End of the year.....

I had to end the year with a bang and the last few kills of 2008 were all fun and memorable. After the ambush by the hyperion and hurricane (R.u.S.H. Alliance) things quietened down somewhat. I popped a probe and catalyst while flying my Jaguar but around 15:00 I was pulled into a fleet that had Viper, Dogz, and Muelac. A friend had notified us of a sleipnir loitering near evati and we thought - why not? The minmater command ship has a mighty shield system but under combined firepower from our ships; it would not be able to last long.

Both Viper and I made the jump and the tackle, the sleipnir was warp scrambled but the gate gun, detecting an illegal action opened fire on both of us. Our shield systems flaring brightly as we absorbed the fire from the robotic guns. Dogz and Muelac arrived a few seconds later and we had the sleipnir. The pilot was not afk but he was trapped and fought back, bravely. His ship, mighty as it was, went down under our combined fire. We missed killing the pilot.

Taking a break, I went back to Gusandall and spied my old slasher-class frigate sitting there. I wanted to take it out for a spin. Undocking, I was delighted in the swift and nimble response of the ship. It was wonderful to be able to spin on a dime and move quickly. To get back into interceptors would be nice; one can get addicted to speed I think.

A friend fired off a terse message to me, he found someone in a hurricane class ship in Auren and asked me if I wanted to kill. I agreed and making sure that I had the necessary points, undocked and sped across the system to the appropriate gate. On entering, I saw that local was busy. Quickly adjusting the scanner I located the hurricane on the on-board scanner, narrowing it down, I had it highlighted in one of the VI cluster belts. A slasher versus a hurricane is a mighty challenge and not wanting to lose the kill, I checked the Independence and M34N Flag channel and Dogz was around. Excellent, quickly explaining to Dogz the situation, he joined my fleet as I hit warp.

Landing inside the belt, I saw the distinctive shape of the hurricane. I was close enough to snap on the warp disruptor and vectored Dogz in, who had just arrived in-system in his vagabond. He had earlier killed a few more ships in the feared vagabond-class HAC.

The hurricane pilot (Tammy Raye) tried to escape but found her warp containment fields inoperative rendering a jump impossible, so she fought back. With no drones, she could not hit my nimble slasher. Visually checking the ship, I discovered that she was using howitzers - deadly but slow firing and tracking weapons. Utterly unsuited to hitting my slasher and the equally fast Vagabond. A target painter and webber would be required to support such howitzer units if one wants to survive PvP in it.

We slowly sliced the hurricane apart.

Tammy Raye bravely resisted the inevitable but died. My slasher quickly locked the pod and blasted her organic remains to frozen gobules of flesh.

She was unhappy when she re-cloned and convo'ed me. Threatening me with death and mutilation, I chuckled as she showed some spirit. However, a while later she convo'ed me again and was calmer and she wanted to find out how best she could have fought back. Now, this is a pilot who is showing some promise. One who is willing to learn. I gave her some pointers and satisfied, she bade me good night. No doubt, dreaming of killing me. She should join the queue. Anyway, well fought Tammy Raye and if you want one piece of advice, then it is this: YOU ARE NOT YOUR SHIP.

A few hours later, I was in my rupture class ship. Yes, it appears that I was having a trip down memory lane and with Redbad and Inglorifin we tracked a couple of thoraxes in Sotrenzur. Naturally, like sharks we leapt in.

It was a trap and one more thorax and a caracal appeared. My rupture and Redbad's ruppie killed the first plated thorax (1600mm plate with small T2 blasters) but the other two Plate raxes and caracal blasted both our ruptures to pieces. A well-executed trap with decent ships.

Best way to recover is to kill someone else. I switched to my wolf and went roaming, avoiding the Sotrenzur area for now as I had no backup. I found myself back in auren once more and lo' there was a Jaguar heading towards me and the gate. I naturally locked him and he locked me and he opened fire on me. It was Bashar Hardin from Twisted Inc and his first salvo almost threw my Wolf back into the gate. Not bad.

