Sadly this post isn’t to tell you that I have bought the Minmatar fleet’s flagship vessel. Instead it is about last night’s roam around Molden Heath lead by the infamous Sard Caid. Last weekend we had arranged a fair impromptu Raven gang and enjoyed a small amount of success. This time, though, Sard had planned things properly and we had plenty of points, some Hurricanes for heavy tackle, and lots of remote repair units.

Our mighty fleet was a fine sight to behold with seven Tempests, a single Tempest Fleet Issue as our honorary flagship, and a couple of Hurricanes.

Some friends from Gentlemen of Low Moral Fibre (SCONE) were having trouble getting away from an Electus Matari gang that was camping them in so our first job was to go and rescue them and get them out safely. The fleet was split between Hegfunden and Aeditide with a component waiting on the Kadlina gate in each system. The order was given for the SCONE fleet to log back in and warp to the Hegfunden gate. As this plan was being put into effect tacklers got to the SCONE fleet in Kadlina but some fast piloting and FOF missiles managed to shake them for long enough for the gang to make a break for it. As planned Electus Matari followed SCONE into Hegfunden and we managed to tackle a Hurricane and Harbinger. Unfortunately the Hurricane made it back to the gate and jumped out but we at least managed to kill the Harbinger. With the hostiles down we immediately turned to rejoin the rest of our fleet and give chase to the fleeting EM gang. In Aeditide we caught a Drake that was lagging behind the rest of his fleet. Unfortunately this seemed to be the only action taking place in Molden Heath so we decided to spread our wings further and set course for Evati in Metropolis, home of Flashfresh and The Bastards.

In Offikatlin our scouts found a small gang and, using the Tempest Fleet Issue as bait we were able to get them to engage and despatch them with ease. A Ferox and two Hurricanes fell to our 800mm repeating artillery canons.

Once again our scouts began to look about but seemed to be unable to find anything interesting. While we were waiting at a safe spot in Tasti we noticed a R.A.G.E. alliance gang jump into system and begin to form up on a gate. They were running armour HACs with a couple of Guardians, an Oneiros, and a Proteus seemingly running armour links. After a reasonably lengthy debate – during which not a single probe was seen on scan – we decided that we didn’t have enough repair capability to deal with their damage while we whittled away their fleet and the decision was made to make a break for it.

LXQT-2 was set as our destination and we burnt at full speed for the null sec entrance system. R.A.G.E. gave chase but we managed to give them the slip in Uemon where we headed into Paala while the pursuing gang assumed we’d gone to Fuskunen with the intention of staying in low sec. Upon jumping into LXQT-2 we found a small camp and Sard began to call targets. The camp maintained range and we switched to Barrage in order to hit out to maximum range where a Hurricane fell to our wrath. Unfortunately a lack of discipline and experience of remote repair gangs meant that one of our Tempests got separated and I Don’tLikeWhatYoureDoing went down before he could get back into range of the rest of the fleet. At this point the R.A.G.E. gang jumped into LXQT-2 behind us and began to primary Joe Public’s Tempest Fleet Issue. The order to deaggress was given and we concentrated our repairers on Joe’s ship. Unfortunately he too strayed away from the anchor point as he gave his crew the order to approach the gate. The number of repairers on him dropped and within seconds his ship was reduced to a smoking wreck. The rest of the gang got out without incident and this time the R.A.G.E. gang showed no inclination of following us.

We grouped in Oddelulf where a few people left fleet. While we were reorganising a scout reported that there was a Nidhoggur running a mission in Istodard. We refit our remaining Tempests with large energy neutralisers and put the call out for reinforcements while our scout dropped probes and began to hunt for the carrier. As a probe hit was confirmed our reinforced gang moved into position and a tackler was sent ahead to snag the Nidhoggur. The plan was flawlessly executed and the unsuspecting carrier was locked down by our Legion. The heavy hitters jumped in, warped to the tackler, and began to lay down the pain. The carrier didn’t last long and within a couple of minutes we were rewarded with a very satisfying explosion. Loot was scooped and the fleet warped to safety before the mission rats decided that we were going to be their next target.

By this point it was late at night for me and, although we hadn’t found a good brawl, we had managed to take down a carrier and that is never a bad evening’s work. I moved back to Oddelulf and docked my Tempest so that it would be ready for action again in the near future.

While most null sec residents make their ISK from running anomalies or farming DED complexes, Rionnag Alba have a different approach: Team Jita.

What is Team Jita? Suiciding haulers full of juicy loot, scooping the loot, and pocketing the ISK from selling it. A good kill can net about 1 billion ISK for the ganker although sometimes you’re unlucky like the guy who killed a Kestrel full of PLEXes and not a single one dropped.

I finally decided that it was time to give this a go. It definitely seems like a more fun way of making ISK than regular PvE. I sent Wensley to Amarr and got Grr’k to head over in his Mastodon. With a nice cheap Tempest fitted up and sitting on the undock I began to scan haulers. Before too long I had my first target. Great success! Grr’k was able to scoop the loot and list it on the market in Amarr straight away while Wensley counted down his criminal timer.

