Alliance & Corporation Recruitment Center

Monday 13th October 2014

Lory was running an advertised fleet, Rail Moas. Some of us got on line early and were patrolling the local area. Predator Elite and friend were about and in a derping mood. First they derped a couple on Navy Omens, then came back in Cerberus' and derped them, I lost a Breacher in the second engagement getting the hero tackle on one of them. We also ganked down a neutral Cyclone on a gate using the shoot once, bounce to shake gate gun aggro and then return tactic.

Lory came online and we returned to Huola to form up. Almost immediately a WT gang of Dessies took control of a small plex in Huola. We made one attempt to dislodge them, but found they were kity and had gone to range, whereas we were all in AB brawlers. We baled, intending to reship but then got distracted by two neutral Prophecy's on the undock. We docked up and lory got people into the Moa comp. I undocked my Claymore and engaged the two Prophecy's. The first docked, the second red boxed on me as I took dock guns. Lory undocked the fleet and we took him down.

We moved on (after I reshipped into a Moa) and reached the Auga gate in Kourm. Forward scout reported a neutral Typhoon, 2 Navy Omens and 2 Deimos on the other side. They jumped into us, we engaged the Typhoon first but it micro jumped away. The others burned away in different directions, but we took down one of the Navy Omens and then by bouncing to perch bookmarks and back to tackle, we caught and killed everyone of the other four, including the Typhoon. Star of the moment was Savesti in a Hyena who made it all possible.

As we were finishing off looting, something landed on the gate and jumped to Auga. I forget what it was, but it must have been at least cruiser size cause we chased after it and jumped into Amamake. We found a small frigate gang on the other size with a PL Tornado. The Frigates jumped away and we alpha'd the Tornado off the field. He must have shouted for help when we first jumped in before realizing how many of us there were. First a PL Naga landed and was alpha'd off the field. Then a PL Cynabal landed and shared the same fate.

We did a circuit of the warzone and killed a couple of things, then were rushing to get back to Huola after a report about a neutral Caracal gang set up in a medium plex there. Lory put a bait group in first consisting of 2 Ospreys and 4 Moas. We lost both Ospreys before the main fleet arrived but then we took down 4 Caracals.

We reshipped into grab bag kity frigates and dessies and spread around the local area. It was a heavy night of traffic and we were getting loads of small fights through Kourm, Kamela, Sosala, Roushzar and Lamaa. Lory called it a night, but I took over the fleet and keep it running in loose skirmish mode. My main objective was to run a few plexes in Kourm which had been at about 10% contested. But after another 3 hours we had only clawed back about 5%, due to the fact that everytime we got the plexes covered another gang or blingy gank would come along and everyone would pile across.

My most memorable moment started with two WT Navy Omens, we chased them as far as Labapi/Roushzar gate, caught and killed them on the Labapi side. However, upon returning through Roushzar I noticed a WT in local and checked the plexes. He was in an Algos in a medium. I went in but he baled leaving the plex with 38.5 minutes on it, or 1.5 minutes for him. It seemed obvious that he would return to finish that off. I cleared everyone out of the system. Then jumped out myself, reapproached, jumped back in and warped straight to the medium. He was on the gate, but I just missed him as he activated, I followed but just missed him on the warp in. He went to the sun and I followed and for the third time just missed him, in all cases he warped out as the lock was resolving. So I went back to the plex and ran the clock back a few minutes, then went to Huola and reshipped into a Stratios.

I came back to the plex and sure enough he baled as I activated. But once inside I burned 10 kms from the warp in to a point that I could cloak up and wait. A couple of minutes went past, a second WT came into local in a Caracal, he came onto short scan and I took a chance and burned in, decloaking in the process. At that point the Algos also appeared on short scan and I suddenly wondered if I'd bit off too much. The caracal landed and I double webbbed and scrammed it. He put me into half armor before his RLML reload cycle kicked him. He was dead before it finished. The Algos never came in and the Caracal pilot posted a confused message in local that he saw an Algos on short scan in the plex which turned into a Stratios when he landed.

