Ship Fit: Heavy Tackle Armour Thorax

Yesterday I described a battle in which I was flying a Thorax and used it to catch and dispatch a hostile fleet's Ewar and harass their logistics. Today I'm going to describe the ship I was flying in more detail.

One fleet concept you see a lot of in low sec these days (and maybe other areas, I'm ignorant of the current meta out there) is Tech 1 armour cruiser fleets. These fleets are often based around the formidable Vexor hull with short ranged blaster damage and long range drone damage, supported by a handful of Atrons for fast tackle, Maulus or Celestis for sensor dampening, and Exequror or Augor logistic support.

Its a solid fleet concept. However, as you get to larger sizes (i.e. 10+ ships) there is one hole that needs filling (innuendo intended!). A ship faster than the slow armoured Vexors but more durable than the light and vulnerable to drones Atrons, a ship that can be second-man-in and make and hold a tackle in adverse scenarios long enough for the fleet to support.

The Heavy Tackle Armour Thorax:

Click to Embiggen

Its fast at ~1800 m/s to get to a target and relieve the Atron's initial tackle and its scram and dual webs will keep anything from move very fast making them nice targets for the Thorax's blasters and the Vexor's drones. With an EHP tank of just of 24 thousand it has enough buffer to hold on til the logi get there.

If you fly in low sec, using some low grade slave  snake implant set and Zor's Hyper custom navigation implant can push this just over 2200 m/s, making it even more ideal for the role, as well as the role of forward scout/bait. Solo might be tricky as its tank is not that impressive and kiting foes with long range scrams and/or tracking disruptors can give you fits. This ship is best used in conjunction with a small fleet backup.