Seeing as plenty of people have been offering up the contents of their hangar I thought I should probably join in. My hangar in GE-8JV contains the following ships:

• Rifter: I have about 15 of these kicking around with a couple of fits that I am trying out. They are usually just called Rifter but at the moment I have one called Freki after the alliance tournament prize and one called Agincourt after its victory over the French in Curse.
• Cheetah: Called Peek-a-boo and used mostly for probing exploration sites. My probing skills are terrible and I use the exploration sites to get some practice. Honest.
• Claw: I have two of these both confusingly called Claw and it takes me a couple of attempts to tell them apart. One is fit with an active tank and the other with a buffer tank. Not a ship I regularly solo in so the active tank ship gets more use in interceptor packs.
• Stiletto: My staple fleet ship. I currently only have one of these because they die pretty often. She’s called Point! and my fit is pretty standard for a tackle interceptor. Sometimes I like to put on explosive shield resist rigs when I’m tackling for a small gang.
• Hound: When I run frigate gangs I tend to FC from the safety of my stealth bomber. Hound is fit to be able to use torpedoes and bombs and the cloak makes it a good ship to lead from.
• Republic Fleet Firetail: Currently unassembled my Firetail is waiting for me to come up with a fit that I like before I take her out hunting.
• Dramiel: I have two of these sleek and popular Angel frigates. The hefty price tag and status as flavour of the month has put me off flying them. I should really sell them while their price is at a peak but I like having them around.
• Thrasher: This is probably my favourite ship to fly at the moment and I have seven in my hangar. Three of them are fit; one with artillery, one with autocannons, and one with an experimental setup I have yet to try. All of them are called either Sabre or Thrasher except the test one which is called Brick.
• Sabre: This is the most recent addition to my hangar and one that I am just getting the hang of flying. She’s called Sabre and has been out on a couple of gangs now.
• Rupture: Another staple and a ship I have been flying in solo a lot recently. I currently have two fit in my hangar. Freki is fit as a nano ship for pretending to be a Vagabond in and Rupture is a pretty standard armour tank fit.
• Muninn: A pretty standard sniper HAC that hasn’t been used in far too long. Named Muninn in case you didn’t spot the general theme here.
• Vagabond: Another staple of any Minmatar hangar. Eponymously named Vagabond she comes out in small gangs.
• Rapier: I haven’t actually used her in anger but she’s there for when I need her. Until then Rapier still has the manufacturer’s shrink rap on some of her controls.
• Scimitar: Because I only have Logistics IV I haven’t played with Scimitar much. She’s fit for roaming PvP gangs but I’m still adjusting the fit until I’m happy with it. I do sometimes fly logistics for alliance fleets but in those cases I use official alliance-fit logistics ships.
• Hurricane: I have just one of these called, imaginatively, Hurricane. She’s fit for damage and hasn’t seen the light of day for quite a while.
• Tempest: Machariel is my fleet fit Tempest for when DPS is the only thing we need. I prefer to fly in support roles but lately there hasn’t been any point so the fleet battleship has been brought out. Despite being a small ship pilot in general I have had fun flying Tempests in small gangs with some of my old pirate friends. I tried a nano fit but it died due to over confidence or lack of ability. Hopefully I’ll try another before too long.
• Typhoon: This is my ratting ship. I lost her predecessor due to accidentally turning off all my hardeners so this one is called Pay Attention. I don’t use her much these days because my alts provide most of my income.

As you can see, Wensley’s hangar is fully focussed on PvP. The Wolf, Jaguar, and Cyclone are noticeable by their absence at the moment but I’ll probably buy some soon. I like to be stocked for any eventuality. In general I tend to solo in the T1 ships and use the T2 variants in gangs and fleets.

The An’Har family, by contrast, have a selection of shuttles, a Prowler, and a Mastodon to their name. They’re saving up for a Fenrir but that is probably a little while away because Wensley loses ships at a phenomenal rate.

After plugging various videos that I’ve enjoyed watching, its time to reverse the trend a bit. May I present to you ‘Inconceivable’, my first foray into proper Eve video making.

Ships featured: Rifter, Claw, Stabber Fleet Issue

Download Here

Also available to stream on DamageDealer (was EveTube).

