Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Fleet Fight against Hard Knocks

We were running sites in the static when a scout from Hard Knocks jumps into the system. We are on the next to last ship in the site, so we finish the site and return to our home system to reship. The covert ops pilot is joined by a second pilot in an Arazu, so we assume they are looking for a fight. We know that we have been sighted so instead of going covert and trying to get the drop on them. We instead ask if they want an arranged fight.

A few minutes of discussion go by and we agree to a 6v6 in the connecting C5 with the following stipulations: T1 cruiers only, no ecm modules and no leaving the field. We agree to a 20 minute prep time and both sides start fleet preparation.

After some internal discussion, we elect to go shield. We discuss changing around our ewar modules but a lack of available fittings in the wormhole make it unviable. This is something we will need to address before future encounters, but it doesn't really help us at the moment.

We assume the enemy fleet will be armor based, so we intend to try to dictate range and wait for an opportunity to pick off the weaker targets.

Fleet composition for Transmission Lost: 3 Moas, 1 Caracal, 2 Ospreys
Fleet composition for Hard Knocks: 1 Maller, 2 Rupture, 1 Celestis and 2 Exequror

Both groups warp to a can placed at the sun and we land about 65km apart. We start moving in and I put the leader on 25km keep at range. This was the first mistake. It doesn't take very long for us to end up 72km apart. Oops! We reverse directions and I head back toward him and get in range to apply reps just as the Celestis gets in range to dampen me. This piloting error may have cost us the match. It certainly cost us our first loss.

We manage to kill the first ship on the other side just as our leader dies. Down 1 DPS, we now have issues out pacing the incoming reps with our DPS. We get one of the ruptures into structure before they manage to rep him up, but we cannot break the tank.

At this point, neither side is really able to make any headway against the reps until we make another piloting error. Because of the webs, we end up letting the 2 Ospreys get too far apart. Hard Knocks realizes the opportunity and switches all damps to 1 Osprey and splits their webs to keep us apart. They take out my Osprey first, then go after the second Osprey. Without the cap chain, the second Osprey goes down quickly and the fight is over.

This was a lot of fun! It was the first time I have flown a logi ship in an arena type match and there were a lot of things I would do differently next time. Thanks to Hard Knocks for agreeing to the engagement and congratulations on your win!

The engagement report can be found here.

1 comment:

  1. Shields? Your suffering will be legendary.

    -Mal

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