Back with a boom, unfortunately it was mine!

Back with a bang

Yes, we did bend over for this one with predictable results. 

After a refreshing break, what better than to come back and go for a roam with the lads? So I volunteered as one of two scimitar pilots and undocked with a fleet of battle cruisers; The Bastards favourite hull type. Unfortunately, we've been too lax and I was not on my top game: we started late, took too long to form up and the new Pod UI had a 100MB update to be applied.

Since we took longer than expected; it was no suprise that many of our local neighbours realised something was up and tried to bait us outside our station, in our system and neighbouring systems. I ignored them until one of our scouts spotted a likely target around the Taff gate in Egmar. We decided to go for it with two drakes and two scimitars for support and I was confident of success. One of our drake pilots disconnected but that was okay; but local then went up by a few and I called the rest of the fleet in. As they decloaked and started to warp to our location; local kept on going up....and up. Our targets had friends nearby and before we knew it; we had 3 v 1. Slightly worried, I ordered the ships to align out but the DPS was too much, I had frigates crawling all over me and I think I was jammed too. I popped first and asked for the secondary FC to take over. However, the result was never in doubt: we got our arses handed to us.

Feeling somewhat bruised, we returned to the station and re-shipped while we considered our options. Shipping up into my sliepnir (after Marco's expert discussion on improving my set-up) we went out for more fun in our upgraded ships but nothing was biting. It was a proving to be a tough week for The Bastards.

Our own Hulkageddon - Bastards' style

Kill the mining barges for they are evil!

Hulkageddon has been a fun part of our New Eden landscape and The Bastards have been competing in this competition since its inception. We loved the idea and throw ourselves into the occasion, using cheap T1 destroyers in small groups as opposed to other competitors who decided on smart-bombing battleships. We always had pilots who came in the top 10 and did well as a corporation when compared to some of the larger alliances. So it was with some sadness that we discovered that HK would be no more after it's founder, mentor and organiser, Helicity Boson, was unceremoniously banned from the official organs of New Eden. His appetite for New Eden politics obviously went downhill from there and who can blame them. While there were many who stepped forward to offer to continue the event, which I fully support and hope it works, it isn't the same.

However, our very own TheHermit; who has been The Bastards' own driving force in the HK events decided to run an internal HK event. Open to only those in The Bastards Alliance, it was a one-week event; quite low-key but well attended with interested pirates using jump clones to move into the target area. The statistics are here.

4-year birthday bash!

No we don't have fairies....

The Bastards hit their fourth Birthday this weekend and of course we will be celebrating. We've had a rich history, complete with drama, fun and very odd characters passing through our ranks. The Eve Wiki has a formative years of The Bastards available to all those who want to have a read. Am working on the last couple of years in order to update the story.

Anyway, we've organised a birthday roam - so all Bastards past and present, join the ingame channel and say hi. Oh, TheHermit has also asked that we bring the bling. Should be fun.

OKAY....sorry, drunk roam report (part of)

Getting drunk....

I had this blog post in my drafts for ages as I couldn't remember enough to finish it; however - here is what I have....

I was not successful in getting the fuzziness out of my head: it felt like it was packed full of cotton wool. Yes, the after-effects of another drunken roam with The Bastards and my God, the killboard looked red. The rules of these drunken roams are simple: drink, fly ships and shoot people in the face and then drink some more, repeat until you can't remember your name. The only hope of reconstructing the evening was through the various log entries, camera drone footage and other recording devices that were on during the night. So sifting through the files, I came to the following series of events which has been reconstructed into some semblance of a coherent narrative.


The fleet was an open invitation to anyone who wanted to fly drunk with The Bastards and we had over 30 in the fleet with a few more stragglers. It was an astounding assortment of ship types and I was surprisingly flexible with the route, destination and communication discipline. Very unlike me but already, I was liquor'ed up and feisty with a quart of Disarono and coke from an earlier, lunch time drinking session with some colleagues. However, I decided to count the number of 'sips' of beverage I would imbide from the time the roam started to well, my waking up the next day. 


The destination was generally agreed to be Amamake - where there would be an almost certain guarantee of traffic through the top belt and greatest chance of some pew-pew. Each jump we took a sip (of varying volumes) and by the time we had arrived at Auga, a 15 jump journey; I was already feeling the effects.


Sip Count: 15


So we did race into the top belt and sat there - some bright spark decided to mine in order to 'fool' the locals.Who was he? It wasn't a Bastard that's for sure.


The locals eventually came in and proceeded to get serious about a fight. We sort of decided to respond and set their drake as primary.


