Like shove a lightning bolt up your ass Zeus.

Me, Dz and Kel are damned good PvPers. 

Now that that is out of the way.

I bought this Claw a while back. I wanted a nimble ship for solo PvP. I wasn't sure I was ready for the arty Claw, which takes some good dog-fighting skills to succeed with, so I fit it out for close range.

But I didn't put a lot of thought into it. The claw only has 1 mid slot. So to make up for a lack of web, I fit a scrambler. Makes sense. But then I went and fitted a Microwarp drive. That's a little bit of a problem. If I am going to be getting into Knife fighting range, I am likely going to have my own MWD shut off by any other scrambler wielding frigate. So any frig with an Afterburner would be able to dictate range. Which is bad for something that has limited hit points.

If you're going to be fitting an afterburner, you might as well not fit an interceptor, Since you get similar speed with Assault frigates, and a lot more gank/tank. So I decided to fit out and Arty Claw and let my other one sit unloved in station.

It was Friday night, so Dz and I expected there to be a lot of large gangs around, so I didn't want to go out in anything of real value.

Time to suicide that claw. 

I fit an afterburner to it for maximum lulz, and set out towards the greater future. First stop, Kamela. 

Dz was in Lamaa, so I went through Kamela to scout it out on my way to rendezvous. There was a minor plex on scan, and not a whole lot else, so I figured I'd go and see if there was something in there I could kill. A Coercer was capping the plex. Since destroyers are generally good at taking out interceptors I was expecting a swift death.  But much to my surprise, I crushed him, and crushed him swiftly, as well as his pod.

Turns out he was less than a month old, so not really indicative of a regular inty vs destroyer fight.

I then continued on to Lamaa. Dz was bouncing between eve and other things, so I joined the local Militia fleet to see what was going on. They were circling the area looking for easy kills, doing quick loops of Kamela/Kourm/Lamaa over and over again. In lamaa, a bunch of War targets were milling about, and promptly scattered when the militia arrived. The Fleet decided to ignore the War target frigates, as they weren't being cooperative. They were continuing to do their little circles, and I figured I'd just wait in Lamaa for Dz, while gathering intel from the fleet.

I stayed on the Kamela gate, as It's a good scouting point for ships coming in and out of Kamela and Kourmonen. Shortly after the militia moved on, A Crusader, Malediction and Punisher showed up.

I was in the mood to die, as previously stated, so I figured I'd go for the punisher, and announce it in fleet chat, so they could come and mop up the War targets after I died. 

I got to work on the punisher, and the three of them started to work at me, I wasn't taking a whole lot of damage at the time, So I didn't say anything in fleet just then. I thought, "Hell, I might be able to take this guy!" So I just kept firing. The punisher was going down, and I yelled to Dz over comms that he could come here to get some free Frigate kills if he hurried.

He undocked his pilgrim and warped to me, Mid warp, an Omen and a rifter and a falcon showed up to aid the other ceptors...

Oops.

Now I not only doomed myself, but Dz's pilgrim too. The interceptors stopped shooting at me and went for Dz, so that the Omen could get the DPS on. I warped out, figuring Dz would just jump through, but he engaged. Like a man on fire he started blazing towards the omen!

I came back, to aid, figuring I could take the interceptors out, and make space for Dz to escape.

I popped the Rifter and Dz popped the Omen, the Interceptors, now turned back to me, But they didn't orbit very well, and I broke free and warped off in flames. Dz was still getting attacked, and was looking bad, So I came back again, hoping to Help, even though I was on fire. He managed to de-agress and Jump before the ceptors could finish him off.

BRILLIANT!

Somehow, in all this mess, we must have scared that Falcon off, because he didn't stay on for more than a Jam or two.

We took out a Punisher, Rifter, Omen and a Pod in a Afterburning Claw and Pilgrim when they had a Falcon, and Two maledictions on top of it all.  We are awesome.

Oh... and did I mention, the Omen was our old pal, Meridius Dex?

It was a pretty good little skirmish, and we were quite pleased at our little victory, we even managed to scoop some loot before we made it out.

A bit later the Militia Fleet actually managed to get a fight out of the Amarr, where we tackled an Armageddon, Arbitrator, Dominix and Absolution on the Kourmonen gate in Kamela. Somehow my afterburner Claw managed to get Top Damage on that Armageddon... What has this world come to?

The Absolution got away, but It's all good since the Arbitrator pilot was also Meridius Dex. Not a good night for him I guess. 

We tried to get another fight Later, but we fell into an obvious trap. I won't go into Detail, but my Beloved Cane was felled. 

After that, it was pretty obvious that the night should have ended earlier. It was also obvious that I hadn't given enough thought to that claw. It's signature is so tiny, and it's tracking so good, that nothing can hit the little fucker. It was more fun flying that thing than I expected, and a lot more survivable than it should be. Still a throw-away ship, but I'll take it.

Graveyard:

Coercer

Pod

Punisher

Omen

Rifter

Pod

Armageddon

Arbitrator

Dominix

Pod

Hurricane <- Rest in peace little buddy!

Everyone's got a plan until they get hit.

Well, it was only a matter of time. Eventually our actions in Amarr's staging system would get us borked at some point. It finally happened. But it wasn't with out a little fun before-hand.

Dz was messing around with the Amarr in Kamela, per usual. So I hopped in my Jaguar and headed in that direction. I saw some War targets in Amamake as I was passing through, and two of them were sitting on the gate to Auga, one of the throughway's to Kamela. One of them was in a Pod, the other in a Catalyst.

I was on my way to help Dz, so I wasn't expecting to fight, but oh man, he was right there, being all dumb. The catalyst can do silly high damage, but my Jaguar is just silly-awesome. Dz wasn't in any real danger at the time, so I engaged the Catalyst. 

