes left on the plex a WT landed on the gate. I called for backup prematurely and the WT ran without entering the plex. Jus and another friendly pilot came into the plex and started running it with me. That was counter productive to me. I left them there and warped to the Novice plex that had just appeared on scan. I thought I popped it but when I landed I found a Firetail inside. Kourm was stable, so it seemed unlikely that it was a WT.

I entered the plex and to my surprise found a neutral Firetail inside at about 30 Kms. I hit approach, but immediately I was attacked by the NPC rat which wasn't aggroing on the neutral and as the Firetail was burning away I decided to take down the rat first. Hardly had I settled into an orbit of the rat than a neutral Tristan came in. Crap! I called for help, but something was going on in Huola and only Jus in the small offered to help. TBH I dithered a bit about calling him in, almost resigning myself to the loss. I turned towards the Tristan and started burning him down, then noticed that the neutral Firetail was still burning away, now at 80 Kms. I called Jus in, but I did my usual trick of popping the Tristan just as Jus landed and he missed the kill.

Jus went back to the small, the Firetail left, I killed the rat and started running down the timer. A WT Executioner came in and I killed it. Something jumped into the Huola gate camp from Kourm so I warped down to join in. But before I landed it was all over. However, there on the Kourm side was a WT Rifter, moments later it was a dead Rifter and my third solo kill, then the pod made four.

My holds were full of loot so I went into Huola, dropped it off and repped heat damage. I was in warp back to the Kourm novice when I saw with my cloaked Cyno alt, another Executioner land and enter the plex, moments later I landed, entered and solo kill number 5 occurred.

FWeddit arrived and it was clear their FC had read Zap Brannigan's Big Book of War:

'Knowing that the Minmatar had real lives and only a limited play time. I used this to our advantage, by sending wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their preset kill limit and shut down.'

Wave number one, mostly Kestrels arrived at 1956, I rushed over from Kourm to join the guys in a small plex in Huola, it kicked off just seconds before I arrived. Lory didn't even call primary, we had reps on field, he ordered free fire, tackle and solo everything on the warp in. Freddit lost at least 13 ships and 2 pods in less than 3 minutes, we lost a single Firetail, although to be fair, given how cheap they fit their ships, they may have won the Isk war. Unfortunately the battle report was contaminated with earlier ganks in the system, including some pricy kills, it shows 25 kills for 1 loss and a 95% Isk efficiency, I couldn't be bothered to work it out manually.

I return to Huola station with another hold full of loot, which did include a few bits of T2 and faction ammo. Then I set off to return to that Novice plex in kourm. I had barely aligned to the Kourm gate as I initiated warp when I notice a Daredevil enter the plex from my cyno alt. I report it in comms. Lory orders the gang down to the Kourm gate and tells me to tackle it, thinking I'm reporting it on Trant.

I don't correct his misunderstanding, just continue to warp. I land on the Kourm gate and there is a WT Cynabal at zero. I report this to Lory and then my ship automatically jumps. However, before I leave system I see the Cynabal jump too. Lory orders the gang to hold on the Huola side, they were only just started to come on grid. 'You will never catch it he tells them.' I decloak with the Cynabal and only 5 Kms off. 'Tackle on' I scream and they all jump, reps land on me and we kill it. It drops a Dark Blood Warp Disruptor among other loot.

Continued...
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#64 - 2013-11-14 14:03:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Major Trant
I finally reach the plex with the Daredevil in it, but I call the guys in too early before I've got point on and he bales.

Dev comes on line and takes over as FC, Lory takes a break. I move to another small plex. But as I land I find a Firetail inside, then a friendly thrasher and two neutral Comets land. I report the situation in commes but something else is kicking off. The four of us sort of look at each other, uncertain whether to agress or enter the plex. I go in and find the Firetail is neutral at about 15 kms range and hestitate, the friendly Thrasher follows me in. That does it for me, I race towards the Firetail and tackle him, he tackles me. The Thrasher bales and then the two Comets come in. I eventually kill the Firetail, but the Comets kill me. Then I discover they aren't with the Firetail and both had wh*red onto my kill. Negligable damage, but ruined the solo kill.

I pod back to Huola, jump in and find our fleet on the otherside stacking up in an Armored Cruiser comp with Augorors. I hadn't been following what was going in. I ship into an SFI and race to join them as the fight kicks off in Kamala on the Kourm gate against a pirate gang. It was a bit of a kity battle, we lose a Rupture, but take down a Hookbill, Slicer and two Ishtars. Afterwards the battlefield is full of abandoned drones.