Ended the night 47 Kills for 1 loss.

Wednesday 15th October 2014

I was running an advertised Longbow Cormorant roam tonight. I only advertised it the previous day in response to an engagement on Sunday when we had found that few people had these ships available when they were called for and they really should be one of our bread and butter comps.

Numbers were low, about 8 turned out of which only 5 were in Cormorants. Weazls were running a competing op, but they were in a blingy T3 comp and I didn't think a lot of our pilots would be able to ship to that. However, on the night they abandoned their planned op and went for something more conventional.

All the same we had great fun, there was quite a large Amarr gang out and we engaged them several times on various gates bouncing around Kourm, in and out of Kamela, Huola and did a short circuit through Sisiede and Amamake. We took down about 11 WTs, mostly T1 frigates, but lost a Cormorant and the 3 non comp pilots in the final engagement with a bunch of cruisers.

Ended the night 11 Kills for no loss.

Been trying to up the value of the ships I've been putting on the line especially as I'm expecting to see more expensive and larger opponents around after the November patch. I've had some good fights of late, especially in a Claymore and Garmur. But this has led to a few expensive losses of late, most notably 2 Worms (sigh), both lost in the most stupid of ways.

The first one was a double shield extender buffer fit. I'd brought 4 just after Burn Huola and was given the fit and I just went mad and fitted all 4 up. One Worm I gave away, the other 3 sat in my hanger for ages. The expense was in a faction scrambler, which pushed it up to around 200M. Looking back I can't help but think it was a total waste of a faction point. But it also had T2 rigs and a pair of 'Augmented' Hobgoblin.

I'd already decided I didn't like the fit and had converted one to the Active Tank fit that I'd seen the previous week. But that involved destroying two T2 rigs and I was reluctant to do that to all three Worms.

So I decided to use one for plexing Roushzar. It was actually quite good for running offensive plexes and I found I could solo Novice, Small and even Medium plexes with ease, while the Large could be done with difficulty (slowly), but ideally needed helper DPS. Anyway I was running plexes for 2 or 3 hours with a few other people and we regular stopped to engage people and had ganked down several faction frigates typically Comets and Slicers. The buffer fit worm did have the advantage over the active fit one in having a large empty cargo bay, but even then by the end of the day I was having to jettison cheaper loot until I had around 30M loot aboard. I was also carrying some heat damage to my prop mod and the warp scrambler, so as I was in a large plex with an AF, I took that opportunity to start the repair on both modules.

A few WTs came into local. They warped straight to the large and then another load jumped in. The first three landed, 2 Comets and a Slicer. I called the guys in from the other plexes and dropped my 'Augmented' Hobgoblins and then discovered that both my MWD and Scrambler were still repairing. I had to cancel the repair and then I was scrambled myself before I could get to range. Never mind, I called primary on one of the Comets. He was going down reasonably fast. I started locking up the other targets and found the Slicer also taking heavy damage and he was pulling to range. I then realized it was my drones that were on him, he must have fired first and they reacted before I fired on the first Comet. Trouble was they had almost killed the slicer, so I dithered. He continued pulling away, finally too late I pulled them off him and back onto the first Comet. The Comet popped and I started on the second but then the blob landed and I went down. I'm convinced that if I wasn't distracted with the repairs and got the drones on the primary, we would have taken both Comets down before the blob landed and then of course I would have had my MWD back to pull range. More frustratingly, I'd sat with the heat damage for ages thinking, I'm going to be going back to Huola to drop off this loot in a moment, so I might as well save the paste. Then for some reason had chosen just the wrong moment to finally do it. 229M loss.

The second loss was the Active fit Worm. It's expense was in a deadspace shield booster (89M), but also had T2 rigs and the pair of 'Augmented' Hobgoblins. The first outing was against a neutral gang about 5 strong which included 2 Hookbills and a Sentinel. They were being a right pain inteferring with deplexing in Kourm. Initially I was on my own and they kept running me out of the plex while I was in a Breacher. But then a couple of others joined my fleet and I figured I would bait them in the Worm and call in the others. I found the two Hookbills outside a plex, landed on them and dropped my drones. I started targeting them, but they were damp Hookbill and damped me down so far I couldn't even start locking them after that. The other three turned up and the Sentinel neuted me flat. My friends arrived at the same time. A Hookbill and the Sentinel were killed and the rest ran. Only after the fight did I realize that my drones had done 63% of the damage on one and 85% of the damage on the other. Result.

