There's always a bigger dog.....so find a puppy and kick it instead.

We decided that we want a slightly heavier gang last night: battle ship class with Vig insisting on showing off his damnation in all its glory. A mixed gang of fleet members assembled eager to pillage and plunder and we undocked from our home station, scattering the haulers and passer-bys. Evati was quite busy last night and we were confident that we would get something. We tried sparring with some of the local denizens but failed to grab anyone: the battle ships we were in had much slower locking times and the enemy battle cruiser gang we had spotted easily made distance on us and slipped away.

Not disappointed we started to roll towards Ardar way, though we could see that Lady Shaniqua was unavailable and therefore, the locals would be out and about. With our scouts and friends moving ahead we sprung a trap where a criminal gang were camping the (usually camped) Klogori / Orfrold gate. Our megathron got himself tackled and pointed an enemy myrmidon. Then his friends all piled in and it was our queue to jump in. As we started to land at the gate, our megathron pilot told us that the enemy battle cruisers were disengaging and moving away. He tried to keep his point but his slower ship was unable to keep range and the myrmidon escaped. Cursing our luck with a second potential engagement not actually hotting up we pushed down further towards Amamake.

A fleet of 50 or so craft were reported in various channels that they had tackled a carrier. We decided that to gate crash this would be fun BUT it would result in our almost certain fiery demise. It was not my intention to suicide us so I turned the fleet around. Determined to get some kills we went back to Evati and discovered to our delight that there was a new camp on the Todi  / Evati gate.

Joy!

With our excited chatter still reverberating in my ears, I sent in a battle ship to get their attention. As the megathron rumbled towards the gate, looking to all intents and purposes an auto-piloting ship, the pilot quickly called out that he was being yellow-boxed.

Everyone else in their battle ships tensed in anticipation.

"They've red-boxed me! One, two, three of them!"

That was our cue and we moved in; determined to get them. The align and warp felt very slow. I tried to mentally push my typhoon to get into warp quicker, to turn faster to get there before hell froze. As we ambled into warp, we wondered whether we would be successful on this third attempt at hostile engagement.

As we landed, I noticed the tell tale warp out signatures of half a dozen ships.

Some of our ships landed just a bit quicker than me but their locking times were too slow and the enemy battle cruisers slipped away. Third time unlucky in the night but all we could do was to move on and seek combat and loot elsewhere.

The fleet meandered our way towards another hotspot: Akora and one of our forward scouts spotted a camp. However, local had one or two suspicious looking fellows in there and I feared that our presence was already announced. Sure enough, the trap was sprung, our forward scout & bait was red-boxed and we went in, the slow align of the battle ship was beginning to grate on me; so used to the swifter cruiser and battle cruiser hulls. We landed and jumped into the next system but the camp had cleanly disengaged and moved off. Our scout had a point but couldn't keep up, even with the slowest ship.

Fourth time unlikely for tonight. Yes, piracy is feast or famine but this was the worst of all events: plenty of targets, plenty of opportunity just a bit unlucky in seizing the opportunities presented. It was also possible that we had a large and intimidating gang, all flashy and angry and word was probably moving ahead of us.

However, The Bastards are a stoic bunch and shrugged, it was part of the lifestyle we had chosen and it wasn't meant to be easy. If it was, why would we bother?

So we pushed down towards Metropolis, another good area to snag travellers or to encounter hostile gate camps. With out 8 battle ships and some light support, we had no logistics, it was deemed big enough to handle most of the usual encounters that we were used to.

Our luck changed for the worse however. Let me recall in full agonising detail.

Naughty Spawn in his zealot was ahead and was moving slowly towards Ennur. I had split the fleet up to cover more ground when Naughty Spawn informed us, calmly that he had encountered a camp.

"This is N.S. Location: Offikatlin gate in Tabbetzur. Enemy camp encountered."

Another camp, another opportunity, come on lady luck, fifth time lucky? I thought to myself.

