Know your ships! I cannot stress this enough, know your ships. If you do not know what you’re up against, you will lose gear. You’ll lose it either way, but if you jump into a fight and have mistaken your target for something else, you’re fighting a lost cause. I only bring this up because I lost a Harpy the other morning to a Scythe, which I thought was a frigate and not a cruiser. Yes, a Harpy should be able to take a Scythe down with little to no trouble, but I jumped in and was less than 3k away and still thinking it was a Frigate, so I never tried to get to my optimal. Put a hell of a dent in the Scythe’s armor, but I went down in flames. So again, KNOW YOUR SHIPS!

My fourth night out wandering around, this time in a Harpy fit for solo hunting and I haven’t found a single target again. At this point, one of the two alliances that had declared war on us had already retracted and our pool of targets had dropped by several hundred. Draximal had logged in and I found out he can also fly an Assault Frigate and he buys and fits an Enyo. So now we’ve moved from Buffer / Remote Rep Vexors down to a Harpy and an Enyo and we start our evening hunt.

We were about 15 jumps North of Auner and plotted a course down as we couldn’t find anything up in Gallente space, which was disappointing to say the least. On our way down we found a Succubus that was blinking red, but he bolted before we had a chance to realize what was going on. Made our way in to Hek and lingered for a bit, couple of war targets popped in and then out again, but no one came looking for us. Continued on to Auner and let TGA know that we were jumping in and in what ships we were in, didn’t want their hopes to climb when they saw a pair of AF’s on the DSCAN in the system.

Once in system, Drax did a quick scan and found a Rupture on scan. It was named Black Pearl, so we figured it was either one of the Neuts in system or bait. Thought about it and figured if it was friendly, we’d move on. Drax pinned the belt down and in we went. Rupture was a Neut, was enaged by belt rats and had drones out. I came in about 15k off the target, locked him up and headed towards him with the microwarp drive burning hot. I let Drax know over comms that he was pointed and that I had engaged. He had landed nearly right after me and followed suit. The Rupture was firing on me, but not doing much damage and neither were his drones. Within seconds a wreck sat where the Cruiser had once been, I had my first kill with the help of Draximal and a pair of belt rats.

Did another scan, found nothing an opted to move to a new system. The next half hour or so was pretty boring, the systems were all pretty empty or targets were docked up. We were heading back to Amo to dock up for the night when Creeping logged in, so much for docking up. So our group was a Harpy, an Enyo and a Rifter and we headed out again. Went a few jumps and had a few probables, but nothing that we could take or find. We were bouncing around Orfrold when the Rapier pilot from the night before showed up in local and so began the planet humping while scanning and attempting to find him. The thought of revenge was nice, but figured he was cloaked up somewhere. I was wrong.

I hit a planet and shortly thereafter so did our target, accept he was in a Thrasher this time. I lit the MWD and did a hard burn towards him and told Drax and Creeping to warp to me. I got in range, pointed and opened fire. He was in armor and going down fast when my wing men made it to me and he exploded about fifteen seconds later. No belt rats on this kill and I had done 80% of the damage, I was ecstatic. We snagged the pod and Creeping lit it up, looking back we should have opted for ransom and then killed if he didn’t pay. The three of us made some Isk on that kill as there were several T2 items that dropped, but nothing to really write home about. We made a quick pass through the other systems and headed back to Auner to call it a night. A revenge kill was a nice way to end the night.

The next morning I went out solo for a bit and played a game of tag with a Claw that I couldn’t find. Sadly, he found me. He was half into armor when I exploded and was sent packing. That loss taught me another lesson though. My guns have an optimal of 9.4k and I had moved in closer to get him. Had I stayed at my optimal or at least closer to it, his AC would not have been able to do as much damage and the fight would have been mine. Missed out on a Stabber Fleet Issue kill much later in that day and since then haven’t seen anything. Maybe I’ll find something later today though.

Lessons learned: 1) No matter the odds, point the target. 2) Stay at your optimal to avoid giving your victim easy kills.

I promised myself I’d give this blog thing a more serious go this time around, which means post more than once every thirteen months. This is a bit of a review of the week or maybe more of a battle report for the last several days. Lets cover losses first, shall we?

My alliance had been thrown out of our home in nullsec and then wardec’d by a couple of alliances that hunt in highsec. Being that I had no real reason to stay in nullsec at the time, I flew down to Aldik and snagged my Vexor, a buffer / remote rep fit that was buil to work in a pair or a group of three or four. I got a hold of a corp mate, Draximal, and had him build one to nearly the same specs and we met up back in the area of Lontrek that borders nullsec. From there we wandered around a little and chased a war target around in a Cyclone, but could never catch him. After the Cyclone docked and logged, we left system and ran into a waiting Blaster fit Megathron. Looking back, we could have stayed out of that Megathron’s range and eaten it with our drones, but no idea how long we would have lasted before his backup arrived, so it was a good call to avoid it.

Our second night of roaming added a third corp mate, Anslo. He was in an Arbitrator and had it fit for speed and drone range. His plan was to stay out of range and just waste their time a bit, which worked fine until I got caught by a Myrmidon at a planet. Myrm landed right on top of me and locked me down pretty quick, but landed close enough that I was under his guns. I returned lock and launched drones. My Hamerhead IIs started eating the Myrm alive and the Myrm was barely making a dent in me. A pair of his friends jumped in on me now, another Myrm and a Navy Megathron. Still taking very little damage and the Myrm was half into armor. Now my armor was starting to fail as well, the fire from the three ships was taking it’s toll on my little cruiser. Checked the first Myrm, nearly into structure, partly into structure, warping away… never pointed. First thing I learned, even if it looks like you’re screwed, point them, point them, point them! I went down after that and continued to kick myself for the next twenty-four hours or so. Built another Vexor and was ready to go again, but they either didn’t want to play or at least play on our terms anymore. I still see it as a win though, two BC’s and a BS to take down a Vexor and one of the BC’s had to warp away.

The next night was nothing. Wandered around with Draximal for a few hours and didn’t turn up a single target. The following night we went, found no war targets and wandered down into Auner to see if our former Alliance’s home was a bit better as far as targets went. Jumped around a bit, didn’t find much and was going to call it a night when we ran into one of TBRA’s newer recruits, Creeping, and he added a rifter to the mix. So now a pair of Vexors and Rifter are out and about and it doesn’t take us long to find something to test our ships on. Creeping had tracked down a Harbinger, had already warped to it and requested we meet him there. Our two Vexors landed just as his Rifter exploded. Learning from my last mistake, I locked, got in range, pointed and launched drones. Draximal also launched drones, but had been set as primary. I began the RR process and he was holding on, while the Battle Cruiser target was going down. Well, we thought he was going down and he would have too, but his friend in a Rapier appeared and my cap disappeared and with it, went the RR on Drax and his Vexor went pop. I quickly went down after that and the BC made it out with a sliver of his armor left. Not a bad attempt for a pair of Vexors and a Rfiter.

But these are only losses, there were kills and I will post them in a separate post in a few minutes.