So I tried the same thing again a few days later, this time the target was a gang of 3 Tormentors, a Rifter and 2 Merlins. I thought they were inside the plex and had people aligned. I landed found them outside and immediately attacked the first Tormentor while calling the boys in. I ripped the first Tormentor apart before anyone else arrived and moved onto the Rifter, he went down too, but my own damage was rising. I was using my Shield Booster and it was handling it initially and then I capped out. I was like 'WTF' that was too soon. I thought I was being neuted, but no icon. I sat there and died miserably and only while podding back to station did it suddenly hit me.

I had a cap booster and I forgot to use it.

240M loss and looking back I could have probably soloed the whole gang with that setup, if I'd just used it properly. I was so used to running a cap stable dual ASB Breacher. On the bright side the entire neutral gang went down and I got back the Shield Booster and the Hobs. The first thing I did was crush the T2 rigs on the third Worm and convert it to Active fit. I'll be using that again and I won't be forgetting about the cap booster again.

Saturday 25th October 2014

The warzone has really hotted up. The Amarr are on Tier 4 while the Minmatar have dropped to Tier 1 and the systems have been falling to the Amarr hand over fist.

Saturday was a day of multiple fights in multiple ships types. Several times I was in and out of Logi Cruisers, both Ospreys and Augorors and some medium sized punch up were had in addition to the usual skirmishing around in frigates. One trip into a Wormhole in Roushzar to gank down a Proteus and Tengu.

People seem to be moving from null sec to FW. We have had some very experienced new recruits of late.

Ended the day 55 kills for 4 Breacher losses.

Monday 27th October 2014

Wasn't really planning on PvPing today, but needed to do some admin, which included some JF runs and the processing of a number of recruits. However, the call went out and I undocked to help gank down a Maalstrome and Cyclone in Kourm. Forty minutes later, I responded to another call. It came to nothing, but while I was returning I was engaged by a WT Kestrel on the Huola gate in Roushzar. I killed it getting 100% of the damage, but two other pilots were on the KM.

Shortly after that I was running a plex in Huola in a Breacher, semi AFK while checking mails. A WT Succubus came in and caught me. I called for help but I was dead before it arrived. I reshipped into a Garmur and after a bit of a search caught the Succubus off another plex gate. Again I called the boys in. Most struggled to reach us as we burned 3 or 4 hundred kms off the gate (no warping on grid with a plex gate). I kept pounding him and put him into deep armor with some bleed into structure but he had a Small Armor Repairer II and was just tanking me. A friendly Tristan finally caught up with us and the damage rose to deep structure. Then suddenly he sling shotted his way out and escaped. I was gutted, my own fault entirely, I was too wary of getting caught and maintained a wide orbit requiring attention. I maintained that attention until the Tristan arrived and assumed he had webbed and scrammed the guy down. But the Tristan didn't have a web, and if he had a scram, it was no different to a long point against a (faction) AB fit Succubus. It would survive until the next day.

I kinda of binned it for the night, but in the early hours of the morning and with the next day off work. I came back to the PC and went to run a plex in Kourm in a Breacher. I caught a Maulus and killed it with ease. Next I engaged a Talwar and completly messed the fight up.

First he was short range rocket, scram, web, armor fit. I went in to him but somehow didn't preheat my MWD, something I always do normally. I managed to coast out to 10Km, but couldn't restart my MWD and he closed in. Then I realised that I had EM missiles fitted, normally my default is Kinetic, so I had to reload. To my amazement I was able to tank the damage long enough to reload both ASBs and then I burnt out my missile launchers. It was left to just my two drones plinking away at him which got him to about 90% armor. I got through another set of ASB reloads and would have killed him if I had missiles, but eventually he popped me.