"Am holding cloak. I see a T3 cruiser and a couple of other ships. One Maelstrom."

That sounded good and I moved the fleet to intercept the camp.

"All ships move full speed to Tabbetzur gate in Offikatlin." I was hoping that Naughty Spawn would be able to hold on long enough. I ordered him to re-approach the gate and jump back to us. There was a lot of interference on the reply back but it appeared that there were more ships landing on him at the Tabbetzur gate in Offikatlin.

Red Vegas in his hurricane (we weren't all in battle ships) - rolled ahead just as Naughty Spawn started swearing. His zealot had lost cloak and was pinned and being cut to pieces on the other side of the gate. The bulk of the fleet had not even joined me and Red Vegas in Tabbetzur but we couldn't let one of our own go unpunished. So Red Vegas went ahead to the Tabbetzur gate followed by me in the trash can shaped typhoon.

As he arrived, some of the enemy camp had come jumped into us in Offikatlin - no doubt to prevent Naughty Spawn from jumping back out and escaping. Instead they encountered an angry Red Vegas who promptly lit up an enemy maelstrom. I joined in.

The rest of the fleet were now landing around me.

"Hold on Naughty Spawn. We're almost there."

"Naughty spawn is down. There's a horde of ships this side. Be advised, large number of ships coming through."

There was a flash on the gate, and another and another and my overview started to fill up. Not used to seeing strategic cruisers, I refreshed my view and yes, indeed the enemy camp was made up of almost all T3 strategic cruisers: at least three tengu and one proteus class ships with a logistics ships thrown in for good measure. It was 13 versus 9.

Friendly (9)
Dominix
Megathron
Megathron
Typhoon
Typhoon
Typhoon
Damnation
Hurricane
Rifter (yes, tis true)

Hostile (13)
Dominix
Loki
Maelstrom
Proteus
Tengu
Tengu
Tengu
Tengu
Absolution
Sacrilege
Drake
Guardian

We had been dealt our hand and had no option but to play.

"Hmmm, looks hot but let's do this." Someone said.

This is why I love The Bastards: our motto is 'Overwhelming DPS then GTFO' but 'Stand your ground' is equally applicable. No one was scared or frozen into inaction as we opened fire, fully aware of what the capricious Gods of war had sent us.

The sentry guns opened fire on us to add to our woes.

The first to go down was Naughty Spawn, helplessly cut-off and alone on the other side. Red Vegas's hurricane, was second to die though he still kept on firing even as his ship was cut to small pieces. If Red Vegas could have strapped on guns to his pod, he would have stayed.

The primary was one of the tengus, a mistake by me but there wasn't much choice until the guardian decloaked. We set him to primary and nailed him. The fight wasn't the usual fast cut and thrust exchange of fire, our remote repair work was working but they were slowly grinding their way through us. The sentry guns were peppering our ships and each minute meant that we would be in greater danger. A minute or so later, Tibbs went down, yelling curses. Interdict was next to me, repairing my armour as I was repairing his but the damage was creeping towards overwhelming and Interdict saluted the fleet and punched his capsule out. His ship, spurting fire and gas and raining out crew escape pods burst open.

We all died except Fenneck who managed to get his ship out.

The last to go was Viginiti who's damnation had a huge tank and managed to hold on in the face of massive firepower. In fact, he managed to tank and jump through into Offikatlin but was caught by another ship who was obviously tasked with snagging those trying to withdraw from the fight. If it wasn't for this ship, Vig may have gotten away. However Vig's damnation, already seriously mauled and out of capacitory finally died.

Fleet Fight Summary

A good fight but as per title, we were still quite fired up so we grabbed new ships and continued to hunt. We chased a stabber fleet issue and sleipnir as well as a hurricane and the chase ended up in Ingunn where, out of boredom we started to pop the haulers that infested the area. We caught bits of pieces as well (a faction fitted stealth bomber, a hurricane) but the high light were the noobships. Fun and a nice way to relax after having been beaten up ourselves.

