Ass-kicking...as in, on the receiving end.

Not all roams end with success. Quite the contrary and last night was a failure largely on my part. We had a RR Battleship gang with some support in place and plodded through low-sec; on the look out for loot and plunder when one of our forward scouts drew aggression by a typhoon-class battleship from Electus Matari at a gate. Eager for the kill, we aligned and jumped in when a second scout yelled out that there was a proteus on the gate as well!

With a rebel yell, I ordered the fleet to warp to the gate our excitement building. It was a long warp however and the scout continued to count the number of ships now swelling local. First one, then two then half a dozen new ships all jumped through to aid their typhoon friend. I had butterflies in my stomach as our pirate fleet raced onwards but I viciously clamped down on it. As we landed, my overview lagged. I heard z0de and Coochie (both super dependable and reliable) call out to the other pilots to start locking each other to ensure we could remotely repair each other. Meanwhile, I called primary and selected a dominix and a typhoon as primary and secondary. My ship shuddered as the 650mm repeating artillery batteries opened up, spitting out large EMP rounds across the short distance. The dominix shields went down quickly but the enemy fleet, rallied round and pounded on Viginti's golden hued Armageddon. What did we expect from EM? Go for the Amarr ship!

Viginiti went down before we could even lock him to assist and then things start going wrong very quickly. The Dominix was going down into half armour when it quickly recovered. Meanwhile, we were suffering: our DPS appeared to be too low to knock the Domi down and then another pirate BS went down, hulls shattered and guns firing aimlessly. Survival pods spitting out from the breached ships like rain. I re-tasked my gunners to hit the dominix, over-heating my guns as we did so but still couldn't get the Domi down. I repeated my primary and secondary targets but to no avail. z0de went down fighting hard, his drones out chewing on the primary as he stayed to the bitter end. I was next, ordering my ship to ram the dominix into the star-gate. My typhoon was cut in half with almost contemptuous ease. Then poor, dearest Mynxee - her ship broken in two; spirally away from the fight. Then loyal-Raelyf followed - the hull of his typhoon blackened with fire and internal explosions. Randgris's mighty megathron; designed for close-quarter gankage was smashed apart as he ordered ramming speed as well. Then the others died with only Coochie, me0de and Alaki managing to escape the conflaguration.

We were beaten and soundly so.

I tipped my hat off to -EM-, with a 'gf' in local, they kicked our behinds thoroughly and deserved acknowledgement for this. I appreciate a good fight and even though both sides had ECM; we slugged it out until there was more scrap then ship around us. Those that survived limped back home. The field was held by -EM- and friends.

As I finally returned to my room; there was an urgeny message for me. I really didn't want to take any calls at the moment, I was responsible for the ship loss of seven battleships (at least) and the ignomity of defeat. But the message was marked as urgent and it came from someone outside of my address book. With some irritation, I opened the message and I read it with some surprise.

2009.07.28 22:53
Hi.

It is difficult to write something - anything - after a victory, as it is easy to come off sounding arrogant or smacky. That's not my intention.

I wanted to thank you bastards for being Bastards. You are pretty much the only "real" pirate corp I know - it's refreshing to see people be "real" pirates, with a good attitude and without the typical smack talking and chest beating that often accompanies similar attempts.

And as I just read that in your blog - congratulations on your CEO-ship.

A.S.

Well, that was a pleasant surprise and I sat back and ordered a drink. It isn't every day that you get an ass-kicking and then followed by a letter to say how well you took it.

However, I could not rest on my ass for too long. There was too much to do. RoninData had made an appearance and we could at last finalise the loot sales and I have to say, we had over 4.1Billion isk to split between pilots, both Bastards and Hellcats and our friends.

So here goes:

FINAL LOOT TALLY
3 Jayne 201,386,424.40
Alaki Kant 197,651,501.82
Amy Fae 193,516,481.04
AntonioBanderas 82,026,451.07
Ard UnjiiGo 65,413,220.44
Elviiron Crusoe 24,730,083.00
ericAmerica 6,285,833.74
Fenneck 37,024,510.19
Fish Brain 169,791,020.23
flashfresh 18,473,088.76
Gazur 2,144,161.62
General Coochie 70,011,188.26
Gorgoleon 90,031,900.53
Happy San 162,938,464.35
Hera Darkthorn 136,378,937.96
Heriom 18,639,948.22
Inkoruskee Simo 14,587,567.87
Izzy Lizzy 14,568,178.47
Jack Tremaine 215,628,046.91
Jaxxon Voers 6,285,833.74
Jmarr Hyrgund 42,001,639.84
Kamoonga 170,775,592.41
Kathleen Hallet 3,171,250.00
Laboheme Orchid 24,511,039.30
Lakasha Nachthexen 12,705,540.80
Maeveria 37,623,793.58
Mahn AlNouhm 21,776,697.07
Mon Palae 38,249,083.06
Mr Frog 43,379,080.51
Mynxee 11,167,177.73
Nova Blackadder 177,675,040.65
P'XEL 59,882,345.30
Persephone Astrid 289,938,370.96
Raelyf 80,007,075.59
Randgris 144,456,668.45
Ravenesa 314,690,091.20
Reyna al'Thor 10,929,144.61
rhiw'aow 4,986,399.36
RnProphet 19,366,832.49
RodneyStar 4,485,249.36
RoninData 77,460,222.01
Sapphire Mote 9,367,056.66
Shae Tiann 19,662,405.60
Silvetrys 24,748,604.43
Snake Boy 233,516,456.01
statanspawn 3,781,250.00
Valarissa 5,693,505.23
Venom Orchid 57,312,510.59
Viginti 3,505,534.50
z0de 140,208,804.88
Zeasier 87,417,132.92

Oh My God - wait, you're showing everyone our crown jewels! Yes, we do have a customised application that does cool things with the killboard mails and the items that have dropped from a kill. It then divides up the monies we get from selling the dropped items, equally and fairly against all the pilots involved in each kill. An older, more manual system worked when we had a few kills here and there but with the increased numbers, we needed something new and now, here it is. Also, in a mixed fleet with non-corp/non-alliance members - they can be guaranteed a fair payout. From my experience; mixed fleets have always viewed the loot as 'every person for themselves' and The Bastards have traditionally, came up short in these mixed fleets. Once again, I wish to emphasise that we survive on the pickings of piracy.

However, there's more! We have our own ransom-board now. Oh yes. Check it out here. It is still a work in progress but we had to show it off; it is just too damn sexy otherwise. Hats off to HappySan who put it together and then donated it to the corp.

I really want to push and celebrate our ransoming side of our play and what better than a cool ransomboard? Looks like we have a fair bit to do to catch up with RoninData....

We would love to hear your comments on the board too. So fire away.