Teaching a Lesson

We were roaming last night in a decent sized Algos fleet with Navitas logistics but was having a hard time finding a decent brawl. One neutral Thrasher fleet was bigger and scarier with all that alpha, and a Cal Mil fleet in Harpies and shlock was more engagable for us but they wanted nothing to do with our fleet (for good reason, we would have eaten them alive). We were picking up occasional one-off kills here and there (incuding an awesome chase with a pro Coercer) but otherwise it was a tough warzone.

Then as we were heading back towards home base we came across a big Eve Uni fleet sporting 12 Thoraxes, 5 Exequrors, 1 Caracal, and a smattering of frigates. At this point we were sporting about 9 DPS pilots and 5 logi and no other frigates. Clearly outnumbers, I was hesitant to try and take on that large fleet. But then a couple people pointed out that Eve Uni doesn't have the best reputation for seasoned PvP pilots and a couple people in fleet offered to sacrifice a battleship to the cause of "Good Fights" so I decided we would try it out.

We rushed to base, upshipped into 6 Vexors, 5 exeqs (or was it 4?), and 3 battleships, a Hyperion, an Armageddon, and myself in my Dominix named Yamato. We also had a Maulus and maybe an Atron. Back in Pynekastoh we found the Eve Uni fleet waiting for us so we warped to the Large Outpost where a couple of their interceptor scouts were stationed and set up.

Now I don't envy the Eve Uni's FC at this point. He has the numerical advantage, but is facing three battleships along with a decent cruiser and logi core. Had we been a more notorious low sec group, he might have decided to disengage and leave us hanging but we're Aideron Robotics, other Faction War corporations look down on us like Null Sec looks down on Faction War corporations. We've been described as "lemmings" and "scrubs" and since we recruit a lot of newer and inexperienced pilots so we don't always come off looking like experts, but the Sunday night fleet brings out the veterans and even our less experienced players live and die in low sec. Plus our logi pilots are some of the best in low sec, perhaps even in all of Eve. Our facing enemy might not concerned of us this fight, but he will be next time.

Meanwhile, as he was setting up and deciding to engage or not, I was running through scenarios that involved us dying in a ball of fire (which to be fair, I strongly figured was going to be the case). I assumed the enemy fleet Thoraxes were operating rails so I was concerned about getting kited, and there was the worry that if they were fitting blasters they would simply clear the field of our logi while we might have some trouble coordinating damage enough to kill their Exequrors if they pulled range and swooped around our slow battleships, leaving our 6 vexors to fight 12 Thoraxes alone.

Then they came in. I hate that first few seconds of any fight, trying to figure out what target to call primary. Once the fight gets going I'm good, but that moment when the overview goes from empty to EVERYTHING IS HERE is always panic inducing. Fortunately the enemy logistics were close enough to engage so I started calling targets and we went to war.

The first minute was nerve wracking. We piled on their first Exeq while they targeted ours. We killed slowly killed it but lost one in turn. We then killed another but lost another one as well. "Crap," I thought, "its going to be a DPS race and we're going to lose."

But then the magic happened; the next three Exeqs fell and our logi wing started to hold. What I didn't know was that my Hyperion and Armageddon pilots pull Veteran's Prerogative and started blapping Thoraxes while my Dominix and Vexor drones attacked the primaries. I'm also hearing from back channels today that the enemy fleet's FC died early. Whatever the causes the end result was telling, the enemy logistics ships were destroyed and we started into the Thorax fleet proper while our logi stood firm. The end result was one sided:

Eve Uni on left, Aideron on right

Props to Eve Uni for taking the fight and committing all in. I feel a little bad for them that they didn't pick up a few more kills or at least one battleship killmail, but that's life in low sec for you. Sometimes you are the hammer, sometimes the nail.