The drops were disappointing obviously, but one pirate did snag some cargo hold expander IIs. A nice bonus.

We also met up with an old sparring partner: General Dogzbody. Dogz, amazingly, is now not classed officially as a criminal/pirate and therefore not flashing a bright angry red in people's overviews. I actually did a double-take as I thought I had the wrong person. He was a respectable -10 or near to it for a while, so he must have done some serious repenting to be acceptable to CONCORD. Strange seeing him like that but times change I suppose. He was also out of M34N alliance but am sure still blue to them. Being positive sec does have advantages mind: now, pilots cannot just engage him on gates and stations in low sec as Dogz has sentry guns supporting him.

Being on the end of sentry fire is no fun but a hazard for the pirate that must be considered.

We chatted to see whether we should try and solo him but I laughed it off. Tackling his maelstrom with our hurricanes on a gate and Dogz having sentry fire support was foolish and not profitable to us. If he was flashy, then maybe but Dogz isn't stupid.

No big deal though. We exchanged pleasantries in local and I took the fleet home - eager to get a shower and some sleep. It was a fun night ending with the proverbial kicking of the puppies after getting your own arses kicked but I would prefer not to meet another T3 gang  for a while!

0.0 roam and welcome to new recruits

Recruitment
We took a break from active recruitment over the festive period but it did not mean that we were stopping the recruitment process for the existing applicants. Heavens no!

So, in the 'quiet' festive period we (me and z0de) processed another batch and obtained directorship approval and therefore we welcomed the following into The Bastards:

• Raelyf
• BravoFox
• Kalazar
• Havok Pierce
• Herdzo
• Lanissum
• Jaxxon Voers
  

I personally thank the above pilots for their patience they have shown us and for their willingness to jump into the fleets when we've ask them to. From the day we've introduced them to our channel, they've been logging in and pulling in some impressive attendance times. In some cases, these chaps have also stepped up and did a bit of FC work too. Very impressive and one reason why they're all in.

There are at least 12 more in recruitment stage 1/2 of our recruitment process but many have not linked into our semi-public chat channel as directed. For those that do, they're almost like ghosts sitting there and waiting for a request for fleets. A bit like waiting in the militia channel and waiting for a fleet invite! If any of the current applications feel that there is an issue, I urge them to contact us at the first opportunity but there is a push by the directors to withdraw an application that has been 'stuck' for more than four weeks.

So we're building up a strong and broad base of competent and experienced pirates now and will continue to take on such pilots if they think they can fly with us. At anyone time, when I link into the corporation chat; I usually see between 3-9 pirates and most of the time, they're ready to rock and roll. Even over the festive period numbers were steady.

0.0 roam!
Lately, we have gangs of about 20+ but it does get a bit unwieldy with these numbers unless there is strict discipline. Something that we're striving to improve with the swift and frequent use of the cat 'o' nine tails!

An example of this was a roam into 0.0 with a fleet of about 24-26 ships. A right rabble to be sure but plenty of firepower nonetheless. We included Mynxee in our midst as well as some chaps from Filthy Scum, another bunch of scabby pirates from yonder. The roam was through null-sec where we encountered and destroyed a small number of ships who fell into our trap. We ended the roam around Konora where out FC decided to break up the fleet after trying to engage some of the locals. All we ended up doing was popping a taranis.

However, the night did not end well - VB Sarge had set his ship to dock and left his ship drifting towards the station. It actually did not dock for some reason and taranis pilot took revenge by coming back out in his carrier with friends to destroy his ship and to pod Sarge.

Some pirates decided to rest up here and enjoy the pleasures of Konora, despite the unfortunate loss of Sarge's tempest. I can vouch for the decent beer and women of all types resident in Konora. However other pirates were eager to get going and continue the roam. The small matter of a carrier and her attendant support ships outside prevented an immediate getaway. Mynxee urged patience as she was sure these chaps would get bored and five minutes later, sure enough - the exit was clear and the pirates made a dash for it. The options included a dash through empire space, a return through null sec or a dash through empire then null-sec. All options were taken as there were no FCs and the pirates, scattered.