Dev is keen to get us back to Huola, a Novice plex has spawned. Most of the fleet leave, but loot wh*re Trant stays on field. The wreaks and drones are scattered, I get to one elite cruiser wreak that still contains loot, but it is only Navy Cap Boosters. I have exactly 150.4m of cargohold left and 5 Garde IIs and 5 Warrior IIs are nearby. I scoop them instead.

Fweddit wave 2 arrive in Huola and the fight kicks off in the novice plex. Fweddit bring reps this time, 3 Bursts, but all 3 go down along with another 10 frigates, mostly Kestrels again. We lose a single Tristan. Meanwhile I warp up to my perch bookmark above the Kourm gate in Kam, intended to warp back down to the gate and return to Huola. Another WT Frigate gang land on the gate. I report this and watch, thinking they are on the way to reinforce Fweddit. But Fweddit are just about all dead by then, all 14 losses went down in 3 minutes.

The WT fleet jump into Kourm, all except one Rifter. It starts burning out to the elite Cruiser wreak that contains the Cap booster charges. The wreak is about 80 Kms from the gate and 250 Kms from me (Titter). He finally reaches the wreak, I warp down and murder him. Solo kill number 6.

I finally get back to Houla with around 40M Isk of loot, switch out to a Firetail and join the plexing fleet. I'm starting to think about binning it, feeling quite tired. But then Fweddit wave 3 arrives. The fight takes place in one of the Huola plexes again. Once again Fweddit lose 13 ships (2 Bursts and 11 Kestrels) but no loss on our part this time.

Straight away there is a pirate cruiser gang knocking about. We jump into Armor Cruisers and this time I run the Augoror team, we jump into the enemy in Kourm on the Huola gate and a good punch up occurs. We take down an Exequror, Augoror, Vagabond, Vexor and Harbinger, but lose an SFI from Weazls right at the start. Unfortuanely I didn't get my drones out in time to get on the kills.

I take a break for about an hour. I come back to find Lory has come back and taken over the fleet. However, hardly had I joined fleet than the TS Server went down for a scheduled update. In fact we were in the middle of discussing whether it was scheduled for 2300 or 2330 when it booted us. The fleet largely disbanded at that point.

The TS Server came back up. Meanwhile I was running 14 Firetails into Huola with my Crane/JF alt, except he was in a Bestower. I'd shipped 10 Firetails in only about a week ago, but had lost the lot since them. I still had 6 in Huola, but 5 were old shield fits and one was a 400mm plate one intended for fleet work with logi.

I needed to scout my Bestower into Huola from Otelen (hi sec). So I undocked in one of the shield fit Firetails. There is a neutral Thorax on the undock, he agresses me as I'm now -7.0, I think about it and then decide to engage. Only after I've engage do I realise I'm in a shield fit Firetail, not my normal armor one with repper and TD. I still might have beaten him, but then a neutral Catalyst arrives and joins in. I warp off in a pod directly to the Otelen gate, land, scout the Bestower in and we both warp back to station. I fit up my regular Armor Firetail and ask Jus to stand ready with some reps. But both neutrals had left system by the time I undocked.

Fweddit wave 4 arrives, there is only Jus and I left in fleet but LNA engage them. I pull out my Cerberus, but only wh*re on one kill. Half an hour later Fweddit wave 5 arrives, 20 Cormorants, set up in a small plex. LNA don't seem to be around, I warp my alt to a novice plex and cloak up. The plex is empty so I warp Trant over intending to run that down while all of Fweddit are in the small.

As I'm in warp a Fweddit Slasher lands on the gate, I tell Jus and ask him to help me gank it down before the Cormorants can get over. Before I land though, the Slasher warps off. I tell this to Jus, land and find the Slasher still there. I engage and correct my earlier comment. Jus lands at the Novice and tells me nobody is there. I gank down the Slasher, then pod him to boot, solo 7 and 8. Once again I've done it to Jus called him out then robbed him of the kill. Only afterwards did I realise what happened. I mistakenly warped to the small gate on Trant and landed with the Slasher.

Ended the night 24 kills (3 pods) for 2 losses.
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#65 - 2013-11-15 13:08:44 UTC  |  Edited by: Major Trant
Thursday November 14th 2013

So tired... the siege of Huola has been running now for... oh! Only one day... and it isn't running anymore. Looks like they gave up. Huola was at about 7% when I logged on and by the end of the night it was stable.

