The day had been pretty typical weekend day for us. People came and went throughout the day and we scouted a number of lengthy chains. We had a couple of kills to show for the day including a Navy Apoc, but nothing overly exciting.
This was the point where I decided to do a frigate roam. Everyone jump in a T1 frigate and we will go to Faction Warfare space and roam around and see something blow up. Probably ourselves! But that has it's own fun factor. After this announcement, the discussion on comms went something like this.
Player 1: I don't have any T1 frigates, will an assault frigate work?
Player 2: What about a blackbird? I don't have any frigates.
Player 3: Does anyone have a fit for a T1 frigate? Any race?
Player 4: Do you want logi or e-war?
Player 5: I think I might have a frigate in high sec somewhere.
Player 6: I will bring an interceptor, it is the only frigate I have.
Me: Oh dear god! I need something stronger to drink.
After I returned from getting some water, the only available beverage in my house at the moment, people had shipped into a mix of T1 and T2 frigates along with a single Blackbird. We were set and everyone headed for the Tama system a few jumps away from one of our high sec exits.
Let the fun begin! We head into Tama and proceed to look for targets of opportunity. Since we are in small ships, our plan is to find people running faction sites and avoid fights on the gates. On our first loop, we find several people running sites but did not manage to catch anyone.
As we circle back around, we have a couple of people dropping out and a couple of additional people joining us so we take a short break and head back for another round. This time, we find a little more action. Right off the bat, we catch a Caracal running a site in Tama.
From there, we catch a Kestrel in a site in Kedama. However, he has friends which included a Corax hitting me from nearly 100km. I would not have thought that was possible. But the sniping destroyers seemed to be effective. At this point, we lost one a Retribution in the ensuing brawl as he was tackled just moments before the command to warp out was given. Bad timing on that.
The rest of the group continued with one of our members yelling RP statements about Gallente terrorists in every local channel to the amusement of our entire group and even a few of the people we were passing. I finally located a station and docked to repair my ship just as the group tackled a Merlin which turned into a escalating brawl. We lost a Harpy here but everyone else got off and we regrouped to continue the roam.
We decide to head for Dodixie which isn't too far and let the guys in newb ships get another ship. We jump into Old Man Star and there is a flashing red Gnosis on the gate. After about 3 seconds of discussion we decide to engage and he is about 50% through armor when an entire fleet jumps on us. It was bait and we took it! LOL! http://fightingcarebears.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=20612491
Now everyone except me needs a new ship. My Merlin was not a big enough threat for them to waste a point on me so I warp off once I am the last one alive. There is some advantage to flying the cheapest ship in the group.
Several players head home and we have 3 left at this point. We undock in Dodixie and discover a flashing yellow Vexor about 20 km off the station. No reason to allow that kind of foolishness so we pop him before continuing back into low sec.
We make it back to Tama before finding the last and best fight of the evening. In Tama, we warp into a site and find a Thrasher who is quickly joined by another Thrasher and a Malediction. Our group consists of 2 Harpy's and my Merlin, so we have a straight 3v3 fight. We focus on the initial Trasher and basically trade ships. They kill one of our Harpy's while we kill the Thrasher. Not exactly winning an ISK war here. Next, we shift our focus to the other Thrasher, but our second Harpy goes down before he dies leaving the Merlin alone.
At this point, I am not scrammed and I have a decision to make. Do I stay and fight 1v2 or bug out? Is it really a decision if you didn't think of it? I was focused on making sure the Thrasher didn't get outside my point range. I finish him off but had to consume the charges in my ancillary shield booster to stay alive. The Malediction is out around 40km and it does cross my mind to bug out now. However, I decide it is all for one. I am not going to be the only pilot going back to high sec in a ship. I turn and charge toward the Malediction with my microwarp drive running. Evidently, he decided at the same time that he liked his odds 1v1 and charged toward me. My move caught him by surprise and he overshot and ended up within my scram range.
I scram him which shuts off his microwarp drive and apply webs for good measure. He points me and this battle is now fully engaged. We are wearing each other down (slowly I might add) and we are both about 30% into structure when my shield booster finishes the reload cycle. I can only imagine his frustration when he saw over a 1/3 of my shields regen instantly. A short time later, he explodes while I am at full shields although my armor and structure have taken a beating. Manu, one of the Thrasher pilots announces that the Merlin has cleaned house and we exchange good fights in local before I, once again, fly back to high sec alone. At least this time, I feel good about being the only survivor! That was a fun fight.
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