All got back home (I think) safe and sound; including myself. I went through empire high-sec space; scaring the locals until I landed in Offikatlin with a sigh of relief.

Slaughtered by the Minmatar Militia
Well had to happen, I had spied two rifters in local and narrowed it down to a command bunker in the system, so in my jaguar (fit to be like a rifter - an experiment and bad idea); I warped to the acceleration and was followed by a slasher. I locked it but he managed to activate the gate and escaped.

I gave chase and was eager to kill the slasher and the rifters when I hit scan again and froze. There were more than three ships there. I landed in the middle of a 'plexing fleet of two destroyers and numerous frigates. I died so quickly I didn't even get a screenshot. Well done to the militia gang; nice to see a frigate / destroyer fleet. I grabbed as many Bastards as I could and returned but they had finished what they were doing and flipped us the bird and left! I do like these minmatar militia types; they're pretty cool. I hope they come back for more.

Killed a tempest but where's the kil mail?

This is a re-write of an original post where it was all chat logs. I wasn't satisfied with that entry and decided to do the account some justice.

Now, I was out hunting in E## when I came across this chap: Akaya Kalari. He got out out fast, before I could lock him but he we struck up a conversation and chatted for the next hour or so. The prey was thin today as G### was full of other pirates and meanies.

The conversations meandered a bit but it got into a chat about the pirate profession and I told Akaya to get the warp drive disruption skill. Bread and butter for any pirate. Akaya lacked this skill and he has already experienced the problems this might have caused.

'Dude - if u want to practise; come and see me. I wont destroy you.' I said, fully intending to maintain my word.

'What system are you in?' asked Akaya. Checking the scanner, 'Go to a system called A###.' Flipping the map around, I got a feel for the route. 'Try E### to G### to A##. A couple of jumps, you should be fine.' I said.

'Gate campers everywhere today,' observed Akaya as he made his journey to our rendezvous. I could not agree more.

I arrived in A### and ganged Akaya. I also spied out a pilot I recognised: 'Eppix' - my notes indicated that he was a rookie tempest pilot and had been seen in and around E###. Maybe I would be lucky. A quick scan and indeed, there was a tempest.

'Eppix - lets get him. He's in a tempest. Lets take him!!!!' I howled.

The excitement was clear in my voice. Akaya was thrilled to be involved in a BS hunt and warped to me. Now tackling a big ship like this needed some plan and the death of frigates (in my view) has always been drones and webbers. Nos isn't too much of a problem for Minmatar ships due to our low cap weapons.

'Knock out his drones first and then the ship. Not the other way.' I said. 'This should be fun.' I added. Akaya agreed with a smiley and off we went to scan and to track down this big bugger.
'OK going to planet X as he is in that cluster. Then we scan him down and engage. Unless he has safe spotted


Planet X loomed ahead of me and I willed the scanner to pick out the battleship's signature. Nothing. I asked Akaya to continue to scan while I jumped to another scan spot. At my second scan spot I hit the scanner once more. Akaya was following me, ready to pounce.

'He's moving. IX cluster now. IX-belt 4 I think.'

I gang-warped me and my wing man to the target belt. Akaya's rifter was rigged for speed and burst out of warp seconds before my rifter.

'He's here!'Akaya shouted.

Indeed he was. Looming ahead of our two small rifters was a tempest-class battleship. Pride of the Minmatar navy. I checked my overview to see how far we had landed.

'Go go! We've landed too far! move move move!'

I hit the afterburners and got within range as quickly as the burners would allow me. Eppix was busy looting some wrecks: unfortunate Angels caught by the monstrous battleship. He apparently didn't notice two rifters enter into the belt, or did not care. It was his mistake and I ordered my wing-man in.

'Attack!'

