Today is Armistice day and while this blog is meant to be more or less about the in-game antics of my pirate-self, I think it is worth just spending a minute in silent contemplation of all those who have fought and died in the countless wars in our history but especially those who fell in their tens of thousands in World War I. Ironically, the war to end all wars.
Recruitment
OK - been a most busy week at The Bastards and I wanted to give an update on how we're doing in terms of recruitment:
Updated: 11th November 2009
Total Applicants: 91 (all stages)
Rejections: 33
Withdrawn: 20
In Progress: 27
Accepted: 11
Some reasons for the rejections or withdrawn
Instant rejection due to failing to complete form as directed: 3
Rejection due to failing basic security, AGE and API checks: 4
Rejection due to failed interview (ex. no vent): 3
Rejected due to inexperience in piracy: 10
Rejected due to other reasons: 3
A BattleCruiser Roam
A roam was arranged and a fleet raised and while I had planned for only seven ships, mainly battle cruiser class ships, I ended up with a fleet of ten. With a few new members, recruits and applicants as well as hardened veterans, the impressive fleet rolled out of Evati with plunder and violence on their minds. A route was already selected and entered in all our auto-pilot computers. Our scouts raced ahead, eagerly seeking out prey and within one jump we had potential targets. Our scouts seeding the system with probes in an effort to seek them out. Most pilots are now on alert for such measures and the potential targets quickly scooted back to their towers and stations. So we moved on, led by our scouts. They spotted a cruiser in Eifer, a well known system and the home of Kane Rizell, the notorious solo pirate acknowledged as one of the finest solo operators in New Eden. He wasn't home and nor were anyone else. M34N has a base here too but nothing else was on scan. Most of the fleet idled in Gultratren, ready to move through Ingunn and onwards to Wiskeber. Eifer and Gus backs onto a high sec system and it is easy for a fleet comprised of pirates like ourselves, to be backed into a corner. Anyway, our scout had spotted what appeared to be a missioning cruiser along with some other ships. It was unknown if they were all together. So I sent Fenneck in his hurricane to tackle and ransom (or kill) the cruiser while Plat in his harbinger would sit on the gate and attempt to catch any help.
Fenneck announced that he was en route to the last known location of the cruiser but on arrival didn't see anything. Our scout had lost the target. No big deal; Fennecks' hurricane and Plat's harbinger re-approached the Gusandall gate and paused for the Eifer scout to catch up. One of my intelligence channels pipped: a friendly pilot, loitering in Gusandall just stated that three M34N corp ships had undocked and were en route, at speed towards Eifer as well. A dominix, megathron and a hurricane. Either they were going to tackle Plat and Fenneck or they were going to camp it.
Instantly, I was alert. They must have spotted our two battle cruisers when moving through Gusandall and had decided to go for them. The main Bastards fleet, still two jumps away made ready. I ordered a full burn toward the Gusandall gate in Ingunn and the remaining ships all raced towards the new destination.
Fenneck and Plat both jumped - apparently unaware of the looming danger but soon realised what they had jumped into. Fenneck dropped gate cloak first and calmly asked:
"Orders?"
I was still two jumps away and commanding an engagement across star systems was difficult.
"Primary is the megathron, secondary the hurricane, tiertiary the dominix." I said and repeated the order. Then adding, unnecessarily, "Hope you can survive long enough for us to help!" Already Fenneck was repeating the orders and locked his targets.
The rest of the fleet jumped on through and the violence began. Fenneck got some shield repping love from a neutral, Dirty Protagonist who has flown with us in mixed fleets but his scimitar could do little to Fenneck's hurricane as it was pummelled into structure by the combined might of a megathron, hurricane and a dominix. The dominix neutralised Fenneck's capacitor so the plucky pirate couldn't even fire up his microwarpdrive to get some distance.
"Fenneck going down. Fenneck doing down"
The bulk of the fleet landed around the Eifer gate and proceeded to engage the M34N corp ships, I repeated the targets with our Blackbird attempting to jam the dominix and disrupt the energy neutralisers it had. Fenneck tried to turn his ship around but it was badly holed in several places. The abandon ship order was given and with a salute, Fenneck punched out in his pod.
Suicidal Larsson, an appropriate name, was the pilot of the megathron then went down quickly to the vengeful firepower of the drakes and hurricane. Even when the glow of Fenneck's fiery demise was not quite over, the megathron's rear engines blew out and it started to spin away from Eifer gate. My 425mm auto canon chattered away, spattering armour piercing rounds into the dual-hulled Gallente ship.
"Primary is the megathron, secondary the hurricane, tiertiary the dominix." I glanced at my overview, dancing with lights and sound. I spotted a fourth ship: a rook and it was flashing red also.
"FC! Rook! Rook!" Announced one pirate.
"I see it but ignore it for now, concentrate on the targets. ECM drones now on the dominix." The megathron held on bravely but finally exploded into three pieces. The fire switched quickly to the enemy hurricane, some 17Km away from me.
"Webs on the goddamn Hurricane! Primary is the hurricane, primary is the 'cane. Secondary Dominix, secondary Dominix. Send all drones towards the rook."
"Plat needs to disengage." Said one of my harbinger pilots as it slid away from the fight, trailing fire and debris.
"Enemy hurricane is going down." With only the dominix to worry about - we turned our full fury on it. I was being harassed by his drones and my shields were quickly eaten away and then so was my armour plating.
"Take the domi down. The rook has disappeared, take the domi and start picking up the loot also." Never forget the loot even in mid-fight.
The dominix couldn't escape but bravely stuck to his guns. It was piloted by Cpt Nassaja, an individual that I had tremendous respect for and I knew he would be fighting back with every ounce of his being. The dominix came apart under the onslaught of missile, rocket and shell. Once the three enemy ships had decided to engage Fenneck and Plat, it was all over for them - our superior numbers a telling factor. We knew also that they had no help on the way so it was easily wrapped up.
We looted and discovered to our joy that the hurricane had dropped over 11,000 rounds (!) of barrage ammunition. We grabbed what we could, rueful that we didn't have a salvager and left the system. We exchange 'gf' in local and continued on our interrupted roam, minus Fenneck and his hurricane. The remaining roam was uneventful and we docked up for a celebratory drink about 45 minutes later.
Epic Kill
Almost forgetting: those who follow The Bastards may know that we run a Kill of the Month competition for corp members. While we believe in ransoms 100%; there is room for the display of individual prowess and for November, we truly thought the Kalius Prime taking on and defeating two omens in his rifter would ensure his nomination.
We were wrong.
Step forward Jirat who managed to solo a proteus in his cyclone. He also had an enemy cyclone AND ishkur on him as well. He was so stunned at his kill that he forget to kill the two other ships as he warped out.
Well done my man!
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