We had a (relatively) massive presense online, 37 in fleet at one point. Expecting a big punch up... and we got it, in fact we got loads of punch ups, it was all a bit of a blur really.

I know we had one big logi assisted fight off a small plex in Huola. A bunch of non flashy neutrals (Bright Side of Death) in Onerios, Deimos and all the specialized ships, really nice gang. They killed one of our Mallers that landed ahead of the fleet and went down before the rest of us arrived. I was running the Augoror team, it was hectic, but we suffered no more losses and took down an Onerios, 4 Deimos, Rapier, Pilgrim, Phobos and a Thorax.

As we were fighting them, another neutral gang of about 20 Ruptures, with a couple of Scythe/Scimitars and some tackle landed on the Huola gate in Kourm. Initially we thought they were reinforcements and we had been baited. But the Rupture gang patiently waited on the gate. We finished the first fight, warped to station to rep heat and drop loot. Then warped down to the gate. They saw us coming and baled. We chased them for a couple of jumps and caught one Rupture and bizarrely two Stilettos.

A third big logi assisted punch up occurred about 2 hours later with a 15 man gang of Sleipnirs and Vagabonds, they had no logi and were reliant on kiting off. Their DPS was brutal and we nearly lost a couple, but both ships were able to warp off and then our reps settled. We took down two Sleipnirs (including their command links) and an Arazu without loss and then they baled.

In between all that there were several smaller ship engagement with WT gangs in the smaller plexes of Huola and Kourm. But it was all about the pew, not the plex, people were continually bringing it. Respect all round.

Towards the end of the night we engaged a Fweddit Claymore off a small plex in Kourm. He proved remarkably tough, initially we were mostly in Frigates, about 8 of us, we lost a couple while we shot away his drones. I was his primary as we killed the last of them, but the damage continued and I popped, couldn't understand it. Several other WTs landed on grid, including two or three thoraxs and the bale was called.

However, someone reported that the Claymore was engaging the other WTs and Headweapon reported that he was already in warp to the plex in an Oracle. We shipped up and went back, I took a Deimos. I've had it for months and never used it. Just before I landed Headweapon went down. I landed at 15 and immediately was tackled and webbed by the Claymore, but he approached and I got in range and was able to web and scram him. I got in really close, others landed and we killed him. I ended top damage dealer doing 13460 damage (21.3%).

14 of us were on the kill, one of them was an Amarr. Two of the other Amarr losses had the Claymore on their kill. Most shockingly my lossmail had Lory on it having done 1133 damage (26.7%) and getting the final blow. A right comedy of errors, he sent me 30M to compensate. That is the second time I've been accidentally AWOXed by close friends recently.

Ended the night 21 Kills (1 pod) for 1 loss. All of my kills were from the smaller skirmishes, I didn't get my drones out in any of the big fights when I was in an Augoror.
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#66 - 2013-11-16 12:00:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Major Trant
Friday 15th November 2013

I log on to find a friendly fleet of 5 or 6 up and a WT Dessies gang of 5 or 6 holding a small plex in Huola. I'm offered command and jump into an Algos. Presently we engage the WTs and although they hold the high ground and are at range, we take down 4 Cormorants and a Slasher for the loss of a Corax. A few minutes later the same WTs reship and jump into our gate camp on the Kourm gate in Huola, we kill another 2 Cormorants, a Coercer and a Condor. Right after that we're baited into taking on a pirate Thorax on the same gate, reinforcement arrive and I call bale, but lose my Algos. Another friendly Rifter and Firetail also go down.

We reship and I get into a Firetail, we head out to Roushzar to clear the plexes of about 8 WTs, we land on the medium which had several frigates and a Caracal inside. It could have been a really good fight, but most bale and we gank down the Caracal, then pod him. I head alone into Lapabi and try to bait a Goons Vengeance into a fight, it works nicely and he kills me before my reinforcements arrive.

I quit to have dinner and come back about 45 minutes later to find Zen online and running the fleet. Someone has just tackled a neutral Daredevil in a medium plex in Huola. I'm one of the first to arrive and at extreme range get my TD on the Daredevil but then he burns out and I don't get close again, but others take him down.