Soundtrack:

• D.A.N.C.E. – Justice
• A Cause des Garçons (TEPR Remix Edit) – Yelle
• La Musique – Riot in Belgium
• Stay the Same – AutoKratz
• Outversion – Mark Ronson

Details: 20 minutes @ 1280 x 720, 573 MB AVI

Thanks to Ka Jolo for creating The Tuskers and fostering such a brilliant corporation, all of The Tuskers for being great guys and top pilots, Ess Erbe for the donation of the Stabber Fleet Issue, Chribba for hosting at Eve Files, and everyone that I fought regardless of whether I lost or won. Sorry I didn’t remember to start record for all the fights that don’t feature in this.

Please head over to the thread on Eve Online and leave a comment so I know what you thought of it. If you liked it and want to see more then donations are always very gratefully accepted.

After a relaxing week away from the front lines I’m back in Hevrice and ready to kick some arse. To make my return even more momentous I thought I’d mix up the ships I was flying so Monday night saw me cruising around Obray constellation in a Claw.

Pretty much as soon as I undocked there was a target in system. PreZiDent was already out in his Thorax hunting for a Catalyst running missions for the Caldari milita. The destroyer pilot was on the ball and the slow cruiser was unable to get a good lock on him. Hopefully the advanced electronic systems of my interceptor would change this around. After I’d chased him out of his deadspace complex a couple of times PreZ and I settled in on the acceleration gate to try and camp him down. If I could get a scramble on his warp engines he’d be unable to activate the gate and we’d have him pinned down. (For those who don’t already know acceleration gates use your warp drive not an anchored wormhole like stargates so you can’t use them when your warp drive is disrupted.)

The Catalyst warped in and I quickly got a lock and settled into a tight orbit. My afterburner and reduced signature radius should keep me safe from his railguns. He returned lock on me and fired. By heck that hurt. And another volley. Shit. He was blaster fitted. Time to quickly get out to a safe range. As my ship began to take structural damage I was finally able to get out to a relatively safe orbit. By now PreZ had got his lock and his additional firepower melted the Catalyst. That was far too close. I got out with 20% structural integrity remaining.

For a while things were pretty quiet. There wasn’t much to be seen in Hevrice so I hopped back into my customary Rifter and went for a roam. On the Aeschee gate in Adirain I spotted a Helios sitting uncloaked. Now frigates really aren’t designed to operate under gate guns but covert ops ships are extremely fragile. I approached him and once sitting right next to him aligned to a planet, locked, and fired. I had him down at about half armour before I had to warp off to the safety of a planet. Never mind. He stayed uncloaked but ran off to hide at a POS. Not long after I scanned down a second Helios, this time sitting uncloaked at the sun. Again I warped in but this time he was 100 km from me and was able to warp out before I could close the gap. He stayed uncloaked but not at any celestial I could find.

Meanwhile back in Hevrice a cluster of ships were being reported including a pair of Ishkurs and a Kitsune. After a bit of debate the decision was taken to engage and I undocked in my Hound. The plan was simple. PreZ’s Thorax would act as bait with the Hound and Joc’s Pilgrim cloaked and ready. Suffice to say the bait was taken and the covert ships uncloaked to spring the trap. The Kitsune focussed on Joc initially allow PreZ and I to pop the first Ishkur before I turned my attention to the Kitsune while the others got their drones on the second Ishkur. As I got my first volley off the Kitsune jammed me and I retreated from the field in order to break his jam. By the time I returned the second Ishkur was down and the Kitsune had fled with heavy armour damage from my cruise missiles. My Hound is going to be having its systems updated soon so it can warp cloaked and fit siege launchers to better engage battleships. I definitely want to experiment with these new capabilities in gangs soon.

That was all the action I saw that night. After the fight I docked up and headed to one of the station’s bars to catch up with some friends. Tuesday saw me back in space and back in a Rifter.

I was able to scan down a Rifter but as I warped to its location it warped in to the planet I was scanning from. Damn. It was an outlaw too. I turned my Rifter round as a Tristan landed in my belt but by the time I got back to my original location the Rifter was gone. Never mind, the Tristan was where I left it so I warped back to the belt. The pilot was a young cadet who had already made contact with us on our forums. Unfazed by the fact I was a seasoned combat pilot he began to make a beeline for my Rifter. I returned the favour while telling my navigation computer to settle into a nice wide orbit, well out of the range of his blasters. Pinned down by my tackle systems the Tristan didn’t stand a chance and I tore it apart. As the smoke cleared and his pod warped to safety the pilot hailed me over comms and we discussed the fight. He was keen to learn more so I introduced him to the rest of my corporation while I continued my hunt. A Rifter was on scan but when I warped to his location he was 100 km away and he warped off to the Adirain gate.