Akaya powered his ship forward. 'Just now got in range!'

'I doubt we'll get him though. But feel the rush............' I said, the thrill of chasing a mark down and engaging it as intoxicating as it was all those years ago. So we blasted the tempest with all our weaponry. There was no return fire on me after we were locked. A couple of minutes passed before there was any hostile return fire. Heavy missiles it would seem but no drones. No web either. Could we be so lucky? There was flicker around the tempest, a slight bend in the light and the tempest warped out. Damn. I turned off the warp disruptor. Disappointed I spoke to Akaya.

'ach - stabbed.'

I checked the scanner and found that the tempest had zipped to a gate. Making sure that the young Akaya did not get himself killed. I spoke to him quickly.

'Do not follow.' And added. 'You had no scrambler and I did not have enough points.'

'I'll have one soon.' Replied Akaya.

Nodding, I said,'Indeed, but he'll sit here now as he knows we only have one point between us, so he will think we are no threat to him. You also have about 11 minutes left on your criminal counter yes?'

'Ya.' replied Akaya sadly.

'OK. Well we have ten minutes of twiddling our thumbs before I go back to fit more points. I am going to fit x2 +2 scramblers. Should give us four points that should lock him down tight. I paused and then asked. Akaya - you have a webber ?'

Akaya checked. 'No, I have electronics 2, I have none of that. 10 hours on electronics 3.'

Time trickled by. 'OK in 7 minutes I will leave the system and refit with x2 +2 scramblers. I hope Eppix is noob enough to stay put in the system but he is hanging around the sentry guns too now.'

With us unable to attack, I decided we could at least keep tabs on the tempest. It had already moved off from the gate it had warped to and appeared to be back in the belts.

'He's near the vii cluster lets get closer.' I said, as I jumped to the VII cluster.

'OK the scanner tells me he is either at vi-1, vi-2 or viii-1. This is agony. 4 minutes left. He's at vi-2 but we can't engage him yet. We can't lock him down!'.

It was absolute agony of just waiting. Just to rub it in, the tempest then went back to ratting.

'You know, I think the tempest pilot has gone back to ratting again! He's cycling through the belts.OK - he's moved to cluster VIII; do not venture into the belts Akaya.' Absolute agony.

The red counter winked off. My Concord Global flag had finally expired. I did not wait any longer.

'OK stay here. Am going to refit. keep him on scan!'
'K' Affirmed Akaya.

That was my last instruction as I activated the star gate and left the system. I was getting updates from Akaya as I docked and got the engineers to take out two mid-slot components and slap in two +2 scramblers.
There were plenty of other blinkies as I undocked and made the seven-jump journey back to Akaya. As I arrived at the warp gate and zipped through, I requested an update from my wing man.

'Is Eppix still there?'
'He's moved, I'm looking for him.......and I have found him!'

Damn it. Akaya was too eager and didn't have the points to lock the battleship down. I didn't want our mark to be spooked again.

'I am warping to you Akaya. You have him on visual or on scan?'
'Visual, but he just ran!' I cursed.
'damnit!'

OK, I had to concentrate - Eppix surely knew we were tracking him. I hit the scanner again and tracked the battleship down to a single location. I checked, rechecked and knew where he was.

'He's at XI-7. Go go!!'
I landed 6km from the battleship that was busy dispatching an Angel cruiser. I quickly hit the double-scramblers.

'Got 4 points on him now. Go go go!!! Attack!!' I urged my wingman on.

Like two furious flies, Akaya and I buzzed around the tempest firing at it with everything we had. Missiles streaked away from the missile pods dotted around the tempest and blasted Akaya. With his ship rattling around him, Akaya spoke up.

'doesn't like me lol - am at half shields.'

Checking the readouts - I realised that Akaya was in danger. I quickly warned him.

'Get ready to warp out then keep moving at max burn.' There was a long pause.

'boom.....' Said Akaya. 'I'll pod ram him for you! He popped me.'