No real excitement or tactics, just a quick little slugfest. Somewhat disappointingly, another militia mate in a vexor came up and got a round or two off right at the end to get on the kill-mail. So there goes another solokill gone gank. 

It wasn't too bad, out of the 2700-ish damage, I did 2500 of it, so you might as well call it a Solo-kill. 

I was glad for the militia mate who joined in though, he managed to scoop the loot before this neutral loot-thief could swoop in and take our spoils.

After my aggression timer finished off, I continued to Kamela.

Kel had logged in, and so we were getting ready for our usual dismantling of kamela war targets. A zealot had been monkeying about outside the station. I targeted me when I got there, and so I docked up. The Zealot than engaged Dz, which would have been dumb, if not for the undocking apoc. I undocked in my Hurricane, and we quickly dispatched the Zealot. The Apoc didn't look like he was engaging, but he must have since he didn't re-dock. And we popped him like a tin-can moments later.

It looked like another lol-gankfest night in Kamela. After we scooped the loot and docked up, I returned to my Jaguar. There was a vengeance warping around, and I thought it would be a fun little fight to be had.

After a bit of posturing, I managed to get a straight up fight out of him. But it turned into an eve-breaking duel of fail. 

Neither of us could break each other's tank. We just sat there and slugged it out, but we weren't even close to tank breaking. I think the stupid battle went on for like 6 minutes. Dz docked up and was going to fit a neut to the Typhoon, so we could break his tank. But thats about when his buddies in an Arbitrator and a Ishtar showed up. Dz decided not to re-fit. 

In hind sight, I wish he had, because then I might have been able to pop the vengeance and warp off, but meh, hind sight is 20-20. Dz's thought was that he needed to get out there asap to get the arbi and ishtar. Which never materialized.

Kel was warping in to save my ass from the three ships, but arrived a little too-late and pop went my Jaguar. I warped my Pod out, aptly named "Walk of Shame," and Dz was engaged on the station, where he managed to pop the arbitrator.

I returned and undocked my hurricane. I was going to Dual web that POS vengeance and lol as it exploded. But Then a megathron and abaddon undocked and Dz was still engaged. Awww hell. Dz wanted me to re-dock, and so I did. Kel didn't know what was going on, and Dz didn't give him instruction to come in and Jam.

On the field there was an ishtar, Vengeance, abaddon, and megathron. 

If I undocked in the Hurricane and Kel came in to jam, we might have actually been able to win that fight, but the hesitation, coupled with the second battleship undocking, saw the opportunity for victory pass.

It wasn't a bad loss, and no one is really to blame. It was bound to happen at some point. We danced with death a few too many times.

But we can't really call it a bad night.  Our KD ration was 2:1!

Graveyard:

Jaguar (Me)

Typhoon (Dz)

Dz's Pod

Catalyst

Zealot <- I am fairly sure he just face-rolled to get this setup..

Pod

Apocalypse

Pod

Arbitrator <- lol my jag took almost twice the damage this did!

I'm thinkin' Arbi's.

Lately, I have been somewhat obsessed with having a lot of ships lying around. I like looking in my hangar and having to make a hard choice about what to fly. I think it's also comforting to know that if I should lose my ship in combat, I already have something else to fly. 

I think it might give a small psychological edge. Might make me more willing to engage when the chips are down and less likely to try and run when It's a winnable fight.

So, like so many other nights, it started off in Rens. I was fitting out a Jaguar. There was a fit that I wanted to try, and I had the isk to put it together. So I did.

Kel was around, so we went out looking to see what kind of targets were milling about.

We ended up in Sifilar. There was a major plex open, and a couple war targets bouncing around. There was a Crusader that was trying to capture the plex, and Kel tried to tackle it, but it left before anything could materialize. Kel returned to the warp in beacon, hoping that the crusader might come back, and I followed suit.

With interceptors, it's easy to be cocky, because with such incredible speed and acceleration, you can escape from almost anything. So the thought was, that maybe he was one of these pilots that felt invincible in a Ceptor. 

He came back, but it was just as I was coming out of warp, so I was unable to get a tackle on, Kel was close to scramming him, but for some reason, they didn't activate on time. Probably a small bit of server lag.

So he managed to warp off again. 

We stayed on the warp in beacon hoping that he might have gained even more confidence from evading us. It could be that he didn't have much confidence to start and that the only reason he came back the first time was because he assumed we were going to go try and cap the plex. Taking us off of the beacon. He assumed wrong, but still managed to escape.

Dz logged in and started to make his way to us. When he arrived we decided to stay in the plex, hoping to goad some War targets into coming to defend it. War targets came alright, about 12 of them. A bit more than we could take on, so we warped off. Eventually they left, but the crusader stayed behind. I had left system, to arzad, to escape being murdered. Kel and Dz stayed behind to watch the plex. 

The war targets had actually come to Arzad, so I was able to watch them move on. 

The Crusader must not have been part of their group. The crusader returned to the plex. Kel and Dz went to catch him. They actually managed to get a warp disruptor on him, but were unable to get a web on him, so he burned out of their range. They started taking aggro, and moved off the plex. 

This is where I warped in. 

I'm apparently a kill stealing bitch.

When I arrived the Crusader burned towards me. I only had a couple of seconds to react, so I overloaded my scram to get more range out of it, jinked a little to mess his approach up. With the scramber on him, his MWD shut down, and I was able to get on top of him. He popped without much of a fight.

He probably noticed the rats shooting at Dz and Kel, and figured if he could just hold me there for a few, the rats would kill me. Good plan, but he messed up his approach, allowing me to catch him.

Dz  got angry because he thought I should have let him know I was engaging, and since I didn't say anything after I said "warping to the plex," until I already had him caught, it meant that neither Dz nor Kel would get their in time to get on the kill-mail.