I like hunting in Adirain and this guy wasn’t going to shake me off. I warped to the gate and jumped through myself. I warped to my favourite safe spot and began scanning. As well as a background of mission runners I saw an Arbitrator and the Rifter bouncing between planets. After warping in on them a couple of times with the Rifter at 100 km and the Arbitrator at the warp in point I decided that I could probably split them up and engage. I headed for the Rifter which promptly warped off and the Arbitrator gave chase. Interesting. Maybe they weren’t together and the Arbitrator was hunting too. I taunted the Arbitrator a couple of times, orbiting it outside of its warp disruption range to get a measure of its speed and capabilities. Each time he warped off I followed. Eventually I saw him with drones out and seeing that he had Hobgoblins I decided to engage. I tucked into a nice orbit at 7,500 m to make sure I was safe from any small energy neutralisers that he might have. Without my capacitor I didn’t have a chance to dispose of the drones. With his ship scrambled the fight was on. I engaged his flight of Hobgoblin IIs using my web to slow down each one while my guns popped it. Without his drones I’d neutered his damage potential and closed in for the kill. He unleashed a pack of Hammerhead IIs but the medium drones had a hard time hitting me. His defences couldn’t cope with my onslaught and I was able to destroy the cruiser but his pod escaped.

Overall a nice bunch of fights to ease myself back in from my holidays and a nice bunch of ISK in my pocket from the loot. I hope you all had a good Easter. See you in space.

Oh, and Roc, watch out… I’m heading in your direction…

As The Tuskers grow and evolve as a corporation our abilities have changed, too. In the early days we only really flew frigates, interceptors, assault frigates, cruisers, and the odd battlecruiser. These days not only have the original members developed their skills into larger ships but we’ve also attracted much more experienced, older hands who can field everything up to capital ships. Lately this has meant that recons and heavy assault ships have become a regular sight in Tusker squads and this week things cranked up another notch.

Toady11 has started to bring his Dominix out to play. This doesn’t mean to say he’s the first Tusker to have a battleship, far from it. But it is the first time that I know of us fielding them. What’s he doing with it? Well he’s trying to step the endless flow of haulers running courier missions that floods our system. To this end he has racked up a fearsome number of kills so far this week.

While Toady has been interfering with the day to day activities of mission runners Castor Rom, another Tusker, was able to down a Megathron using only his Taranis. Between the two of them they have managed to knock my Providence adventure off the top of the killboard for both number of kills and point scored. This just won’t do. Something must be done!

I was going to have to do some pretty serious damage in order to even things up a bit. The evening began well with a Hurricane running a mission in our system. I called upon my friend with the covert ops to see if he could master the changes to the scanning system and pinpoint his position. After a bit of trial and error – luckily the Hurricane was taking his time – we were able to pin down his location and the troops swept in for the kill. Our Taranis, Incursus, and Claw were easily able to destroy the battlecruiser and we ransomed the pilot’s pod for 10,000,000 ISK. A good start, I’m sure you’ll agree. Content with my work so far I hopped into a destroyer and cleaned up the mess that the mission had left behind before retiring to a bar for dinner and a couple of beers. There was a game on that I wanted to watch.

After the match (my team won) I made my way back down to the hangar. I’d enjoyed flying the Claw so I decided to take her out again. A report came through of an outlaw Drake in Costolle. I leapt into warp and raced up the pipe to see if I could find him and make the tackle. Unfortunately he was gone without a trace but in Melmaniel I saw a Rupture on scan that I couldn’t track down with my onboard systems. While I waited for a prober to arrive I scanned around the system and began to see a Thorax, Breacher, and Merlin on scan. My instincts kicked in and I began to narrow them down. A couple of times I just missed the Breacher before I eventually managed to land in a belt with all three of them.

