Moving back to low security space was an excellent decision for me. Since moving to Molden Heath I have taken part in gangs that took down a White Noise gate camp, killed a station camping Nidhoggur, and failed to properly tackle an Eve University gang. While none of these would stand out as excellent fights they are a good example that there’s always something going on in the area and usually within a jump or two of home. The call goes out in shared channels and a gang forms, does its job, and then breaks up again. Exactly the kind of casual play style that I’ve been looking for. No more long form ups and then hours waiting for a specific fight.

In between these piratical gangs forming I’ve been roaming around in neighbouring null sec. Egbinger, my home system, borders B-VIP9 in Great Wildlands and I regularly poke my nose in there to see what’s going on. The other day I found a Sleipnir camping the gate and, after calling in help from a couple of friends, we were able to kill it. After returning to fix my heavily damage Hurricane I jumped back into B-VIP9 only to find a Hulk idling on the gate. The other big advantage of our location is that there is plenty of null sec ratting available to fix my security status when it dips too low, something that I need to do at the moment. I went to do this yesterday but bumped into a Myrmidon along the way and couldn’t risk fighting it. It was an excellent fight and began with me settling into a wide orbit around the Myrm and it responding by tracking disrupting me and releasing drones. The Myrmidon wasn’t making a great effort to get a scrambler onto me, although I did flirt with overloaded web range a couple of times, so I focussed on taking out his drones. With the drones off me I returned my guns to the battlecruiser itself but wasn’t really making any progress against his armour so, after toying with the idea of playing it safe and disengaging, I instead loaded Republic Fleet fusion and burnt straight for him. Once I got in close I overloaded by guns and used my neutralisers to try and stop his repairs. At the same time he landed his own web and scrambler on me and opened fire with his blasters. As I worked my way through his armour my own shields and armour buckled under the heavy blaster fire. We both entered structure at about the same time and I thought I might actually have a chance here but then I remembered the large amounts of structure that Gallente ships and watched with horror as my own hull was ripped apart while only glancing shots hit his. I finally exploded with a quarter of the Myrmidon’s structure remaining. Damn. It was only afterwards that I noticed that I had rat aggression on me and that had it been the other way round it would have turned the tables in our fight. Still, it was a brilliant fight and I hope to have many, many more.

I’ve just blasted through a quick summary of the last couple of days. There’s definitely plenty going on around here and I am very happy. Hopefully soon I’ll have some good fights to write detailed accounts of. Oh, and yes, I am going to go back to flying Rifters.

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.

As I have already mentioned, Libertas Fidelitas alliance have decided to try and claim sovereignty in our back yard. This simply will not do. While we don’t want to pay for those systems we sure as hell don’t want our enemy to have them so it is time to take them back. Over the last couple of days we have been planting Sovereignty Blockade Units in the various systems and the ProviBloc have been doing their best to destroy them. Today was no different and the fleet assembled to re-contest WD-VTV and F9E-KX. The SBUs were deployed before down time and the fleet was assembled ready to defend them once the servers came up. While we waited we took a road trip to D-GTMI and made a nuisance of ourselves. I wandered ahead to MH9C-S where I found a hostile fleet. After getting confused about the orders being given I leapt in to tackle a fleet of 3 Harbingers, 3 Drakes, a Hurricane, and a Vigil. Of course, I wasn’t supposed to be making the tackle, just watching them, and when I realised my mistake I did what I do best, I ran away with 37% structure left.

When the server came back up a ProviBloc fleet was waiting for us and the first part of the engagement took place on the F9E-KX gate in SV5-8N. Their fleet jumped into our waiting camp where the support fleet did a fantastic job of tearing them apart. 46 ships were killed for just 3 lost, an excellent result and the field was littered with wrecks. (I should point out that only -A- losses are reported on our killboard, not those of other fleetmates.) I lost my Stiletto to a separate engagement where I decided it was a good idea to fight a combat-fit Crusader in my tackle-fit interceptor. Some of the ships I was tackling took offence at my impertinence but because we weren’t in a bubble I was able to escape with structure damage for the second time in a day. I’m making a habit of this.

With the gate cleared and our objectives in SV5-8N complete the order was given for the support fleet to jump into F9E-KX. ProviBloc were waiting for us on the gate and once the battleships had jumped into system we were unleashed on the waiting forces. Once gain -A- and allies held the field having forced ProviBloc away with 37 kills to our 24 losses. While the numbers might look unfavourable, most of our losses were tackle ships who made the ultimate sacrifice. This time I was no so lucky as before and I lost my Stiletto but not before I made a few tackles. CVA and friends had been successful in taking down one of our SBUs so we were unable to contest the system. A replacement was sent for and at the same time I headed home in my pod to grab a Hurricane. By the time I got back the SBU was onlining and the field was ours.