Dz then said that I apparently do this all the time. 

I was a bit perturbed by this, as it had a negative connation to it. When I think about it, there are times when I get kills that they might have been able to get on, but since I go quiet when engaging, they don't have time to get there. 

But I guess I got a little offended because I don't do it maliciously, or intentionally for that matter. A lot of times I just take the opportunity I have been given and many of these times require quick action, or I'll miss it altogether. Sometimes this means I will get kills that other gang-mates are unable to get on. 

Now kill-mails and kill-count are a badge of honor. It's like the little stars they put on fighter planes for how many planes they have shot down. It represents success in flight combat. So I understand why it can be frustrating when a Gang mate manages to catch and kill something, without letting his wing-men know. But it's really not that many kills in the end. And the amarr still die. I guess I don't see it as THAT big of deal.

The bigger issue might be intel. A couple times, my quick decision has lead to a quick death. If I had properly alerted my wing-men they might have been able to help. And other times, it meant that I wasn't where they thought I was, so they get pinned down, and I am unable to come and help. 

I think I just concentrate too hard on the killing, and not enough on the communication. Anyway. it's something for me to think about for the future. To try and communicate better. 

The good news is that Dz managed to get on the pod kill, so that's decent.

I'm a little fuzzy on the next kill... There was a  punisher that I popped, but all I remember is that the rats had me tracking disrupted, so I had a hard time killing it, and that I deactivated my guns at one point so that Kel and Dz could come and get on the kill-mail. But It was taking them a while, and the rats started to hurt a bit, so Dz just said to kill it with fire. Pop goes the punisher. They managed to arrive in time to get on the pod kill. 

Dame death in an armageddon showed up as we were leaving the system. He was the guy I solo'd in the hurricane. We figured he was going to cap the plex, so Dz made the decision to go an grab his Typhoon, Kel switched to his Blackbird, and I remained the primary tackler.

As this was happening, an arbitrator joined dame. The pilot was the same one who lost his punisher to us. 

The plan was, I would go in, report what I saw, tackle what I was told to, and wait for the heavy cavalry. 

Neither Dame, nor the Arbi pilot had seen what Kel and Dz had switched to, so the thought was is that when they saw me, still in my Jaguar, they would assume We were in the same ships.

When I arrived, Dame was near the button, and the arbitrator was right on the warp in point. Dz told me to go for the Arbi. The arbi was tackled and shortly thereafter, Dz and kel came in and crushed the arbitrator.

I burned towards the armageddon, and tackled him. The logistical issue here was that Dz didn't have a propulsion mod on, so he had to slowboat to the target. By the time he had closed the distance, the NPC's has gotten their neutralizers on me, and I lost my point. 

He escaped.

He wanted to 1v1 Dz, which I encouraged him to do, but then Dame thought better of it, and left to 'refit.'

We made some safespots around the system and started to capture the plex, in hopes for more kills. 

Dame came back, this time with friends. 5 of them. On scan we had, Geddon, Punisher, punisher, retribution. That would have been tough enough, though do-able, but the 5th ship was a mystery.

I asked in local, but he wouldn't say, so I just told 'em I'll assume it's a falcon, and there is no way in hell we are going to engage superior numbers with superior ECM.

In hindsight, we could have tried to engage them at the plex, as the falcon would have been right next to our guns. However, if we got unlucky, he might have been able to jam us before we kill him, and then we'd die a quick death.

We eventually just left. We headed back to Kamela to see what might be around, as well as to return the typhoon to it's resting place. There were war targets about, and like usual, we wanted to kill them.

At first, it was a drake and a caracal outside station. I was instructed to attack the caracal. I was a bit skeptical, as it would prevent me from docking, where I could switch to a hurricane to help take out the WT's. My thought was that there was a lot more WT's waiting for us to engage. So being stuck in a low-dps jaguar for a minute would be bad.

But Dz wanted the WT's to engage me, so that they wouldn't be able to dock, and he'd be able to blast the crap out of them, and if other WT's did come, I should have enough time to re-dock.

The Caracal engaged me, but was outside of range for the phoon, so it didn't help. Shortly later, a myrmidon undocked. And then another. Then a thorax undocked shortly after that. A Blackbird followed. But warped off.

One of the myrms targeted me, and started firing. I was tanking both the caracal and the myrm pretty OK, for a bit, but had to dock up after a while. This is when I changed to my Hurricane. Which Dz instructed me to undock in. We opened up on the myrms. Dz was taking in heavy fire, but we were able to pop one myrm pretty quick. Then the second myrm went down easy. The caracal didn't seem to engage, nor the drake, they both docked up temporarily. The thorax never engaged either. Instead just sat near the undock point. 

The drake and the caracal came back, and Kel was keeping them both perma-jammed, while DZ and I fried the thorax.

Then an Abaddon undocked. And two armageddons showed up. Then a megathron. Oh, and an arbitrator, and a couple zealots, and a cerb...

We stayed on the field to loot the wrecks and wait for our aggression timers to wear off. Then we docked and smacked in local. Lollies.

Dz and Kel called it a night, so I undocked and left for home. I  took the long way to see what I could find, reports of a fight going on were showing up in local, so I x'd up.

I was too late to help with the main brawl, but managed to catch a fleeing prophecy1 jump out, which the militia came to crush underfoot.

It was a decent pew pew night. No losses. Good tactics. 

Graveyard:

Crusader

Pod

Punisher

Pod

Arbitrator

Myrmidon A

Myrmidon B

Thorax

Prophecy

Pod

Does that seem right to you?

