ISS Fleet scores a goal

[bomberesque]

Last night was all sorts of fun, the bait / withdraw under fire was bloody excellent, particularly as it achieved the goal we had set out with (allowing MC to get out of the station) using a much smaller horse than we were up against and with only a couple of losses (one of them that Boyfriend dude; what's with him ). Working on the assumption (of course) that it was all planned form the start, it went thusly;

Gang of 30+ was formed with carrier support in F4 when I joined. They had been picking off "targets of opportunity" on the ZX gate for a while.

An IAC fleet started to form on the other side of the system, also with carrier support. We had eyes on them, they had eyes (and probably ears) on us.

It was just getting dangerously likely that we would commit to the kind of fleet op that we're known for being so good at ) when news came in that MC (who had been camping the Doril pipe all day to piss priory off) had taken an hour's break and returned to find themselves camped into a station. A further camp at the system entry gate looked pretty uncrackable (large bubble, well organised deployment etc etc).

Our fleet, now numbering near 60, swapped out into BSs and headed off to Litolm to see what we could do. It was pretty clear that we didn't have the numbers to break the camp (only 8 sniping BSs against their 20+, which was btw, as we had over 15 BS in total so must have had several short range fits or lots of BSs left gang on the way over) Anyhoo, we camped the entry gate from the other side with a dictor bubble (note to self; you need 2 dictors or 1 dictor with 2 launchers since they nerfed the ROF and bubble life in Kali) and caught Gus preston in a taranis. /me did 25.2 HP damage :D.

Our eyes at the camp reported that they looked to be preparing to engage, so we moved as to do the same. At the vey last second, we did a back flip and ran like fuck, dropping dictor bubbles behind us to slow the enemy down. IAC appear to have committed both camp fleets (gate and station) to the chase, we escaped with only 2 losses (I think) and MC cleared the station (again; I think) so all round a success, I would say.

Lessons;

1. Our Vent discipline is still awful
2. note to FCs; if you have eyes on the enemy, assume that he has eyes on you and act accordingly. I'm not certain, but I like to think that Algey played it this way, which was how we managed to feint that got them chasing us.
3. Blasters and AM are a bit too short range for fleet engagements
/edit. 4. The application of boredom to the enemy is a valid and effective strategy


I didn't see much action, narf, but it was all great fun, especially the last bit. I do want to go small frig gang hunting though coz this fleet stuff is 90% of sitting around and 10% run like fuck

[northwesten]

i had to go to bed too i was falling asleep :/

[eRabbit]

Yesterday afternoon was lots of fun, my Malediction was in the gang that were harassing IAC in F4, when we first jumped in we co-ordinated with a fighter assigned frigates already in F4 and chewed a frig/cruiser/bc gang apart, including a recon cruiser kill. Pretty much all afternoon we were active, getting kills and having a laugh.

Then went we went to save MC (lol), I knew Algey was a good FC, but he executed that plan amazingly well, was a very very very nice display of trickery and tactics.