I reshipped into another Breacher but he baled. However, I found a Coercer outside the plex and killed it with ease. After dragging the loot to station I returned to the plex. As I landed I did a short scan and found it empty. But before activating for some reason did another short scan and this time got a Thrasher. I pulled to range and a few moments later a neutral Thrasher landed. I tackled it and started to kite, then an Algos and Retribution also arrived. I switched fire to the Algos and struggled to thread my way around them while maintaining point on the Algos. We drifted a 100 Kms from the gate and the Algos was clearly going down. I was getting ready to switch point back to the Thrasher when a neutral Cruiser blob landed on the gate. The Thrasher and Retribution took that excuse to bale. I killed the Algos, then podded him, then looted the wreak and scooped the corpse. The blob didn't bother even trying to burn out to me.

It was a great end to the night, ended the night 7 Kills for 2 Breacher losses.

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Tuesday I took off work, my daughters birthday. We did the family thing in the morning and then she was off to see her friends. So I got on Eve in the afternoon and a great skirmishing day was had around the Kourmonen area. I ended the day 42 kills which included 2 Worms, a Succubus, Garmur, Stratios, Augoror Navy Issue, Cerberus, 2 Omen Navy Issues, Vigilant, Oneiros, 2 Comets, 6 AFs and a Scimitar, but it came at the cost of 5 Breachers and a Scythe fleet issue. Well worth it.

The most memorable engagement was against a neutral Jaguar with me in a Breacher. He came into my plex and I started to kite him, but I was distracted talking to several fleet mates who were in nearby systems and I let him slip out of point range and he got out.

Next he was bad mouthing me in local about how bad I was, letting him in an AB fit, get out of point range. He went on to advise that a Breacher should be a close range brawler fit. I don't normally talk in local, but this time I bit. I looked him up on Eve-Kill and mentioned that he had 8 kills for 33 losses and was in no position to give out PvP advice. He started sprouting off that he was an alt and knew his stuff and began repeating again all my faults.

I just knew the guy was going to come back to the plex at some point. This time he wouldn't activate, just wave his d*ck on the outside and continue bad mouthing me. So I bounced out and waited on the gate. Within a couple of minutes he landed and this time I murdered him, I would have liked to have given him some advice, but I podded him too and he wasn't in local after that.

Thursday 30th October 2014

Zen was running a Shield Frigate gang and took us for a roam of the warzone, we killed a few things, most notable a WT Oracle that followed us from Amamake into Gulmorogod, then a neutral smart bombing Rokh in Ardar.

We returned to Kourm and camped the Kamela/Kourmonen gate, it was unusually dead. We killed a few things, most notably an AFK boosting Cyclone that Viscora probed down in Kamela, he then probed down the pod and while we killed it, it was empty.

Ended the night 15 kills for no loss.

Saturday 1st / Sunday 2nd November 2014

I was expecting a heavy weekend of pew, fighting over Kourmonen. However, first RL interfered limiting my play time and then when I did log on, although there was a fair amount of Skirmishing, there didn't appear to be any serious play by the Amarr to push Kourmonen. Or if it did we nipped it in the bud before it got going.

Saturday I managed 8 kills for no loss. Sunday was 28 Kills for 2 Breacher losses.

I have noticed how minmatar seem to be needing members, I'm in, back to roots as they say

http://eveboard.com/pilot/RobbehT

Will drop by the recruitment channel later

Wednesday 5th November 2014

I log on early, conscious that Kourm is seeing a lot of activity from the Amarr and with them on Tier 4 and owning 62 out of 70 systems, it is a natural target for them that we need to stay on top of it. Plus obviously it is a really convenient place to get pew.

There are about 9 WTs in Kourm. I form fleet but don't push for people to join and am rewarded with nobody joining. It is a little early for FeO people, but Kourm was only on about 21% contested and didn't need anybody to panic.