A few minutes later we are on the Roushzar gate in Huola when a WT Damnation lands on us, we jump through and it attempts the MWD cloak trick on the otherside. It gets decloaked and tackled, but then warps off (2 stabs), but someone calls correctly that it has warped to planet 4 customs office, we guess that it would have warped at zero. This time we get multiple scrams on him. As he is going down he types in local that he got caught up on the custom office, but that doesn't explain why he doesn't get his pod out. The ship was worth 704M, the pod another 644M - a full rack of plus 5s and a T2 Armored Warfare Mindlink.

We set up a gate camp on the Kourm gate in Huola, I decide to go with it this time and get in a Stilleto. Others bring a couple of Augorors, a Cruor and maybe 5 of 6 others in a mixed bag of mostly frigates but one or two cruisers. We have a steady stream of victims for the next two hours, including a Maelstrom, but it isn't very challenging. However, we did get one half decent fight, although looking back I can't think what they were playing at.

A group of 2 legions, an Augoror and an Exequror land and aggress our logi. Our logi are holding each other up and do some bait repping, the rest of us bale back to station and reship into bigger stuff. I get into a Deimos and warp back. They stay aggroed and in very short order we take all four down. Between them they are worth 853M, really they just threw them away. We catch one of the Legion pods and it had 10 implants including 5 LG-Slaves, but not the Omega. Total worth 232M.

Ended the night on 40 Kills (12 pods) for 2 losses, sec status now -8.2
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#67 - 2013-11-17 03:02:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Major Trant
Saturday 16th November 2013

I got a PM from a guy who claimed he had been reading this thread and wanted to make me an offer. Fifty Fleet Tempests he wanted to buy. I thought he was bullsh*ting me, but I negotiated a decent price and he started to seem genuine. TFIs aren't the most profitable item in the LP store, but they are a way of spending bulk LP and I had over 6M of that, enough for 24 TFIs. I had a quick word with Jus and he could do another 13. So I said make a private buy contract to me for 25 TFIs and we'll satisfy it before the end of the day. Then I'd need a couple of days to organise the second batch. Almost straight away the contract was up and a couple of hours later it was completed. Thankyou very much. Respect to you dude, even if you don't get back to me with a second contract. But if you do, I've now got people ready to fill it.

Back to the war! Another great day. I was bouncing in and out of different ships, which included a Firetail, Inquisitor, SFI and Deimos. We got some shiny kills during the day, but the highlight was definitely a frigate brawl in a small plex in Huola.

Fweddit had brought a large frigate gang and had set up in a Novice plex. There were 16-20 of them which included Griffins and Bursts. We had been running in a loose gang with Lory FCing and were scattered about Kourm and Huola. He pulled us back to Huola and we jumped into Frigates that could get into the Novice. However, there was only 8 of us, 3 Logi and 5 DPS, I was in an Inquisitor.

There weren't really enough of us to take the fight to the Novice. But there was a small plex up with a single Tormentor inside, we decided to go for the small and hope that Fweddit would come to us. Set up first inside, we had a chance. While still outnumbered us 2-1, Fweddit ought to bring it. We chased the Tormentor out. But Fweddit didn't budge from the Novice.

A second WT gang of frigates jumped into Huola, similar size to the Fweddit gang and with yet more Griffins. They warped straight to the small plex gate. We were hitting up all our channels asking for help and a few people responded. Eventually, we got two Dessies and two more Frigates, but one of the Frigates was caught and died on the gate and then Jus came back from dinner and jumped into another Inquistor. So 12 of us, 4 reppers (3 Inquisitors & 1 Navitas), 2 Dessies (Catalyst & Thrasher) and 6 Frigates (5 Tristans & 1 Slasher) ended up inside for the fight. But not all of them had arrived when the Fweddit gang warped over to join the other gang. Someone estimated there with 50 of them outside, I think it was more like 35, but that included 4 Griffins and 3 Bursts.

Lory called bale, I shouted "No we can take them." Lory countermanded his order. They came in and what a superb fight. Lory ordered free fire on the Griffins first. Raz was primaried, Lory got jammed. I started repping Raz but got jammed. The ECM dropped after one cycle and I caught Raz just as he was about to dip into structure, then got jammed again. Three Griffins went down, the forth baled. I caught Raz again with just 20% structure left. Primaries changed, we caught S5 next as he was about to hit structure. A big factor in catching him was that their fire was spread and we were having to hop between their targets giving them a squirt of reps and then moving on once we got them back to half armour. The 3 bursts went down and we started on the DPS, we killed five of them, then they baled. Nobody could believe it, we had been outnumbered 3-1 and hadn't lost a ship. One friendly Tristan went down on the outside of the plex while they were still thinking about coming in, but I don't count that as part of the fight. 11 kills in total, not as many as each of the fights we had with Fweddit on Thursday, but this one definitely broke their will and did so much for our moral. If we hadn't engaged them, our fleet would have probably disbanded and then they would have run the whole plex stack, possibly staying running plexes for half the night.