There is this pilot out there name Laerise. Have only fought her 1 or 2 times, but she apparently is a decent pilot. I've been pseudo trolling in a Rifter set up thread on the militia forum. Some pilot was trying to say that a gyro over a DCU is a superior way to fit the rifter for taking down punishers. Particularly, PIE punishers, and specifically Laerise.

I looked up Laerise on Battle Clinic, to see if she is as good as people are making her out to be. She has similar kill numbers to myself, but a whole lot more losses. I think that's mostly because she flies a lot of T1 frigs, and they die a lot easier than the ships I fly. The important thing is that she has a damn good record against rifter pilots. Many of her 1v1 kills are against poorly fit Rifters, but she has a good record against the standard rifter set up, the 200mm Plate, SAR/DCU set up. A set up which has been a proven punisher killer for the most part.

It makes me think that maybe she is actually a good pilot.

I looked at her fit to find that she doesn't fit a plate on her Punisher. That seems pretty silly, as the EHP gained is vastly superior to the small DPS boost she gets from using a Heat Sink instead. The numbers show that she should be easy prey for a rifter. So the fact that she has such a good solo record makes me think that maybe there is some credence to praise she gets in that rifter thread.

It peaked my interest.

Last night I put together a rifter of my own and added her to my address book. If she came on, I was going to go look for her and see if I could get her to fight me. 

I also fit out a Wolf. I have been looking for a ship to solo in since I lost my Claw. We'll see how it works out. I might just go fit out another Claw, and maybe another Jaguar.

Anyway, Laerise hadn't logged on while I was doing this, so I just set out in my wolf to look for a fight. Kel was logged in, so we flew around looking for targets. 

Other than a lone Rifter, there was no one to shoot, the lone rifter ran off to a safe spot the minute he saw me, and that was the extent of the action. 

After boredom set in, Kel and I dumped our ships for Rifters, figuring we might be able to get more fights in less intimidating ships. 

Turns out that no one would engage us anyway, so Kel just took off to run plexes with the militia gang in the Tzvi/Raa area.

In Tzvi there was a war target maller mulling about. I looked to see that it doesn't have a drone bay, so my rifter was pretty safe to engage it. I was able to get under its guns pretty easy, but I couldn't break his tank. After a few minutes of stalemate, the maller docked up, and I moved on. 

 

I helped cap the plex in Raa, and was promoted to "Spear lieutenant." I guess that counts for something.

This is when the night began to get interesting. There was a report of two Neutral Sleipnirs in Amamake. Likely pirates. So the fleet moved that way. I wanted to switch ships, but I didn't have time. so I took my Rifter in with the fleet. 

The Sliepnirs crumpled.  

The engagement was kind of strange, because you had a mix of people who didn't like to shoot neutrals, and people who would shoot anyone. The first sleip went down real easy because he engaged a non-flashy militia member, and so he himself went red, and the fleet humped him into submission. The second one was tricky though. 

Not everyone engaged because he wasn't flashy, so there was less of us on him, and a lot less DPS. It managed to pop a couple of our ships. I was targeted, but since I was still in a rifter, I didn't have much trouble avoiding his guns. The second he hit armor he was done. 

Good gank, could have been executed better, but with mixed feelings on engaging neutrals, it's hard to get a decent level of cohesion in those situations.

The sleips were T2 fit, and fit to tackle, which meant their tank was going to be pretty mediocre. The Sleip is a ship that really really shines when you put money into it, but is only "OK" when T2 fit. Unless of course you have crystals, then it's bitchin' no matter what.

Kel and I broke off from the Gang to move some ships around. Which actually led to a 1v1 challenge from an Amarr. He was in a Hurricane, so I got my hurricane ready to rumble.

After some logistical issues to work out, we set off to a safe spot in lamaa. I was looking at his character bio, just to see what I should expect. Turns out he is only about 5 months old. That should be a cake walk for me. I have a whole year of experience over him. 

It was a damn close fight.

It started out fine, I was crushing him underfoot. I was a rigged Hurricane, so I almost felt like I was cheating. But then... jammed. Aww hell. Fuggin ECM drones. This could be bad. I wasn't too worried yet, as I still had plenty of armor left, and when I left him he didn't have a lot left. Eventually the jam ceased and I opened up again, I noticed he had some of his armor back, this meant he was a Dual rep set-up. Which is actually pretty good, but probably the 'third best' set up for a hurricane. 

Fearing another jam, I overloaded my guns, I wanted to make sure he popped, the DPS crushed his rep-tank, and he was into structure. With less than half of his structure to go, I stopped overloading, so I wouldn't burn out my guns. And then I was jammed again. 

eff. 

I wasn't in too much trouble yet, I still had a good chunk of armor, and my drones were still attacking him. I expected him to just run, because odds are, I'd be able to shoot again, and kill him before he got a 3rd jam off with the drones. It seemed to take a lifetime for the jam to cease, maybe he got back to back jams, hard to say, because it wasn't until  around 7% armor that I was able to fire again.

By this time he had repped a quarter of his armor back. I took no chances. I overloaded the guns and watched him burn. Poof.

I was very impressed with his fight. He took an inferior hurricane set up and put me into Deep deep armor. Which considering the difference in skill, that's amazing. He also didn't run when things looked bad for him, so I give him mad props for that. 

I looted his wreck and docked up to repair.

I wanted to move my hurricane back to Kamela. I like to store it there as a heavy DPS ship for station engagements. But since Kamela is very dangerous, I didn't want to go in blind. Kel logged off after my victory over the other Cane pilot, so I was without scout.

Rieger, a friend of the corp was nearby, and he scouted for me. I swapped my cane for a rifter and started to head home.

As I got to Amamake I saw Icarus Flame in local. Icarus is an Amarrian war target that I killed a few weeks ago. He tried to 1v1 me in my rifter, and he died, twice.