So I decide to try and pick off a few solo. I go out in a Breacher and warp to a small plex. There I find a WT Tristan on the outside and about 7 other ships on short scan. The Tristan warps off before I can lock him, but not into the plex, leading me to think that the people inside could be friendly. There are about 25 ppl in local fairly evenly split between Amarr, Minmatar and neutrals. I do a scan to the medium and see another 7 or 8 people in that, this time all in cruisers. One group were WTs and one were friendlies. I decided to check the medium as I had a much better chance of crashing the warp in with Cruisers. Sure enough they are all friendly, Smile and Wave.

I return to the small and land on the same Tristan again. This time I tackle it and start killing him. I'm watching short scan, see it empty as they bounce out of the plex and I overheat my missiles. The Tristan pops just as a Tormentor lands, I tackle him, but then others land and I have to burn to range. I convo a smile and wave guy and request help on the outside of the small. They warp over and the Amarr bale, but I catch a Comet and we gank it down.

Smile and Wave loot the Comet wreak and warp off, in short order they leave system. I'm still looting the Tristan wreak and picking up his drones, when the Comet Pod comes back to the plex gate, I'm guessing he logged when his ship died, a tactic that some people do to save their pod. It didn't work this time, I catch and kill it, but it is empty.

The plex is empty, I enter to run it, but then find it has been completed. I scan to the medium and find the Amarr now running this and warp over. On the outside at range I find a WT Coercer. I burn out, tackle him and start to kill him, but then a WT Garmur lands at 70 from me. I try to warp off, but he long points me at around 60 kms. I resign myself to die and turn back to the Coercer. In short order I burn him down while tanking the Garmur. The WTs inside the plex are bouncing out again. A Corex lands 80 Kms away from me, I burn in, tackle and kill him. Then a Kestrel lands, again I burn over dragging my Garmur like a dog on a leash drags it's owner. Other WTs are landing, expecting to die, I try to burn the Kestrel down without bothering about my position and allow a Tormentor to get web and scram on me. I pop with the Kestrel in structure and then kick myself for being such a defeatist, I could have easily killed the Kestrel if I'd been more diligent about my positioning.

I ship into a Garmur of my own and return. A single Tormentor is running the plex. I land at range see this on short scan and decide to go in. But as I'm burning into the gate an SC Dramiel lands. I tackle it and start to kite. He is fast and I have to overheat my MWD one cycle to stay out of his range, but he is taking damage. Then the Garmur from before lands and long points me again. He completely ignores the Dramiel and the Dramiel doesn't bale either. In fact he backs off towards the other Garmur, leading me to believe that they are working together or at least friendly to one another. An Orthrus also lands, a pirate but known ex Amarr who continues to work with them. He is too far off initially and I assume he won't be able to catch up, but it is worrying. The other Garmur is faster than me, but we are doing no damage to each other outside of about 30 Kms, while inside that range I'm doing more damage to him and he is having to pull range again. Eventually I'm able to slip point or he gives up and I warp off.

I try to return to the plex a couple of minutes later with a similar result, then put the Garmur away and return to Huola.

Lory logs on, he is running an advertised blingy shield cruiser gang tonight and he starts to form fleet. He decides we will stay local to Kourm, drive the Amarr off and then gate camp the gate that gives while ninja running the plexes. As soon as we spike into system the WTs clear out.

We have a long and successful night. When I finally log, Kourm is on 1.3% contested and I've made 42 kills which include a Deimos, Phantasm, Omen Navy Issue, Onyx, Sabre, Brutix, Talos and 3 AFs for 2 Breacher losses.

Tuesday 11th November 2014

I log on and note that Kourmonen is under a little bit of pressure for the first time in almost a week. I head over there in a Breacher, forming a fleet with my alt and advertising it as I go.

First stop is a Medium, I chase a WT Cormorant out, then move to a Small plex. I engage a WT Slicer, but two other WT Slicers pile in and I overheat my MWD to break point and get out. I return to the Medium while waiting for people to join fleet. The Cormorant returns and sits outside, then a Vagabond and a Caracal. The Cormorant leaves, the two cruisers enter, both neutral, I bale.