There was quite some bitching in local afterwards (titter). Yes we did have full Armor links btw. Deal with it, this is our home system.

Ended the day, 21 kills (3 pods) for no loss.
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#68 - 2013-11-18 11:04:37 UTC
Sunday 17th November 2013

I got a nice Eve Mail on Saturday, complimenting me on this thread and telling me that my Yorkshire puddings sounded nice. It inspired me to do another roast dinner today after not bothering for a couple of weeks. Thanks.

Other than that, a rather frustrating day, targets were very skitterish. Targets when they appeared came in big blobs and we didn't have the numbers to take them on. But after yesterday's success, we tried anyway and derped a couple of small gangs being impatient.

We did get one decent fight, a regular small gang which used to run with 2 Augoror, but have since upgraded to 2 Guardians. We baited them into a fight off a plex gate in Kourm. Jus and I were in Augorors, another 8 or 9 in Cruisers and BCs + 1 neuting Armageddon. We killed a Griffin and Curse from another gang that initially took the bait, but then our real targets arrived. The fight went on for ages, but our Armageddon couldn't break the Guardian cap chain. We couldn't understand it. I was primaried, but Jus was holding me up. For ages it went on like this. Then Jus got swamped with ECM drones and one of them jammed him. I went down and a bale was called, we lost an Exequror Navy Issue at that point but the rest got out.

Ended the day 12 kills (1 pod) for 4 losses.
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#69 - 2013-11-20 11:25:38 UTC
Tuesday 19th November 2013

Now that was a day that was. Started off by buying 4 Asteros BPCs from SoE, shipping them to Huola and built them. I gave one each to Lory, Jus and Emo and kept one myself. Went out for a go and got my first kill in it, a Hookbill shared with Salicaz's Merlin. Also lost my cherry with my brand new Vigilant that I'd bought and shipped in a couple of days ago. In total 21 kills including a Raven, 2 Fleet Scythes and several faction frigates. We had several major fights towards the end of the day, most we won, but we got too big for our boots and the final one was a disaster.

All that came with some significant losses. Things were a bit laggy, but at the end of the day I screwed up on the big ones. I lost 3 Slashers fairly routinely, then an SFI and got podded losing a LG-Halo set. I decided to go the whole hog and replace it with a HG-Halo set.

To be frank I was quite disappointed with the improvement, the Firetail sig dropped from 30m with the LG set to 27m with the HG set. But not to worry I got rid of them about 2 hours later, when I lost a Guardian and got podded again (sigh).
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#70 - 2013-12-04 14:49:40 UTC
It's about time I resurrected this thread. I do apologize for my regular readers, but after patch day, I found Eve very laggy and took some expensive losses. The recent changes (last summer) to the recommended and minimum PC specs had put my five year old PC between the two. It seems the Rubicon changes had forced the issue, so I bit the bullet and bought a new PC.

It took a while to arrive and I worked on my money making endeavors during that period. However, last weekend I went back to PvP, running a single client on my old PC and had a very successful weekend making something like 84 kills for 8 losses. Two of those kills were Astero's which were very nice.

One of those losses was a smart bombing Typhoon, which really did not pay for itself, that's the second one I've lost for next to nothing to show for it, never again. Solo smart bombing BS against multiple targets really doesn't work. How many times I've heard people suggesting warping such a ship into one of the old Ice Belts and taking down 30 odd mining ships - Bullsh*t. It works on a gate, taking down pods and shuttles one at a time, but that takes a lot of patience, more than I have.

Talking of which, there is a colorful character hunting the warzone in a cloaky Proteus with officer smart bombs. He has discovered that he can watch where a pod goes, overtake it in warp and kill it at the other end. He has caused a lot of problems within the alliance with some expensive pod kills. This has resulted in some whinging about exploits and unintended consequences, petitions and such. I don't suppose I'll be too happy if I become one of his victims, but the tactic seems perfectly legit to me. We need to learn and adapt, not cry to CCP.

