Warfare & Tactics

So after dying to a warp scrambler manticore while flying a unstabbed buzzard... I was thinking of ships / fits that would work well for hunting down explorers in low sec. I am thinking there is 3 main objectives to a fit for this situation.

1) can probe and take down targets
2) relies on either high alpha to catch explorers unaware (hacking game is great when your not the prey) or a scram and web approach as most explorers are really squishy now.
3) somewhat cost effective to the prey you are hunting.

One problem I can think of right away is that the latter choice for the 2nd objective would be easily countered by the explorer having warp stabs in their lows (although most are greedy bastards who load up their lows with cargo extenders so they dont have to go back all the time to drop off their loots). Secondly the fit that took me down seems to be just a regular vanilla stealth bomber using torps.

Any thoughts from wartacs?

*edit - to clarify I am thinking of flying a stealth bomber with double paints or maybe a manticore flown like a kestrel?)

Yes use the Battle CovOPs!!

Rocket/blaster Nemesis.

Either blap them on gates or camp them in complexes. Tiffy killed a prober in his prober -- it's not hard.

Sensor boosted artillery cane with tracking enhancers and -computers. Pop goes the covops!

Nemesis, anti-explo

Probe launcher
Cov-ops cloak
2 x Lights neutron blaster II, void
Empty

2 x scrams (in case of wcs)
Web
Sebo (for the pod)

2 x overdrive II

Grav cap rigs

I use the OD's instead of mag stabs because I demand ransom & some cov-ops frigs are slightly faster than I am, even webbed
The sebo is incase they refuse the ransom. I try one more time with the pod. A lot of these guys are wearing expensive prospector plugs
They don't have any combat capacity so you don't need a tank and they don't have any tank so 2 unbonused blasters work just fine. Although, If you missile skills are better than mine you might get better dps from 3 rockets.

My scanning skills are mediocre at best and I don't have any problems scanning the sites down in this.

Have fun!

Heron with Drones, Point & small asb. Why the heron? Cov op frigs won't run from them at all. They will try to finish the site instead.

I've a few friends that ill do over watch for. I haven't caught a covops SB trying to gank them just yet but I'm certain some individual well have a pair way too big for their pants and I'll catch them when they do.

What I have my friends do is align to station or a pos or one of many safe spots created for just this purpose. Then I do the rest when the gank comes.

T1 scanning frigates work great. Cheap, can probe, pack a punch (compared to helpless CovOps) and don't scare anyone. Obviously you rely on people being bad and not noticing/not caring about you landing on grid. People generally are bad so this is not much of a problem. I recommend fitting a MWD and two scrams.