Alarmed I said, 'you warped to a gate??

'No, he popped me'
'You should have left earlier to recharge. '
'You said move off at full speed instead of warping out, so I didn't warp. sry =/'

OK, so I was guilty of bad communication and lost my wingman. Not too happy, I couldn't do anything.



'He's hitting me now but I need you back as I can't break him solo.'
'Are you tanking that?'
'Yeah'
'lol, I was getting hammered'
'However, his armour is too thick and I will probably run out of ammo'
'Will sentry guns pod me?'
'no'
'I need to go replace my ship and how are you tanking that?'
'Size and speed.'

I realised that Akaya was still next to his wreck and in his egg watching the fight. He had to move.

'Go get another ship and come straight back'
'They weren't hitting me hard, but I don't have enough cap to run a rep'
'Get a nos - now move and get another ship please. I can't keep this up forever!'

I was getting impatient and needed Akaya to move. Akaya then finally left the system - burning for the nearest system with any shop selling rifter-class frigates.

'but I won't be able to come back through the gate for 6 minutes'
'I know'
'Wish he had podded me, I'd be back at the station immediately lol'
'ok never move away in a straight line - always orbit ok?'

Another five minutes trickled back - I had burned through almost 1200 EMP rounds but had finally managed to crack the Tempest's shield. I continued to hammer away but amazingly, I was chewing through a lot quicker. Wonder if he was shield tanking?

'omw back!'
'Careful u don't get taken out. He's down to 50% armour now'
'Ok Flash, how much ammo do you have left?'
'Enough - make sure you have plenty.
'I have 2k proton s'
'OK Akaya, that's good but move!'

Three minutes later and Akaya was nowhere to be seen. Where was he? I was still hammering away and had opened up a conversation with Eppix, the tempest pilot. I told him that, under current conditions - I would have him dead in three minutes. I wanted a mere 20million isk ransom. The answer was a cryptic 'We'll see.'

Hmmm, reinforcements? I re-doubled my efforts and finally cracked the armour. I certainly did not see the tell tale glow of a functioning armour repairer. The only data was a slew of missiles that I could just tank with my armour sitting at 25%. My repairer was keeping up but if a lucky shot came through then I was in trouble. Luckily this was not happening. What was on that ship? My target indicators told me that he was now into hull.

'He's into hull!'
'woot, gating into e### so almost there'
'He's on fire - hurry Akaya.'
'OK Flash I'm warping to you'

I fired a few more salvos but then the Angels turned up and also joined in the killing of the tempest. I made a mistake. I should have stopped pumping shells into the tempest and turned our attentions to the Angels.

The tempest, on fire from front to back, leaking fuel and oxygen, escape pods streaming away - finally shuddered and exploded. The pilot's pod insta-warped as well.

'Get the kill mail? Help yourself to the loot Akaya. You got the KM?'
'got no mail'
'Me neither -rats must have it. Good kill though!'
'You sure you don't want this stuff?'
'Naw, Keep it Akaya. You earnt it. '
'Okay, my cargo's full and there's a stack of 3.5k widowmakers in there if you want em and ty ty ^^'
'Akaya - so how was your first pirate experience?'
'Fun!!! ^^ way more fun than mining or mission'
'Well done, could not have done it without your help mate! ok - logging - its been a good night. see you later.''see 'ya :)'


I picked up x3 Large Named Shield Extenders and some named guns - so it was a passively tanked tempest?

Noooooo?

Time: 11/06/2007 21:17:18
Character: flashfresh
Location: G###l
Duration: 00:25:40

My Weapons Used

200mm Light 'Scout' Autocannon I
150mm Light AutoCannon I

Enemies Attacked

Eppix [TYYC]

Damage Done: 51017.00
Damage Received: 10905.30

ps: Akaya caught up with Eppix in Empire space and asked for the KM (kindly) - he got a polite FUCK YOU. Eppix has since been deleted and recycled as biomass.........