So I said, "1v1?" in local. He didn't say anything, and I just headed to Osoggur gate. Where he was.

I saw him in an Executioner earlier, when I was waiting for Rieger to scout for me. When I came out of warp I saw the icon for a frigate on my overview, so I just engaged.

He was fast. I was Afterburner fit, and so I wasn't able to get a web or scram on him. I started watching his orbit so I could jink in and catch him. I had to overheat my web and scram to catch him, but I did. And then it was a short, sweet engagement.

It wasn't until after I had docked and posted the kill-mail that I realized he wasn't in an executioner anymore, but a CRUSADER! Which is an Interceptor. I know the rifter is pretty well equiped to fight interceptors, but generally interceptors are much better than T1 frigates. But my clever piloting caught him.

I felt pretty awesome. But then I noticed that It wasn't a solo kill. Maarrg, a militia pilot was apparently there in a falcon. Turns out that right before the fight was over, he had de-cloaked and fired a missile or two at him. 

So basically I solo-killed the Crusader, as the Falcon barely did anything, but it makes the kill look a lot less impressive.  

I'm going to call it a solo, because 1 more volley and the falcon wouldn't have made it on the kill. 

I don't blame Maarrg. He didn't know it was a 1v1, and if I was in his position, seeing an interceptor shooting at a friendly frigate, I would have jumped on to help as well. I appreciate the sentiment of helping, so it's all good.

Anyway. It was a decent night.

Graveyard:

Sleipnir

Sleipnir B

Hurricane

Crusader

This stuff will make you a sexual Ty-ranasaur, just like me.

I signed on around 7:00-ish P.M. last night to look for some quick pew pew before the hockey game a couple hours later.

It started out with me trolling my corp mates about ECM. Even though it saves my ass quite a bit, I feel that it is a bad mechanic, and vastly overpowered at that. So I had this idea to balance it, and decided to tell Kel and Dz my grand plan. In hindsight was a bad idea, as kel flies falcons and dz flies blackbirds all the time. 

It's not worth posting the conversation. So I'll sum up in Internet speak:

Me> ECM sucks!

Kel and Dz> ORLY?

Me> YA RLY!

Kel and Dz> NO WAI!!!

Which then led into a proverbial slap fight with me being all like, "My opinion is law! Only Hitler would use ECM! " 

Dz and Kel were all like, "Godwin's law."

I am the best at trolling.

Anyway.

So Dz had his Typhoon, Kel in a Blackbird, and I was in my Hurricane, affectionately named "Snakes on a Cane." We decided we'd just fuck with the war targets in Kamela, as usual.. 

While Dz was moving his ship around, a Drake undocked from the kamela station. I was sitting on the undock being all like, "Zaduki Sama?" Then the drake locked me. I asked Dz if I should engage. He wasn't even in system at the time, so he wanted me to wait, so he could get into a better position to join in if things went sour. 

Eventually I engaged the drake and we began to slug it out. I was expecting it to be lolpassivefit like every other bait drake, but he was a HAM drake. Which is actually quite formidable. In a straight up slug fest we were pretty close, with me having the edge, so if nothing else happened I would have likely dropped him. I started to get nervous when local started spiking with War Targets. I figured it was a trap and that the Amarr Fleet was about to drop on top of me, but it took them a while to show up. Kel undocked and jammed the drake, as some of the war targets began to show up on the field. When they did arrive, it wasn't insta-pwn. They were disorganized, some docking to get into different ships, and some just sitting their wetting their pants.

A few huginns buzzed around, a nemesis was there too, which kept cloaking and decloaking every few minutes. An Omen and a Maller were there, but one docked and the other just sat there, probably waiting to see what his amarr friends were going to do.

The Drake popped and the Maller re-docked for a while (he came back later)

Then an Apoc Warped in. Dz had docked to drop off some loot, so I sat there and waited. He started shooting me, but he wasn't doing a whole lot of damage. The huginn docked and undocked, so I figured they were going to try and gank me, instead Dz undocked his Phoon again.

Much to our surprise the apoc started shooting the Typhoon. The other huginn warped or cloaked or something. I burned up to the typhoon to get a tackle on him. A Myrmidon Warped in to aid the Apoc, and two Blackbirds showed up.

At this point it was Dz, Kel, and I, fighting an Apoc, Myrm, Huginn, Two Blackbirds and a Nemesis. 

We managed to scare one blackbird off the field pretty quick. Dz was jammed by the other blackbird, while kel managed to jam the Apoc. I finished off the Apoc and targeted the myrm. About this time a Megathron undocked. After about 1 cycle on the Myrm, the blackbird jammed me, So I disengaged the myrm and burned towards the Blackbird. Kel managed to pull a jam off on the Blackbird so when my jam cycle finished I could blast him.

I was all like, "FREEEEDDDOOOOOMMM!" as I blew away the blackbird.

I turned my sites back to the myrm, which Dz had begun to tear apart. It went down pretty quick. Which ended the killing.

This was Kel's fight of great victory. He jammed everything at the perfect time. Including the huginns, since one of them came back mid fight. It's what allowed us to take on this gang of superior numbers. Dz did a good job of keeping his wits about him even when they outnumbered us, and he was jammed. He decided to keep us fighting, which lead to a pretty epic win. 

At their Peak, they fielded a Mega, a Myrm, a Blackbird, a Nemesis, Two huginns, a Punisher and a Maller. The Drake had died before the Fight really started, and the Apoc Died when they only had about 6 on the field. And the other Blackbird warped off at the first sign of trouble.

By the time the Myrm went down, the Mega thought better of engaging us with no ECM support, the Huginns were too scared to get within engage range, and the Nemesis re-cloaked. So we not only killed ships while heavily outnumbered, we held the field. We looted Salvaged and then Smacked in local.