New PC finally arrived on Monday. I had it set up and ready to go by late Tuesday evening and belatedly joined a roam. Initially in Tristans and then a Navy Vexor with Garde Sentry drones. We got a couple of brief fights and I came away with a Vexor and 4 Augoror kills. Looking forward to a proper try out tonight.
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#71 - 2013-12-05 23:25:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Major Trant
Very hectic last couple of days, 32 kills for 7 losses.

Highlights?

Roam in the rebalanced Dictors. I was in an Eris, while the fleet was forming I went to a small plex in Huola and found a neutral Talwar inside, went in and ripped it to shreads. Later we engaged an Amarr cruiser/dessie/frigate gang, we had similar numbers, but logi with us, we decimated them.

Later we switched to Armor Cruisers, but only ganked a couple of things as our real target just ran away. Then we switched into BCs and BSs, myself in a Harbinger and went through a Titan bridge into Auga in order to kill a Paladin in the middle of a POS bash. 1.5B kill. The most amusing thing about the operation was that while forming up on the friendly Titan POS, the POS guns were shooting us. Their owner could not switch them off, the comments on comms, lol.
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#72 - 2013-12-07 02:44:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Major Trant
Friday 6th December 2013

An advertised Sacrilege roam was on the cards for tonight. Weazls have come back to the Minmatar Militia and while they hadn't returned to Iron Oxide, had moved into Huola with us and we were sharing fleets with them. This was their fleet and they asked us to provide additional Sacrileges, basically a copy of the Balex fleets that have stomped us repeatidly in the past. I was in a Sac.

While we were still forming up Bengal Bob, out scouting, reported a WT Dominix on a station undock in Kourm. He got it aggressed and we jumped in, killed and podded it. A few minutes later we killed and podded a neutral drake on the Kamela gate in Kourm. A great start.

More people joined fleet including members of LNA, eventually we had a Legion, 11 Sacs, 2 SFIs, a Celestis, 4 Guardians and 2 Stilettos. A report came in about a Cyno Harbinger from Dead Terrorists baiting in the Evita area and we moved across to that system. We got cloaky eyes on their Titan POS and our FC decided we could take them.

However, we screwed up the initial tackle and jumped the whole fleet in prematurely. The Harbinger died without bringing in the cavalry. It looked like it was all over, but we hung around the gates in Evati trying to work out what to do next. A Dead Terrorist Brutix warped in, aligned out and then warped to a celestral. A stiletto followed and tackled it. One more report from the Titan watch and then we warped in.

As we landed the Brutix lit the cyno. About 12 Dead Terrorists jumped in, which included a Vindicator, Typhoon Fleet Issue, Loki, Abaddon, Dominix, Harbinger and then an Archon. The Archon went straight in to Triage and we primaried it. For at least 10 minutes both sides were dead locked unable to kill anything. Then a Helios landed and we quickly turned and killed it fearing it was going to light a second Cyno. However a few minutes later another cyno went up and Dead Terrorists jumped in a Revelation. At first we felt we were too small to be effectively targetted by the Rev, but the Vindicators webs proved us wrong, 2 of our Guards went down and still we couldn't break the Archon's tank or cap it out. It looked like it was all over, align out was ordered.

We were just about to bale when the Archon warped out. It's last Triage cycle had completed and it was out of Stront. We turned around and killed the Vindicator (2.5B), then the Typhoon Fleet Issue (500M), a Harbinger next, then the Loki (1B), an Abaddon (350M), a Slicer and an Ibis from Suddenly Spaceships trying to wh*re. Then oddly a Dead Terroist Badger warped in, we have no idea why, it went down. Finally we turned on the only thing left on field, the Revelation, it took another 7 or 8 minutes to kill. I ended up with 2nd top damage with 109K damage. Just as it died the Dominix (230M) warped back and it too shared the same fate. Superb. To top it all, one of the Stiletto pilots caught the Revelation pod with a full Slave set (2.5B).

We lost 2 Guards, 1 Sacrilege and 1 SFI, but two of their Pods were killed by smart bombing BS on the way home. A long pod run necessary as we hold so few systems at the moment and can't dock in Amarr systems. The fight had lasted about 30 minutes and I fired around 3000 heavy assault missiles. I looted 720M, which came mostly from the Vindicator wreak, then gave it away to the losses.