The Merlin engaged first and I quickly locked it and returned fire. The Breacher and Thorax also locked me and began to fire. A quick look showed that the Thorax was using medium Hammerhead I drones and I was happy they would pose no threat to my interceptor. The Merlin had me webbed and my priority became to remove the irritation from the field. I overloaded my guns and closed in as quickly as I could. My shields were gone and my armour was starting to take a hammering. I fired up my repair systems while the Merlin was despatched. The next threat to remove was the Breacher. I was already on top of him and it was the work of moments to lock and destroy the fragile frigate. By now I’d called for support as the presence of the cruiser had alarmed me but with the frigates gone I was able to settle into a tight orbit and chip away at his defences. I popped a couple of his drones for good measure before focussing my efforts on the cruiser. As he reached half armour support arrived in the form of Robert Mason in an Incursus and Avan Sercedos’ Rupture. The last remaining defences of the Thorax crumbled and I quickly locked and scrambled his pod. My ransom demands were refused and I sent him home via clone vat express. As I docked up I saw the Merlin pilot undocking in an Ibis. He was still flagged to me so I engaged and destroyed the rookie ship and his pod.

Feeling good that I’d closed the gap on Toady and Castor I sat in station to wait out my criminal timer for destroying the pod. Suddenly corporate communications lit up with reports of a Myrmidon in Hevrice. Forgetting about my timer I undocked and set out full speed for home. In Hevrice probes were deployed and we waited for a hit. As our scouts narrowed down the target we began to get ready only to be told that just before the final scan resolved the target had gone. The system was empty. Or so we thought.

An expected beacon appeared on our overviews. Someone had lit a cynosaural beacon outside our station. An Archon class carrier appeared on scan accompanied by a Vagabond, Eagle, and Taranis. It looked like we had new neighbours. A couple of scouting flybys revealed that they were not outlaws and that the beacon had been lit 30 km from the station. The heavy assault cruisers and interceptor were warping too and from the station at various ranges, obviously covering the carrier. I eventually warped my Claw to the station and hovered just long enough for the Taranis to engage me before docking. He was now flagged as an aggressor and I could engage him on my own terms without the station guns getting involved. While I was negotiating my way through the docking lanes I noticed the local comms channel flashing:

[22:46:55] Goreth Ra’ak > for you bunch of -.10s you guys never fight

I parked up the Claw and hopped into one of my trusty Rifters. I hadn’t had the chance to engage a Taranis for a good while now and with my new skills, greater experience, and the changes to warp scramblers I was sure that I could beat him. I undocked to find that the Taranis had moved well away from the station. I engaged my afterburner and told my navigation computer to settle into a 7,500 m orbit around the target. The Taranis sped towards me. It seemed he was keen to engage too. The Eagle was about 60 km away and there was no sign of the Vagabond. All systems go!

The Gallente interceptor locked me and I locked back. His web slowed my ship and he closed in tight, his blasters hitting me hard. My own web and scrambler took effect and shut down his microwarp drive. All of the sudden the balance of power had switched. I now had the power to dictate range and before I took much damage I was able to glide out into my planned orbit. His blasters were unable to hit me here and my shields began to recharge while my autocannons spat Barrage into his shields, armour, and eventually hull. He was able to repair chunks of his armour while I slowly ate into the Taranis’ massive structure. Keen to finish this I told my ship to approach and then really began to eat into him. Before he’d even broken through my shields his ship exploded and I punched the warp command. The Vagabond had undocked and it was time to get out. Even as my warp engines began to power up I bookmarked the location of his wreck. The powerful warp drive engaged and I shot away from the battlefield just as the Vagabond’s targeting computers resolved the lock. At my safe spot I turned around and warped back to the wreck. I landed a small distance away and burnt to what remained of the once proud ship. As I transferred the loot to my cargo the Vagabond opened fire and I quickly ducked into the safety of the station.

[22:49:18] DeimonX > POP!
[22:49:22] Wensley > gf
[22:49:28] Kyrie Asada > lol
[22:49:29] DeimonX > gf

Yet another interceptor kill under the eyes of the enemy. This is becoming a habit, and a good one at that. As our numbers rose we undocked heavier ships and began to chase around the Vagabond, Eagle, and a Sentinel that had undocked. After I’d eventually retreated wearily to my bunk it seems that we were able to pick off the Eagle.

When will people learn that we engage on our own terms. We don’t respond to smack. While you’re smacking us we’re forming a plan to pick off your ships one at a time. We are pirates. We won’t fight you for honour or to defend our system. We don’t need to defend it. It isn’t ours. If you try and set up shop here we will just use small ships and go hunt in other space. Many before have tried to kick us out of Hevrice. All have failed and all have left to go find fights elsewhere. We are The Tuskers. We strike silently and then fade back into the night. You have been warned.

Oh, and Toady and Castor… I’m catching up!