At this point I stood down. As far as I know the rest of the fleet regrouped to head down to 49-U6U and save our POS there that was coming out of reinforced. Life is never dull when you’re flying multiple wars. I’ve now lost a grand total of three Stilettos while recording 92 kills on the alliance killboard. Flying tackle is a whole lot of fun! I must get into a Sabre soon…

Before I go just a quick “Hi!” to Katsutro and Izzybella who were in my fleet this morning. Also shout outs for Gilad Ayn and Mansai who I’ve been flying with, too. Gilad and Izzy are ex-Tuskers and someone deep in these pages is a post about taking Katsutro out for his first ever PvP when we went on a nullsec roam. If anyone’s hanging around in Catch, Providence, or Querious and fancies a chat drop into the Rifter Drifter channel in game and say hello. Of course, you’re more than welcome to drop by if you’re elsewhere in Eve too.

About a month ago I was given the ISK to purchase a Stabber Fleet Issue by an old corp mate. I duly sent Allii to Jita and gave her orders not only to buy the faction cruiser but also to pimp it out a bit. To that end it was eventually given a Shadow Serpentis Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane and Gallente Navy Stasis Webifier. If I’m going to fly such a sexy ship I might as well get the most out of it.

A couple of weeks ago she got her first taste of real action spearheading a Tuskers Fleet that took out an Ishkur, Hawk, and Eagle trio. 99 Problems performed admirably and led the damage tables against all three ships, pretty much disposing of the two assault frigates single-handedly. She’s a fine ship to fly and I was really happy with the fitting.

Now my plan with her was always to get a feeling for her against easier targets before I took her out against bigger, tougher odds. She was given to me to lose in a ball of flames but I might as well get the most out of her before she died. To this end I’ve been pretty cautious about undocking her so far.

Last night I was feeling confident so, rather than my usual conservative approach, I undocked in the pride of my fleet and headed out for a roam. On the undock she had a slightly hairy moment with a Hurricane that wanted to play. I was able to dock up safely and with the support of Ronan and Antilles I undocked my own Hurricane to take down the offending battlecruiser.

After this initial skirmish I headed out on my roam. In Jovainnon I found Sonbalin, a Tuskers applicant, in his Incursus. There was no way he could withstand the awesome firepower of the faction cruiser and his frigate melted in 6 volleys. The next few systems were empty but I was impressed by the agility of the Stabber. I could pass through sentry guns without receiving a single shot before I got into warp. No more sitting around waiting out timers for me!

In Adirain I found a Cyclone on scan. While bouncing round a couple of celestials looking for cosmic anomalies where it might be hiding it warped to me. I quickly exited to another planet but my mind was already made up, I was going to fight him. The pilot was a couple of years older than me but I am well skilled for cruiser sized ships so felt no reason not to give it a go.

The battlecruiser warped to me again and I settled into an orbit around him while my autocannons span up with rounds of phased plasma and my ECM drones went to work. He released his own drones and I took them down quickly and easily while suffering only shield damage. So far so good. I settled into my orbit and began to lay down the hurt. Pretty quickly I got him down to 1/3 shields but he kept diving in and trying to web me down. My attention was focussed on avoiding this and I let my guns run out of ammo without restarting their firing sequence. This allowed him to recharge his shields pretty thoroughly before I started work on them again. By now I was running low on capacitor. Without boosters I only had a limited number of MWD pulses before I was dry. He took advantage of this and got me webbed and taking heavy damage. I had to get away and was scrambling to get free of his webs and get enough charge for one last pulse. Eventually it happened but by then I was deep in hull damage and as I began to hammer the warp command my ship’s structure gave way.

RIP 99 Problems But BoB Ain’t One. You were good to me while it lasted. Also thanks to Maxemus Payne for the great fight and for being a brilliant opponent. It was an absolute pleasure.

So what did I learn? Several things. First of all don’t underestimate the speed of Cyclones. With their shield tanks and capacitor boosters they are very nimble for battlecruisers. Also I learnt a fair bit about flying the Stabber Fleet Issue. Its halfway between a Stabber and a Rupture and actually needs to be flown like that. If I’d got in close earlier and tried to lay on the pain from a fairly close orbit then I’d probably have been able to rip through his shields. The extra DPS that overloading would have allowed could well have been a deciding factor. As it stands I bit off more than I could chew.

The odd thing is that I wasn’t bothered by the loss of such an expensive ship. Maybe it was because I didn’t pay for most of it but I like to think it is because I thoroughly enjoyed the fight and thought it was worth it for that alone. At the end of the day she cost about the same as a fully rigged Hurricane. Either way I will definitely be buying another once I’ve got a few more hours in regular cruisers under my belt. Maybe we’ll be seeing more of my Rupture fleet in the future.

Luckily I do have another sexy new toy working its way down to Hevrice thanks to another benefactor. It just goes to show that if you give me ISK I will turn it into good stories and hopefully even better video footage.

Oh, and Ess, I did film the fight so you’ll be seeing it soon.