Gentlemen of low moral fibre with a dash of Hulks and Bushkazi...

With TheHermit already engaged with a new fleet; it looked like that the evening would turn out to be very eventful. TheHermit and some lads tackled a very obvious bait-drake; it was killed then ship after ship poured in along with a couple of logistical ships, a command ship and a splash of ECM. It was a gunboat diplomacy gang who then started to pile in more ships.

Our fleet wisely left the local area and waited the baiters out.

So starting the op late - the fleet assembled and We moved down the Metropolis pipe with scouts ahead. The GunBoat Diplomacy gang was spotted - identical set-up; I made the decision to back track as tackling them under sentry with their logistic and ecm support was asking for trouble. I think we would have bloodied them but the price would be too high for me.

Moving towards Molden Heath (haven't been there for a while) - we quickly ran into Hermit's old friends [SCONE] - 'The Gentlemen of low moral fibre' on the Wiskebar gate in Matebar - I think these chaps were coming up from their home base in MH towards Metropolis just as we were paying them a visit.

They jumped in first, with a SCONE harbinger holding cloak as long as possible before he appeared, 27KM from us. Naturally, Pere Madeline was called primary and we started on him straight away. The star gate flashed and local jumped, here comes the rest of them I remembered thinking to myself with some delight. Having no idea of what this new enemy fleet composed of - we had to knock them quickly starting with the webbed, pointed and trapped harbinger. With a nice tank, it held out long enough for the Gentlemen fleet to de-cloak and return fire. A couple of harbis, brutixes and 'canes with some logistical support. They singled out TheHermit, in his rook and while Hermit got off one or two crucial jams, he died quickly under the focused fire of the Gentlemen. We returned the favour by first melting Maya in her Harbi then working on Jack Dant in his Harbinger. The Brutix battle cruisers, being definitely close range monsters were webbed and we had distance on them; so had little to worry at least in the first stages. Our very own TFS Tibbs in his hurricane went down just before Pere in his Harby went pop. The sentry guns by and large, were silent as 100% of The Bastards fleet were classed as criminals and we think almost all of the Gentlemen were criminals too. So there were no reasons for any additional damage from automated sentry guns.

Once TFS Tibbs went down, Silvetrys or Garett was brought under enemy fire while we switched to the four remaining battle cruisers - two hurricanes and two brutix class ships. The vent server was calm and controlled though someone did query why we didn't go after the two guardians that the Gentlemen had with them. We had thrown ECM drones onto one of the guardians and just relied on the first part of our motto: 'overwhelming DPS' to get ahead of any repping that the two logistics cruisers could do. Sure enough Crefakis and CrafytCroc joined the two SCONE harbingers in fiery destruction. Silvetrys, one of our own hurricanes then succumbed to enemy fire, his pod spitting him out while his ships exploded into a thousand burning pieces. Silvetrys actually disconnected from the fleet communication system as soon as the Gentlemen fleet arrived for some reason, vanishing from the watch lists before the first shot was even fired, much to our horror. We thought he was alpha'ed but it turned out to be comms trouble only.

As Garett went down we refocused on the the two brutix and one myrmidon battle cruisers. The ugly, brutal looking brutix battle cruisers took a massive does of hostile ordnance and were quickly reduced to scrap; the myrmidon and two logistical cruisers managed to lose their aggression timers and pass through the star gate and escape.

The SCONE's fleet:
Brutix | Maya Silverman - Destroyed
Brutix | Tobie T - Destroyed
Harbinger | Pere Madeline - Destroyed
Harbinger | Jack Dant - Destroyed
Hurricane | Crafty Croc - Destroyed
Hurricane | Crefakis - Destroyed
Myrmidon | Alcolol - Escaped
Basilisk | UNKNOWN - Escaped
Basilisk | UNKNOWN - Escaped

The Bastards Fleet:
Rook - TheHermit - Lost
Hurricane - Silvetrys - lost
Hurricane - TFS Tibbs - lost
Hurricane - Garett No'Jubai - lost
Hurricane - Flashfresh
Myrmidon - Viginti
Stabber - Persephone
Zealot- Zem
Harbinger - Capt Blackler
Drake - Lord B
Drake - Leroxee
Drake- JediJane

We came out on top and held the field though we lost the more expensive hulls (hurricanes v their brutix/harbinger hulls) - our scimitar pilot (Enubis) wasn't in the fleet with us so he couldn't properly rep anyone - if he did; we could have saved at least one of the hurricanes if not more. However, the loot was the important thing and we grabbed everything we could. A great fight against some excellent pirates. We had some luck, good fortune and superior numbers to win this fight and no doubt we will meet them again.

Good fight chaps.