Warfare & Tactics

Hi- Other than proper scouting and telling your FC to don't fight completely outnumbered, there is no viable option other than those you listed.

Have you considered trying shield rails thoraxes, arty ruptures, or nano omens? Some are better than others but perhaps a decent compromise if you want to make the transition to shield easier on the armor guys

Nano'ing is not 'better' just easier as you don't have to work as hard to setup the engagement becasue you have the speed to compensate for a bad setup etc. That is why it is favoured. Most people don't work for their kills so they pick the 'easiest' method not the best.

There is no 'best' in eve. Get that out of your head and you'll do a lot better and have more fun. Otherwise you'll just end up whining like a lot of the posters here on the forums.

Having said that if nano/kitey stuff if your thing then find some people who do that if your current group doesn't want to try it out or skill up for it.

And since a lot of the armour modules/rigs had their speed penalties reduced/removed you can fit a decent active armour tank without affecting your speeds.

The omen, nomen, SFI can sport good speed as well have an active armour tank etc.

2 Oneiros, 4+ Deimos, 2 Ashimmu. Enjoy and have fun. o/o/ If you're feeling baller, go with a solOneiros.

TBH this pretty much the way to go in breaking up any gang really. It is all about how you 'setup' your fight. Rather than a straight up brawl.

If you really want to fight outnumbered and not just kite around like a douchebag and chestbeat about killing light tackle, heavy armor brawlers in a spider set up or with logistics support is often the way to go. You are, however, committed, so if they bring more stuff than you can handle, you're probably going to die, so be wary of picking fights in/near someone's home system.

Also, e-war. You have free midslots. Use them.

MWD Ishtars and Zealots with MWD Oneiroses.

Everything in that gang will pull 2k/s before heat or implants and will project out to 40k.

Contrary to popular belief you don't actually need to go 5k/s to kite most gangs, this comp can kite reasonably well, and when caught and forced to brawl will still benefit from insane EHP/Resists and Close range DPS.

Whats not to like.

Only works in really small scale, say < 5 ships, but having a slave set often surprises the opponents as they think they can handle your ship because they have the number on their side, but then they find out your tank is way much more than what they initially thought.

Other than that, Snake set is great for low-sec. I have been flying pretty much anything with snake set for long time (except BS hulls, for which I use slave set). Especially with active armor rig changes that did away with the velocity penalty, you can hit some surprising speed with active tanked snaked armor ship. I caught a few Cynabals & Vagabonds in my snaked/active tanked Brutix in my time.

I know you are more asking for fleet comps and tactics, but if you haven't done so already, do consider investing in pirate implants, they make a lot of difference if you are fighting out numbered,

bring some MWD oneiros

The problem with armor gangs is that they are more often than not fighting at close range, and the ability to negate incoming dps is limited. You must solely rely on your tank/logi, one way round this is e-war. Armor ships tend to utilize the small sig radius that comes with not having shield modules/rigs, and often use afterburners in place of MWDs, so tracking disruption is preferred, but sensor damps with scan res dampening scrips can also be put to good use. ECM is a fantastic way of negating incoming dps or dealing with enemy logistics, however ECM ships are normally very thin and shouldn't really be up close if they can help it.

Other than your fleet composition and fittings there are a few ways you can potentially 'win' an engagement with a larger gang using hit and run/ninja warfare tactics, not to be confused with guerrilla warfare tactics. Unfortunately these tactics are best employed using shield fitted ships due to their fast align times, though it is not impossible with armor fleets, you just have to be on the ball and predict enemy movements.

As a smaller gang you will never engage on enemy terms and always have the field set up to your advantage, 99% of the time larger gangs will take the fight if they are not setting the terms (because of numbers advantage) you can use this to your advantage. 'using their weight against them' - by forcing them to warp onto and off grid multiple times. IE. by chasing you. Eventually they will leave a straggler behind that you can pounce on. If you set it up correctly and you have enough DPS to destroy your target and GTFO before the backup arrives you can ultimately keep doing this until the enemy fleet is at a satisfactory 'weight' for you to engage in an open fight or until they decide they have had enough chasing you and ping-ponging around the system. Chipping away at their fleet. Patients is required for this method and it is not 100% fool proof. As an FC you must predict and assume that they are predicting you also.

I hope you have found this helpful.

MD

M8 armor gangs at least in the cruiser size are all about damage mitigation.