Ended the night 14 kills for no loss.
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#73 - 2013-12-08 12:47:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Major Trant
Saturday 7th December 2013

Logged on and immediately joined a plexing fleet which was about 10 strong, people were spread between Huola and Kourm, some were AFK. The usual weekend relaxed solo plexing with support when needed.

I get into a medium plex in a Firetail and shortly a pirate Vagabond comes to my gate. I yell for help and tackle it as it comes in, then start taking down the drones. To be honest it is surprisingly easy, apart from the neut, he is unable to do anything. Reinforcements arrive surprisingly fast too, 8 people respond and the Vagabond dies with me taking no more than about 40% damage to my shields.

The day continues and a few more kills take place. Triple A are about and are baiting with a Drake on the plex gates with a Scythe and other cruiser support. Now I have to say this, a lot of big named null sec alliances dip their toes into FW and turn out to be full of F1 monkeys with awful small gang skills, this lot are maginally better than most tbh, but once we worked out what was going on we simple sent in a Stiletto and backed it up with 4 Tornados. Took down the Drake, then the Scythe when it landed, the rest baled.

Some time later I'm in a novice plex and a WT Daredevil comes to my gate and immediately activates. I yell for help and almost run as the response is not too forthcoming. However, I hang in and get tackle on. I expect the guy to burn out of my range using his 90% web and then take me down with rails at range. Instead he sticks to a close orbit and can't hit me with my TD on him. He is going down rapidly and still doesn't try to burn away.

SERIFOS enters the plex, fires one salvo and pops him with just 5.56% of the damage. As he is not in fleet, he gets all the LP - 6500 odd and any bounty. I can't complain I guess, I did call for help, but... damn you SERIFOS (shakes fist).

Moments later, I do the same thing to Bengal Bob, in the process of soloing an Algos, I land and pop the Algos with my first salvo.

The next fight of interest is a 2 v 4, me (Tristan) and Lucius (Hookbill) fight against 2 Merlins and 2 Punishers. TBH it was more a 2 v 3, we kill the two Merlins and then are taking down the first Punisher when a second punisher lands. With the first Punisher dipping into structure, I burn towards the second, thinking the first will be down by the time I get out of scram range. At that point Lucius has to reload. Scram drops and both Punishers warp away.

Shout out to Nudeldudel, a fairly new player on the Amarr side. He has been coming into Huola solo for the last few weeks and keeps getting his ars* handed to him. But he keeps coming back with a new fit and trying again. Really nice with it, often will convo us afterwards for advice and never any smack or whinging about being blobbed when it happens. Anyway, he comes into Huola with a new Incursus fit and takes down both Emokiller and myself, both of us in Firetails in seperate 1 v 1 today. Good Fight dude, well done. I adjusted my fit, went back for another go and nearly lost a second Firetail just escaping in low structure. We convo'd and he posts his fit. Going to try that myself at some point. Killing Incursus in a Firetail, used to be a speciality of mine, but this fit I can't touch.

Towards the end of the day, I'm quite tired, but just have to go out again don't I. I derp a Thrasher and Firetail, but get three Tristans and an Incursus. End the day 16 kills for 3 losses. The most frustrating thing was that none of the kills counted as solo but at least 6 of them were effectively solo. Either someone or an NPC wh*red on and of course a lot of the problem was that I was calling people in unnecessarily. Need more b*lls!
BattleStar Crusader
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#74 - 2013-12-09 09:57:28 UTC
Cheers for shouting out my guy Nudel. This will mean a lot to him. Keep up the thread bro, brilliant read.
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#75 - 2013-12-09 10:46:33 UTC
Sunday 8th December 2013

Didn't play today, other than to briefly manage some market orders and update my skill queue. But I did cook a lovely Roast Chicken dinner with my famous homemade Yorkshire Pudding.
Nudeldudel
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#76 - 2013-12-11 09:56:42 UTC
HI,
thx for giving me the chance to 1vs1 against you and your mates. It makes fun and i learn a lot.

cu all around
Nudeldudel
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#77 - 2013-12-13 13:57:32 UTC
Played briefly on Monday managing 8 kills which included an Apoc, Navy Augoror and Navy Omen for 1 Firetail loss

Tuesday was a big day for me. On Battleclinic I'd reached 999 losses and wanted my 1000th loss to be a bit blingy. I fitted up a Claymore command ship the same as a recent kill we made (the one where Lory AWOXed me accidentlly). I believe the fit came from Tempest Legion originally. The problem was I was so frightened of losing something small in a solo that I spent most of the day waiting for a decent fight to come along that justified pulling out the Claymore. I passed up several fights that I would normally take in a frigate, but did pick off a few things. Eventually I got bored and leeroyed the Claymore into a Pred gang and lost it. I took down a Caracal, but then found the killmail contaminated by a previous engagement he'd been involved in. I almost took down an Ishtar, I died with it on 7% structure and I made a series of errors because the large plex they were in was about to close down and I rushed in before I was ready.

