Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Fool Me Once, Shame on You...

... Fool me twice.... well that aint gonna happen because I'm coming back in a big bloody cruiser... with friends you cloaky motherf......

The fighting has continued around Northern Black Rise since my return from holiday on Friday. It is a great time to be in faction war. There is plenty of good solo and small gang warfare going on and for once the number of squid LP farmers are outnumbered by the number of squids actually looking for a fight. Add in to this neutrals and pirates like Stay Frosty roaming the area and its really fun to be in the Nisuwa area currently. I've also finally broken into the 'top 1,000' rankings on BattleClinic. I started the year just outside the top 5,000 and got to just above the top 1,000 over the summer. However, a lack of targets in my TZ, too many farmers, a bitter-vet induced 'meh' stage and a few OOG issues left me there for a few months. Now we have a lot of targets, plenty of solo action and my Eve Mojo is back which is driving up my BC points.

On Monday I'd been out and about and got a few kills. Simply sitting a Cockbag Thrasher on an acceleration gate can get you good action currently. There is a tendency for some squids to use kitey ships with good GTFO-ability. However, even a Crow class interceptor has issues when it drops out of warp and is stationary long enough for your full rack of T2 280mm howitzers with two T2 Gyro's to open a new "feature window" in their port side. Its even better when the same Crow pilot goes to fetch another one and dies again a few minutes later.

Anyway, onto the story of the title. It was getting late on Monday when I spotted a Republic Fleet Firetail on scan towards a Medium Federation Outpost in our home system of Nisuwa. Now as Nisuwa was 0% contested there would be no point in any Gal Mil to be in there. And looky here! There is a war target in system! Warp drive activated....


I was in a 10mn AB Thrasher. These can be very effective against all T1 frigates. With speeds of over 1600m/s the frigate target must use a MWD if it wants to keep out of optimal range. Turning on the MWD increases a ships signature radius 500% making them very easy to hit, very hard. I dropped out of warp on the acceleration gate and did a quick 21m KM D-Scan as I always do when landing on an acceleration gate. You never know who else may have warped just before you and already entered the plex. Just the Firetail on scan so I activated the gate and entered the plex.

Three orange flashies on overview inside as I drop out of warp. What. The. Feck?

I look at my D-Scan in disbelief. The 21m KM scan I took before entering the plex is still on screen and still only showing the RF Firetail. The Kitsine and Ashimmu came from nowhere! Wait... Ooooooo the cloaky motherf.......

I know I'm dead, and unfortunately another QCat had also seen the Firetail and was not far behind me. I said on comms what was happening as I was scrammed, webbed, jammed, neuted dry and DPS'd. My Thrasher went down in short order as there was nothing I could do. Tz's Kestrel that followed me in also died a death the same way. We both podded out and docked up.


So they sprung a very effective trap. Put some bait in a plex and have a cloaky Ashimmu and Kitsune waiting to spring. Another QCat reported the Ashimmu and Kitsune had vanished from D-Scan and only the Firetail was left. Wait... surely they are not just resetting the trap. After all they played their hand to two people who belong to a corp who live in the same system. Wow, apparently they are.

Suddenly the QCats went to work. If you are a child of the 80's like me you might what to have this theme tune playing in the background as you read the next bit.

Tzenick quickly shaved a mohawk and blackened up his face with shoe polish. Clive put his cap on backwards and gave some crazy-eyes, Defqon undid a his top three shirt buttons and shagged the nearest hotty and Djalis put on an extensive disguise and lit a fat cigar. The QCats were in A-Team mode! Cruiser hulls were stripped and re-built with cap injectors, energy vampires, ECCM and drone DPS. Tz went back out and entered the plex in his refitted Rupture (remember they had just killed him two minutes before). They "sprung" the trap again and the rest of us dog-piled in as Tz announced he had the Ashimmu locked down. The enemy Firetail fled as we arrived, the Kitsune stuck around at range until it got several flights of drones in the face and then promptly warped off which left the Ashimmu against the rest of us. Just like Colonel Decker, he had no chance. One Thrasher and one Kestrel lost in round one, one 200m ISK Ashimmu destroyed in round two. I love it when a plan comes together!


A very effective trap guys, but you really need to consider moving along once you've played your hand to the residents of a home system.

2 comments:

  1. This made me laugh :) I will keep to T1 ships for the time being. But perhaps I should trade in my rocket talwar for half a dozen trashers as next ship to try.

    I get really nervous from incursus though, I read they have a godly tank. The only time yesterday when I warped off was when an incursus and 2 other frigates landed on grid with me.

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    1. Incursus aren't that hard to kill if you've got decent damage output and/or a neut. The dual-rep version suffers because it has little buffer and can't fit a web (because of the need for a cap booster). So its range control is limited. Add to that the fact that armor reps apply at the end of the cycle, and you can find that it's not too hard to alpha through the reps. The single-rep/plate variation can fit a web, so it's a bit more dangerous if it can get in close. But even with a moderate DPS frigate, you'll be able to push through the reps after a bit of time.

      Destroyers shouldn't have a problem punching through an incursus' tank.

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