It went down hill from there.


We had horribly fitted ships and a mere glance at our killboard confirms that we lost some epic ships including: Shizraak's rainbow fitted Maelstrom complete with the most epic cargo hold ever; TheHermit's webbing blackbird; my own rupture flying with a battleship class autocanon. No less.


The loss of ships was quite epic.


I had to add about 30 odd sips to the total already and by this time, I was blasted and can't remember a thing....

..(sorry can't continue the story as I seem to have developed amnesia!)

A shout out to the The Bastards' Online Mortuary and Out-Of-Eve

Meet some of TheHermit's guests......

The Bastards have some talented individuals but none more so then one of our Directors and my number two, TheHermit. He has developed a website that keeps track of all the corpses he has collected in his years as a pirate in New Eden. There's many new features about to be incorporated but I love what he has done already. Go on, see if you or a close friend is a guest in TheHermit's Mortuary: http://graveyard.eve-ransoms.com/


He also hosts a cool tool: http://eve-ransoms.com/ooe/ try it and register it; it is Evemon on steroids.

Hulkageddon IV and our new website...

Hulkageddon IV

And we're off!

Hulkageddon IV kicked off on the 19th February 2011 and The Bastards have been in the thick of things. We've gone through a bunch of destroyers already and both The Bastards and The Meatshield are doing a great many evil things to mining ships in high security space. What has been nice and heart-warming have been the cheers of encouragement and well-wishers from those on the sidelines: many of them miners themselves!

The Bastards have enough to roam out far and wide and in two to three gangs. I have noticed that other corporations are using smaller teams of 1-3 pilots and ships and using battle cruisers to enact their suicidal damage. We've opted for teams of 4-6 and in destroyer hulls instead. We found that they're the most cost effective out of all the ship hulls available.

With our scouts out and about and well wishers feeding us information about miners we've been quite active but unfortunately for myself, I have been ill since Friday, 18th February and therefore unable to participate fully. However, The Bastards have leaders far more capable than I activity is as high as ever. Additionally, if people are interested in joining in - we set up a new corp called 'MEATSHIELD' to bolster our numbers for HK IV specifically as well as giving those new to piracy an avenue to pirate with The Bastards over the long-term. The recruitment link is here. We've also enabled a nifty online recruitment website too which leads me to....

New Website and KillBoard and all that!

Yes, you may have noticed that we have updated our website and created an alliance wide killboard that pools both The Bastards and The Meatshield Bastards into one board - in addition to keeping two separate ones for each corp. With an upgrade to our ransom-board and a new skin to the forums; everything looks great.

Long awaited features (well for us) have been added and will be updated over the next couple of weeks. All very exciting and I can't wait to see them live. Thanks has to go to TheHermit for his work on this assisted by RoninData who made his appearance and proved everyone that he was NOT in a Spanish prison but was alive and well.

Anyway, just noticed the new Eve Blog banter. Going to work on that as I crawl back to bed.

More later.

New makeover therefore, new drunken roam needed!

My liver has finally recovered from the pre-New Year, post-Christmas drunken roam and I want to thank all the pilots who attended, all the pilots who sent me funny emails and evemails about it and those who have been asking for more!


Well, I am not the man to turn down a good idea now am I? Anyway, more later on 'drunken roam number 2' and details of invitations, locations etc a bit later.


MY FACE

An older portrait

The newer version

It was with some trepidation that I asked for my portrait to be retaken. I do hate all forms of photography  though Shae's rendering of me is very nice and I approved of it.


Still, I subjected myself to this folly and insisted on a more natural shot - none of this posing for me so a  photographer of some renown followed me around and took pictures. Lots of pictures and I have to say, I am quite happy with the results.  I can also see that many pod pilots, with a constant need for change will be more than happy to pay ISK to tweak their appearances. Just wait and see.


MEATSHIELD [QUORN]
The Bastards have been swamped by applications to the corporation, more so with our recent antics in Hulkageddon I, II & III. With this in mind and our desire to retain as many potentially decent pirates as we could. We set up another corporation to take these pilots in:  a fair percentage of those we didn't accept were either too time poor to join full time or lacking in certain skill sets. Many who were declined a place stayed on with us as friends, flying with us in our fleets and getting to know us. Other interested parties wanted to experience piracy but wanted to do this with lower skilled alts. Then we knew that Hulkageddon IV would be coming along and we were active participants in the event so why not try and kill as many birds with one stone as possible?