After a few minutes Lyria, an Amarr FC came into system in her Absolution. I undocked to play around. She shot at me, and I was all like, "Tickles!." Local had spiked again with War targets, about 15 or so of them in system now, and with Lyria there, it was likely a more organized amarr gang. 

Dz then undocked in his Phoon, bein' all like, "ME NEXT!" 

Eventually Dz docked again, knowing the odds of a fleet being dropped on us in short order. Lyria was trying to troll us into fighting in local, being all like, "A Cane, phoon and a falcon vs on abso, and you won't fight?"

It was quite obviously one of those 300k Effective HP absolutions, meaning it was just a bait for the fleet. We just smacked in local, laughing at Lyria for thinking kel's blackbird was a falcon. 

"My Blackbird paint is chipping off my falcon...!?"

It makes sense, I am sure the whining in Amarr militia chat reported kel as a falcon, and with the way he was jamming, you'd think he really was.

It was a good time. Dz was commenting on the fight being all like, "See this is why ECM doesn't suck" and I was all like, "THIS IS WHY ECM OVERPOWERED"

In the end, it was a good fight, that involved around 11 different amarr pilots, with at one point us being outnumbered 3-to-1. 

Go team Minmatar!

Graveyard:

Myrmidon

Blackbird

Apocalypse

Drake

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

It is only now that I am starting to see things other than white hot nerd rage. I'll explain.

Unless the amarr believe they have a sure win on their hands, they don't undock in anything larger than a Punisher. The Minmatar seem to vastly outnumber the Amarr, at least in the Warzone, so they favor quick strike ships. Namely Crusaders.

Now these piss me off to no end, which I am sure tickles the Amarr pink. 

An interceptor is silly survivable in low sec because it doesn't need to worry about being tackled. It alligns so quickly that it is near impossible to catch them with anything else but another interceptor, and even that is a stretch.

Our goal, lately, has been to make the Amarr not feel safe in their frigates and interceptors any more. We had two ideas to do this with. Get into interceptors ourselves, with the sole purpose of tackling these crusaders. 

This tactic involves some risk for the ceptor pilot, because you need to get into knife fighting range, and since you're fitting a web/scramble and speed mods, you're not going to be tanked with anything. Meaning you can't take a lot of punishment.  The hope is that you can tackle the ceptor and keep it there while a buddy in some other ship, warps to you and puts the hurt on.

The second tactic, was to get into Muninns. A Muninn is an artillery platform designed to be an anti support ship. It's bonused to range and tracking, and it's supposed to use it's high alpha to quickly dispatch smaller ships. It's very purpose seems perfect for anti ceptor work.

Ceptors have very low hit points, even when tanked, so it's not out of the question to insta-pop them. The issue is getting a lock on them, so you fit them for lock speed, agility and overwhelming alpha damage. So you can pop them, and get the hell out before something bigger comes.

We chose the Muninns because they seemed like a perfect option for popping ceptors.

 They wouldn't be used in our day today fleets, but on nights where there is no other targets outside of interceptors, they would get their chance to shine....

So we fit them out and went for a spin.  What do you know, there are interceptors about! Time to put this puppy to use! Here we go!

I just want to say one thing about our op before I get into the details:

Fuck. The Munnin. 

I have Maxed out gunnery skills and I missed a ceptor sitting at near stand still at my optimal range... WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SHIT?

When I finally did hit him, it was with such shit alpha that I barely dented his shields.. What a piece of shit! After running around for an hour we managed to pop a total of 0 interceptors. And missed many of them. Then I missed another interceptor in the same situation. What is the point of anti support if you can't hit them? ANGER ANGER HATE HATE RAGE RAGE ASASGFASGASFGASFGASF FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF BAAAAAAWWW

I was sitting outside the Kamela station, Stewing. Letting my hate fester. I even offered Dake darkstalker, a known Amarr war target, my Muninn fully fitted for the cost of the hull, and even that wasn't cheap enough, "Hell no, melt that pos down."

I wanted to eject from the muninn and watch it explode. It's the first minmatar ship that I actually hate. I have disappointing moments with other minmatar ships, but this is the first that breaks my heart. 

While sitting there, Rozikki starts throwing 'xxx' in fleet chat. Which means, "Warp to me, shits going down"  

He was at the minor plex in system, which was befuddling, because at that moment the war targets we had been chasing we undocking from the station, so what could he have tackled?

Aw hell. The pirates from huola had been sneaking in system. Dz had us warp there before we had any intel. Out numbered, and out shipped, we all died horribly, with no kills.  I was podded. Still angry over the muninn's shit performance, I was glad it died. 

I'm not blaming Dz for the loss. He made a judgement call, and it turned out to be a bad one, but that happens when you FC. You can't expect to control your outcome with 100% success in a game where random circumstances can drastically change the outcome. He was trying to save a tackled gang-mate, and he wanted us to get some PvP. 

It also didn't help that we had a WT kestrel buzzing around dancing with our ships at plexes all night, and the delay to get intel had burned us before when trying to catch him. He always got away. So rather than waste the time to get proper intel, he just had us warp, to try and nab the target there. Not knowing that it wasn't a WT kestrel, but a 'fuck off' pirate gang.

Dz popped first at the Plex, and I took over primary calling, but I think people were too busy trying to get out, fairly sure none of them did.

I had no propulsion mod, so I wasn't going anywhere. I put my guns on the Vexor that was chasing me, and I put my drones on the Interceptor that had me tackled. I figured I might be able to pop the interceptor, or at least scare him off, and then put my drones on the vexor and finish him off, and then warp to safety, but it didn't work. 

Total Party Kill.