My response was equally as devastating.

So we had the two feared Minmater assault frigates going head-to-head. A wolf-class AF and a Jaguar-class AF. The former is more geared to attacking and killing it's opponent. With only two medium slots, it can't use any fancy tackling or EWAR gear. It sports x4 turret and x1 rocket/missile high slots and I had crammed x4 200mm T2 ACs loaded with Hail and x1 Rocket launcher with gremlin rockets. A wolf pilot needs to kill it's opponent before the opponent can kill him. A Jaguar pilot has less offensive, alpha-strike potential but it more than makes it up with versatility. Most sport massive passive shield tanks with speed.

My salvo chewed into the Jaguar and because the shields only shifted slightly, I knew very quickly that this opponent of mine had a shield tank therefore it had medium shield extender(s) and lucky for me, no tracking disruptors.

I quickly changed from hail to emp as I needed more effective anti-shield ammunition. However, it would take ten seconds to change ammo and I was so exposed to the Jaguars firepower. It's third, fourth and fifth salvos had taken all of my meagre shield and now I was into armour. A wolf is an armour tanker, as it had four low slots and I packed it with appropriate modules. On came the small armour repairer as the Bashar's ACs fired Hail at me, the deadly T2 munition blasting huge holes in my armour, only for my repairer's nanobots filling in the holes. My capacitor went down alarming as the repairer slaked it's thirst.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

My tactical control winked green at me as the EMP ammunition was finally loaded and I unleashed my guns once more. This time, with EMP loaded, the 200mm ACs ripped into Bashar's shield systems. It went down noticeably but so did my armour. Moving into my optimal as did Bashar, we both jostled for position, he snapped on his webber, slowing me down but he was geared for short ranged combat; thus rendering his webber a little less effective. If he could fight me from 10km - then I would be dead. Instead, he danced around me at less than 3km and my guns could still track and score hits.

My armour repper was stabilising but my cap was looking low. I decided to switch off my warp disruptor. If Bashar wanted to run, he would have done so by now and having him scrambled in mid combat was useless. Most peeps either run straight away or near the end. Not in the middle of the fight.

With the disruptor off, I had more capacitor to use. This proved crucial as I got an extra cycle or two from my repper. Bashar was now down to armour and my EMP ammo was just as effective and sliced into the armour, punching holes in the structure. I could armour repair, Bashar could not. My next salvos really hurt him as he was into hull and fire was flaring out. I quickly snapped on the disruptor just to ensure that he was not going to leave.

He bravely stuck to his guns and fought back to the end. He could not jump even though both of us were within range of the gate nor could he warp out. He could have turned and tried to out run me but instead my last shot clipped the Jaguar on the port-side and spun the Jaguar into a spin it could not recover. With a wolfish grin, I blew the Jaguar apart. Bashar, the Jaguar pilot, now in his pod, instantly warped out.

It was a good fight - I would have tried to ransom the pod too but saluted Bashar for a well fought and close duel. I looted his wreck and saw the clock count down to the end of the year.

2007.12.31 09:39

Victim: Bashar Hardin
Alliance: None
Corp: Twisted Inc.
Destroyed: Jaguar
System: Auren
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 3722

Involved parties:

Name: flashfresh (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Alliance: None
Corp: BLACK-FLAG
Ship: Wolf
Weapon: 200mm AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 3722


Destroyed items:

Hail S, Qty: 120
'Langour' Drive Disruptor I
1MN MicroWarpdrive II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Inhibitor I
Gyrostabilizer II
Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 316 (Cargo)
Hail S, Qty: 688 (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Hail S, Qty: 62
OE-5200 Rocket Launcher
150mm Light AutoCannon II
150mm Light AutoCannon II
150mm Light AutoCannon II
Medium F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Gyrostabilizer II
Overdrive Injector System II
Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S, Qty: 1260 (Cargo)
Barrage S, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)