Two hundred million ISK better off for almost no effort I quickly bought another Tempest and headed out to have another crack at it. This time I was a bit trigger happy and shot a hauler just carrying some shuttles and COSMOS BPCs. The BPCs didn’t even drop. A third attempt saw me blast a hauler carrying the components to build a Pilgrim and a BPC but this time I was beaten to the scoop by people hanging around outside the Amarr Emperor Family Academy station.

For all of this ganking my wallet was about 100 million higher and my security status much lower. What did I learn? Well, suicide ganking is fun but you need to make sure that your targets are worth it and also that you are ready to scoop the loot before anyone else. If you’re undocking from Amarr in the next few days, watch out for a sensor-boosting Tempest…

Edit: I think I’ve finally got the hang of this.

I’ve got a nano Tempest that I’ve been using to have fun in low sec when there’s not much going on out in Catch. I’ve had quite a few fun engagements in her, kiting the tacklers from a gang and getting away from from superior numbers. I’ve had a couple of great fights like this and they really do get the adrenaline pumping. In fact, about the only think she hasn’t done is get a kill other than ganking a Scythe and Cheetah who were lured into a false sense of safety by my security status. Well, I saw I’ve “got” a nano Tempest. Now its more a case of I “had” a nano Tempest.

Bored of Old Man Star and wanting to have a little poked around my old home I decided to go to Hevrice and pay The Tuskers a visit. Upon warping to Hevrice V station I was greeted by two outlaw Broadswords camping the station. Perfect. I closed in after making a few feints and started to shoot the closer of the two. I was pretty sure he’d dock if he got into any real trouble but I was curious to see what he’d do. Mal Asha, a young Tusker undocked in a Rifter and warped in towards me. No problem. I can melt a Rifter at 50 km. I told my computer to move me out of point range of the Broadswords and locked up the Rifter. With his afterburner he was under my guns in no time.

Mistake the First: I should have used my microwarp drive to keep him at distance and shredded him from 40 km away.

No worries. With dual neuts and light drones I’d soon have him down. I put the neuts on him and unleashed the drones. It wasn’t long before he dropped point on me and I pulsed my MWD to try and gain range. Before I knew it his scram was back on me and I was back to a crawl again. In the mean time he was taking my drones down and before long I pulled them in an unleashed my EC-600s. These did precisely nothing and were all down before I even checked on their progress. This was starting to get a bit worrying now. The Rifter’s shields were holding at about 50% and I was out of drones and burning cap charges while my own shields slowly dropped. By now both Broadswords had docked and I was alone with the Rifter.

Mistake the Second: Why, oh why, did I let the Rifter tackle me. I have positive security status and he would have been melted by the sentry guns. I could easily have ignored him and played with the Broadswords.

This was starting to look like a really dire situation. There is no way in hell I was going to lose this Tempest to a solo Rifter. Next time my neuts hit it was time for me to warp off. Another Rifter and a pair ofHurricanes had undocked and were loitering at range, waiting for me to get out of sentry range. My neuts did their thing, the Rifter dropped point, and I started to hammer the warp button. Aligning… scrammed again. What the fuck?!

Mistake the Third: If you’re kiting people make sure you’re aligned so you can warp off the very instant they drop point.

By now I’d realised my mistake and this time I aligned for the sun. The second Rifter was now alongside me but had not yet got point. Why not? For good value I shifted one of my neuts onto him which, of course, gave him aggro and he scrammed me. With two Rifters on me the rest warped in and I melted in short order even though I did offer to pay a ransom for my ship in local. Pirates these days, eh? It turns out I had no cap charges left anyway, I had been burning through them like nobody’s business in my certainty of killing the pesky Rifter.

Mistake the Fourth: See mistake two. Yet again I needlessly allowed the second Rifter to tackle me.

Despite it not being a solo kill, my litany of mistakes has lead to a very embarassing and, above all, avoidable lossmail. Despite my mistakes, though, it was excellent piloting by Mal Asha, especially because it turns out he was able to do all this under dual neuts and with no nosferatu, and this leads me to the biggest mistake of them all.

Mistake the Last: Underestimate the power of a well flown Rifter at your peril. They really are amazing little ships!

Well, well. No sooner do I complain that the war in the north is boring and that we don’t seem to be doing anything than we shift it up a couple of gears. The Southern Allies had, until recently, been operating as individual alliances and this allowed the Northern Coalition to bring their superior numbers and organisation to bear far too easily. About a week ago Against ALL Authorities began to work closely with Atlas, Gentleman’s Club, and Cult of War. We started to share communications channels and this definitely boosted our effectiveness. Joint fleets began to operate and things started to run more smoothly.

On Saturday morning I logged on and joined a fleet that had formed. We were taking battleships to a fight in KQK1-2 where we had a battle with the North at a POS. As downtime approached we made full speed back to X-7OMU, IT’s staging system in Pure Blind. At this point the weather outside was looking pretty nice and I decided to go and make the most of it while it lasted. We had an important CTA planned for Sunday and I wanted to be around for it if I could.