In one small consolation. One of the Amarr warped to the plex and got killed by the pirates as well, and since it happened to be one we shot at earlier, we managed to end up on the kill mail. Hoo. Ray.

What we learned:

The Muninn is an anti-support platform, but post QR, interceptors are basically impossible to hit. Maybe I should have seen this coming and never bought it, but I just seemed so right in my head.

Graveyard:

Wolf

Pod

Claw

Muninn Fuck this shit.

Pod

Muninn

Hokey Religions and Ancient weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side, kid.

I should really stop challenging people to 1v1's. It just isn't all that fun. Sure, I get to test my skills on an even playing ground. But it just doesn't have the same flavor as real PvP. Catching someone when they don't want to be caught is just a hell of a lot more fun than pre-determined battles. But on the other hand, having a 1v1 is better than having no fight at all.

Especially since the damned Amarr always run. And usually manage to escape.

So when I saw a war target rifter, and had missed the tackle on him, my only option to get him to fight was a 1v1 challenge. Normally I just get ignored. There are too many unhonorable pilots out there, me being one of them, and most people just figure it's a trap for an easy gank. However, he must have been equally bored and decided to accept. 

I have been trying to honor these recently. If I can get a reputation for being an honorable fighter, maybe more people will try to fight me. Rather than just run at the sight of me in system.

So I told Dz to stay out of it, and I took my rifter to the decided upon location.

I had lost my 400mm plate rifter to an interceptor the other night, so I was trying a different set up. I threw on 200mm plate and a small armor rep. I also squeezed on 200mm Auto cannons for the extra DPS. 

This proved to be successful against the other rifter and he went down without much of a hitch. Managed to catch his pod, surprisingly. That's my only consolation in agreed upon matches, is catching the Pod. Because odds are, they don't want to lose their pod. So they are going to try and get it out. Normally you need some luck with lag, or an interceptor to catch a pod in low sec, so I was happily surprised to catch it this time. 

After that we moved on.

Like so many other nights we found ourselves in Kamela. However, this time there weren't many Amarr there. Just two, but the they were part of a corp known for engaging at almost any odds. One of the Two was Dake Darkstalker. Perhaps the most honorable man in Eve. He'll almost accept any 1v1, and he'll honor pretty much every time. Hell, he'll even fight out numbered. He's just a guy who loves to PvP. So we knew it was a good chance to get a fight.

They were outside and toolin' around in a a couple frigs. Dake in missile fit Breacher, and Burukt was in a Kestrel. Dz was in a Catalyst fit out for extreme damage. I was trying to get position on Dake, but his breacher was faster. My Plate was slowing me down,  so he was able to maintain range, which he did a very good job of doing. Luckily the Breacher does hilariously bad DPS, so He wasn't much of a threat. 

Later his Buddy in the kestrel joined in the fight, which resulted in a spectacularly fast death to Dz's catalyst. 

This started a string of 4 kestrel losses for him. All fit pretty much the same. We killed him so fast that the kill board had thought we were double posting his losses. Dake eventually realized he wasn't going to get anything with his breacher, and decided to bring out a Thrasher, which would even it up, at least ship class wise. 

Burukt and Dake went after Dz's Catalyst, and we Primaried Dake's Thrasher. It was close, Dz was into structure, but we popped the Thrasher, and then we made short work of Burukt's kestrel.

At that point we decided it was time to move on from frigate thunderdome. 

We had a couple of other militia guys join our group, and we moved around looking targets before we found Vancorporate in a Harbinger in Kourmonen. I was in Kamela, monitoring the amarr. Vancorporate moved to the Lamaa Gate in Kourm, I warped to the Lamaa Gate in Kamela, in hopes to catch him. Our gang was slightly disorganized, so only Dz made it to Lamaa before the harbinger warped to the Kamela Gate. Vancorporate was probably trying to avoid gate camps on the kamela gate in kourm by taking the back door in through lamaa, so that's why I warped to Lamaa, rather than assuming he was going to move on to Tzvi, the other Lamaa out system.

He jumped through, easy tackle for me, and I began to work on him, Dz was the first to make it in after me, still in his Catalyst. Vancorporate put his Drones on Dz, which unfortunately managed to pop him. So I was there, alone for a few moments trying to stay alive for the rest of the gang to show up. Shortly after Dz popped though, a Gang mate in his Rifter came to my aid. Two rifters circling the Harbi, plinking away slowly at his armor. It was a roller coaster ride for me, who had received the drones after Dz bit it. They were medium drones, so they were having trouble tracking me, which meant that their DPS was low, and I was able to out rep them with my small armor repairer, but because I was trying to keep my transversal up, I had my MWD on, which meant I couldn't be constantly repping, so it was a battle of attrition, if things stayed as they were, I would eventually go down, likely before the harbinger.

However, it never came to that. The rest of our gang arrived and he melted before he could kill us tacklers. Perhaps it was lucky that my last rifter did get blown up, as the 400mm plate didn't have a repper, and would have likely died before the gang arrived. 

Dz made his way back into Lamaa to pick up another ship, and I warped off to a planet to repair. Which turned out to be a mistake as I was tackled and killed by a pirate and his buddy in a griffin. Was not super upset, but mildly annoyed since I had scooped the loot from the Harbinger kill. 

D'oh.

I went back to Osoggur to Pick up my Vagabond. While I was away, the boys managed to catch a Maller at the same place we caught the Harbinger. 

Later I scared a Zealot into our group waiting for him in Vard. Didn't managed to get in on the kill mail because I warped to the wrong gate. :blush:

The night petered out, and I came full circle with another 1v1. Against Dake, who I had just witness kill two of my militia mates in a 2v2; and then take out a third who tried to take advantage of the situation.

Dake was in a Rupture, which can be dangerous to a Vagabond if I get webbed, which I was determined to not let happened.