I went out in a Cyclone after that and got in a lovely fight on the Kourm/Huola gate, the one I would have liked to expend the Claymore on. Made several kills in that fight, then the blob landed and lost the Cyclone. Ended the day 14 kills for the two losses.

My next outing was on Thursday managed 5 Kills, one of which was a Loki for 0 losses. I thought I'd done better than that, it was a very interesting roam in Interdictors, myself in a Eris. The highlight occurred on the Arzad gate in Ezzara. I was scouting and a small neutral frigate/dessie gang landed on the gate shortly after I jumped in. With my gang on the otherside I engaged a Cormorant and called for help. The Cormorant jumped, the gate guns engaged me and a Condor tackled me. I was going down rapidly, I turned on the Condor and killed it, but too late. I clicked to warp out, knowing I had no chance, it didn't look like I had any structure left and still 3 or 4 seconds needed to align. Friendly logi caught me. They had repped all my armor back by the time I went to warp, then I checked my structure, 16 HP left, less than 2%.
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#78 - 2013-12-16 12:16:40 UTC
Had a finger in a few pies and have been jumping around of late.

My JF/Crane/Trading alt has been sitting on about 180 Sisters of Eve Expanded Probe Launchers. I picked them up for around 39M each pre patch anticipating that there were be a shortage of them after the patch with SoE LP being spent on the new ships. This last week I've been unloading them for between 48M-54M and made close to 2B profit. Thank you very much.

Saturday night I spent on a low skill alt who is in RvB. They had a big event on for that night in Josameto, a continuous fleet fight which saw somewhere in the region of 800-900 ships die over the course of 2 hours. Unfortunately, I was late to the party, but still managed around 50 kills for 1 loss, ships were dying so fast I could barely lock them and get off one volley. Meanwhile I warped out repeatedly in low structure.

Sunday I finally came back to FW. Weazls were running an Arty Rupture gang, so I fitted one up and joined them. Managed a Stabber kill and then pushed a Deimos through a gate, but it died before my aggression counter ended and I could join the rest of the fleet in the kill.

I fitted up replacement Claymore and Cyclones as I'd enjoyed the Cyclone fight on Thursday and while the Claymore loss had been disappointing, I liked the fit and wanted one for when the right conditions were available again.

Got involved in several fun small gang skirmishes later, mainly in a Firetail, ended the day 13 kills for no loss.
Zloco Crendraven
BALKAN EXPRESS
Shadow Cartel
#79 - 2013-12-17 00:08:47 UTC
We fought many good fights. Props to you guys o7.

BALEX, bringing piracy on a whole new level.
Major Trant
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#80 - 2013-12-18 13:24:53 UTC
Thanks Zloco, yes we've had some good fights and have a lot of respect for BALEX.

I've been on and off a lot lately, but the only specific major fight to report was another Weazl led Arty Rupture gang that we went out in on Monday night. A significant number joined fleet, around 35 and Annah, the FC, was quite strict that people complied with the comp. Shortly after we got started, we were sitting on the Kourm gate in Huola when a report came in of a friendly Dread tackled on the Roushzar bunker. I think it was a Winmatar dread, they have a habit of throwing them around. Roushzar was only next door, we rushed over and warped to 50 from the bunker and then proceeded to kill several Cruisers and the enemy baled. Meanwhile, a WT BC gang was sighted incoming and the Dread was still in siege mode. The BCs landed and again we murdered several before the rest baled. The Dread came out of Siege and jumped out.

Apart from that, some small skirmishes or 1 v 1s. Over the last 3 days the killboard shows that I've made 19 kills for no loss. But the Killboard is playing up, I know I lost a Firetail during that time and I'm sure there are some kills missing too, particularly from that Roushzar battle.

The Warzone is on the turn. A week ago we were down to 10 systems, now we are back to over 20 and have hit Tier 2. The Amarr are also on Tier 2, but falling. Should be a couple of weeks of good fights, before we peak and move into L4 mission mode to make the money.