As it happened I was unable to log in on Sunday so it was Monday morning before I was able to think about getting Wensley home. Imagine my surprise when I logged into TeamSpeak to see Sir Molle leading our fleet and our Jabber channel to be full of IT Alliance. I was even more shocked to learn that instead of the slow drag of opportunistically hitting POSes and fleets where we could there had been a massive change in policy. Just like in Providence it had been decided that we were going to stop messing around and go straight for the jugular. H-W9TY is Morsus Mihi’s capital system. It lies at the heart of their empire and is also the de facto centre of the whole NC’s operations. Personally I think this was an excellent decision. We could have spent months chipping away at the edges of the NC’s territory while they slowly fell back to Tribute. The long, slow process would have drained our will and numbers until eventually the assault would have petered out just like the other invasions before it. This way we cut straight to the heart of the matter and both sides get to battle it out over key systems. The next few weeks should be full of amazing battles for both sides.

Enough of that, though. On to business. Wensley hitched a titan ride from Shrike (Sir Molle’s alt) and moved to 15W-GC where half of the allied fleet was holding. On Sunday the Southern allies had erected SBUs in H-W9TY and moved in a capital and supercapital fleet. The station and infrastructure hub were both reinforced and then the station was locked down to prevent the coalition from mounting a defence. At about 5am on Monday morning the NC had been able to break the station camp and had reinforced several of the South’s staging POSes. Our sub-captial fleet was split between H-W9TY and 15W-GC with a large (150ish) Northern fleet on the MSHD-4 gate keeping us from entering H-W9TY. By downtime on Monday our numbers were growing but we did not have sufficient firepower to attempt to break through the camp.

After downtime our numbers continued to grow as more titans ferried reinforcements from X-7OMU and Aunenen. At 1300 we got word that an NC support fleet was heading from H-W9TY towards 15W-GC. The order was given for our battleship fleet to adopt sniping positions and our tackle prepared itself at the gate. Twenty minutes later the hostile fleet jumped in and, from the safety of our snipe points, we were able to inflict large amounts of damage before they warped off. Some stragglers returned to the gate and we soon despatched them. It was a short but brutal fight and now the way to H-W9TY was clear.

Our fleet in H-W9TY warped to a snipe spot on the MSHD-4 gate and began to engage the Northern fleet. Both sides deployed capital ships and supercapitals. As the fight broke out we moved with best speed to lend a hand and jumped into H-W9TY to find the gate surrounded by large bubbles. The sheer number of people in the fight (about 600 or so in local at this point) meant that it took a long time for us to load grid but at least we got into system without any major mishaps. The hostile fleet was fully engaged and we were able to burn out of the bubbles and warp back in to join the main fleet. By now the numbers were starting to rise and the capital fleet had released its drones. Lag was beginning to really affect things and it took me several minutes to load grid each time I warped in. Both my modules and targeting systems suffered from huge activation delays (as did everyone else’s) and by the time we were able to get reasonable DPS onto a target they warped out more often than not. At one point I was primaried by the hostile fleet but a lack of bubbles and the inability to easily bring fire to bear meant I was able to warp off with more than half my armour still intact. The fight was long and bloody but eventually our capital fleet was able to gain the upper hand. At the same time we were beginning to take control of the battleship and support fights and forced the NC from the field.

With our fleet now united and with control of the system we began to resurrect our station camp and pick off any stragglers in safespots. Once the system was under control I logged off and went to go stretch my legs. When I came back later that evening our main battleship fleet was off killing the sovereignty structures in 4-ABS8. While they were away there was a brief flurry of NC action but our capital fleet warped to the station and kept the situation under control. At this point I logged off with the infrastructure hub due to come out of reinforced in a couple of hours but no way that I could stay awake that long.

This morning I logged into our Jabber channels to discover that the night hadn’t gone as well for us. Not only were the NC able to defend their infrastructure hub and kill our SBUs but they also bumped an Atlas titan out of the safety of its POS. Carriers were sent to aid the stricken Leviathan and with their shield transporters it was able to limp back into the POS shields. No sooner did it look like the titan had been saved than it was bumped out a second time and this time could not be rescued. (On a side note, what on Pator is that titan doing with a Capital Shield Booster?!)

As I write this the server is coming back up on the third day of the battle for H-W9TY. Our killboard suggests that not much is happening and that the allied forces are just repairing the damage of the previous night, establishing system control, and preparing to defend the POSes that come out of reinforced later today. Whatever happens next the battle for H-W9TY is not over and I think it will rage for a long time to come. Fun times ahead!

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.

I didn’t get to play first time round so I’m dead excited to say that Hulkageddon II is just around the corner. If the idea of popping AFK miners wasn’t tempting enough how about the 3 billion ISK prize that Garmon has offered for the most Hulks killed?

A little bird tells me that you can alpha strike Hulks in a Tempest. This sounds like a theory I should probably test out…