I got webbed.

I really need to work on my approach skills. Might be time to get on the test server. I need to slow down I think. Be a little more careful with ranges, if it means it takes me longer to kill things, so be it. At least I'll keep my ships.

This time I didn't matter much, as I was able to stay out of range long enough to keep his initial DPS low, and when he managed to get on top of me, I was able to out DPS him, and kill him before I even reached half shield. 

I was nervous because last time there was a 1v1 between me and dake, where I was in a Vaga and he was in a Rupture, I lost. Mostly because I was stupid and Bounced off the station directly into his guns. 

Anyways, The Night ended alright in the end.

Graveyard:

Rifter

Pod

Kestrel I

Kestrel II

Kestrel III

Thrasher

Kestrel IV

Harbinger

Pod

Maller

Zealot

Rupture

My hands are Black from this downtown taxi cab.

These last few days have been a bit of a Blur, so I apologize if this one just cuts to the brass tacks.

Another night in Kamela. So hot and steamy, like a girls locker room. The supple station so sleek and smooth. The hot stars dripping down its long slender sides. It's legs straight and pointed down. It glowed under the soft lighting. The planet in the background acting as an excellent back light to its silhouette. Our ships teasing it's cold outer shell with our tender engine's warmth.

It shuddered a bit in its ecstasy.

We caressed it, coaxing it into showing us what's inside. It was then, when it had just been seduced, when it had just let us into it's fragile heart, that we revealed our true intentions.

Raep. Raep. Raep.

Oh and later we caught a Battleship on the Lamaa Gate in Kamela. Where somehow a Hound out damaged me. I'm so ashamed.

Graveyard:

Caracal

Ishkur

Thorax

Armageddon

Anyone else want to negotiate?

The Amarr are beginning to get good at a few things. Namely, frustrating us Minmatar pilots. Cruising around low sec in Interceptors and core-stabbed frigates. They know they can't contend with minmatar firepower, so they've resorted to picking off stragglers with Crusaders and other fast ships. The more we try to catch them, the more frustrating it gets. 

But when you catch them, you give them the "O-face."

Pagano, Dzadhuk and Kelemeth had all been cruising around low sec looking for a fight. Per usual, they were cowering in stations, or flying near un-catchable ships. As it seems to happen every night, we ended up in Kamela. There are always Amarr there, albeit most of them docked, so it's a good defacto place to fight in. This is about where I joined the party.

You never know what you're going to get. Sometimes they just stay docked the whole night, other times they at least check what's outside station, and other times you get the right hand of the Amarr coming down on you. They usually have superior numbers, but it's hard to guage how many of them are actually ready to fight. 

This time we decided to bait them with a big ship. Dz was in a battleship near the undock, hoping to get them to undock something other than a Crusader. It actually pseudo-worked. They undocked a battleship or two. However, most of them re-docked when the fighting started. What it did do, was get a bunch of spectators to come out and see what the hullabaloo was about. Lots of Interceptors buzzing around the station. 

Since I was in a Vagabond, I burned out towards a group of them a 100km or so off the station. They took the bait to try and grab me. Then Kel de-cloaked in his falcon and started jamming them. It was a hilarious little skirmish. As they got jammed, or targeted by me, they would burn off, wait for the jam to cease, and burn back. So it was like a bunch of gnats buzzing around my head. With me frantically flailing in every direction.

This went on for a few minutes before we managed to pop a Crow, and they all decided to bug off. (nyuk nyuk)

Eventually we just kind of gave up trying to get a legit fight and went out looking for other targets. Again, we didn't really find anything, and reports that Amarr were buzzing about in Kamela were coming in. So we went back. We had two falcons with us, Dz still in his dominix, Pagano in a Pilgrim, and Myself in my Vagabond.

The reports had Amarr numbers higher than ours, however, we figured with two falcons, we could nulify a decent chunk of their fleet, and turn the tide. An unrestricted complex was open, and we went there hoping to get a fight in open space, as fighting on station usually degenerates into docking games. When we arrived, there were some Amarr there. None of them were at the warp in, so I burned out to them to try and get a tackle. No luck. They managed to get away before I got in range.

We knew however that they might just be re-positioning. Especially since they left behind one of their interceptors to keep an eye on us. Our falcons stayed cloaked, and we waited. In came a caracal. 

Poof. Went down faster than my high school prom date.

Then the Absolution warped in. Knowing it was going to be bait, we went for it, and in came the rest of their fleet. Including their own falcon. Dz and I were instantly jammed. I burned out to the falcon at first, trying to scare him off the field, but it didn't work and he kept me out of the fight. Kel and the other falcon decloaked and tried like hell to Jam their falcon, so we could turn the battle in our favor. 

Maybe the Amarr have this religion thing right, because the sheer luck to not get a return jam was quite divine. 

Without being able to take their falcon out of the fight we weren't able to put out the DPS to stop them. Our falcons split time trying to jam their Falcon and their tacklers, to try and get Dz's Dominix to safety. But their numbers were too great.

In a last ditch effort to join the fighting, I burned directly away from the falcon, hoping to burn out of his jam range, and then come back and start killing their support. But it was too late. Kel got caught by one of their Interceptors and I was too far to support him, and then before I could even break the Falcon's lock range, Dz popped. I buzzed around for a moment to see if their was someone that had broken away from their blob, but no luck.

The one consolation that we had, was that the Falcon they used, the one with all that divine luck, got popped by Dz's auto agro-ing drones. 

We broke fleet then, calling it a Day. It was risky, but had we won, it would have been Epic. 

Plus, we got to give an interceptor the "O-Face."

Graveyard:

Crow

Caracal

Falcon

Dominix (Dz)

Falcon (Kel)