Could Do No Wrong

"It was a night we could do no wrong, and lord knows we tried." - Me, last night

I decided last night's fleet would be "Insurance Fraud Fleet", i.e. grab something shiny in your hanger and head out with everyone else and see what we could turn up. In other words, its an excuse to use my beloved brawling Sleipnir:

Its a fun ship, relatively nimble for a battlecruiser and deals a wallop of a punch in close while still able to tank decently for a minute. So I was riding along in it with a Drake, 2 Hecates, Caracal, Enyo, Maulus, Comet, Ares, Algos, Maulus Navy Issue, and a Tormentor. Eclectic to be sure.

It was near the end of the fleet where we found some small ganks and we were heading slowly towards home, debating if we would go and try to fight a Vexor-Osprey Caldari fleet we saw earlier in Tama. We jumped into Abune and were starting to warp to the Heydieles gate when someone says "hey, an Orthrus just jumped into you guys".

I call for cancel warp and we move to put a point on this sudden target. We snag him and start pouring firepower into the ship. He almost got away but our firepower was on point and he exploded. While we're fighting him a Hurricane jumps in and starts into us. We turn our firepower on him as he tackles me (having terrible security status, I was not surprised). Then a Keres uncloaks, and an Apocalypse battleship, and a Republic Fleet Typhoon.

Now I'm crapping my pants. My shield booster is running low on charges and I'm caught by the Keres and Hurricane. Suddenly my capacitor is empty and I'm feeling the panic coming.

Fortunately, my smaller ships in our fleet drive off the Keres and the Hurricane explodes. I am free of points so I order fleet to warp off because I don't know what else might jump in at this moment to surprise us and my Sleipnir is venting atmosphere and I'm not sure we have the firepower once I'm dead to break the battleships fast enough.

While we warp to the Heydieles gate and jump, I get the intel that there are no more hostiles sneaking in Oinasiken so we just have a Keres, Apoc, and Fleet Typhoon as opponents. I order re-approach and determine that I would try to split the enemy fleet if they engaged again. Sure enough, they jump through on our tail and open fire again. I get my fleet to jump through and my Drake pilot says "um, Kirith? I don't have a MWD on this thing". Uh oh, he's still slowboating back to gate and taking tons of damage. He barely makes it and I get organized on the other side again.

They jump back through into Abune and this time we go right for the Apocalype which shows up 10 km from me. It goes down fast but once again I'm feeling pressure as I never got to reload my Ancillary shield booster with charges and I was taking sentry gun fire as it was below -5. I warp to the sun as my shield gives out, land, and warp back as the Keres lands near me. Whew!

Then my Drake pilot, who warped to the sun after me, calls out, "I'm caught by the Keres and the Typhoon is here!" I rally the fleet and we charge to the sun. My fast ships kill the Keres finally while I tackled and pour fire into the Typhoon. All alone without hope for rescue he explodes shortly thereafter, revealing an impressive 1 billion ISK fit.

So our losses in the fighting totalled 1 Hecate, 1 Maulus, and 1 Tormentor (which was alpha'd by sentry guns) in exchange for an Orthrus, Hurricane, Keres, Apocalypse, and blingy Typhoon Fleet Issue. A good night indeed.