I decide to reship into a Garmur which I have in Kourmonen. About 8 people had joined fleet by then and were just piling into the system. The Medium is clear by the time we get there. We move to the Small and chase out the WTs then onto the Novice. A single Slicer is inside. I activate the gate and get point on. A friendly Merlin and a WT Merlin arrive. We primary the Merlin first and kill it. Next a WT Hookbill arrives, they are just feeding us kills, I can't help but smile. I tell the friendly Merlin to tackle the Hookbill while I stay on the Slicer. Any moment now about 6 friendlies are going to pile into the plex.

I'm not really paying attention to my position and the Hookbill gets me scrammed down. Initially I'm not too bothered, I have an ASB and am actually pleased that they are distracted by my bling, not watching local or short scan. There are only 3 WTs in system and one of them is in a pod, meanwhile there are at least 8 friendlies, any moment now...

The friendly Merlin pops and for the first time I'm a bit concerned. Enough to ask on comms "Where are you all?" I get the following responses.

"I'm in a dessie, can't get in the Novice."
"Me too."
"Just repping damage."
"Undocking, Huola."
"2 Jumps out."
"Back... What you need?"

So I lose a 300M faction fit Garmur and pod back to Huola, the only consolation was that the Amarr pilots involved were a decent bunch that I respected.

I reship into another Garmur to show that I'm not intimidated. This time I make sure of my backup as we arrive on the Small plex. There are 3 Dessies and a Jaguar inside. I figure I should be able to crash the warp in and leeroy in. Others follow. I do get to range but a friendly Slicer goes down. We kill the 3 dessies and the Jaguar bales.

Another Thrasher lands outside the plex, I bounce out and catch it. A Talwar and Coercer also arrive, but everyone is bouncing out and the Thrasher and Coercer both go down. I feel honour is satisfied and reship into a Breacher.

Dev was running an advertised fleet, the comp was T3s, primarily Proteus' with Guardian support. Initially I jump into a brick tanked Loki to provide the webs. I'm expecting there will be several pilots that don't have a T3 available and while that is the case, most of them can't fly Logi either. So I ended up in a Guard as Logi Commander. Around 18 are in fleet.

We do a tour of the warzone, several suitable gangs are sighted by scouts, so many that we dither over which is best to engage, conscious that another may 3rd party us. We head to Siseide, but the Amarr pull out 5 or more Armageddons among a 20 man gang and we blue ball.

So we head to Hadozeko, put the Guards in first with 3 DPS and jump through a 15 man Vexor gang into Resbroko, they follow and the rest of our gang join us. Initially, things are a bit tense, they target our tackle and then logi while we go for their Augoror Logi. Our reps hold, their first Augoror goes down. Then overview fills with a bunch of pirate Ishtars third partying the fight. Dev orders people to warp to station and dock up, but conscious that one or more is likely to be tackled, I order the logi to stay on field, approach gate and deaggress.

Thankfully the Ishtar were concentrating on the Vexor gang who in turn were trying to bale. We reach gate, confirm that everyone's aggro is down, jump back to Hadozeko and get safe. We didn't take a single loss, but only get 3 Augorors and an Exequror kill.

Scouts report the Amarr gang from Sisiede on their way over with a load of Armageddons in their comp. When the gate clears, Dev brings the rest of the fleet back into Hadozeko and we head out towards Egmar and Amamake with the Amarr BS gang a couple of jumps behind. However a second large Amarr gang is reported incoming from Kamela led by Predator Elite. He heads for Amamake to cut us off. So we dock up in Egmar and take a 20 minute break. Things have cleared by the time we get back and we make a run for Huola intending to stand down. Just as we dock up a report comes in of a Raven and Brutix in a large plex in Kourm. We go back in grab bag stuff, myself in a Orthrus that I'd purchased the previous day. We initially fail to catch the target and they warp to a safe, but someone scans them down and this time we tackle and kill both. After that we finally stand down.

I come back later and join a skirmishing fleet in Kourm, we get some good kills, but I'm really too tired to play and eventually derp the fleet against an 3 man gang (Armageddon, Ishtar and Brutix) on a large plex.

Ended the night 18 Kills for 2 losses.