Form a new corporation that:


1. Can act as a convenient staging corporation for those who want to apply to The Bastards
2. Will take in lower level SP pirates and get them experienced in low-sec piracy, then pick then for The Bastards.
3. Will allow alts and those who want more casual style of play or who are time-poor to experience piracy with The Bastards.
4. Can provide the necessary man-power to help us achieve greater success in Hulkageddon IV, since all we're asking for is Destroyer IV and a racial frigate to IV.
5. Can provide our budding FCs with small fleets to learn the ropes.


So, forming a corporation under The Bastards Alliance was therefore a complete no-brainer. I asked my good friend Tim Kang to step in as CEO. He was in charge of the 'Offshore Indian Call Centre' corporation, a previous executor for The Bastards and was now looking for a job. Perfect. 


Recruitment post for MEATSHIELD


So any budding pilots who want to get involved with The Bastards and Hulkageddon IV - follow the link above, reply to it (so you can bump it) and then follow the instructions to apply. We've already accepted a fair few and they're settling in nicely. 


We went on a roam last night and it was great fun: a mixed fleet of 20 odd ships racing around. Inevitably we ran into an even bigger group and lost the fight but that is the way the cookie crumbles especially with new members. More to follow but everything is looking great. 


Hulkageddon IV
Oh yes, this has now been officially announced for a February 19th (Saturday) and we can't wait. One of the drivers to get more pilots was to have our new chaps throw themselves screaming into high-sec space and kill miners. What fun! Since The Bastards has always been a small corporation, larger numbers certainly gives us more time zone coverage. Last time, TheHermit more or less stayed awake the entire time. Not this time, I don't think there's enough caffeine in the world to do it!


There's more information here: HK IV FAQ


Oddly, there is a counter-event in response to Hulkageddon called: 'Griefer Geddon'. Details are here and I applaud whoever decided on this event. Good luck to both sets of participants!

Drunken Roam, Guilty Pleasures & Hooray for Hulkageddon Roam!
So, with the formation of Meatshield [QUORN], Hulkageddon IV just round the corner and my liver now just about back to normal, I think it is a fine time to organise another such roam and to celebrate the formation of a new corporation for a fine bunch of pirates and the start of a glorious week-long session of destruction!


Date: FRIDAY, 11 FEB 2010 or FRIDAY, 18th FEB 2010 (will go with the one with the most numbers)
Time: 21:15 EVE TIME
Form-up time: 20:15 EVE TIME
Location: Will be sent to those interested in due course but previous attendees should know where it is.
Route: TBD - but all over the place no doubt...
Duration: Until we run out of ships or the FC collapses from too much alcohol

Aim: Crazily fitted T1 frigate/cruiser roam around low-sec and null-sec; it will end when we have no ships left in the fleet (or we fall off our chairs drunk).

We are to have fun, drink and be merry. Emphasis on the drink and merry bit. No sad faces. 

OMG Whiskey!

Like the last roam, the idea is to have fun. There's no better lubricant for fun then alcohol and lots of it! Ratting for ammo is expected. Throwing ourselves into danger at the first opportunity is expected. 


Of course, we have to pace ourselves as there will be plenty of chances to drink so the roam should still last the usual two hours. As an added incentive, we do love music so I ask everyone who wants to attend (or who can't but want to be involved) to submit 3-5 music tracks that they file away under ' guilty pleasures' - you know the ones: the 80s power ballads that you secretly sing to, that Britney Spears song that you can't help wiggle to and the Top Gun tunes you have on full blast when you're PvP. You know the ones. Submit them and I will either create a YouTube play list or better yet, submit the lot to Eve-Radio (or some other Radio station) as a two-hour request / dedication. Now isn't that a good idea? 


Everyone read the requirements carefully.

REQUIREMENTS:

++FUN roam, no sad faces!!++

1. Join the in-game channel 'INDEPENDENCE' for details and fleet pick up on the day.
2. Any T1 frigate/cruiser fitted out with whatever you want. 
3. Yes, fit a rupture with lasers if you want.
4. Or a thorax with arties and missiles.
5. Or a rifter with a cruiser sized weapon.
6. Or bring a Celestis, sorry Lady Shaniqua!
7. Mix your weapon systems. Why? because we can and that's how we roll.
8. Points required of course, we can't have people running away.

Pirate force someone to drink to excess

9. We each drink a shot of spirits (or beer) every half hour during the roam and after each ship kill and after each ship loss and for every ransom.
10. Aim is to see who can stay up for the longest.
11. Ventrilo - working with mic in place.
12. Needs to be frapsed with some vent recordings as well.
13. If you decide to fit a stab (why not?) then you have to say 'STABBED!' in local, take a shot of alcohol and then RUN like the wuss you are when you get tackled. If you do this and get smack - everyone else will need to take a shot on your behalf.
14. Tell me what is your drink(s) of choice for the night.
15. Any other rules that the FC wants to make up on the night.

