A night of the dead sleipnir, dead Chupas and loot.

Dead Chupas

The start of the evening
"Targets destroyed. Grabbing loot." Said one of The Bastards' Captains over the voice comms. I had just linked into the fleet chat as I was going to be leading a fleet out in the evening, but The Bastards were already out and as busy as ever. They just had a successful encounter with our erstwhile neighbours: 'Los Chupacabras' and we had held the field and were looting it and salvaging the wrecks. Piracy can be an expensive business after all.

It was with some surprise that I was informed that our local Mexican space bandit charlatans have apparently joined the Minmatar Militia? What is going on I wonder, but it does look like they have taken up arms for the Republic. Wonders never cease. My best wishes to them as they are extremely good at what they do.

So the night appeared to be starting off well and once things had settled down, I got all the ship Captains together and briefed them on our roam tonight, outlining the route and the ships we would be taken. After some lobbying by Lord Breathnach - we would be taking his Vulture class command ship for a spin aided by a sleipnir. I had some administrative tasks to compete (loot related) but then was ready to roll - our scouts once again racing ahead eagerly seeking out targets. Some of our Captains needed quick bio breaks (their pods were obviously not fitted with the new suck-o-matic urinal, but I digress) before they could get into their ships with their crews.

Once this was all done, the fleet rolled out - a magnificent sight: several battle cruisers heaving past the startled industrial traffic at the undock point with support ships darting in and out. The two command ships, our fleet's flagships, led the way and we were off. Our scouts ranged far and wide and we set our destination that included that well known pirate hub of Eifer and Gusandall, the latter home of the infamous Kane Rizzel, who sadly had to take a long break from New Eden. I think he was last spotted ambling off towards some island retreat on a tropical island in Heimatar. Come back soon my friend.

Our scouts and contacts had informed us of the locals and this time, with some delight we spied M34N coalition ships - mainly from the core M34N corp but some of their newer brethren in the alliance were docked up. A quick scan and we had their ship types and in the absence of any other viable targets we opted to go for them. As we got ready our scouts shouted out a warning:

"EM ships landing on the Ingunn gate. EM ships landing on the Ingunn gate."

The Wait....

Electus Matari - we can't say no now can we? So we switched targets and hastily gathered ourselves. Our sleipnir and one drake raced ahead in an attempt to tackle the EM ships on a gate. The rest of the logistics and fleet would follow in support. We waited and hated it.

Fighting on just one side of a gate with the guns against you is always tricky and required team work and timing. Captains Dame Death, TheHermit and Marco moved to engage and jumped into the waiting ships. They were designated as Red1, Red2 and Red3 to ensure clear communications.

"Contact. Contact. Contact!" The fight was on. The rest of the fleet jumped in, there was some jostling on the gate and the sleepy gate crews were not the most efficient but the rest of the fleet was processed through.We should have jumped in earlier to be honest, my mistake.

"Red1 engaging."

"Red2, engaging."

The adrenaline levels rose as the rest of the fleet jumped into warp. Even from this distance, we could get remote telemetry from the fight and it looked ferocious indeed. We approached the warp exit.

"Hurry, Red1 is going down. Need shields."

"On our way." I said. The short warp felt it was going on forever.

"Red1 is down. Red1 is down. Getting pod out."

Shit.

We landed at the gate and hammered our request to jump. Ominously, there were a couple of M34N coalition battle ships, also on the gate. We had to ignore them and jump.

Red 2 is down

"Red2 is down."

Right, time for revenge I thought and as we dropped cloak we found that our fleet was a bit scattered. Never mind, I thought, we would have to make do with what we had.

"Primary is Hoe Bag. Secondary is Duch Crystal. Tiertiary is TenTon." I called out, selecting the appropriate targets. All around me, The Bastards fleet re-aligned and discharged their ordnance while the EM fleet returned in kind. Actually, there was only one EM alliance pilot (Duch); the rest were a mixed bag - probably all blue to each other. These chaps were too fast and they managed to squirm away before we could lay enough damage. Our webbers were too far to be effectual and we only managed to keep one of their hurricanes and drakes locked down.

"Gatefire! Gatefire!" The Gusandall gate flashed multiple times as more ships came through, a quick check in local and we discovered it was M34N coalition.

As we poured fire onto the hurricane and drake, the newcomers dropped gate cloak. Battle ships with some battle cruiser support.

"Do not engage M34N, concentrate on the EM ships." I said, despite knowing that everyone would be yellow boxing each other. Pretty standard really for pirates: in an unclear situation with multiple actors, go for the anti-pirates and neutrals before you go for other pirates. Simple in theory really but notoriously difficult to execute. Fog of war and all that.

We lost the enemy drake (somehow) but managed to snag Duch in his hurricane. Just as Duch's ships blew up, one of The Bastards declared that M34N had gone hostile and he returned fire. So much for the truce. We locked horns with M34N Coalition as they unloaded on us: Marco's drake was targeted and was blasted into near hull until our scimitars picked up the pace and saved him with some last minute shield repairs.

