We rolled our static wormhole connection into nullsec, looking for the occasional abandoned citadel and opportunities for pvp. We had found one already. Killing it took about 50 minutes with some Kikimoras as we only had a frigate-hole leading to it. We took it down without any interference and brought some Sunesis (what’s plural here?) through the small wormhole, fitted for hauling to loot the remains. We probably picked up ~400m ISK tops here. I could also save a (polarized!) Manticore and another Sunesis to use for further salvaging operations. It should come in handy later.
Then we kept on rolling our nullsec static, looking for opportunities to pvp or more abandoned structures. While our Interceptors would swarm out of the freshly rolled wormhole, we stage our main character in small-gang ships on our side of the wormhole.
Today we muster an Orthrus, a Brutix Navy Issue, a madman in his Vargur (Yes, that’s the Minmatar Marauder) and me, in an Omen Navy Issue. The Nomen has become my favorite ship to fly in gangs recently. It has good projection, can still hit from decent ranges, and is rather fast and agile for a cruiser hull. It also teaches you to work with cap-boosters: Balancing repairing, MWDing around, and keeping your guns shooting at the same time.
Round One
One of our scouts reports a mixed gang of Caldari ships. A few Moas, a Ferox, two Ospreys, Caracal, Flycatcher, and even a Tengu. Not fitting to the theme of the fleet but still with them are a Vagabond and Dramiel.
We set up our gang of four ships on the gate and gather our Interceptors to provide the tackle. Their Flycatcher manages to bubble themself and we snag one of the two Ospreys but the rest of the Caldari gang manages to run off to an asteroid belt before we can tackle more. We start to chase with our Interceptors and manage to catch them at a customs office. The fight is on, we spread points. The Dramiel does the fatal mistake to approach our Vargur in a straight line. In the next server tick, his capsule is ejected.
We proceed to focus down the Caracal as it’s one of the potentially most dangerous ships to our own tackle. Points are spread among the other ships. I set my Interceptor to point the Ferox and focus on piloting my Omen Navy that gets beaten up by the HAM-fitted Tengu. I kite away and get out of his range somewhere over 40km. The Flycatcher bubbles a last time then dies to drones. RIP.
We ignore the Moas with our dps and just keep them pointed. The Tengu goes down after his Ancillary Shield Booster hits reload. Meanwhile, the Vagabond seemed to have a hard time to decide which one of us to go after. We focus on him next. The Moas were fitted with a 10MN Afterburner and Blasters. Designed to get on top of a target and melt faces. We flew the perfect counter against this Filament-fleet without knowing it yet. The remaining Moas and Ferox got delivered their insurance payments as an Ares warped on grid at range and started to burn away at some swift 5.000 m/s.
Suddenly Mr. Random showed up in a Cerberus. While he was still landing, our Interceptors already heated their Microwarpdrives and burned towards him. He was HAM-fitted and had no chance to clear three tacklers before his tank was overwhelmed by our arriving DPS. The poor guy should have waited for his friends.
While the Cerberus exploded, local rose to 27. We continued to loot the most valuable things and got ready to go back to the wormhole. While my comrades warped out, I kept my Omen Navy on grid. I had a feeling there was more to go down.
Round Two
The Ares suddenly lost it’s speed and warped down to a wreck, close to my beloved Nomen. I saw it coming, started to run with the cruiser and burned in my Interceptor to scram him off, gain range, reduce transversal with the Omen to blap him.
With 5km/s the Ares still gained point on me. Seconds later gang number two warped in: Two Scythes and Brutixes, another Moa and a Griffin. The kill report shows a Sabre as well, but I never noticed him on grid. I kept kiting away while working on the now scrammed Ares. For some reason, the Ares never tried to scram me back, so I kept my Alt in the Interceptor close to his, scramming him while calling my gang back in. The cavalry landed just in time to finish off the Ares that had been kept alive by the Scythes. With additional dps we pushed through them and blew up the Ares. I had been able to kite out of the danger zone in the meantime and went back in, preheating my Ancillary Armor Repairer. If they knew a thing or two, they would recognize me as the ship with the weakest tank here.
The ceptor alts spread tackle and held down what they could. Somewhere on the side, a Griffin exploded. This gang was fitted for range and Brutixes and Moa started to work on my Nomen. We proceeded to push the hp-bars of their logi towards zero. I tried to gain transversal on their DPS while cycling the repper but ultimately had to increase distance as my charges ran out. I struggled to find something to warp out to while keeping the heated ancillary repper going, now without charges. Finally, I found a conveniently placed asteroid belt and initiated warp. While the ship deaccelerated for the heartbeat it takes the warp drive to spring into action a Brutix landed a hard hit and pushed me into hull. Goooo!
Warp Drive Active.
Phew, that was close.
I reload and repair my modules while aligning back and sending my Interceptor on one of the Brutixes. I consider running the repper on my Amarr Navy Cruiser to get above the currently 17% armor but decide against it. Instead, I warp back seconds before the reload finishes. Meanwhile, the Scythes are not much more than with duct tape decorated metal scraps drifting past the customs office. Getting a drive-by scram on one of the Brutixes with the Malediction, overshooting, and losing point, while giving the command to orbit. All while my main in the cruiser is in warp back to the spontaneous battlefield. Back to the Omen: Reconnecting to the Drones I left while warping out. I boldly burn in to point the Moa with the Omen. Switching to long-range crystals to shoot a Brutix, then sending my three reconnected Warrior II to shoot hostile EC-300. A quick swap back to the Interceptor to activate point again on the Brutix it is orbiting.
Brutix one vanishes in a ball of fire. We re-cycle our guns on Brutix two. The Moa has started to shoot the Omen Navy again. I burn away as soon as another Interceptor-alt calls tackle on it again.
Everything is over shortly after and friendly ‘gf’s are exchanged in local.
Thanks to my corp and everyone involved bringing this fight and being good sports.
A special thanks CCP Rise and whoever may has contributed to bring filaments into existence. This engagement would probably have never happened without them.
I still can’t believe we lost nothing in this fight. It felt like at least my Interceptor should have died while I was scramming the Ares. But turns out, the Ares did not have one fitted to scram me back!
the greybill 