Interested? Then contact us using the one of the following methods:

1. Post a comment here.
2. Contact me on flashfresh@the-bastards.com
3. Contact TheHermit on thehermit@the-bastards.com
4. Contact me or TheHermit ingame via conversation or evemail

Go on, it will be fun (again)...

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.

Hulkageddon III

Hulkageddon III is upon us and The Bastards have been in the thick of it. The idea is simple: during a set period, mining vessels (Hulks, Makinaws etc) are targeted and destroyed.The competition is to see how many can be destroyed over the period and this event is now in its third year. Hulkageddon is the brain-child of Helicity Boson, the well-known Khanid pirate from Python Cartel.

99% of these vessels will be in high-sec space so for the majority of pirates flagged as criminals (i.e. all of The Bastards) - getting into the CONCORD protected space isn't straight forward. However, with pre-planning and patience it is easy to do. Our ships of choice are destroyers and we go in groups of four or more. It takes four destroyers, firing as one to one-volley most of the exhumers that are our targets. These ships are fast enough to zip through CONCORD space and providing we don't stop, local navies can't stop us.

The procedure for us and (we suspect) everyone else is thus:

1. Send a covert scout into a belt full of exhumers mining away.
2. Get a nice warp-in.
3. Exhumer gank squad of destroyers undocks from station and makes their way towards target system.
4. Can't stop for anyone as empire navies will soon web and kill you!
5. Arrive at target system and en masse, warp to the covert scout.
6. Drop out of warp, lock the exhumer and alpha it. Attempt to get a second shot before CONCORD scrambles, web, jams then kills you.
7. Warp out in pod back to base.
8. Rinse and repeat.

For hard core pirates like The Bastards, we're not too bothered at the loss of sec status but I do wish I had a +5.0 sec status to burn! That would allow me to get close, probably in a solo ship and smart bomb the exhumer. Anyway, I have two Bastards in the Top Three (2 and 3) and five in the top 20. We're ranked 4th in corporation kills, not bad considering we're a small corporation and not even in an alliance. The bigger alliances have been muscling in but the top solo killer is a chap who has been burning battleships galore, Phil MacMannon.

We also had the 1000th kill of Hulkageddon III - but there's no prize for that which is a pity.

However, HK III is a long slog and it is difficult for everyone to keep focus - just wanted to give a shout-out to Hermit, Persephone and Leroxee for working so hard AND maintaining focus when those of a weaker constitution (me) wilt and wither. There are others out there I know and my thanks and gratitude goes out to you lot for making this so much fun. We still have a couple of more days left!

Nashh, that CDM maestro has decided to throw some of cool gifts to anyone participating in HK III. Click this link to his page and see if you are eligible. Just realised that one can get Hulkageddon III merchandise like t-shirts! Seriously such a good idea - one medium size green hoodie for me please.

Helicity - you're a star.

Hulkageddon

Just wanted to give a shout out for 'Hulkageddon' - a wonderful idea where a bunch of pirates get together to blow up as many Hulks and other mining ships as possible. Details are here and The Bastards were asked to sign up and we found ourselves organised along with those fine chaps at the Python Cartel, Tuskers to name two. It is the brain-child of that sexy little pirate going by the name of Helicity Boson, also of Python Cartel.
Of course, we get to pick up the loot to ensure a positive isk outcome and each pirate organisation works in their own allocated areas to ensure that there isn't any 'collateral' damage. Most of the ship types are destroyers (catalyst or thrasher hull) fit for close and intense damage with a few coercers and cruisers thrown in. These ships are very cheap and in a group of four to five; can do enough alpha damage to destroy a hulk before CONCORD arrives to fulfil their vengence filled role.

At this time of writing, The Python Cartel is leading in points with The Bastards in second and I.M.M. in third; of course - The Bastards have several members with them who are in the current recruitment cycle and have parked themselves into NPC corps; so the actual Bastards' score is probably higher. However, who is bothered? I am not - instead I am chuckling at the antics of the entire session and following my chaps process on the killboard.

When are we going to stop? Hulkageddon was meant to be a 23 hour kill-fest for the 17th October (saturday) only but it looks like it has been extended to cover this weekend and may go on until everyone becomes sick of it. This does remind me of the 'Jihad' that Goonswarm carried out on the very same ship types and what the Broski's have been doing.

Anyway, keep it coming!