Ship, it go boom.

Slick Duros in his hurricane was blasted into scrap quickly followed by Escort Zodiak, also in a hurricane. Captain Nessaja in an Armageddon class battle ship, was the next target but the wily pirate knew how to disengage and managed to retreat in good order, his armour smoking and pock marked from our fire.

Vaginitis in his tempest was next, the distinctive looking Minmatar battle ship shook as heavy missiles unleashed from the drakes of The Bastards tore into it. The tempest returned fire but it was ineffectual as the drakes overwhelmed it. Vaginitis exploded in a ball of flame and scrap - his pod whipping away while the rest of his crew died in the conflagration.

Macadee1, in the barrel shaped typhoon class battle ship was broadsided by our ships and was left a smoking wreck. With his destruction, it was over. We held the field and looted it while TheHermit and Dame Death finally arrived after racing back to Evati to re-ship.

Unhappy at missing the fight, Dame Death took his fury out on an absent minded covert ops, even podding the pilot.

Let's continue to roam...
The fleet took a ten minute comfort break before we resumed, with our scouts racing ahead. Our destination would be Molden Heath. Nothing was found between Sotrenzur to Atlar, there was some evidence of fights all over the place with wrecks as evidence. This only made us want more.

Our scouts (and sympathetic contacts) notified us possible targets and it was with some delight that we discovered that one of our targets was Hoe Bag, who managed to squirm away from us in the earlier evening. We definitely had to try and get him!

There was some false alarms but eventually our fleet had managed to manoeuvre into an advantageous position in Bosena (or Bosnia) on a gate. A vexor blundered into us, which we swatted but then the main entertainment piled in. No idea whether the vexor was their scout or whether he was just unlucky.
The enemy fleet dropped in, we immediately noticed TenTon Tommie in his sleipnir. He was quite far from the gate but z0de was on the ball and gave chase and with the arazu's enhanced systems, optimised for warp disruptors and scramblers. At 80KM from us and TenTon Tommie was still unable to escape.

As we raced close to the sleipnir, his friends piled in. Fighting far off the gate didn't give them any advantages but certainly helped us escape the sentry guns.

Thanks to z0de for the initial point, we managed to kill the sleipnir. A rook dipped in and out of the fight, causing nuisance to us but his luck ran out as well, one missed jam and it's thin defences get blown away. The artillery hurricane as flown by Dame Death certainly did the job. The enemy drake died, thanks to Meode (where the hell has he been?) for dealing the most damage with Dil'e delivering the killing blow. Then an enemy smart-bombing blackbird - it probably was scared of drones but well, we had lasers, artilleries and long range missiles. We killed the blackbird pilot too, which was fortunate for us but we lost out on a few more ships who sped away from us. Finally ended up with a myrmidon kill to end this encounter. It was a triple rep fitted but went down easily enough.

It was a mad affair the ten minutes of the engagement: targets appeared and were locked, some died, some escaped. It was a blast and we held the field thanks to our logistical support who saved more than a few of our fellow fleet mates from a fiery death. Importantly, we held the field and had the pick of the loot. Moneys!

We raced home after an exhausting three hour roam.

Recruitment update, Armistice Day and a solo kill of EPIC proportions..

A Minute's Silence
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!

Stealth Bomber roam and party

First things first: Hellcats party; this weekend. Join in and be merry!

I hope to be there but work calls; however last night was a stealth bomber and recon roam that did not end very well. It was a quiet run for the first hour and as we headed back for the home straight we spied a M34N absolution loitering around the gates. We were clearly interested as our stealth bombers were itching to fire their missiles at *something*; however this was clearly bait. We left behind a scout between Ingunn and Gusandall just to be sure.

Most of the stealth bombers were in Gultratren when the absolution was pointed and pushed through from Ingunn by z0de. It was then promptly pointed, webbed and dps poured on. The stealth bombers are designed to go after bigger ships but the abso would do!

It had a huge tank and as soon as we decloaked and tackled it, our scout informed us that a similiar sized gang was on their way towards the obvious bait. We had to drop the absolution fast and with all five target painters on it; the signature radius of the absolution was that of a small moon. Even if it was designed as a bait; we killed it before its support could arrive. We then cloaked up and warped out. Congratulating each other on a well-executed kill. To be honest, we should have left it at that and grabbed the loot and went home.

However, the M34N gang jumped in and orbited the gate. A mixture of ship types: hurricane, crusader, brutix, rook etc. A bit too much for our stealth bomber gang but we decided to have a go anyway. It was a poor decision and M34N made us pay; their crusader pilot was down to hull but did a sterling job in scrambling z0de's arazu; shutting off his mwd and thus making it vulnerable to the M34N brutix that powered into him. We also lost maltrox in his rapier and Inko in his hound. We failed to kill any of the M34N ships; apart from the triple-repped, tri-marked absolution and left local licking our wounds. M34N offered us bait, we took it, killed it and got away...only for us to come back and get a kicking anyway from M34N.